At the moment, it has to be the HP ProBook 4320s part code XX826EA#ABU which is an i3 380m, 3gb ddr, ati 5470 graphics, 320gb 7300rpm drive, 5 hour battery life laptop @ £399.99 but you can claim £100 cashback from HP after 30 days so brings it in at £299 oh and only £13 for the 3 year extended warranty off ebay.
The build quality of this machine is far above the competition in this price bracket and certainly the dells.
I have one and it is much better than the alternatives at this price and certainly level to the dell latitudes or lenovo thinkpads. As with most brands, HP business machines are a far cry from their home ones so no glossy lids and fluffy curves.
On the ProBooks you get brushed metal lids and palm rests, spill resistant keyboards, great battery life and on the older 4x20 series one of the best keyboards I have used with no flex (unlike say acer) and very positive action. some people don't like the track pad (multitouch) as the click buttons are integrated in to the tracking area at the bottom so until you are used to it you can move the cursor before you manage to click or if you rest your thumb on them it can be a niggle.
Was going for a Dell but having seen this and spoken to a supplier I'm going to order one today
Throw in a 120GB SSD I have... Do you know what the RAM config is for the 3GB? I'm assuming 1x2GB and 1x1GB I'd get another to round it off to 4GB anyway!
Yea, the ram is 1x1 and 1x2 and is really easy to remove, you can find the full service manual with a quick google. It is a keyboard off jobbie. Bit more involving to get to the HD as you are removing the keyboard and palm rest and HD caddy, also seems to be a slim fit 7200 drive space so you will need to check depths on the SSD. Quick enough with the 7200 in tbh.
I got 4GB of the kingston CL9 DDR3 1333 for £17.99 so have 6GB in total but prices have dropped a couple of quid again in the last week.
If you configure the energy saving when un plugged so that max processor performance is 10% (still more than adequate), graphics set to max battery life, and screen is on lowest setting then you can get 4 hours easily (I do).
As with any laptop, if its all guns blazing or running power hungry apps inc games, then the battery will go down pretty quick no matter what the battery capacity. You can drain an acer timeline in 2 hours gaming.
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