HP Compaq 2510p Review

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The HP Compaq 2510p is a 12.1&quot; screen ultraportable notebook designed for business people that are frequently on the go. The Compaq 2510p replaces the older nc2400 ultraportable offering from HP. The 2510p improves upon the nc2400 by offering a touchpad, LED backlit display, the Intel Santa Rosa platform and a fresh new design look.

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Overview

If you recall back to late May of 2007 when HP released its entire new business notebook lineup, we discovered the new naming convention for business notebooks to have the following classification based on number grouping:

• Ultra-Light (2000)
• Balanced Mobility (6000)
• High Performance (8000).

While the letter designations at the end of a model number indicate the following:

• s = standard
• b = business
• p = professional
• w = workstation

So by this formula the 2510p is classified as an ultra-light professional level notebook. The &quot;professional&quot; connotation means that you'll get a slightly stronger build than a consumer notebook, more security features, less bloatware, better technical support and a finish that's more appropriate for a business environment.

The Compaq 2510p starts at a price of around $1,549 from the HP.com business store and can be configured in various manners, though being an ultraportable you are somewhat limited in processor choice -- you can choose between the Intel U7500 or U7600 ultra low voltage processor. Integrated graphics is the only choice you'll have and the hard drive is a slowish 1.8&quot; 4200RPM variety, so there's no path to a super duper performance system. Rumor has it SSD might show up as an option at some point for this machine though.

The performance isn't really what you're looking for in an ultraportable though. It's the utility factor and how capable it is for on the go work that matters with such a machine. The integrated optical drive, light weight, great screen, nice keyboard and overall good design will serve therefore serve as a focus in this review.

HP 2510p Specs as Reviewed:

• Intel Core 2 Duo U7600 1.20GHz Ultra Low Voltage processor
• Chipset: Mobile Intel GM965
• Memory: 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, one user accessible slot
• Hard Drive: 1.8-in PATA 100GB 4200RPM
• Graphics: Intel GMA X3100
• Wireless: Intel 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth (built-in WWAN is an option through Verizon or AT&amp;T in the U.S.)
• Communications: Intel Gigabit Network Connection
• Expansion Slots: 1 Type I/II PC Card slot, Secure Digital slot
• Ports: 2 USB 2.0 ports, VGA, stereo microphone in, stereo headphone/line out, FireWire, power jack, RJ-11 modelm, RJ-45 ethernet, docking connector for HP 2400/2500 ultra-light docking station
• Input: Full-sized ekyboard, dual pointing device
• Dimensions: (h x w x d) 0.97-in x 11.11 in x 8.38 in
• Weight: starting at 3.2lbs
• Power: 9-cell (83 WHr), 6-cell (55 WHr) or 3-cell (28 WHr)
• Warranty: 3-year limited, 1-year on battery

Design

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The HP Compaq 2510p looks like a mini-me version of the larger 6510b (14&quot and 8510p (15&quot business notebooks. HP uses the same design across its line of business notebooks, which is a good thing, they've standardized on a professional yet stylish bluish-silver metallic lid with black trim on the inside that should appeal to just about anyone. The front corners are slightly rounded to give a nice smooth look and to avoid any sharp edges from poking you.

The LED lights on the front right side of the 2510p help to give it an added stylish look, and above the keyboard there are light-up touch sensitive controls that look more elegant and futuristic than a regular old push button. The smoothly integrated touchpad provides a nice clean look as well. The keyboard and screen bezel are a matte black color, this provides a fine look as well as making sure dirt and fingerprints don't show up.

Build

The overall build quality of the HP 2510p is very good. A latch is used to hold the screen down when stowed, I really like the rubber gripped latch opener because it's easy to feel and find without looking down at the notebook and easy to operate. There's no fiddling to open the screen.

The lid of the notebook is constructed of a firm mag-alloy material and will endure the bumps of the road. When the back of the lid is pushed on no screen ripples appear, indicating that the protection is quite adequate. The same mag alloy material is used on the palm rests area which makes sure this area is sturdy and doesn't sink under the weight of your hands. The keyboard is also firm with absolutely no mushiness or sink to it.

The 2510p has an integrated optical drive, quite rare for ultraportables (view large image)

The hard drive is shock mounted for protection, though there is no fancy accelerometer like ThinkPads have that lifts the hard drive head in the event of a drop. The entire bottom of the laptop is as sturdy as the lid with little flex to it, so your protection there should be good. Overall the 2510p is a very well built and solid feeling little laptop.

A look at the under side of the notebook (view large image)

Travelling - Weight and Battery Life

While using the Compaq 2510p I had the opportunity to take it on some travels, which is what an ultraportable is designed to do. The 2510p was used on a 4-hour train ride between Boston and New York and on a plane trip I took between Cincinnati and New York. Even though my regular 14-inch screen laptop weighs a fairly light 5lbs, it was so nice to have a laptop that had a weight of just over 3lbs, I could hardly tell it was in my backpack as it weighs less than some textbooks. The real miracle with the 2510p is that it has an integrated optical drive -- something I really prefer to have that a majority of ultraportables leave out. I weighed the 2510p using a scale and below are the readings for various weight configurations:

HP 2510p Configuration	Weight
With 3-cell battery	3.22 lbs
With 6-cell battery	3.56 lbs
With 3-cell battery and power adapter + cord	4.06 lbs
With 6-cell battery and power adapter + cord	4.40 lbs

You can configure the 2510p with integrated Verizon or AT&amp;T broadband access. I can attest that on the train you can actually stay connected 90% of the time if you're travelling on the East coast of the U.S. at least. Pretty cool! It allowed me to crank out some work I couldn't have done without being connected.

When I wasn't doing work, I had a DVD from Netflix that I had just received and wanted to watch, and having the integrated optical drive (DVD +/- RW) made that easy. Yes, I know you can convert media and put it on your hard drive for viewing, but when time is a premium then it's much less hassle to just have a disc you can pop-in to the machine itself.

Above is an image of the 2510p with the 6-cell battery in, you can see it protrudes from the back (view large image)

I had two different batteries for the 2510p, a small 3-cell battery and a larger sized 6-cell that sticks out of the back of the notebook. The larger battery adds more life at the cost of additional weight. I'm willing to carry a bit more weight for the extra battery life, it's always nice to have both types of batteries so you can pick your &quot;weapon of choice&quot; depending on the situation. Using the 3-cell battery with wi-fi on and screen brightness at half I got 3 hours and 10 minutes of usage. With the 6-cell battery with wi-fi on and screen brightness at half I got 6 hours and 20 minutes of usage. Extrapolate the results and you would expect the high capacity 9-cell battery to give you about 9 hours of battery life. Quite amazing.

Input and Output Ports

The Compaq 2510p has everything you really need and would expect to find in an ultraportable. Below is a picture tour of what you get on each side.

Front side:

On the front you simply have a latch for opening the screen up. The LED light indicators can be seen on the left side.

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Left side:

On the left side of the notebook are located a power jack, modem port and powered USB port. You also see the optical drive, a DVD SuperMulti in this case. Very nice to have in an ultraportable.

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Right side:

On the right side of the notebook is a PC card slot, SD card reader, FireWire port, headphone jack, microphone in, USB port, monitor out port and then an expansion dock connector.

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Back:

On the back of the notebook we just have the Ethernet port and a Kensington lock slot.

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If that selection of ports is not enough for you when on the go, then HP offers a docking station so you have more options when at your desk. The docking station includes two extra USB ports, audio out, mouse connector, parallel port, DVI, modem jack, Ethernet jack, monitor out, Serial port, keyboard connector, audio-in jack, composite video port and S-video jack.

Heat and Noise

The Compaq 2510p is mostly quiet in terms of fan noise, in fact in my time with the 2510p I never noticed the fans rev up to full speed except for when booting up. The Intel ULV processor certainly helps in regards to keeping overall system temperatures fairly low and the fan mostly unnecessary. The hard drive actually turned out to be louder than the fans, when it's working hard you can hear it clicking away. There was a mild electric buzz that could be heard emitting from the machine, but only if you put your head down next to it and truly listened for such a noise.

There is some heat buildup that occurs on the system to the extent you can feel a temperature difference among certain areas. In particular the right palm rest got quite a bit warmer than the left, but not to the point it was uncomfortable. Below are graphics of temperatures (in degrees Fahrenheit) measured in each area of the notebook:

The temperatue on the right palm rest was warmer than the left (view large image)

 

The under side of the notebook on the back right side also got quite warm after the system had been on for a time.

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The temperatures you see diagrammed above are all quite normal and nothing that will feel more than just a bit warm to the touch when against the skin.

Processor and Performance

The HP 2510p uses an Intel ULV processor and integrated graphics, this is important because due to the tight space inside an ultraportable it's hard to dissipate heat, so a lower powered processor and graphics chipset really helps to keep the heat down. The disadvantage is of course you won't get the break neck performance speed you can cram into larger laptops. However, for the typical business person a 1.20GHz Intel U7600 processor will be just fine for email, web browsing, Office applications and whatever CRM application your company might be using. I personally used the 2510p for writing this review, some light web development using Visual Studio, lots of web browsing and running benchmark applications. The system was always responsive and generally free of lag.

Super Pi

SuperPi is a tool to measure relative CPU performance, it forces the processor to calculate Pi to 2-million digits of accuracy in our case.  As you can see the U7600 inside the 2510p isn't the fastest, but it beats older Pentium M systems.

Notebook	Time
HP Compaq 2510p (1.2GHz Core 2 Duo U7600)	1m 49s
ThinkPad X61s (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo L7500)	1m 08s
ThinkPad X61 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7300)	1m 01s
Macbook Pro (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo T7700)	53s
HP 6515b (1.6GHz Turion64 X2 TL-52)	2m 05s
ThinkPad T42 (1.8GHz Pentium M 745)	1m 58s
Sony TX850p (1.2GHz Core Solo U1400)	1m 22s
Dell Latitude D420 (1.2GHz Core Duo U2500)	1m 57s
PortableOne UX (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200)	1m 04s
HP dv5000z (2.0GHz Sempron 3300+)	2m 02s
ThinkPad R60 (1.66GHz Core Duo T2300e)	1m 26s
Lenovo C100 (1.5GHz Celeron M)	2m 19s
VAIO S380 (1.86 GHz Pentium M 740)	1m 45s

 

PCMark05

PCMark05 is a benchmarking software application which measures overall system performance.  The Compaq 2510p performed in line with other ultraportables, but of course fell short of scores from notebooks that have a regularly powered processor.

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
HP Compaq 2510p (1.20GHz Intel U7600, Intel X3100)	2,339 PCMarks
Sony VAIO TZ90HS (1.2GHz Core 2 Duo ULV U7600)	2,517 PCMarks
Fujitsu LifeBook P7230 (Core Solo CPU U1400, 1.20GHz, Integrated graphics)	1,152 PCMarks
ThinkPad R60 (1.66 GHz Core Duo, Intel 950)	2,975 PCMarks
Fujitsu HP Compaq 2510p is definitely a strong option in the ultraportable category. It improves on the previous Compaq nc2400 by offering a built-in optical drive while still keeping the weight about the same. The 2510p has a solid build and professional look. While it may not be as flashy as the competing Toshiba R500 or Sony VAIO TZ in terms of design, I think business people might prefer what I consider better usability, more durable build and more mature security and software suite the HP 2510p provides. The notebook isn't perfect, the pointing stick issue and average display brightness that doesn't live up to the "illumi-lite" billing that would lead you to expect a blazing bright display is dissapointing. I'd love to see SSD offered to boost performance over the standard 1.8" hard drive as well. Outside of that the HP 2510p is close to being a home-run for all the features it offers in such a small package, I'd certainly be happy to have it as a permanent travel companion![/p] Pros Integrated optical drive in a package just over 3lbs Quality build, will be able to take the beating of typical business travel Very good battery life Good keyboard, comfortable to use despite small system size Professional and stylish look Offers every type of wireless, including built-in WWAN, a business user could want Cons Issues with using the pointing stick in conjunction with a mouse click Poor speaker Slow hard drive performance Right palm rest gets warm

 

Thanks for the nice review Andrew. Good to finally read a review of the 2510p. By the looks of it is quite a nice ultraportable.

 

wow, I really like this laptop a lot!

I used to not really like the x61 because of the lack of an optical drive, but this pretty much solves that problem imo.

nicely done review, Andrew!

 

Great review. I love the temperature measurements in the photo - very cool.

One correction: the nc2400 does have a built-in optical drive. (Are you thinking of the nc4400?) The 2510p adds a touchpad, however.

 

Nice review.

The battery life is impressive, no doubt helped by the low voltage CPU. However, it also suggests that the X3100 graphics can be very economical on power

John

 

It is a pity more manufacturers don't use ULV processors... the effect on battery life is clear to see.

 

Ooh, nice catch, for some reason my brain was telling me the nc2400 came without an optical drive but you're right, it does. Thanks for the correction, I adusted the review!

 

the temperature measurements in the photos are great. If more reviews include this, we'll have an objective way to answer "how hot does it get?" (as long as the enviornment is controlled, room temp, surface type, and system load when measurements are taken.)
What did you use to take the measurements?

 

Thanks for the review Andrew. I really appreciate the graphic of temperatures. It's very useful.

On the specs for the laptop you comment I read: "Hard Drive: 1.8-in PATA 100GB 4200RPM", but on the HDTune picture, I see the hard disk model is MK8009GAH ( 80GB). What's the right one, 80GB o 100GB?

Thanks again.

 

Simply Amazing!!!! Very nice review, and I agree with liquid ice, what tool did you use to get the temps? A thermometer? hmm I got one of those somewhere?

Battery life!!!! WOW! So what the CPU is slightly slower than normal, we all know the Hard drive is the slowest component in all notebooks and desktops. I wish there were more notebooks using this processor and X3100 integrated card.

I wouldn't mind getting a 14" portable notebook with a great screen, 6 cell battery not sticking out , X3100, and amazing battery life with an array of ports. (all for 1500 CAD or less)

Thanks for the review Andrew, if you don't mind using NHC and posting the discharge rate that would be nice, i bet it was somewhere around 10-12 watts per hour!! Which is really low.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

My D420 seems so old and outdated at this point. Still, it was under $1000 when I got it, so I guess that helps with the pain...

Does Compaq use the same docking station as the HPs?

 

I bought this notebook last week so I have some experience with it.
If not necessery use XP on this system. I have Vista and performance is not very good. Anyway 2510p is a very nice system for travelling people. You do not need special bag for computer, just put in your standard bag and go
Maybe screen shoud be more powerful for daily light, but it is still OK. Excellent touchpad.

 

Sorry, the HDTune is right and I mistyped saying it's 100GB. It's actually an 80GB 4200RPM drive.

We plan on using this more in the future. The temps were taken using a mini infrared thermometer like this.

 

I see you're watching Letters from Iwo Jima...

 

Nice review, the 2510p is one of the laptops I wish have.

 

great review, looks like a good machine, fantastic battery life, looks like the led backlit screen and ulv processor really makes a difference

 

Very good review.

I really like the part about the temperation readings on the picture!

Does anyone know of any laptop smaller or equal to 13.3" screen where the palm rest doesnt get warm?

 

Oh dear lord that battery life is sickening. That's the stuff I'm talking about! 6 hours plus with a six cell.

Now all they need to do is replace the ULV CPU with a normal voltage one and up it to an SSD and try to keep it within the same power consumption envelope - probably not practical since I'm sure the CPU contributes a solid block to the battery life.

Great review.

 

That's about the best review I've seen here -- thanks! Very nice machine ... seems to stack up quite favorably to a Latitude D430, with less weight and built-in DVD, as well. Nice machine.

 

Thanks for the great review, Andrew!

I'm planning on getting this machine within the next days. A few questions:

Does using Kingston RAM instead of HP's cancel warranty? Because I'd save about $150 by buying the 1GB version of the 2510p and an additionnal 2GB RAM from Kingston. What do you reckon?

What's the height at the back with the 6-cell?

Are all those HP tools and applications a slow-down to the system or are they really worth it? Do you suggest doing a clean install of Vista first?

 

Why Kingston? You can always get 2 GB of ram from Crucial for really cheap.

 

Adding RAM will not void the warranty.

 

Nice to have another review besides the one on CNet and a few scattered forum threads. Your photos are especially good. I've been trying to get a decent look at the thing. Bit disappointing to find out about the heat considering it's a ULV.

 

One thing that bugs me is that this laptop doesn't allow me to use all my existing HP accessories, i.e. docking station or travel battery, so I'm forced to purchase another docking station specifically for it. They should make the docking station the same for this model too since it's being used in all the other bigger models already.

 

It's 1.25 inches at the back with the 6-cell. Personally I would leave the HP tools and apps on there. They're somewhat useful and don't bog the system down.

 

I have an NC2400 for work but it is pretty similar to this model so can give some feedback on a couple items above:

- 6 cell battery: As Andrew noted the 6-cell battery extends further out the back of the laptop. It does not change the height of the laptop. The 3-cell battery is flush with outside dimensions of the laptop. The 9-cell battery extends out the back, and also extends downward so it tilts the laptop up in the back. Looking from the side, think of it sort of like a triangle. Probably similar to the extended batteries from Sony and other manufacturers.

- Battery life: I think the LED screen must help nicely with the battery life on the 2510p. With my 6 cell, I don't think I get much more than 4 hours with my NC2400 with wi-fi on and screen at full brightness doing office kind of work. With my 9-cell, maybe 7 hours. The 3 cell wasn't available when we ordered my machine, but given these battery times I wouldn't travel with it b/c it wouldn't last long enough.

Overall, the NC2400 is a very solid laptop, and I think a very strong choice for business users (and personal users who like a no-nonsense laptop at just under 4 lbs). The NC2510p looks like an excellent upgrade and gives the venerable X61 a real run for its money!

For my own personal use, I prefer an even lighter machine (my personal notebook right now is a Latitude X1 and for an upgrade I'm looking at the Toshiba R500).

 

Not quite correct. According to HP's specs, the 2510p features HP 3D Driveguard technology (see http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12717_na/12717_na.HTML:

3D Driveguard performs the following:

"HP 3D DriveGuard is a complete system that provides both active and passive protection:
• A three-axis digital accelerometer senses sudden movement and instructs the system software to temporarily park the hard drive.
• When you're on the move, the hard drive parks indefinitely - until the notebook is motionless for 20 seconds, the lid opens, AC power is connected, or the battery runs down."​

For more info, see http://www.hp.com/sbso/solutions/pc_expertise/professional_innovations/design-engineering.html

Other than the above point, great review Andrew!

 

I've been a very happy nc2400 user for well over a year now.

To reiterate and emphasise a few points already made, the nc2400 shell is identical, the 2510p basically adds a touchpad and the new LED screen.

Important to note is the the 2000 series docking station is very neat and compact and works well for daily use (I use a docking station in the office and take the laptop home each night). Oh, and the 2000 docking station is compatible with both nc2400 and 2510p

My nc2400 is an old model, with an old Core Solo processor, so even with 1gb RAM it runs really slowly... I knew it would be slow when I bought it, but I'm ready now for the upgrade to the 2510p.

Now a question for you folks... I have never used Vista (use XP Pro), and am concerned that Vista will slow the 2510p down too much.

I'm perfectly happy with XP Pro, just want a slightly faster laptop... would you recommend sticking with an XP Pro install ?

Thanks in advance.

 

***Excellent review Andrew with the exception/correction of: Cons -Issues with using the pointing stick in conjunction with a mouse click Originally, I had thought the same. Untill I had realized the design feature of this point stick was to first disable the touchpad using the button controls. I love the sensitivity of the touch pad and placement however without disabling the touch pad, functionality of the point stick is very eratic. At last, this 2510p has meet all of my expectations. Who could not love the size and weight factors.

 

Hi Tome,

I have 2510p (1,2GHz, 2 GB RAM) with Vista and computer is not very fast. If you need it only for Office and e-mailing that is is OK, but for anything more it would be better with XP I thing. If you need print, your pust buttom print, than 3 or 4 sec. nothing happend... On my old ThinkPad with 1,6GHz centrino and XP Prof i did not wait for this. But really shock was first two days of using 2510p - hard drive was still wokring and performace was so poor. But now (1 week later) it is much better.

If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask me.

Pete

 

Nice review! The battery life is truly amazing, you would be looking at nearly 10 hours on a 9 cell battery :EEK:

HP is selling refurbished nc2400s starting at $599, and this review makes them look very tempting.

 

Hmm, it still seems to say:

Overall, a very nice review Andrew. One question, how far back does the screen rotate? Does it go 180* flat?

 

My NC2400 does, so presume the 2510 would as well.

 

how noisy is the NC2510 or NC2400 ? e.g. with comparison of dell D420 .. which I have got and I found the notebook way too noisy

 

Thanks for a great review. But you mention that there is a DVI port in the docking station. According to HP, the docking station (HP 2400/2500 Series Docking Station) for this model only has a vga port, which is very unfortunate when everybody has high resolution lcd displays nowadays...

 

Yes, it should only have VGA ports. The reviewer must have confused it with the standard dock.

 

I can also confirm my 2400 dock only has VGA. I can also confirm that every day I need to hit auto-configure on my monitor to improve the display which usually starts up fuzzy (this isn't the case with my other VGA-connected monitor on my Dell X1)

 

I think that all HP business models can share the same docking station as they are built to. The only problem is if the GPU support the DVI port. I'm using the standard docking station of HP which has a DVI port for my NC4000 but unfortunately enough, my GPU does not support DVI or at least I dont know how to make the DVI port work!

 

Andrew, from what've you said, where is the missing 4000 series? Is it the ultraportable with reasonable performance (T7300-7500) not the low-voltage one? Any ideas if it is gonna be release? Thanks

 

I used to have an NC4200 which pre-dated my NC2400. It was probably just under 4 lbs, 12" 4:3 screen. I don't know if HP still makes this series.

FYI, ironically via my NC4200's docking station I was able to drive my monitor via DVI!

 

Nice review Andrew. I do like this machine. I have a question maybe you can help me with. the 2510 is supposed to have embedded BIOS support for Computrace. I don't see anything in the BIOS for computrace. I spoke with HP and don't seem to know. When you go into your BIOS, do you see anything? I just setup a Dell D830 and they had a computrace entry. Thanks

 

Hi,

i like that laptop. But i have a question about the fan. Does it run all the time or is it off if the laptop idle?

I'm looking for a absolutly silent laptop in office-mode. That means programming, emailing, office (word, excel, powerpoint) and making a presentation. Such that jobs which made no loading or just very less (10-20% but not the whole time).

Would be nice if an owner of that 2510p could give me an answer about the fan-activity. Please.

greetings

 

big question: 2510p or the x61? naturally it depends on your needs, but as an overall judgment?

 

In order for you to enable the computrace feature you have to first purchase a license from Absolute software and they will send you an MSI file customized with your information that will enable the feature. The 2510p's work quite nicely with this feature. My company is rolling out these machines to our sales force and they will all have computrace enabled.

 

I have never noticed the fan running. In fact I just turned it on to see what it sounds like and I could tell it was running when I first powered it on but then it went silent. I don't think you'll have to worry about fan noise.

 

I was wondering if anyone has tried cloning the drives on the 2510p's. We have a Kanguru cloning machine that we'd like to be able to use to clone them with since we currently don't have the infrastructure for network deployment. I can't seem to find a connector that will work with these hard drives. I'm sure that the connector is proprietary to HP and after several attempts to get a solution from HP I have given up. Does anyone have any third party options that I can use?

 

Just to correct the review of this notebook, but the 2510p does have a built in accelerometer, you just need to install the software manually yourself. I borrowed the software from a 6910P. If I hold the notebook and drop down rapidly the hard drive light stays on as it parks the hdd head.

 

I'm concerned about the screen quality of this machine. I'm constantly in move and need light, reliable and not so battery hungry machine.

 

Hey I was wondering has anyone tried replacing the hard drive with a more faster one? Or it cannot be replaced.

 

Screen quality is good, but viewing angles aren't so. However, backlighting is even and brightness is sufficient.

The fastest hard drive available now is the 1.8" 120GB 5400rpm model from Toshiba/Samsung. The latest batch of 2510p's have them.