First Review: HP’s Budget-Friendly, Stylish ProBook

Today, HP unveiled a new line of notebooks for small business users, starting at a recession-friendly $529. The ProBook has a stylish look (when’s the last time you saw a red business notebook?), comes in 15- and 17-inch screen sizes, and boasts many of the security features offered in the premium EliteBook series (oddly, a fingerprint reader isn’t one of them). How good is the performance and design? Check out our full review of the ProBook 4510s, which offers a 15.6-inch display, full size keyboard and numberpad, a 2.1-GHZ Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, 250GB hard drive, and DVD burner for $699. Read on for more details. 15.6-inch The 4510s (Intel) and the 4515s (AMD, pictured at right) have 15.6-inch, LED-backlit, 16:9 displays, and are available with a Blu-ray-ROM drive. However, the 15.6-inch models do not have a Bluetooth option and instead are available with mobile broadband. They are available with either integrated Intel graphics or discrete ATI graphics. The 15.6-inch models, like the 17-inch ones, have a full number pad on the keyboard. These will be available in Merlot and black. 17-inch The 17-inch version, the 4710s, is only available with Intel processors and discrete ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics with 512MB dedicated memory. It has a full number pad, as noted above, HDMI output, and a Bluetooth option. It is only available in black. Availability Availability for these notebooks will vary by region. HP has said, however, that the Merlot color option will become available in June.