What the HP Compaq 8710p business notebook lacks in striking looks it makes up for in processing brawn and enterprise reliability. Plus, for a buttoned-down corporate notebook, it includes some surprising multimedia options.
The dull, black-and-gray 8710p isn’t much to look at, and at 7.5 pounds, it’s not very portable, either. Beneath that ho-hum exterior, however, lies a killer business system. HP outfitted the 8710p with a wonderful non glossy 17-inch wide-screen LCD panel with 1,680×1,050 resolution. Pair that with a 256MB nVidia Quadro NVS 320M graphics card, and you get excellent DVD playback and enough 3D pop for doing business graphics and even some CAD work. Surprisingly, HP is also offering some pre-configured 8710p models with high-definition Blu-ray drives and a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) port.
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The keyboard is another nice plus: full-size and comfortable, with a separate numeric keypad. You also get specialized controls that give you access to a utility for fine-tuning your presentations, as well as dedicated mute, volume, and calculator buttons. As for connectivity, the 8710p provides the expected options: including six USB ports, Draft N-compatible Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, but it lacks wireless-broadband connectivity. Also onboard are a fingerprint reader and Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip for security.
The disappointment is that the 8710p comes only in pre-configured models, the review unit performed well on our productivity and multimedia benchmark tests. Plus, its standard battery lasted an impressive 2 hours and 45 minutes on the DVD rundown test. And better yet, HP backs the 8710p with an unusually long warranty: three years of coverage.
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