Editors’ Note: Portions of this review were taken from our review of the ProBook 4510s.
In the wake of HP’s excellent ProBook 4510s, a 15.6-inch budget notebook for small business users, comes its big brother, the 17.3-inch 4710s. For $1,099, this sleek desktop replacement will exceed your expectations; its performance and battery life are above average, making it a sterling choice for business users seeking a big-screen notebook.
Design
With the exception of screen size, the 4710s is identical to the 4510s. It, too, has a glossy, fingerprint-prone black lid, with an interior whose textures include a glossy keyboard deck, a satin palm rest; and the speaker strip lines the top of the keyboard. Because the bezel is thin, it’s easy to focus instead on the bright 16:9 display. As an added touch, the power and QuickLook 2 buttons and LED lights all glow turquoise blue, which also keeps the design interesting. At 6.6 pounds, the ProBook is light for a desktop replacement, and, indeed, we had no problem shuttling it around the office.
Keyboard and Touchpad
One of the freshest parts of the ProBook’s design is its keyboard: it’s the first HP laptop that features island–style keys. This layout makes any budget notebook look more refined. On the one hand, we took quickly to the keys’ slightly textured, scratch-resistant finish, and their comfortable spacing. The deck has a number pad on the right, as does its 15-inch sibling. The keyboard is spill-resistant, to boot. On the other hand, as we typed, the keyboard felt rigid.
The touchpad’s rubbery texture provides just the right amount of friction. The touch buttons, meanwhile, feel like piano keys. Instead of being straightforward push buttons, they’re hinged at the top, so only the part closest to the edge of the notebook depresses. We would have preferred traditional buttons.
Display and Sound
The 17.3-inch (1600 x 900 display) looked bright when we watched the season finale of The Office on Hulu. Thanks to the matte finish, we comfortably watched from an oblique side angle, although the picture looked overexposed and washed out when we dipped the screen forward.
Although the speaker strip takes up an awful lot of space on the keyboard deck, the volume is hardly booming; it was loud enough for us to hear the show we were watching, but not nearly loud enough for an engrossing movie-watching or game-playing experience. And, as for the sound quality, its speakers sounded slightly tinny when we played the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.”
Ports and Webcam
The 4710s has a standard collection of ports and slots: four USB 2.0 ports, HDMI and VGA output, Ethernet, headphone, and mic jacks, a 4-in-1 memory card reader, and an ExpressCard/34 slot. None of the ports are on the back, which is a plus. Most are on the left side, whereas two of the USB ports are on the right, in front of the tray-loading DVD burner. The headphone and mic ports are on the front lip. Oddly, this small business machine lacks a fingerprint reader, something you’ll find even on a slew of consumer notebooks.
The 2-megapixel webcam produced smooth VGA video, but we wish it were brighter. Also, even though we spoke at a normal volume, the mic didn’t pick up our voice well; we had to crank it up to make out our voice, and, even then, it sounded faint. Our still photos showed good detail, such as the wrinkles in our shirt, but the lighting was bluish and dark. Although we like the HP webcam software’s sleek, simple interface, we wish there was a pane, so that we could easily review recent photos and video captures.
