Rating:  3.5 out of 4

If you work for a fairly good size company, chances are that your IT department assigns you Lenovo or HP notebooks.  Both of them make excellent business notebooks that are durable along with some useful security tools.

HP 8510p is a pleasant addition to its lineup of business notebooks.  What you should be aware of is that, HP just like any other manufacturer, produces business class machines as well as home/consumer class machines that are often sold at big box stores.  This recent addition to their business class notebooks is a great performer at a very good price point.  For about $1,350, you get Intel’s Core 2 Duo, 1Gb RAM, 160Gb of storage, DVD Burner with Lightscribe, and a 15.4 inch screen capable of SWXGA+.  Often other companies’ notebooks with such specs will cost you about $1,600.

Definitely not made to enter a beauty pageant, the notebook lacks in styling department.  I do like the fact that this machine comes with a good array of ports on-board.  Many often praise Lenovo’s keyboard, and keyboards used by HP don’t fall behind by much.  Although not as good as the Lenovo’s, the keys are very comfortable to type all day and provide good feedback.  Keys are well positioned and comfortable to use.

HP does a good job not including too many “junkware” out of box.  The laptop had many HP proprietary applications loaded from the factory.  This reviewer isn’t fond of Norton and Symantec line of anti-virus products therefore the 60 day (!) trial of the Norton Internet Security was immediately removed.

Upon starting it up for the first time, HP creates a recovery partition that can be used for setting the notebook back to factory state.  While I love this method, it still bugs me when manufacturers don’t include any CD or DVD medias.  (you can create them afterwards yourself when the notebook is fully set up with its O/S)

This particular notebook was shipped with XP Pro so the 1Gb of RAM would be plenty for a day-to-day computing.  However, I must note that HP’s Credentials Manager on Vista create issues where it locks local administrative accounts creating unnecessary issues later on.

To wrap up, I like this notebook’s ambient light sensor, dedicated ATI sub video system (useful for video work and using with Vista), and a great LCD supporting a very good resolution.  It also features a HDMI port although the optical drive isn’t HD or Blu-Ray.  This notebook comes with 3 year warranty which is welcome for small business owners on budget.

At its price range, this computer packs plenty of punch and is a great pick for anyone.