Pros
HP ProBook 5310m
- Attractive, durable design
- Strong performance and battery life
- Comfortable keyboard
- Speedy QuickWeb instant-on feature
- Good security software bundle
Cons
- Mediocre viewing angles
- Poor sound
- No VGA out
Quick Specs Full Specs
CPU: 2.26-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional (32-bit)
RAM/Expandable to: 2GB/4GB
Hard Drive Size/Speed: 320GB/7,200 rpm
Display Size/Resolution: 13.3 inches/1366 x 768Price as Reviewed: $899
Up until now, small businesses with modest IT budgets have faced a difficult choice: purchase an affordable but bulky system targeted at them, or a low-cost consumer ultraportable without the build quality or business-friendly features they require. With the aggressively priced ProBook 5310m, Hewlett Packard has served notice on the industry: you can now get a high-quality business ultraportable for well under $1,000. Its competitors will have to respond. CPU: 2.26-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional (32-bit)
RAM/Expandable to: 2GB/4GB
Hard Drive Size/Speed: 320GB/7,200 rpm
Display Size/Resolution: 13.3 inches/1366 x 768Price as Reviewed: $899
Design
The ProBook 5310m isn’t the lightest ultraportable on the market, but it bests or comes close to its higher-priced competitors. At 12.9 x 8.7 x 0.9 inches and 3.8 pounds, the 5310m is significantly lighter and thinner than the HP ProBook 4310s (4.4 pounds, 1.1 inches thick) and the Dell Latitude E4300 (3.8 pounds, 1.3 inches). It’s also the same thickness (but about 0.4 pounds heavier) than the Lenovo ThinkPad X301, which costs more than $1,800. Twelve-inch systems such as the Toshiba Portégé R600 (2.4 pounds, 0.8 inches thick) and Lenovo ThinkPad X200s (3.2 pounds, 1.4 inches) are lighter, but the R600 costs well over $2,000, and the X200s is much thicker.The ProBook 5310m looks much sexier than its $699 starting price would indicate. The black anodized aluminum lid and deck, sleek island keys, and durable magnesium rubberized bottom make the 5310m sexy enough for the club room while staying conservative enough for the boardroom. Though it has a similar shape and keyboard layout to the HP ProBook 4310s, the 5310m’s piano black color, thin lines, and subtle status lights give it a much more sophisticated look than its sibling, which lacks the aluminum and magnesium materials.
Like many ultraportables today, the ProBook 5310m saves space by eschewing an optical drive. But these days, the optical drive is becoming less important, as you can download virtually any program and media file you might need. For those who occasionally read data off of a DVD, HP offers an external USB optical drive, or you can get a third party drive online for less than $50.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The ProBook 5310m employs an island-style keyboard (with rubberized keys) that provides wonderfully strong tactile feedback with no flex at all. If you’re not used to island keyboards, the wide spacing between the keys may take some getting used to. When taking the Ten Thumbs Typing Test, we first achieved a below-average rate of 74 words per minute, but on second try, matched our typical score of 80 wpm, with a 2 percent error rate.
Display and Audio
The 13.3-inch, 1366 x 768 LED-backlit display is available with BrightView or an antiglare finish. Our review unit had the antiglare screen, which produces sharp images, though colors are a bit muted. In order to get the best color quality when looking straight at the screen, we had to tilt the lid back about 15 degrees, rather than having it upright. Viewing angles were strong from 45 degrees to either side, but colors began to wash out as we got closer to 90 degrees from the panel.The ProBook 5310m’s display and speakers are sufficient for watching streaming video by one’s self, but not for watching with others or listening to music. When streaming a 720p episode of Fringe from Fox.com, video was smooth, and images were sharp and colorful, with a minimum of noise. However, the volume on the bottom-mounted speakers was low, even at its highest setting.
Listening to music was less pleasant; when streaming songs from Napster, tunes sounded tinny and harsh.
Ports and Webcam
To save space on the ProBook 5310m, HP has made some interesting choices. Rather than a VGA-out or HDMI port, the company has included only a DisplayPort for connecting to external displays and projectors. This could present a problem for many users, as a number of monitors and projectors don’t have DisplayPort connectors. However, HP says that eschewing VGA was necessary to keep the system thin, and that a DisplayPort-to-VGA adapter will be available for $29. Rather than having two discrete audio connectors, HP has chosen to go with a single headphone/microphone jack. In addition to the audio and DisplayPort jacks, the ProBook 5310m has three USB ports, an Ethernet jack, and a Kensington lock connector. A 2-in-1 memory card reader accepts SD and MMC memory cards.
The 2.0-megapixel webcam produced sharp, detailed images, even in poorly lit rooms. When conducting a video call on Skype, our call partner was able to see every line in our palms as we waved our hand in front of the camera.
Battery Life
The ProBook 5310m’s four-cell battery lasted 5 hours and 31 minutes on the LAPTOP Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi. This number is about 20 minutes above the ultraportable category average of 5:12, and is way ahead of the ThinkPad X301 (3:29). However, it is on a par with the Dell Latitude E4300 (5:39), and way behind the Toshiba Portégé R600 (6:24) and nine-cell ThinkPad X200s (10:43). HP is also planning to make a six-cell battery available that, if it performs as expected, should add another 2.5 to 3 hours of endurance.
Wi-Fi Performance
The 802.11a/b/g/n Broadcom wireless adapter provided some of the strongest throughput we’ve ever seen. At 15 feet from the router, it registered a rate of 30.8 Mbps, which is one-and-a-half times as fast as the category average of 19.8 Mbps, and way higher than the ProBook 4310s (20.9 Mbps), the ThinkPad X301 (20.9 Mbps), the ThinkPad X200s (20.3 Mbps), the Latitude E4300 (19.2 Mbps), and the Portégé R600 (18.1).Its throughput of 17.1 Mbps from 50 feet was less impressive, but still above the category average of 16.9 Mbps, and better than the R600 (15.6 Mbps) and E4300 (16.9 Mbps). The ProBook 4310s (20.0 Mbps), ThinkPad X301 (18.7 Mbps) and X200s (17.2 Mbps) did slightly better.
