The 15.4-inch screen, diagonally measured, offers ample size for long periods of usage without undue eye fatigue. The anti-glare finish that is incorporated into the display makes it very usable under varying lighting conditions and, for the most part, eliminates the glare that is common to most laptop computers under bright lights.

There’s an Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor at the heart of the computer running at 2.40 GHz clock speed with a 3MB L2 cache and 1066 MHz front side bus speed. While that’s likely adequate for most business users, there are four upgrades available up to an Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 running at 2.80 GHz, a 6 MB L2 cache and the same 1066 MHz front side bus speed. Though most users will be best served by maximizing processor speed, there are also a couple of downgrades available that still offer pretty snappy performance for most needs while saving some money.

Going hand in hand with the processor to define the computer’s performance is the memory. The 6730b comes standard with 2 GB of DDR2 RAM which is upgradeable to 8 MB. A 320 GB hard drive is included in the package price. That can be increased to 500 GB for a reasonable price or reduced to 160 GB for those who prefer to economize a bit.

We mentioned earlier that connectivity is among the HP Compaq 6730b’s strong points. Here are some details. The computer comes ready for wireless networking with built in Wi-Fi supporting the 802.11a/b/g and draft-n standards. Additionally, wireless broadband can be included from AT&T, Sprint or Verizon Wireless. This is, of course, and option and the preferred carrier must be specified at the time of ordering. Use of this service requires activation of wireless broadband service from the selected carrier. For additional information about the carriers, take a look at our side-by-side comparison of Mobile Broadband services. Recognizing that wireless internet connections aren’t always available, this computer is outfitted with a 56K dial-up modem for yet another means of staying in touch.

Sensitive business information can be protected by a couple of options for relatively low cost. A fingerprint reader can be added to the device as can a smart card reader. The HP Compaq 6730b comes equipped with a CD/DVD reader/burner including LightScribe disc labeling which allows you to burn labels onto the created discs. A second 250 GB hard drive can be substituted for the CD/DVD drive. Also optional is an integrated VGA webcam.

Connectivity to Bluetooth wireless devices is available with the HP Compaq 6730b but there’s a rather odd relationship between this option and the available warranty. If you want Bluetooth, you have to opt for the three year warranty. Without Bluetooth, only the one year warranty is available. We fail to see the connection but suspect that marketing has more to do with it than technical necessity.

Up to about six hours of battery life can be expected from the 6-cell, 55WHr battery but that depends in great measure what’s being done with the computer. As always, using features like Bluetooth and wireless broadband will quickly reduce the time that you can operate without plugging into an AC outlet. Microsoft Windows 7 Professional is the standard operating system for this computer. For those who prefer, it can be downgraded to Windows XP or Windows Vista, though we can’t quite imagine why anyone would want to do that, especially regarding Vista.

Since the introduction of the first VAIO P last year, Sony has insisted that the VAIO P is not a netbook. No sir. It’s a “Lifestyle PC.” What’s a “Lifestyle PC,” you ask? I’m not sure but somehow the Sony VAIO P seems to fit perfectly. For starters, netbooks generally cost under $500, feature 10- to 12-inch screens with relatively low resolutions, and function similarly to standard laptops. The newest VAIO P, on the other hand, starts at $900, features a small screen with a huge resolution, and functions somewhere in between a UMPC and a standard laptop. It doesn’t really function similarly to a phone aside from the built-in accelerometer and the fact that it’s small.

Design

The VAIO P’s unique form factor is, by far, its greatest asset. At 9.7 x 4.7 x 0.8 inches, the VAIO P is small enough to fit in a woman’s purse or in a man’s long coat pocket. And at 1.4 pounds, it weighs half as much as a netbook, yet has a full-size keyboard that’s fit for touch typists. If you’re familiar with the original P series, you’ll notice that the biggest design difference is the color. While the original P had a classy metal keyboard and deck with tasteful lid colors such as Garnet Red or Onyx Black, the new P has a plastic keyboard and deck that matches its lid and comes in loud neon shades like lime green or hot pink. Conservative white and black colors are available, too.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Most low-priced, full-size notebooks currently on the market feature poorly built keyboards that show significant flex/bounce when typing pressure is applied. Thankfully, most netbooks have remarkably firm keyboards due to the fact that the chassis is so small there isn’t much empty space inside the notebook for the keyboard to flex or bounce. The keyboard on the VAIO P is less cramped than what we’ve seen on the 7-inch and 8.9-inch netbooks, but the Sony keyboard is still very compact. Most netbook keyboards are quite frustrating to use because the small footprint and tiny keys require you to use a “hunt and peck” style of typing rather than traditional touch typing methods. This means that passwords get mangled, emails look like gibberish, and playing games that require keyboard commands becomes quite aggravating.

The touchpad is, well, completely absent on the VAIO P. Rather than a typical touchpad the VAIO P uses a touchpoint or trackpoint pointing stick similar to what you find on many business-grade notebooks. The trackpoint is quite sensitive and easy to use, and even though I usually prefer to use touchpads I found the trackpoint to be very enjoyable. The left and right touchpoint buttons are located in the correct position beneath the space bar and have a shallow feedback and produce a light “click” when pressed.

Display

Note to self: Be careful what you wish for. I’ve personally been cursing the 1024×600 netbook screens since the very beginning, so to see that Sony somehow managed to cram 1600×768 pixels into an 8-inch LED backlit screen is truly a sight to behold. Unfortunately, trying to actually behold text on websites is another story. Unless the screen is about six inches from your face, forget about reading most of the web without zooming. Thankfully, Sony’s not only included zoom-in and zoom-out function keys, but a handy quick-resolution toggle button that kicks the 1600×900 display down to a much more legible 1280×600 in a matter of seconds. However, you run into that godforsaken 600 lines of vertical resolution that plagues cheap netbooks. It cuts off information windows and makes web page scrolling an almost non-stop activity. In the end, I found myself using the VAIO P most often at the full 1600×768 resolution with a liberal amount of zooming.

Ports

Port selection was something of a surprise with this Sony, since some netbooks that are slightly larger have fewer ports than what the VAIO P offers. You get two USB ports, two memory card readers, a headphone jack, and a dedicated expansion port used to connect a dongle that provides Ethernet/LAN and VGA out. The dongle connects to the AC power adapter so you can either keep it with the power adapter or carry it separately. There isn’t much to complain about here, although there might have been enough space in the chassis design to support an additional USB port or Firewire.

Performance

Regardless of how cool the Sony VAIO P looks there are many potential buyers who only care about one thing: performance. This is one area where the VAIO P might be a tough sell for some. In order to keep temperatures and power consumption as low as possible in this little notebook, Sony decided to use a 1.33GHz Intel Atom processor rather than the 1.6GHz Atom processor used in larger netbooks. While this helps keep the VAIO P from overheating and promotes better battery life, the bottom line is the VAIO P has a pretty weak processor.

Like most Atom-based netbooks, the VAIO P has enough processor performance for basic tasks like web browsing or working in Microsoft Office, but don’t expect to use this as a multimedia entertainment notebook. Since Sony includes Windows Vista with the VAIO P we also decided to test the new Windows 7 beta during our benchmark tests. Thankfully, Windows 7 seems to improve the overall performance of the VAIO P and makes this mobile computer a much more useful laptop. Windows Vista is okay, but Windows 7 makes the VAIO P much, much better.

Design
The Elitebook 6930P is exactly what they intended it to be – a sturdy, rugged and portable business notebook. At dimensions of 13.0 x 9.6 x 1.2 inches, it is much more compact than other notebooks of its class, however it is a bit bigger than the Dell Latitude E6400, its main opponent. It weighs about 5.2 pounds which makes it very light and portable compared to others. It features a brushed metal design which is both tough and elegant and exudes a rugged feel. It has a anodized aluminium lid with a magnesium alloy chassis which provide a very strong shell to the notebook. It can easily survive some drops and bumps and emerge unscathed.

Keyboard
One handy little extra is a keyboard light which pops up above the display should you want to type, say, on board a darkened ‘plane. Above the keyboard is a series of touch-sensitive controls for Information, WiFi, Presentation, Mute and a Volume slider, while to the right of the TouchPad is a fingerprint scanner for extra security. f you need a robust, hard working notebook with a decent sized keyboard, multiple WiFi options, several specifically useful business and security options plus easy to use controls, then it may be worth joining the Elite.

Display and Sound
The 14.1-inch, 1280 x 800-pixel display indeed looked bright when we watched an episode of Mad Men. The matte screen offered versatile viewing angles; we could comfortably watch when we pushed the screen forward, which is good for presenters and frequent flyers, and even at a near 180-degree angle from the sides. The speakers, located on the front underbelly of the notebook, delivered surprisingly loud sound.

Performance :
The HP Elitebook 6930P is powered by a Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2.40 GHz processor with 3 MB L2 cache at 1066 MHZ FSB. It is one of the best mobile processors available today and provides a potent mix of power and power efficiency. It comes with 2 GB DDR2 RAM clocked at 800 MHZ which is enough to run most applications and games. If need be, the RAM can be upgraded to 4 GB. It comes with a 160 GB SATA HDD at 5,400 RPM by default, which can be switched with a 7,200 RPM for increased speed performance. You also have a 8X DVD +/- RW bundled with the notebook. Finally, the base 6930P comes with the Intel GMA X4500 onboard graphics solution which can be substituted with a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 256 MB for increased performance for a nominal cost to obtain much better gaming and graphics performance.

It comes loaded with the Microsoft Windows Vista Business operating system. It boots up in about 1.2 minutes. To instantly access your emails, calendar, tasks and contacts, you can use HP’s Quick Look 2 software before the system boots. In Vista, the performance is great and fluid, with no signs of lags or sluggishness at all. The Elitebook 6930P comes loaded with nifty little utilities by HP like QuickLook 2, SpareKey, HP Privacy Manager and HP File Sanitizer which improve the functionality of the notebook greatly.

Design
We loved the EliteBook’s sturdy design when we reviewed the 14.1-inch 6930p, but it’s especially apropos in the 2530p, whose 12.1-inch screen makes it ideal for road warriors. The 2530p, too, has a DuraCase lid, made of brushed anodized aluminum and magnesium alloy. The 3.8-pound 2530p feels a bit heavier than other ultraportables, owing mostly to its rugged build. For example, the Sony VAIO Z Series weighs only 3.3 pounds and features a larger 13.1-inch display. Nevertheless, the 2530p is plenty light for travel and is easy to hold in one hand.

On the inside, the palm rest and thin strip surrounding the touch-sensitive keys are a matching gray, but the keyboard is black. Because the keyboard extends to the edges of the 11.1-inch-wide deck, the keys were comfortable to type on, despite the notebook’s otherwise small size. As with the 6930p, the keyboard and touch buttons are quiet, and the rubbery touchpad has a good amount of resistance, but the touch buttons are narrow; HP also includes a pointing stick with its own corresponding set of mouse buttons. The stick was responsive and has a good rubbery texture.

Above the keyboard are touch-sensitive controls for Wi-Fi, volume, mute, HP Info Center, HP Presentation Options, and one to disable and enable the touchpad. The controls were responsive to taps, although the volume controls required a bit more pressure. In addition to discreet increase and decrease buttons is a convenient strip along which you can slide your finger to adjust the volume.

Screen and Audio
The 2530p comes equipped with a 12.1″ anti-glare widescreen with a typical WXGA resolution.  At 1280 x 800 pixels, this display is capable of displaying fine details without making things too small to work comfortably while on the move.  Of course, the resolution might be limiting if you plan to use this notebook as a mobile video and photo editing platform … but most people interested in a 12-inch notebook aren’t editing high-resolution photos on the road.

When viewing the screen from straight ahead, colors are rich and the contrast is excellent. Full-screen movies are look quite good with deep blacks and good viewing angles.  Horizontal viewing angles are particularly impressive so you won’t have trouble showing a presentation to multiple people sitting at a desk. The vertical viewing angle from above starts to wash out at extreme angles and colors begin to invert from below … but the overwhelming majority of users will never view the screen from high above or far below.

Features and Webcam
The 2530p has two USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port, a VGA port, Ethernet and modem jacks, mic and headphone ports, docking and battery connectors, and a Kensington lock slot. It also has an ExpressCard/54 slot and an SD Card reader. Ideally, we would have liked to see at least one more USB port.

The 2-megapixel webcam captured sharp, well-lit still photos. Our VGA video showed delays, even when we captured video, which doesn’t involve a (potentially slow) Internet connection. When we made a Skype call, our friend noticed some latency around our mouth but, predictably, said the picture became more fluid as she shrunk the window.

Performance
Performance on little laptops, like the EliteBook 2530p, is not about how fast it goes, but rather can it do the job and how long the battery lasts. Our EliteBook 2530p came with the Intel SL9400 low voltage processor, with a clock speed of 1.86GHz, and 6MB of cache. For graphics, HP uses the Intel GMA 4500MHD integrated graphics chip. I don’t expect really high scores, but I do expect that it will be able to complete the tests.

Despite the above statement I still wanted to get an idea of the speed of the machine. As you can see from the numbers the speed is very low. The two tests I used are 3DMark 06 and PCMark 05. In 3DMark the EliteBook 2530p got 875 and in PCMark it did not get an overall score, but you can see the individual scores are low, but okay. These numbers are disappointing, but not surprising, hopefully it does better in the next test. The next test is a battery test and I used MobileMark 2007 for this. MobileMark does a good job testing battery life under working conditions because it runs programs like Office and Photoshop, all while keeping track of the running time. For the first battery test I used the MobileMark 2007 default power settings and I got 5 hours and 27 minutes. One thing I need to give HP credit for is their fantastic system restore disks. Rather than providing one disk that restores the system to factory settings, they provide two disks. The first one will do a clean install of the OS. The second disk has the drivers and applications, but you get to chose which drivers and apps it installs. This is a fantastic system that I hope finds its way into HP’s consumer products.

Keep your processor working at a walking pace
Most notebooks offer power regulation software, and almost all have the ability to change profiles using the Vista power manager. Click on that battery icon on the bottom of your screen, and make sure your notebook is set to Balanced or Power Saver. High Performance is great if you are encoding video or playing games, but it makes your processor work harder than it has to, using more power and throwing out more heat.

Tune your radio dial
Keep an eye on your wireless devices, and disable them if they are not in use. If you have your Bluetooth or WiFi device running at all times, you are using chopping off useful battery life that could have been used doing something else.
Change your viewing habits
The biggest power draw on your notebook, especially if it is a large one, is the screen backlight. While it may look big, beautiful, and shiny, you are really hurting your battery performance with the backlight at a high level. Start by putting the backlight to the lowest setting, and increase it slowly until you find the lowest setting your find bearable. Remember that this will vary depending on the room you are in, meaning you might have it set brighter in an office setting, but much lower at home at night.

Don’t be tempted by movies
If at all possible, stay away from using DVD’s or CD’s in your laptop while using battery power. The drive creates a huge power draw on the system while running. On top of the drive, your processor is also working hard to decode the audio and video, sometimes knocking off close to 30% of your overall battery life. If you must watch movies, try to stick with digital content that you download or stream online. iTunes and Hulu.com are excellent alternatives to the evil discs.

Kill unwanted background activities
Right out of the box, almost all notebooks have the following processes running in the background, which eat up precious CPU cycles and trash your hard drive.
Automatic Updates: While keeping your system up to date is a good thing, this should be optional to have done at your own leisure.To disable this activity, go into your control panel and click on ‘Windows Update”. In the next window click on “change settings” on the left side, and make your way to the next screen. Now change your selection to “Never check for updates”, and click OK. Please note that this may make your system vulnerable if you don’t manually check for updates on a regular basis.

Windows Indexing: Windows disk indexing helps to reduce search times when trying to find a particular file on your hard drive, but will wreak havoc on your battery life in the process. To disable indexing, open “My Computer” and right click on your hard drive. On the first screen that shows up, uncheck “Index this drive for faster searching”. You will need to proceed through a few prompts, as well as clicking “ignore all” if prompted. This may take quite a bit of time depending on how full your drive is.

Anti-Virus Software: AV software is a huge performance hog, but also a life saver depending on what type of sites your visit or what sorts of files you encounter. I am relatively savvy enough to steer clear of harmful items in my daily activities, and have yet to need any AV software for years. Not only can they be a huge resource hog and bog your machine down, they sap away a lot of battery life if they start scanning in the background. Be warned that removing AV software from your system can be risky, and should be done at your own discretion. If need more than one hand to count the number of virus problems you have had in the past, don’t follow this suggestion.
The next step of this guide requires you to use the Task Scheduler, and disable a few services that your computer queues up at various times while you are using your computer. This can be accessed by going into your program list, then Accessories, then System Tools, finally clicking Task Scheduler.

In the list of Active Tasks, the following items cause the most unwanted activity in the background. To disable any of these items, double click the selection which will take you to another screen listing more details on that activity. Now all you need to do is right click the item, and click disable to stop it from bothering you in the future.

Consolidator: Runs in the background for the Customer Improvement Program.

Scheduled Defrag: Defragments your hard drive, and will bog down your system in the process.