It weighs in at just under 3kg which is not bad at all for a laptop/notebook. Mind you HP call it a notebook which I would disagree with. There are Sony VIAO's out there that are real notebooks. This baby however is bigger than what I could consider to be a notebook so I'm going to refer to it as a laptop.
I do a fair amount of travel on business and this machine is just about right for long distance travel to far away countries. The last thing you want is to lug around a fat heavy laptop along with your luggage at airports.

It uses the AMD 64bit Turion processor which is unusual for HP/Compaq as they have only ever used Intel in the past. In fact I'm pretty certain this is the first time they've gone for AMD. Its probably one of the reasons why its cheap (£650) and the reason why you get rather good performance from it. I'll come to that later.

It comes with a DVD read/writer using the DVD-R/RW format. (Again CIAO show this differently as using the DVD+R/RW format). It has 3 USB 2.0 ports, 2 PCIMA slots, a memory card reader that reads SD Memory Card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, MultiMediaCard, SmartMedia Card and xD-Picture Cards.
It has an Ethernet Card, built in WiFi supporting the 802.11g/b standards. Oh and stereo speakers, keyboard, touchpad. The usual stuff.

So what makes it special. Well theres the 64-bit Turion processor for starters. This is the only serious rival to Intel's Pentium-M processor and it is powerful enough for a laptop to give decent performance without the price tag associated with Intel.

The built in WiFi is activated by the press of a button above the funtion keys. At work this allows me to take my PC away from my desk and network connection to meeting rooms where there is no network connection. At home it allows me to listen to the music stored on my Philips WACS700 HiFi because the standards used by the two devices are compatible.
I'm able to take my laptop into my garden and walk about 100ft before I lose the signal from my HiFi.

In terms of the kinds of applications you can run, well it comes with Windows XP preloaded and InterVideo. I've also got Microsoft Office on it, Paintshop Pro, Brothers in Arms (PC Game). All of these run smoothly on it. Brothers in Arms had a little problem with hesitant graphics but this was overcome by reducing the in-game video quality settings down one notch.

In terms of looks its not all that great. Its a dark grey colour but it does give you a feeling of robustness. It certainly doesn't feel cheap.

All in all this is a well above average laptop at a reasonable price that will appeal to both small businesses and domestic users.