HP Compaq Business Notebook Nc6220

...This secondary battery has HP fast charge technology, which means you can charge the battery up to 90% in just 90 minutes (which in case you're not too sure is very fast) and the battery boasts an additional 4 hours of battery life on top of the time provided by a normal battery, designed to keep the user mobile for days.


Display
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The screen is 14.1 inches, ...
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There is a HP Premier sound card in the system. It is 16 bit and it comes with internal spoeakers and microphone. There is also an external volume button, and mute button, and there are the usual input/output sound ports. The microphone works well by the way, because I like to set up the voice recognition software on all systems, because my colleagues have long essay type documents to write frequently, and to save time, I always recommend ... more

Intro
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A little while ago I was asked by a colleague to replace their old computer, as that is part of my job at work, to make sure that al of the staff have access to a fully functioning PC, of a high standard. I chose the nc6220 as it was within budget and I shall explain below the full specs of the laptop, and attempt to give you as good an insight as possible about this particular item. Please let me know if you require any further information, or if I have missed anything out and I will try to answer any of your questions.

Look and portability
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The 6620 is a slim line laptop. It is black in colour, and has a 101/102 key compatible keyboard with full width keyboard features. It comes with an in-built touchpad with a scroll zone, and the laptop's light sensor can adjust the display for best viewing. Hotkeys include power conservation, volume, and brightness controls. The keys themselves have bright lettering on, which seems to catch the light when it's darker so you can see the keys in low light conditions.

The laptop weighs in at about 5lb, and is around 12.5x10x1 inch in diameter. Therefore my colleague has no trouble in carrying it around regularly as its not heavy at all, and a handy option in the system is to remove the multibay optical drive, to replace it with a weight saver to make it even lighter for transportation.

The laptop comes with a 65watt slim AC adapter, which includes a 6ft power cord, which is especially handy if you can't sit right next to a plug socket. I hate those ones which are only around 2ft long and you have to practically sit on top of the plug socket to make it reach! So including the power cord, the grand total length of the ac adapter cable is actually 12 ft, which I think is quite sufficient without the aid of extension cords.

The battery is a 6 cell high performance Li-Ion Battery and there is the option to purchase a secondary 8 cell battery. This secondary battery has HP fast charge technology, which means you can charge the battery up to 90% in just 90 minutes (which in case you're not too sure is very fast) and the battery boasts an additional 4 hours of battery life on top of the time provided by a normal battery, designed to keep the user mobile for days.

Display
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The screen is 14.1 inches, TFT XGA. It can output a resolution of 640x480 to 1600x1200 depending on the colour settings in proportion to the screen resolutions, (and provided that you have the correct graphics drivers installed, as problems with large screen resolutions occur from either not having a specified graphics driver installed and just using the default driver, which will only produce around 640x480 pixels and maybe 16-bit color.)

The video adapter used by the laptop is an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 which has up to 128MB of shared system memory.

Processor/memory
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The laptop has a Intel Pentium M processor, 1.5Ghz with 1MB level 2 cache. It has a 400Mhz front side bus speed, and comes with 512 MB ram (upgradeable to 2GB DDR 2 SDRAM which makes it fast, and gives it plenty of room for upgrade in the future.

Operating system and software
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I think the software you get with the PC depends on where you purchase it from. I got a trial of Norton which I don't use because I can't stand how it slows up the computer, win DVD creator, Sonic Record Now, a driver disk, and an operating system recovery CD with XP professional on. There is a license on the bottom of the computer for the CD.

Storage
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The model I chose has a 60GB hard drive, but I saw other models which had 40GB hard drives and one with an 80GB hard drive. 60GB is plenty enough, and I have partitioned my drives (split them up) into two drives, the C drive is 20GB in size. On the C drive, I installed the Operating System, along with all of the programs specific to the user. The other drive is the D drive, and this is made up of the remaining 40GB. I relocated the computer's My Documents so that they all go into the D drive, and then if ever I need to feformat the computer, I only need to format the one partition. The D drive can stay the same, and I don't need to backup any files. Many people who know how to partition their drives do this, as it can also benefit in other ways, for example, keeping viruses restricted to the C drive only, so that if god forbid, a virus or worm found its way into your computer, the risks are lower of it working its way into the D drive and infecting your personal files. If you do need any information about how to partition, or help on it, drop me a message in my guestbook, and I will be happy to help.

It is possible to choose when purchasing your laptop which drives you want in it. I went for the 8x DVD writer, because you may as well do nowadays as there's usually only about £20 price difference or so. It is possible to have more than one optical drive, as there are two spare drive bays.

Audio
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There is a HP Premier sound card in the system. It is 16 bit and it comes with internal spoeakers and microphone. There is also an external volume button, and mute button, and there are the usual input/output sound ports. The microphone works well by the way, because I like to set up the voice recognition software on all systems, because my colleagues have long essay type documents to write frequently, and to save time, I always recommend using the voice recognition dictation tool. I have configured the laptop to use both the integrated microphone as well as a plugged in external microphone as it can give more clarity, because if you are typing as well as dictating, the computer obviously picks up the noise of the keys more than it does your voice. The internal mic however works fine as long as you are dictating only.

Input and Output
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Along with the audio input and output ports I mentioned above, the laptop also comes with 3 USB 2.0 ports, a 15 pin VGA port, an RJ-11 port (for a modem line), an RJ-45 port (for a hardwired Ethernet network), s-video out, Infra red, a docking port, and a compartment for the spare HP travel battery.
There is also an in built smart card reader and a spare PCMCIA cardbus slot.

Communication
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The model I have has a Broadcom 802.11g wireless card (internal) and I chose the option to go bluetooth, but you can make the choice for yourself. There is also an in built 56k modem, if you're still unfortunate enough not to be able to get broadband in your area.

Support
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As with all HP products, there is extensive information online including readily available full user manuals and the latest updates for all drivers specific to your model and product. There is a standard 3 year limited warranty on the item and depending on where you are located, 24/7 telephone support.

Cost
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This PC costs around £700 upwards depending on the features you want.

I hope my review has been helpful. Please take time to read my other rewiews. Thank you.

Happy readings

Alison xx 

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