HP Compaq Business Notebook nx5000
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CNET Editors' Review
- Reviewed by: Brian Nadel
- Released on:
- Reviewed on:
- Updated on:
The good: Top-notch battery life; excellent assortment of ports; good audio; quiet fan.
The bad: Three-prong plug; one-year warranty; hard to open.
The bottom line: With more than six hours of battery life, the sturdy nx5000 is a good choice for frequent flyers and desk jockeys.
Review: You'd be hard-pressed to find a mainstream laptop that provides more for less and in a smaller package than the HP Compaq Business Notebook nx5000. At 6.3 pounds, not only is it smaller than competing systems, it also shows the possibilities of using Intel's Pentium M processor to downsize bulk for the sake of mobility. Despite its compact size, the HP Compaq Business Notebook nx5000 is not an underpowered weakling. On the contrary, this affordable business laptop has all the right stuff for work and play, including a 1.6GHz CPU, a 15-inch screen, excellent audio, and ... Expand full review
You'd be hard-pressed to find a mainstream laptop that provides more for less and in a smaller package than the HP Compaq Business Notebook nx5000. At 6.3 pounds, not only is it smaller than competing systems, it also shows the possibilities of using Intel's Pentium M processor to downsize bulk for the sake of mobility. Despite its compact size, the HP Compaq Business Notebook nx5000 is not an underpowered weakling. On the contrary, this affordable business laptop has all the right stuff for work and play, including a 1.6GHz CPU, a 15-inch screen, excellent audio, and all the ports you could ever want. The nx5000's three-prong power cord can make it difficult to find an outlet for recharging, but you won't have to plug it in often, because this marathoner can run for more than six hours on a charge, making it an excellent all-around travel companion.
By packing so much into such small a space, the HP Compaq Business Notebook nx5000 is a hybrid that has the gear, the performance, and the battery life of a desktop replacement in the case of a mainstream notebook. It provides all of the creature comforts of a huge laptop for pounds and inches less than the rest, and it does it with a sophisticated design that you'll be proud to show off wherever your travels take you.
By packing so much into such small a space, the HP Compaq Business Notebook nx5000 is a hybrid that has the gear, the performance, and the battery life of a desktop replacement in the case of a mainstream notebook. It provides all of the creature comforts of a huge laptop for pounds and inches less than the rest, and it does it with a sophisticated design that you'll be proud to show off wherever your travels take you.
Like its Compaq cousins, the nx5000 has a large central lid release that is easy to unlatch but requires an extra hand to flip open. After you fumble with it a few times, you'll learn to do it with one hand by slipping your thumb up to push the lid open, but other notebooks have latches that are easier to use. Once you get inside, you're rewarded with full-size, 19.3mm keys with 2mm of depth, which makes typing comfortable and intuitive. The oval touch pad is responsive but lacks a scrollwheel or a button for zipping through long documents. Even when working hard, the HP Compaq Business Notebook nx5000 keeps its cool, despite having only a single, very quiet fan on the bottom. The JBL Pro speakers and the SoundMax audio chip are a bonus because, despite its business pretensions, the nx5000 can rock, with solid bass, rich midrange tones, crisp treble, and the ability to blast it with the best of them. With excellent push-button volume controls and a mute button that lights up red when activated, all the system lacks are external CD-player controls. HP offers a variety of configuration choices for the HP Compaq Business Notebook nx5000, ranging from a $1,199 1.2GHz Celeron M model to the top-of-the-line, $1,684 1.6GHz Pentium M version that we tested. All systems can hold as much as 1GB of 266MHz RAM. Hard drive choices run the gamut from 30GB to 60GB, with a couple of 5,400rpm high-performance versions available. You can fill the modular bay with the CD-RW/DVD we looked at, a second battery, a 60GB or 80GB hard drive, a floppy-disk drive, or a DVD+RW disc burner. You can order the system with either an XGA or an SXGA+ display, but the nx5000 comes only with Intel's Extreme 2 integrated graphics, which may use as much as 64MB of the system's memory, making the nx5000 less than ideal as a portable gaming machine.
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