HP Compaq nc8230 Review

With the Compaq nc8230 from HP we’re dealing with a notebook that’s been targeted for the business user. HP is a respectable and known company that’s covering a broad line of users with their range of products. Whatever your business needs are you can most likely find a corresponding HP notebook. You might want big screen capabilities and the performance to back it up or prefer to go ultra lightweight and increase your portability with an nc4200 notebook instead. Either way HP has an assorted array of business notebooks for your pleasure.

When taking a look at the notebook you’ll notice it has a more robust and thorough design giving it a more distinct business feel. It looks like it could take a punch without breaking or malfunctioning though I wouldn’t recommend testing it! The wrist padding is also very smooth and soft and it heats up to a comfortable level making it nice to lay your hands on. Another good feature of the nc8230 is its user friendliness when it comes to the various internal ports it’s being shipped with. Wherever there’s a port or plug you’ll find a descriptive logo on the upper side of the keyboard making it easy to know which plug should go where.

The notebook weights 2750 gram with an included 400 gram battery but excluding its 500 gram power supply. It measures 35.5 cm wide, 26.0 cm deep and 3.5 cm tall.

Processor	2133 MHz Mobile Intel Centrino M 770
RAM	512 MB DDR RAM
Harddrive	80 GB HD – 5400 RPM
Optical Drive	DVD/CD-RW
Graphics Chip	ATi Radeon X600 with 64 MB dedicated RAM
Display	15.4” WSXGA+ (1680x1050)
Communication	V.90 modem, 10/100/1000 Mbit Ethernet, IEEE 1394 FireWire, 802.11 b/g WLAN
Battery	Li-Ion
Operating System	Windows XP Pro
Pointing Device	Touchpad w/ scroll-wheel & Pointing Stick
Weight	2750 gram
Other	2-in-1 Card Reader
Price	USD $2555

The Compaq nc8230 from HP comes with a fairly standard keyboard. The pack of Home, End, Page Up and Page Down buttons along with some other ones are found in a little rectangle in the upper right corner of the keyboard making them a little harder to reach but nothing to worry about. At the top left there’s the power button which has an LED to the left of it that’s glowing green when the notebook is turned on.

Also at the top you’ll find a range of different hotkeys. The first series consists of a button for the HP Info software along with a button for turning on and off the wireless LAN and a button for the HP Presentation setup. Then there are two LEDs showing whether CAPS LOCK and num lock are activated or not. To the right thereof there’s a mute button and two buttons for either lowering or increasing the volume of the speakers.

On the front row of the notebook there are four LEDs showing power on status in blue and wireless, battery and disk drive activity in green. The touchpad has an integrated scroll wheel making it easier to surf the web for instance. It also has three buttons for left, middle and right-clicking. They aren’t made in the standard flat shape but instead with a little knob on them that’s apparently more business like.

You’ll also find three identical buttons right below the Space Bar. They’re primarily being used in conjunction with the Pointing Stick that’s located in the middle of the keyboard. Far from all notebooks have a Pointing Stick and is it a little harder to steer at first shot than the average scroll wheel. Either way the Compaq nc8230 is certainly not lacking in this department when it comes to pointing devices and matching buttons. The keyboard also has a good keystroke and the typing is very pleasant making the overall impression better than that of the average notebook keyboard.

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The HP Compaq nc8230 is shipped with a standard 15.4” widescreen display running with a native resolution of 1680x1050. This gives you a lot of room for you applications or big screen DVD playback. You can easily adjust the brightness of the display via keyboard hotkeys making it just right for your viewing pleasure. Though it’s worth noting it doesn’t go from brighter to darker but only from bright to dark in smaller incremental steps leaving you with fewer options to choose from.

Apart from the glowing LEDs on the front there’s only a single infrared port. The back of the nc8230 isn’t more enticing since you’ll only find a power plug and a port for an external monitor. The rest of the goodies are packed either on the left or the right side of the notebook. Starting on the left at the back there’s a Kensington lock along with the modem and Ethernet port plus the S-Video out port before they’re being separated by a fan. Then there’s a FireWire and a single USB 2.0 port. Rounding things off is the standard PCMCIA port and a Card Reader. Though the latter only supports Secure Digital and Smart Card a 2-in-1 card reader is still better than nothing.

Beginning from the front on the right side are the two jacks for headphone and microphone followed by two USB 2.0 ports. After that comes the DVD drive and finally an ancient serial port for the pour souls that haven’t converted to USB yet. Overall the placement of the various ports and plugs are fine though it wouldn’t hurt by using some of the front of the notebook too. As has already been mentioned it’s a very good initiative to see the upper side of the keyboard being labelled with descriptive logos making it even easier to remember and distinct the various ports from one another.

3 x USB 2.0 ports
2-in-1 Card Reader
1 x RJ-11 jack
1 x RJ-45 jack
1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
1 x Line-In jack
1 x Line-Out jack
1 x DC-in jack
1 x 32 bit Type II PC Card slot
1 x Extern monitor port
1 x S-Video Out
1 x Kensington Lock

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The fan of the Compaq nc8230 from HP makes a slight humming in the background with the spinning for extra cooling. At times it can be fairly modest though it’s still too loud if you’re looking for a quiet notebook. It does come with extra power and performance making it harder to cool and for that it might be okay. At other times however it can be a little noisy especially if you’re simply reading a document or browsing the web. The nc8230 does have many good assets but entirely noise free it’s not and if that’s what you’re looking for you might find a better notebook.

The Compaq nc8230 from HP comes with a load of manuals, guides, documents, warranty papers and the works in languages you wouldn’t even know existed! It can seem a little over the edge with warranty papers in languages spanning from A-Z in the alphabet instead of a few localized versions but HP is certainly on the good side when is comes to supporting their products. Of more general interest there’s an international “Getting Started” manual in English as well as a localized version making sure first time buyers can use the purchased notebook. There weren’t any software or driver CDs with the package. Instead HP had focused on using preinstalled software and a built-in recovery utility to restore the entire system if needed be.

When it comes to warranty issues HP is in a strong position since they offer one full year on the battery and a superb three-year warranty on the notebook! That’s a very long warranty period indeed and HP is counting on their quality products to live up to their reputation. They’ve also got hotline support over the phone or via email. If you fancy support and warranty HP seems to get you covered.

The overall performance of the Compaq nc8230 is quite good in office and business applications. The score is gets in SYSmark 2004 and its performance score in MobileMark 2005 is just short of the current leader – the Zepto Znote 2314W. Scoring clear second places in both of these benchmarks promises a fast notebook in 2D applications that’ll please any business user when it comes to getting the work done on time.

Another important aspect of any notebook is its battery life. The business professional will be pleased with the results as it’s capable of operating unplugged for hours without draining the battery too quickly. It’s just marginally shy of the three-hour mark when it comes to unplugged DVD playback and if you’re reading a lot on the web or browsing PDF files it’s nearly capable of four hours of mobility for your reading pleasure.

When it comes to productivity and actual use of the notebook for business purposes and office applications the battery life is lowered a bit. This is due to the already great 2D performance you get from this notebook as the battery is being more actively consumed than it would be for lesser demanding tasks. If you fancy hours of unplugged mobility with performance on the go you should consider the Compaq nc8230 from HP.

The 3D performance of the Compaq nc8230 comes from its built-in ATi Radeon X600 graphics chip that’s configured with 64 MB of RAM. Though it’s only half of what we’re used to see from X600 capable notebooks the performance doesn’t suffer because of it. The reason is that only few games currently need the extra amount of memory for their textures. Therefore it’s still far more relevant and to the point to by choosing a notebook with higher clocked core and memory frequencies than it is to add the extra memory.

With that bit of detail cleared out of the way we can focus on the nitty-gritty performance results. Naturally is can’t compete with its X700 cousin but it does take first place amongst the various X600 configured notebooks. The margin might not be overwhelming but it does score best in the synthetic benchmarks while at the same time producing good frame rates in the real-world games. So if you’re on the lookout for a notebook with a hint at gaming and want an X600 graphics chip from ATi it’s certainly worth a thought to consider the Compaq nc8230 from HP.





All tests results are available here.

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All in all the HP Compaq nc8230 seems like a really good purchase. It features a good and robust design with a comfortable keyboard with appropriate descriptive logos. The performance is generally very good in both 2D and 3D applications making it fine for business and office applications as well as a suitable gaming platform.

The battery is able to sustain itself for many working hours and you can even enjoy Lord of the Rings length movies on its big 15.4” widescreen monitor. To sum things up we’re dealing with one of the finer notebooks on the market that even comes with a three-year warranty period! It doesn’t get much better than this and it’s certainly worth a look if you’re in the market for a businesslike notebook.

+
3-year warranty, good 2D and 3D performance, long battery life
–
A bit noisy at times





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