HP ProBook 4530s

The device weighs in at 2.5kg, which is pretty impressive considering it measures 374 x 256 x 28.7mm. It would make a good desktop replacement system, but mobile road warriors would require something less bulky.

The 4530s has a full-size keyboard with numeric extensions and a 15.6in screen. One unusual aspect of the system is that it comes with two separate onboard graphics systems. The first is Intel’s Intel HD Graphics 3000 system integrated into the processor, which shares 1.76GB of system memory. The second is ATi’s Radeon HD4690M, which uses its own dedicated video memory and not the computer’s system memory.

The dual graphics cards enable users to tag applications whichever one best suits it. Standard apps like Microsoft Word could use Intel's HD graphics system, while CAD applications requiring better performance could be set up to use the ATi graphics card.

The system uses a Mobile Intel HM65 Express Chipset, and the processor is a second generation Intel Core i5-2410M running at 2.3GHz. The processor quad core rating is achieved by having two cores with dual hyperthreading.

The front side bus runs at 1333 MHz, and the 4530s has two memory slots for DDR3 dual-channel 2GB or 4GB memory SoDIMMs, up to a maximum of 8GB (2 x 4GB).

Our 4530s was running the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional, although Windows 7 Home Premium, Home Basic, and Vista 7 Home Basic are also supported. SuSe Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 is also certified for use by HP on the 4530s, as well as FreeDOS (a DOS compatible, free, open-source free operating system).

For optical media, the 4530s uses an on-board SATA HP DVD A DS8A5LH drive, which supports CD, DVD and Blu-Ray media.

Storage is provided by a 2.5in form factor Toshiba 5,400 rpm MK6465GSX 640GB hard drive partitioned into four sections: operating system, recovery, system and tools.

There’s also a protected partition for Microsoft Office 2010 Click-to-Run, a method for installing Office 2010.

Ports
The UK version of the 4530s has four USB ports, two USB 2.0 towards the front on the right hand side, and two more USB 2.0 ports on the left hand side.