Hewlett-Packard has quietly updated their Essential notebook line for businesses with the HP 650 model.
The 15.6-inch budget laptop packs the 2011 Intel “Sandy Bridge” processors. The included chipset is the latest HM70/HM75 series, so there’s a possibility that the HP 650 will be also available with the 3rd Generation Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs, supported by the chipset. For now, on offer are the 2nd Gen Core i3-2370M and Pentium B970, with two cores on each. Support for RAM memory went from 1,333MHz to 1,600MHz thanks to the new chipset. There are two SODIMM DDR3 slots for up to 8GB of RAM, while HDD storage choices are 320GB and 500GB, both spinning at 5,400rpm.
Overall, HP 650 is pretty much standard 15.6″ laptop with 1366×768 resolution (anti-glare coating is a plus), a DVD burner, VGA-quality webcam, stereo speakers, HDMI and VGA video connectors, three USB 2.0 ports, an SD/MMC reader, Gigabit LAN, Wi-Fi, and optional Bluetooth.
The official specs sheet lists a 6-cell 47WHr battery for up to six hours of battery life.
Regarding its looks, the 650 brings a completely new design when compared to the previous 630 series, but plastics remained the main material. The laptop sports a professional looking matte charcoal finish. What’s unusual on this notebook regarding its business orientation is absence of a separate numeric pad, which is common not only on business but also on consumer notebooks. This can make input of numbers much harder and slower, but on the other side, users will get a perfectly centered keyboard position. The touchpad supports multi-touch gestures and has a textured finish.
The notebook isn’t too bulky, measuring 14.8 x 9.72 x 1.41 inches and not too heavy with its 5.4 pounds.
OS choices are Windows 7 and SUSE Linux and the starting price is $489.
The PC maker is also going to release an AMD-based version called HP 655.