Laptop Review: HP EliteBook 2740p

With all the fuss over a certain Cupertino-come-lately, it's easy to forget that tablet PCs are not a new invention. Come November it'll be 10 years since Bill Gates showed a prototype at the Comdex trade show, and eight years since the official launch of a dozen models at the unveiling of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition.

HP was there, and HP has offered notebook/slate convertible tablet PCs -- or Tablet PCs, since Microsoft capitalized the phrase that discussions of Apple's iPad and its competitors put in lowercase today -- ever since. We'd say HP ranks second only to Fujitsu as a loyal rider of the tablet bandwagon. And the $1,699 EliteBook 2740p ranks second to none as an example of the much-refined and -improved convertible concept first seen all those years ago.

That's not to say the 2740p is flawless. We have two complaints. First, battery life is mediocre; our real-world work sessions ranged from two hours and 20 minutes to three hours of Web surfing, video and slideshow viewing, word processing, and file transferring.

Second, the EliteBook suffers from the same flaw as every laptop whose screen swivels and folds back over the keyboard to become a slate: Though one of the lighter examples of the breed at 3.9 pounds, it's too heavy to carry in one hand for long periods or to tuck comfortably in the crook of one arm, clipboard-style, and write on like a true tablet.

(A remedy for the first complaint worsens the second: For $189, you can snap a slice or base battery onto the 2740p. The add-on battery roughly doubles the system's life, but increases the slightly chunky convertible's thickness by a quarter-inch and hikes its weight to 5.2 pounds.)

Eye Catching

Probably the most successful component of the 2740p is its versatile screen, a sunny 12.1-inch panel with both a capacitive digitizer for precise input using the supplied stylus and a multi-touch overlay for finger gestures. The latter aren't anything new -- the same document dragging, zooming, and image rotating flick, pinch, and arc offered by many current laptops' touchpads -- but they work wonderfully on the bigger-than-a-touchpad display.

Tapping your way around web sites is a pleasure, while using the stylus offers surprisingly good handwriting recognition in the provided Windows Journal and Office OneNote applications. The double overlays don't keep the 1,280 by 800-resolution screen from being bright and sharp, with vivid colors (at least at its top couple of brightness settings); small text and icons are crisp and legible.

The EliteBook's keyboard is full-sized, with a firm typing feel. The layout takes some learning -- there are dedicated Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys, but they're part of a top row of tiny function keys (although Ctrl and Delete are in their proper bottom left and top right corners respectively).

HP has squeezed in both a pointing stick, with two mouse buttons below the spacebar, and a touchpad in the palm rest below those buttons. Both work well, but the touchpad is too small for comfort. A tiny LED lamp above the screen serves to illuminate the keyboard during night flights.

The 2740p bristles with ports and switches. On the left side you'll find the storage hole for the stylus, an SD flash card slot, an ExpressCard slot, FireWire and USB 2.0 ports, and an on/off switch for Wi-Fi.

On the right are two more USB ports, a SmartCard slot, headphone and modem jacks, and buttons to launch HP's QuickWeb browser and QuickLook access to Outlook calendar and email info without booting Windows. VGA and Ethernet ports are in back. When you're using the HP in tablet mode, you have access to a thumb lever for scrolling, a button to rotate the display image, and an Esc button.

Serious Strength

One reason for our battery life gripe is that HP didn't skimp with a low-voltage or netbook-class CPU when building the EliteBook: The chip under the hood is, if anything, an overachiever -- Intel's Core i5-540M, a 2.53GHz dual-core, four-threaded processor with 3MB of Level 3 cache. It powered the convertible to solidly respectable scores in our performance benchmarks: 6,178 in PCMark Vantage; 5,095 in Geekbench; 1 minute and 42 seconds to render Cinebench R10's sample image.

The Core i5's integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD graphics fall short of satisfying hardcore gamers, but are more than quick enough for productivity and image-editing applications. We saw a score of 1,902 in 3DMark06 and 3.5 fps in the Heaven benchmark.

The 2740p packs 4GB of DDR3 memory and a 250GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive. (There's no room for an optical drive; a USB 2.0 DVD burner is a $99 option.) Bluetooth 2.1 is standard, along with 802.11a/g/n Wi-Fi and a 2-megapixel webcam. Mobile broadband wasn't included in our test unit, but there's a WWAN antenna that pops out, Swiss Army knife-style, at the touch of a button atop the display. The OS is the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional.

HP doesn't position the convertible as a fully ruggedized PC, but like all of the EliteBook line, the magnesium-alloy-cased portable is built to shrug off minor bumps and rough treatment, up to and including 300 pounds of pressure on the display enclosure and small liquid spills on the keyboard.

It's fun to zoom in and out of images and play with the toys of Windows 7's Touch Pack, but in the absence of everyday touch-enabled applications like those of HP's TouchSmart consumer PCs, tablet PCs depend on in-house apps for vertical industries such as healthcare. The EliteBook 2740p's mix of precise stylus and breezy touch input makes it an outstanding platform for development and deployment of such apps. If you can set aside its too-short battery life and too-small touchpad, it's the best notebook/tablet convertible we've tested.