The things are changing dramatically in the notebook market as the people are intended to buy the laptops just according to their needs and to do so they are surfing on the web and checking the reviews, I remember when I was willing to buy my 1st notebook, I almost spend a week in checking reviews so we are trying to be as close as possible to our trade mark “No bull shit, just facts” i.e. we were/are/will never post any review (planted) and just post the facts. Today we are going to review a HP notebook as dell is also fame in notebooks market and its one of the old manufacturers; today the beauty on the table is HP EliteBook 2170p.
HP EliteBook 2170p has nice silver metallic body and the total weight of 1.45 kg which is decent for this kind of notebooks and the palm rest, cover, lid’s back and the down side, areas have been build solidly and the main thing to consider is that solid hinges which support the display are not made of plastic, HP decide to go with metal so that provide the needed strength to display. The opening angle is almost 180 degree and the overall size of notebook is 11.6 inches. The aluminum surface of the lid is not as good as rest of the notebook and it can be easily bent but not much and to many people, its not a big deal. The nice thing is that case is quite strong around the battery and optical drive. Overall HP EliteBook 2170p has good design.
HP EliteBook 2170p has a TN LED display panel of 11.6 inch which offers the resolution of 1366x768 which is good for this size of display as if it had 1080p or 1600x900 than it would be difficult to see the icons on screen properly. The display is basically anti-glare. The contrast ratio quite low and anti-glare reduces the reflection but the brightness is also not up to the mark and the viewing angles not quite satisfactory from up/down so it become difficult to work outside of the room in day light, we had some problem to work in the park. The ability of screen to display high resolution of black background images in not good as expected from HP EliteBook notebooks. Overall HP EliteBook 2170p does not satisfy us with display.
The keyboard of HP EliteBook 2170p is basically a free style keyboard and keys almost at same height as the surface around the keyboard like some of the notebooks launched by Acer is early 2012. The HP work very nice on the keys and they are really responsive and work perfect during our test but some keys are not large as we are used to so user will take some time to get used to with this keyboard. The HP EliteBook 2170p has decent size touchpad for the users and it enough for multi touch gestures and the keys are placed on the top of touchpad as well as on bottom side of touchpad as usual with HP notebooks and they are also nice to responsive accurately. Overall HP EliteBook 2170p has nice keyboard and touchpad.
The two stereo speakers of HP EliteBook 2170p are located on the front and we had bad experience with speakers at this position in the past and unfortunately we experience the same problems with speakers of the HP EliteBook 2170p. The max level of volume is quite high but quality is poor and the base is completely missing. It was not a good experience to watch a action movie with friends last nigh on HP EliteBook 2170p both because of display and poor speakers. Overall HP EliteBook 2170p does not satisfy us with its speakers.
HP EliteBook 2170p has nice solution to manage the heat and case has enough space for that as well. The temperatures of surfaces all around the HP EliteBook 2170p remain quite low both in the idle mode and in our stress, obviously temperature raise is stress test but till the danger level. The noise of the fan is also remain under the ignorance level and it’s a good thing for this notebook as it had Intel core i7 CPU which went to the 2.7 Ghz (measured) frequency but temperatures were still low. The noise was low as fan was never turned off completely but its was audiable in stress test and that is not a problem for most people as you are not going to play latest games / HD video editing all the time on HP EliteBook 2170p. Overall HP EliteBook 2170p has good low temperatures and produce low noise.
HP EliteBook 2170p has high speed Bluetooth 4.0 and wifi for high speed wireless connectivity and it has 1x USB 3.0, card reader, AC-in and lock on the left and on the right side it has 1x USB 3.0, Ethernet port and audio jack, VGA and display port. The bad thing is that HP EliteBook 2170p does not have HDMI port which has been used widely for high resolution display/ projectors. Overall HP EliteBook 2170p has decent connectivity options for users.
HP EliteBook 2170p has 6 cell lithium-ion battery of 48 watts which keep it running for about 545 minutes which is really great for any notebook. We try to get the most realistic results by measuring battery life doing the normal tasks as Microsoft office work, text/ photo and some gaming as well HD video clips and surfing web via Wifi, which a normal user is going to do on it daily.
HP EliteBook 2170p good design and I would say, top class solid build quality and most importantly reliable. The HP EliteBook 2170p has nice keyboard and touchpad for the users and touchpad is perfect for multi-gesture usage. The display is not as good as expected and it has low brightness, contrast and limited viewing angles. It has no optical drive and poor speakers and also HDMI port is not available but the battery life is extra ordinary (545 minutes). Overall HP EliteBook 2170p is a good notebook.
- Good design.
- Nice keyboard and touchpad.
- Nice battery life of 545 minutes.
- Runs cool.
- Runs quite.
- No HDMI and optical drive.
- Poor display.
- Poor sound quality.
