Tech Comp Review

There is no shortage of ultra-light convertibles on the market, including Lenovo’s ThinkPad X200 Tablet and Dell’s Latitude XT, but the HP EliteBook 2730p (an update to the HP Compaq 2710p) can run with the best of them. Unlike many in its sub-five-pound class, it lasts more than five hours on a charge, has a semi-rugged build and includes unique business-travel features such as business card–reading software and a night light. It may lack an optical drive and the ability to manipulate the screen with a finger, but it’s still one of the best business tablets on the market.

Road-Ready, Professional Design

With its silver, brushed-metal design, the 2730p looks like its EliteBook brethren. Its DuraCase anodized aluminum lid combined with a magnesium alloy chassis lets it take a beating. In fact, it meets military standards (MIL-STD-810F) for altitude, high temperature, vibration, and dust. According to HP, it can operate at temperatures of up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit and withstand 10 grams of dust per cubic meter blown at about 20 miles per hour for 6 hours.

One thing you won’t overlook with the HP EliteBook 2730p is its light weight and thin stature. With the six-cell battery (which is flush with the system) the 11.4 x 8.4 x 1.1-inch notebook weighs in at a mere 3.8 pounds (the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet is 4.2 pounds). However, a sacrifice was made for its thin and light build: no optical drive. HP does, however, offer a dock for $279 that contains an external DVD drive.

Nevertheless, a biometric fingerprint reader and night light located next to the screen is part of the package, and the system has a nice assortment of connectivity options, including two USB ports, FireWire, VGA, Ethernet, modem, headphone, and microphone. It also has an ExpressCard/54 on the left edge and a SD Card slot on the right. A convenient rocker switch for scrolling resides on the screen’s edge along with dedicated Esc and screen-rotate buttons.

Keyboard and Touchpad

One of the 2730p’s strongest features is its keyboard. Similar to that of the keyboard on the HP Mini 2140, the EliteBook 2730p’s full-size, spill-resistant keyboard is coated with HP’s DuraKey finish, which makes the highly responsive keys comfortable to type on. Above the keyboard is a responsive touch-sensitive strip containing shortcuts for raising, lowering, and muting audio, and a button that launches HP’s presentation settings menu.

Similar to many Dell Latitudes, the 2730p opts for a trackpoint-and-touchpad combination. While we like the choice of the two navigation methods, we preferred using the trackpoint and the mouse buttons below the space bar; the 2.7 x 1.0-inch touchpad is incredibly cramped and the second set of mouse buttons, carved out of the deck below it, require too hard of a press to make selections. While the concave trackpoint is more recessed than those found on Lenovo’s ThinkPad line, it was comfortable and allowed us to navigate the desktop smoothly.

The 15.4-inch Sager NP8662 is a subtly stylish gaming notebook, and one of the first systems to pass through our labs with Nvidia’s new enthusiasts mobile graphics solution, the GeForce GTX 260M. At just under $1,500, it falls between larger and more expensive gaming systems like the 17-inch Gateway P-7808u FX ($1,799), and cheaper 15.4-inch budget gaming systems like the MSI GT627 ($1,149). The Sager’s beefy hardware, which includes 4GB of RAM, a 2.4-Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, high-res display, and killer graphics will blow you (and those drooling zombie hordes) away.

Design

The Sager NP8662 has a conservative aesthetic for a gaming notebook, but it’s still attractive, especially compared with systems whose neon coloring can be embarrassing in certain public settings. The chassis has a deep gunmetal gray lid with a brushed metal and silver trim; this design is carried inside the notebook around the keyboard as well. Our only complaint about the design is that it picks up fingerprint smudges easily, especially on the lid.

At 14.3 x 10.6 x 1.9 inches, it’s similar in size to the MSI GT627, another 15-inch gaming system. The Sager weighs 7.1 pounds with its battery pack, which is pretty heavy but bearable inside a backpack.

With the screen open, you’ll find a 2-megapixel webcam just above the display and a large and comfortable QWERTY keyboard that feels sturdy and is easy to type on. Above the keyboard are quick-launch keys for your e-mail, the Web, and an audio toggle switch (Normal/Silent). Stereo speakers flank the keyboard on the upper right and left sides.

The square touchpad on the NP8662 is a bit small but proved to be responsive and smooth when navigating the desktop. The touchpad buttons are plenty large and are seemingly built into the touchpad; however, they’re a tad stiff. In between the right and left buttons is a fingerprint reader.

Ports and Slots

On the left side of the computer is a DVD burner, the headphone and microphone jacks are on the front of the base, and a 7-in-1 media card reader, two USB 2.0 ports, and Ethernet/modem jacks are on the right. Two additional USB ports, an HDMI port, and a DVI-out jack are placed conveniently on the back of the unit next to the power port. That means you can attach a mouse and keyboard to the rear of the unit, and output its display to a TV or LCD monitor just as easily.

Display

The 15.4-inch, 1680 x 1050-pixel resolution display is a pleasure to view. Text is sharp and the high native resolution meant it was possible to push the graphics further for a richer gaming experience. That’s below the 1920 x 1200-pixel displays offered by more expensive systems with larger 17-inch screens like the Alienware M17, and may be a turn-off to some gamers who want a higher pixel count. Still, that’s better than other 15.4-inch systems such as the MSI GT627, which has a resolution of just 1280 x 800. Plus, Sager offers a 1080p option ($175).

The screen on the NP8662 has decent viewing angles, but its glossy finish made it hard to view under fluorescent office lights. While watching a DVD of There Will Be Blood, the display was very bright, which helped eliminate some glare. Color contrast between the deep dark clothes worn by the oil workers contrasted well with the bright sand of the desert landscape.

Audio and Webcam

The two speakers were plenty loud for hearing our commander’s orders while hunkered in trenches taking on fire in Far Cry 2, but the audio wasn’t deep. A shot from our pistol sounded overly tinny, like two metal baseball bats clanging together, and the rumble of explosions off in the distance was too faint.

The 2-MP webcam performed well during a Google Video chat. Our co-worker said the colors were clear and the picture was sharp. Fast movements, such as waving, blurred a bit. Just keep in mind that the microphone is highly sensitive; it picked up keystrokes very clearly during a video call.

Performance

Under the hood, the NP8662 sports a 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor and 4GB of RAM, which performed comparably to other 15.4-inch systems, like the MSI GT627. The NP8662 booted Vista in just 54 seconds, which isn’t bad. In PCMark Vantage, which measures Vista application performance, the system scored 3,646 points, versus the GT627’s score of 3,930. That’s better than the mainstream average (3,139), and it beat out the Alienware M17, which scored just 3,293 points.

The Sager NP8662’s 250GB 5,400-rpm hard drive averaged just 14.7 MBps during the LAPTOP Transfer Test (copying a 4.97GB folder of mixed media), which is nearly 12 MBps slower than the GT627, but just 2 MBps slower than the M17 and 3.3 MBps slower than the mainstream average.

The system took 6 minutes and 24 seconds to transcode a 114MB AVI file into the MPEG-4 format using Handbrake; that’s a 1.5 minutes better than the Gateway UC7807u, which has a 2.0-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 processor. When we transcoded the same file on the NP8662 while simultaneously compressing a 4.97GB folder of mixed media, the same test took 10:28 to finish. Thanks to the system’s Nvidia CUDA support, you can off-load some of the CPU processing to the graphic’s processing unit with software like Badaboom—which is specifically designed for CUDA-enabled systems—to encode video quicker. Using Badaboom, we transcoded the same 114MB AVI file into an MP4 format in just 1:19.

Graphics and Gaming

Under the hood is the Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M GPU; according to the company, this new chip offers much better gaming performance than Nvidia’s last-generation 9800M series, thanks to the new 55-nanometer process, higher clock speed, and better power efficiency. Coupled with 1GB of DDR3 memory, it let us mow down hordes of zombies in Left 4 Dead and storm the beaches of Peleliu Island in Call of Duty: World at War without a single blip in our frame rates—and that was with the graphics maxed out and resolution set to native.

The Sager NP8662 fared well on our graphics benchmarks. On 3DMark06 the system scored 9,767 points; that’s nearly 1,000 points higher than the MSI GT627 earned, and edges out the Gateway P-7808u FX’ 9,636. The Sager NP8662 also scored 5,412 points in 3DMark Vantage, which is a hair below the M17’s score of 5,737, and better than the Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q725, which scored just 4,305 on the same test.

Far Cry 2 ran at an average of 64 fps with the resolution set to 1024 x 768, and at the native 1680 x 1050 pixels a still-playable 39 fps. The MSI GT627 offered a similar 63 fps at the lower 1024 x 768-pixel resolution, but its 43 fps at the native resolution isn’t as impressive considering that’s only 1280 x 800.

The ability to provide a heart-pumping game experience is more important than scores on paper, however, and the Sager NP8662 was able to slice through the latest titles like a rail-gun through zombie flesh. We were able to cruise through Call of Duty: WaW, CoD 4, and L4D without any trouble and with all of the graphics turned to high. In CoD: WaW, the ripples in the ocean as we stormed the beach looked like real water, and the leaves on enemy helmets shook with every footstep. Explosions after we called in missile strikes launched bodies and flames high into the air, and thanks to the system’s horsepower, that meant we could knock out a few baddies at the same time without worrying about lag.

Battery and Wi-Fi

The Sager NP8662’s eight-cell battery lasted 2 hours and 29 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi), which is good for a gaming system—a category known for its poor battery life due to the extra power required for high-quality graphics. By comparison, the MSI GT627’s endurance was nearly identical, and the Gateway P-7808u FX lasted 3 hours and 43 minutes.

The Sager NP8662 supports 802.11a/g/n networks, and its wireless radio performed well on our tests. We saw 19.2 Mbps of throughput 15 feet from our access point; that’s about 1 Mbps better than the mainstream notebook average from the same distance. At 50 feet, it managed 13.6 Mbps, or 2 Mbps below the category average.

Configurations

You can customize the Sager NP8662 with a ton of different components. Instead of our 1680 x 1050 display, you can also choose a matte 1920 x 1200 screen for an additional $175. You can also opt for other clock speeds within the Intel Core 2 Duo family, ranging from 2.4 GHz up to 2.93 GHz; there’s even a 2.0-GHz quad-core solution. Prices range from an additional $55 to $360, depending on the processor you choose.

Customers can also choose an Nvidia Quadro FX 2700M with 512MB of PCI-Express DDR3 RAM, which will set you back $265. You can add up to 8GB of RAM, and take your pick of a 320GB or 500GB hard drive or 80GB or 160GB solid state options. The additional 4GB of RAM costs an expensive $1,045 to add (better to buy it separately) and the 160GB SSD costs $790.

Software and Warranty

One of the best features of the NP8662 is that it’s bloatware-free, void of annoying 30-day software trials. You can, of course, have some software installed for you by Sager. The company offers Microsoft Office 2007 Basic for $190, Small Business for $255, and Professional for $330. Sager will also install Elite Suite 2008 for $29, PC Works Suite 2008 Pro Edition for $35, or a special combo deal of both for $54.

Sager provides three years of labor, a one-year parts warranty and a lifetime of 24/7 domestic toll-free telephone tech support as part of the purchase price. The labor warranty is provided by Xotic PC, however, and not Sager. Two years of parts and labor will set you back $139, and if you want to add accidental LCD damage protection to that you can expect to pay an additional $100. A three-year parts-and-labor and LCD accidental-damage-protection plan costs $349.

Verdict

The $1,487 Sager NP8662 was a joy to game on. And it doesn’t try too hard to look like a gaming system, so you can pop it out in Starbucks and frag without onlookers gawking at you. It was able to slice through the latest 3D titles, and it offers excellent performance for the price. The Sager’s speakers could be better, but if you’re looking for a gaming notebook that delivers without breaking the bank and will fit in your backpack, the NP8662 gets the job done.

E-mail and Messaging

Like the rest of the BlackBerry family, the Bold supports the BlackBerry Internet Service, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, IBM Lotus Domino, Novell GroupWise, and existing POP or IMAP enterprise and personal accounts. When we set up our Gmail account, we were presented by a new AT&T splash page, but the rest of the setup was exactly like on our old AT&T Curve, and we were ready to go in less than 2 minutes. RIM also added enhanced support for Windows Live Hotmail and AOL, so those messages are pushed directly to your phone the second they hit your inbox.

We love the new HTML support in the e-mail client, but it could use a little work. While the formatting was a bit off in our HTML signature and the image did not appear, the colors and layout looked cleaner than the typical jumbled text interpretation of HTML. On the other hand, the HTML formatting on some messages actually looked better on the Bold than it did in our Gmail inbox on our PC.

Productivity

Documents To Go lets users open and edit Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files out of the box. That means you can save a Word document from your e-mail, and then edit it and respond, all from the Bold. When you open an attachment, you’re given two choices: View and Edit with Documents To Go. The Bold opened a four-page Word document in a brisk 10 seconds. Formatting and HTML links were all dead-on, but if you want to use features such as spell check, word count, font changing, or even creating a new document, you’ll need to upgrade to the Premium version of Documents To Go ($69.99 after a 30-day free trial).

GPS

AT&T Navigator, powered by TeleNav, comes preinstalled on the Bold. This $9.99 monthly service can be used for voice-guided directions, or searching for nearby restaurants, ATMs, or gas stations, or other points of interest. When you load a new map, it will alert you of any traffic incidents in the area. Also, if you want to search for something specific, you can either type it in or speak into the Bold. We were able to plot a route to Manhattan from Long Beach, NY, in just under a minute, and the Bold acquired a GPS signal in just a few seconds. The route was accurate, and the software even gave us the current traffic conditions and offered a route overview. You can minimize AT&T Navigator to check your e-mail or perform another tasks without ending the session.

Web

The Bold has an improved Web browser that gives Opera Mobile (though not the iPhone) a run for its money. Like the Pearl Flip 8220, this browser can render pages in Page or Column view, and it will load full Web pages, not just their mobile versions. You can zoom in easily by clicking on an area of a Web page, or zoom in or out manually at any time using the + or – keys (I or O key).

Over AT&T’s network, we loaded the full CNN.com site in 23 seconds and could read much of it in just 6 seconds. Ajax sites like Netvibes.com did not load correctly, however, and you can’t load videos on YouTube’s full site, as those require Flash support. Surfing over to m.youtube.com, we were able to load a Shaolin Monk video in 12 seconds, but playback was awful: the Bold kept buffering every 2 seconds. This happened with multiple videos.

ESPN’s full Web site loaded in a slow 1 minutes and 31 seconds, likely due to the device’s struggle to attempt to load Javascript and Flash advertisements. When we turned off Javascript support and reloaded the page, it loaded in a more manageable 50 seconds. NYTimes.com loaded in 25 seconds.

The Bold also has 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi. We loaded CNN.com, ESPN.com, and NYTimes.com, in 19 seconds, 22 seconds, and 29 seconds, respectively, which makes Wi-Fi moderately faster.

Music and Video

The Bold focuses more on multimedia than previous BlackBerrys. You’ll notice upon opening the box that earbuds are included. These aren’t the stock plastic buds that come with most devices—they’re comfortable to wear, and even come with rubber tips for larger and smaller ears. With these earphones, Bob Marley’s “Is This Love” sounded clean, and we could make out every instrument clearly. The microSD Card slot supports up to 16GB of storage.

When a song is playing, its album art is displayed above the music controls but just as a small, stamp-size version. We appreciated that we could leave the music playing in the background while we checked our e-mail and browsed the Web.

After formatting an episode of Mad Men for the device using the BlackBerry Media Manager software, we loaded it on the Bold via a microSD Card. While the video itself looked gorgeous, voices were a bit out of sync and the audio cut out about once every ten seconds. This didn’t happen when we played the same file back on our BlackBerry Pearl Flip.

Camera

The Bold’s 2-MP camera (with LED flash) snapped photos that were noticeably clearer, sharper, and more colorful than shots we took with a BlackBerry Curve 8330. A photo of a co-worker and her desk ornaments popped (below right); the images taken with the Curve were bland and looked as if they were taken underwater (below left). Just be sure to have a steady hand; another shot we took with the Bold of a toy robot turned out a bit blurry.

When we played back videos on our PC captured with the Bold’s built-in camcorder, they looked pixelated, even though our subjects were standing still, and colors were washed out. Audio was in sync with the video, but our own voice was muffled when it came too close to the phone’s microphone. When we played back the same video on the Bold, the audio and video were of similar quality, but colors popped more than they did on our notebook’s display.