Anyone with a HP ProBook 6450???

Hi,

I'm in need of a well built business-laptop. The mentioned laptop seems a quite good choice but I don't find any reviews. Can someone help me out?

I'm especially curious about the quality of the matte 1600x900 display. Is it suitable for outdoor-usage?

Alternative recommendations are appreciated, but I don't need dedicated graphics or some high-end hardware. CPU and other specifications of the 6450are just perfect to me. The price is another important criteria. It shouldn't exceed 1200€ incl. taxes (germany).


thanks for any help

http://www.cyberport.de/notebook/notebooks/notebook-berater/1C23-96A/hp-probook-6450b-wd776ea.html

 

Hey,

I'm from Germany, too. I got my 6450b just last week, but only with 1366x768 display and I paid 960 euros for it.

So far I like it. It looks and feels like a very stable machine. I'm quite dissatisfied with the battery, I can barely (barely!) get 3 hours of battery time and I only did listen to music and surf the web, with display turned down. What I like best about it is that it is totally silent if you aren't doing something cpu intensive.

Pros:
- hardware support on Linux is good as far as I tested it
- webcam is very good
- solid build quality
- good matte display
- you can get extras like umts or fingerprint reader, though I don't have it
- you can buy and attach a secondary battery which would supposedly give it battery for 20 hours with the ultimate version, but I wouldn't expect more than maybe 10 hours, which would still be decent. But you have to carry the secondary battery, of course.
- the touchpad is really good
- the AC is lightweight, which is nice if you want to travel with it
- near silent in office/web/music use, fan only gets loud occasionally, like every hour or so for a minute. If you do something cpu intensive, it gets quite LOUD though.

Cons:
- I can only use it for 3 hours on battery, not 6.5hours like claimed, or 5 hours like I hoped for
- This thing isn't a lightweight in my opinion. Not nice if you want to use it outdoors a lot.
- The speakers absolutely suck. I guess, that's normal in the business laptop class?
- the keyboard isn't soft. It's loud and doesn't have a nice tactile feel, at least as far as I'm concerned.
- only one year guarantee

Didn't try the display outdoors yet.

 

The price of that model is really good! a good 100-150€ cheaper then similar configurations of the same laptop I have seen.

The 6450b is the only budget HP notebook that has a better resolution than the crummy 1366x768 that seems to be standard these days. I really can not stand low resolution screens. The HP Elitebooks also have higher resolution options but cost a lot more. The new HP Envy 14 might be an option. It costs about the same and the screen is supposed to be really nice. But its more a multimedia laptop and not business. Not much else out there in the budget business range with HD+ resolution screen, from any brand. Sad really....

 

thank you very much, freibook. the point about the battery is a little bit disturbing but battery-life is no priority. seems I've found my new laptop, though I'll go with the 1600x900 resolution.

I'll wait until the probook 5320m is reviewed and then I'll make my move.

@wave
thank you too. I already had a look at the elitebook 8440 and the envy. the 8440 would be the prefered alternative, but as long as there are no "special offers" it just exceeds my budget. what disturbs me most about the envy is the glossy screen. but maybe I'll give it a second thought.

 

Thanks for your summary freibook, I'm in Poland and thinking about buying one of these for myself. Can you give any insight into its performance? I'm not going to play games, but I wouldn't mind watching the odd video, and would like to know if it struggles or not?

Thanks,
Tom.

 

Hey mootothemax,

I guess performance depends if you own a model with i3, i5 or i7 core or 2GB or 4GB RAm and so on.
I have a i3-core model with only 2GB, but personally don't have any performance problems, neither with any software nor with video and multimedia. But I plan to extend RAM to 4GB as I'm using 2GB RAM to its limits from time to time. I'd recommend getting a model with 4GB RAM.
Keep in mind that I'm using an intel SSD drive as my main partition, which is improving the performance of any computer by a great deal. This might distort my review.

Graphics acceleration isn't exactly stellar, so better don't play games, but for "professional" work and the like it is more than enough IMO.

 

Hi freibook,

I'm looking at getting one with an i5-450M, 4GB RAM and a 128GB Kingston V+ SSD running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit. As long as I can watch the occasional video on it then I'm good to go

Thanks again,
Tom.

 

Yeah,

that should be a very good setup! Keep in mind that the speakers suck, so you'll need headphones or something of that sort. ^^

Good luck

 

my search is over. I pulled the trigger on an elitebook 8440p. seems like ebay-dealers have a big problem nowadays to sell their stuff.

1600x900-display and i7-620m for just 100€ more than the probook 6450 I had in mind.

but thanks again for your help freibook and wave

 

Hi Freibook,

One last request - I don't suppose you could post your Windows 7 Experience Index scores if you get a chance? Curiosity's really getting the better of me

Thanks,
Tom.

 

Hey,

not yet, I'm currently using Linux on an SSD and Windows is still on the original HDD. So when I get my cd-hdd-caddy and can use the original hdd again, I could try the Windows scores and tell you...
But please don't wait for it. °°

Greetings

 

Does anybody else have experience with 6450b? I was about buy this one, but now I am concerned about low battery life after I read freibook's experience, although the review here suggest a longer running time (and on a model with a dedicated graphics card).

 

I've had my 6450b for a couple of weeks now, and am hugely impressed with it. The build quality is really good, the keyboard's fantastic, and it has enough horsepower for my development needs (Visual Studio 2010, XAMPP etc.).

The battery life isn't great, usually a little over 3 hours depending on what it's being used for, and how bright you have the screen set.

I'm really happy with mine and absolutely recommend it. Mine's an i5-450M, 4GB ram and 128GB Kingston V+ SSD with the 1600x900 screen.