HP ProBook 4530s XU018UT 15.6-Inch LED Notebook

This laptop has everything you could possibly want as far as tech specs. You got a sandybridge i5, 4 gb of fast ddr3 ram, USB 3.0 slot, hdmi out with hd codec ausio outputs for home theater systems. And the price is a steal of a deal. I got it at 666.02. The price on this thing certainly fluctuates on amazon so patience and a watchful eye on this one will probably get you the best price.

Before going to my in depth rants here's a quick sum up for those that don't want to read the whole thing

So to sum it up

The i5 2410M 2.3 ghz with turbo boost to 2.9 ghz and HD 3000 graphics performs well in games and everything else, all at the same time too
The 4 GB DDR3 1333 does its job while leaving room to upgrade
It has all the desirable features I was looking for such as
- 7200 RPM HDD
- USB 3.0
- i5 sandy bridge
- spill proof keyboard
- 720P webcam
- Great battery life (though I haven't been able to really test... Read more

This laptop has all the features that anyone would practically need. The price keeps dropping so any newcomers will definitely benefit from its lowered cost.

The only reason I didn't give it the full 5 star treatment were several reasons.

cons first
1. No instruction manual, download the HP 4530s pdf ONLINE, I Goggled it.
2. No Win 7 Pro Repair disk, available separately for $10 on Amazon or eBay.
3. Download Win 7 Pro updates from Microsoft, many and timely but necessary.
4. UPS delivered, arrived OK but packing was almost non-existent in a large box. The HP box had enough packing though, so the laptop seemed protected.
5. Be prepared for a lot of garbage which can be removed.

positives next
1. After running setup which was timely, I was impressed with the numerous features and add-ons that came with this model. I compared this HP with several other makes and this laptop excels against similar
i5-2410s.
2... Read more

This is a very thoughtfully engineered and full featured business oriented laptop. Some positive features that set it apart from other second generation sandy bridge core i5 laptops in this price range:

An express card 34 slot for high bandwidth peripherals

An excellent keyboard with numeric pad

A matte screen finish (thank you!)

A generously sized, sensitive and configurable multi-touch trackpad from synaptics with a on/off switch

Very easily accessible components and fan ducts to keep dust bunnies under control

This unit purchased from Amazon comes with a 1 year warranty.

After using it for some time, I have some other observations... There are no OS rescue disks included or the ability to burn them yourself. Booting to the OS recovery partition is the only way to restore the computer to the factory state. Needless to say, it is a useless option when your hard disk dies. Also, the image eats up around 16GB... Read more