The focus of the HP Probook series is no longer just the business community. Business performance has been sacrificed for high sales volumes. Thus, the ProBook becomes more interesting for ordinary buyers. The only exception is the ProBook B series, to which the hero of our today's review belongs. For example, it can offer such an exclusive as an external battery connection port.
Housing
The ProBook 6465b design is standard across the series. It is finished in gray with a scratch-resistant matte surface. The top cover is made of aluminum but flexes easily when pressed. Around the display is a rubber edging designed to protect the laptop from dust when closed. But, all the same, there is a small gap between the display and the main part, through which dust will get inside.
The upper part of the base is made of polished gray metal. In this area, the body is very sturdy and not subject to flexing. The bottom is covered with hard matte plastic. Only under the optical disc drive does it creak a little when compressed.
The hinges are stiff enough, but the screen can still wobble a little. The laptop stands firmly on the surface under its own weight, there is no need to hold it when opening the screen. The maximum opening angle is about 160 degrees, which is sufficient for all scenarios of use.
At first glance, the ProBook 6465b looks rather massive due to its angular design. In fact, its thickness is not that great - 38 mm. Also, it cannot be classified as light - 2.4 kg, but this is due to the quality and reliability of the materials.
Ports and interfaces
The laptop supports a variety of interfaces. On the left are the power connector, FireWire 400 port, and two of the three USB 2.0 ports. Below them is a card reader (supports SD, MMC, Sony Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, xD formats). Also on the left side is the DVD-Multi optical drive and ExpressCard 54 expansion slot.
At the back, next to the battery, there are Gigabit LAN and VGA ports. There is a modem slot under the phone cover, which is not installed in all models.
On the right side are the microphone and headphone jacks, an eSATA / USB 2.0 combo port, a USB 2.0 port, and a DisplayPort. Behind them - the grill of the cooling system and the Kensington lock.
Only status indicators can be found on the front edge.
On the bottom of the laptop there are connectors for connecting an external battery and a docking station.
Unfortunately, there are no USB 3.0 ports.
Communications
The laptop is equipped with a Wi-Fi module with support for b / g / n protocols, a Gigabit LAN port and Bluetooth 2.1. In addition, as mentioned above, some models have a built-in modem.
Software
As is customary these days, the ProBook has a large number of proprietary software from HP, although many of them are functionally weaker than Windows tools. Among the interesting ones are HP's ProtectTools Security Manager for managing Windows accounts and security settings in the browser. In addition, the laptop comes preinstalled with Microsoft Office 2010 Starter, Roxio Burn, and a 60-day trial version of Norton Security antivirus software.
Input Devices
Keyboard
Island type keyboard. It consists of small keys with rounded corners and soft travel. The layout takes some getting used to. The DEL and Enter keys are smaller than usual and can be missed when typing blindly. The block of arrow keys is made in one row, so it is also not very convenient.
There are three additional keys between the main keyboard and the display. The first one turns on / off Wi-Fi, the second opens the internet browser, and the third controls the speakers (sound on / off)
Touchpad and trackpoint
The touchpad has a comfortable size and supports basic multitouch gestures.It is easy to customize it for the user using a proprietary utility from Synaptics. There is a small white dot in the upper left corner. Tapping on it allows you to lock unlock the touch panel.
Trackpoint is used for the first time in the ProBook series. It has a nice rubberized surface and precisely positions the cursor.
Screen
There are two kinds of screens available for the 14-inch ProBook 6465b. The first one is a matte screen with a resolution of 1366x768 pixels, and the second one with a resolution of 1600x900 pixels (installed in the ProBook 6465b LY433EA model). We tested a laptop with the first display option. The marking indicates that its manufacturer is LG. In general, the display characteristics are quite average. For example, its average brightness of 207 nits makes it comfortable to work indoors, but the picture looks dull in the sun. Fortunately, the matte finish prevents glare. Also, due to the low contrast (about 140: 1), the image appears a little faded and lackluster.
The viewing angles are comfortable. Horizontally, information remains readable at any viewing angle. When viewed from below, the screen fades, but the image remains visible. The worst case is when viewed from above, the colors are very dark and inverted.
Performance
The HP ProBook 6465b is available in various configurations. They are based on AMD Llano processors: A4-3310MX with dual cores and integrated Radeon HD 6480G or A6-3410MX with Radeon HD 6520G. There are no models with a discrete graphics card.
In addition, buyers can choose between 2 or 4 gigabytes of 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM. For data storage, hard drives with a volume of 320 or 500 gigabytes with 7200 rpm or an SSD-drive from Samsung with a volume of 128 gigabytes are offered. The laptop we tested has it installed. This solid state drive belongs to the 470 series. The maximum read speed is 250 MB / s, and the write speed is 200 MB / s.
The laptop is unlikely to allow you to enjoy modern games. They can only be played on minimal settings.
For example, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit runs smoothly at medium settings only at a minimum resolution of 800x600 pixels, which looks uninteresting, especially for a 1600x900 display. When setting the maximum resolution, at the lowest settings, the frame rate per second drops to 23-40.
In Battlefield Bad Company 2, even at the lowest settings and resolutions, the game is not possible. Although the maximum number of frames per second is 28, in demanding scenes this value drops to 4.
Temperature
The temperature readings of the ProBook are very good. The maximum idle temperature is only 23 degrees. Heating is negligible under load. The maximum temperature in the upper part is 30 degrees, and the "hottest" point on the bottom (right corner) warmed up to 36 degrees, so using the laptop on your lap will be comfortable.
Autonomous work
Energy consumption
Energy efficient processor and integrated graphics ensure low power consumption. In idle mode, less than 10 watts are consumed. In download mode, power consumption is in the range of 35-55 watts. But, when using a regular hard drive, these values will increase slightly.
Battery operation
The ProBook 6465b comes standard with a 55Wh Li-ion battery. Connecting an external battery and a docking station increases this value to 200 W / h.
With the supplied battery, the maximum battery life was 7 hours. This value was achieved by applying all power saving settings, turning off Wi-Fi and setting the display to minimum brightness.
When working via Wi-Fi in a browser with an average brightness of the backlight, the laptop shows the result in five and a half hours.
DVD movie playback at maximum display brightness on battery lasted 3 hours and 23 minutes.
It takes about 2 hours of mains connection to fully charge the battery.
General impression
The HP ProBook 6465b is a solid workhorse. Its metal body looks solid and resistant to external influences. There are many connection interfaces, the only drawback is the lack of USB 3.0 ports.
Working with built-in input devices is quite comfortable. The keyboard is comfortable to type on, but the layout takes getting used to. For working with the cursor, you can choose between touchpad and trackpad. The lack of brightness and contrast of the laptop display is compensated by the presence of anti-reflective coating and wide viewing angles.
Notebook performance is greatly improved by using a solid state drive. The AMD A6 processor, despite the presence of 4 physical cores, belongs to the entry level, in terms of performance it is comparable to the popular Intel Core i3 2310M. The integrated graphics core is not powerful enough for demanding 3D tasks and games.
Summing up the results of our test, we can say that a fully loaded HP ProBook 6465b laptop (power bank and docking station) will be interesting for corporate buyers and businessmen, since they can work on their laptop for 24 hours without being connected to the network. ... For ordinary users who are not very interested in the autonomy of work, the price for a laptop will seem overpriced, more productive laptops can be obtained at a lower cost.
