HP ProBook 6460b – Sleek Looks At Affordable Price (2)

Jun 26

Welcome back to the second and final part of our HP ProBook 6460b review which we start by having a look at the ports found on this business-oriented laptop. As you would expect from a model like this, it has several ports that you will not find that often on consumer notebooks, such as a FireWire port, DisplayPort, ExpressCard/54 slot and a modem, while the bottom of the 6460b features the secondary battery connector and also the docking connector.

Also on board is a webcam which is capable of recording 720p clips while photos can be taken at up to a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels. The quality of the camera is slightly above average but we have to warn you though that when recording videos, the audio is a little bit out of sync with the image.

HP ProBook 6460b (Source: s1.emagst.ro)

At the heart of the HP ProBook 6460b is a second-generation, Sandy Bridge-based Intel Core i3-2310M processor that runs at 2.10 GHz. HP installed 4GB of DDR3 memory on this model ($799 version), which allows the laptop to score 5,532 in PCMark Vantage. For storage it packs a speedy 320GB SATA HDD spinning at 7,200 rpm which boots Windows 7 in less than one minute (about 55 seconds).

The graphics power is handled by the integrated Intel HD 3000 chip which earns 3,741 in 3DMark06, a little bit better than other laptops which come with the same built-in GPU. As you would expect, the laptop is fully capable of handling 1080p video streaming without any sort of lag or out of sync video/audio.

However, this isn’t a laptop built for gaming since in World of Warcraft the maximum FPS is 27 with the 720p resolution and the graphics settings at Good. This isn’t really a surprise given that we are dealing with a business laptop that has a modest integrated GPU.

For a business laptop (or just about any other type of laptop), the performance of the wireless card is very important since we need as much portability as possible. The HP ProBook 6460b has a Broadcom 43224AG wireless card which works excellent even at a bigger distance from the router.

HP ProBook 6460b (Source: s1.emagst.ro)

We should also mention the laptop’s security software such as the HP Protect Tools, Drive Encryption, Computrace, as well as the possibility of enabling a BIOS-level password to improve the security of the laptop. Also on that hard drive you are going to find HP’s DayStarter utility, HP QuickWeb 3.0 and the HP Power Assistant utility.

As far as the battery is concerned, the one fitted by HP in this ProBook 6460b is a six-cell lithium-ion unit which can last for up to 7 hours and 15 minutes, according to the manufacturer. This is a very good performance and one of the best in this segment we have seen so far.