HP ProBook 4520s Review Discussion

The HP ProBook 4520s is a small and medium business notebook that replaces the older 4510s from last year. The new model bumps the configuration from the older Intel Core 2 Duo family of processors to the newer Intel Core line, including the Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. In this review we look at what's changed and how the latest model stacks up against its predecessor.

Read the full content of this Article: HP ProBook 4520s Review

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I thought it was a good deal at $749 until I saw the "15.6" and "1366x768" in a sentence. That is not a high enough resolution for a business notebook.

Other than that, looks solid.

 

I would like to see 1600x900 standard on 15'' notebooks as much as the next guy but it is looking more and more like that is not gonna ever happen

Still seems like a solid notebook for the price though I question the solid bottom with lack of coverings to remove for upgrades. How do you get to the internals of the notebook?

 

Maybe it's for the older biz folks with deteriorating eyesight.

 

Spent couple of minutes with it and its smallest brother 4320s in store.
Screen flexed alot when twisting its corners, you could see ripples on the screen when applied moderate pressure to the back of it.
Keyboard was very low-profile (ie, barely rised above surrounding piano painted plastic), not to my liking, travel seemed very short, not shure, maybe im too much addicted to desktop keyboards but still it seemed like sunken too deep into laptop and keys too low height-wise above the surrounding plastics.
Also, the keyboard itself had decent amount of flex and the surrounding plastics flexed with it too, quite bad imo.
Overall cheap impression, btw, if you intend to get one anyway, then chose bordeaux one, not the black one (caviar?), because black one looks like cheap toy and is tasteless imo like a cheap plastic.
The smaller 4320s model had some flex too, not as much as 4520s, but still it was present.
Honesltly, i was disappointed because was debating of whether to get one or not and this review seemed like a bonus towards getting one.

 

Is it noisy?

 

Read the review, its said that its not noisy, but considering how they handled the build quality part it might be quite noisy in the end
Just assumption from my side tho.
In store it wasnt possible to test it since there was quite loud music playing in the background so cant comment from personal experience+linux was locked with password thus couldnt play much with them.

 

Agreed. I also think it is too small a max res for a business class notebook.

 

I was recently given a hp4520s through my company for work and I happen to be in a hotel where you need to plug a phone line in to the lap top, I have the symbol where the plug in should be on my lap top but there's just a plug in it, is this laptop not capable of that or did I get an abnormal one

 

The 56k modem is an option. Generally the rubber plug in the port means you didn't get the one with the modem.

 

Thanks for the quick reply,Is it possible to have it added or would it not be worth it? It was purchased at staples buisness depot, do you think it would be possible to return it for one with the 56k modem because the display model we looked at had it I'm pretty sure
Thanks matt

 

any one can comment more on the screen?

I went to staples here in Montreal, Canada to have a look at it and really like the notebook , except the screen. don't know if that unit was defective or if the screen needs a recalibration, but it didn't look that sharp or bright

does Hp use different panels in the same lineup? the one in this review looks much better than what I saw in the store. The notebook had an ati radeon graphics card and i5.

 

Probably. The 15.6" 1366x768 is one of the most common resolutions out there so they're quite likely to get displays from multiple suppliers.

By the way, are the reviewers sure it uses DDR2-800 RAM or is this a typo? Intel chipsets have not used DDR2 since Montevina.

 

this notebook has ddr3 1066mhz.


yeah i'm sure they have different suppliers. although I heard some people on the hp forum with dv6 and ati card having pixelated images. don't know if it has something to do with the card. most intel card have nice image from what I can see.

 

if someone has this notebook can you take some screen pics to see. thanks

 

Hi,

I am a student, who will be heading to university soon, and I am looking for a reliable notebook. Is the HP Probook 4520s good enough to last me about 4 years in university? And, how is the overall build quality and the durability of this notebook?

Thanks in advance guys.

 

The 4520s has decent quality, better than most consumer notebooks, but before I'd buy a budget business notebook like a ProBook, I'd look at a Dell Latitude from the Dell Outlet. Better all-around quality.

Maybe fill out our FAQ and we can help you more:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...ould-i-buy-form-must-read-before-posting.html
Copy + paste that into a new thread in that forum (not in this thread), answer the questions - should help us out a lot.

 

Crap over priced for the features- win 32-bit? heck no. Maybe 350-400 worth.

 

Thanks guys. I am a canadian, and therefore have been following, a US localization model sold in Canada, with some nice features such as an i7 processor, 4 gb ram, win 7 64 bit, and a 9 cell battery. Is it worth it for a price of 1099?

 

In the US, that's expensive unless it has some special warranty. 899-999 is more reasonable.
The limited screen resolution (1366x768) on the 4520s prevents me from recommending it period though.

 

I recently bought the 4520s with i3 380m 2gb 320gb hd from tigerdirect.com for 450. out of the box it ran ok, slowed down with some multitasking, but fine for internet surfing, browsing, word processing, etc. What i did do was purchased 8gb ddr3 kit from newegg.com and replaced the single 2gb stick and wow what a difference. my windows experience rating went from cpu-6.2 memory-5.9 to cpu-6.6 memory-6.8. 530 bucks well spent. you need to make sure it has 64 bit windows to take advantage of the ram, of course. (optional) I also purchased a intel core i7 620m Engineering Sample off ebay for 130$ and sold the i3-380m for 180$. making my total price back down to 480$ and WOW. Multitasking wont slow this thing down now and i noticed playing starcraft 2 graphics when in the turbo-boost mode gets quite a bit better. Pretty accessible upgrade too if you know what you're doing. only requires removal of the keyboard and a metal shield.

 

someone claims that this laptop with ati graphic card can be switchable with intel if u install intel driver first then ati driver , can anyone confirm this?

 

Good day forum users, will not you help me with my problem. I bought a laptop HP Probook 4520s SN:xx762ea#acb with Video Card : Mobility radeon 6370. Installed Windows XP on it, so it's not working properly. This is noticeable when you use the camera function in the Excel . The text all the time is compressed, on other computers it is well. And it is not only, in general the images are not very well on computer. Tried all the drivers that were on the site, still does not help. And so I praise this card, but it is not better than my old one. Don't you tell me what could be the reason?