In this document I will review the Hp Compaq 2230s notebook in terms of design and tech specs which will be totally operating system exclusive, then later on review the system coupled together with a UNIX based operating system using a hard disk install.
To start with let's approach this system from outside through inside dealing with the operating system and abilities later on.
1. External:
First of all the chassis is very attractive for a business grade laptop. No frills and spills with gimmicky coloration or graphics designs. Plain black enclosure with a very ergonomic and functional yet easy to use layout. Dimensionally the machine is very small, cute and compact with its 12.1” screen fitting very well within the tiltable housing with an inbuilt 0.3MP VGA webcam centered above with a stereo microphone surrounding it. No speakers to be seen as they are cleverly tucked away under the perforated bar just above the keyboard, the bar is of high quality material resembling carbon fiber and adds increased structural rigidity to the overall spaceframe (chassis).
Also included in the bar, is the power button, HP information button (only for MS Windows), presentation button, 802.11 wireless controller on/off switch, mute button and volume control scroll zone. Below the keyboard is the trackpad with scroll slider and mouse buttons.
All of the buttons above the keyboard light up with good luminous intensity making them easy to view and also change color depending on which mode they are in (on/off, or inuse). In fact since these buttons are only hotkeys they can be reconfigured and used for launching other processes or performing other functions, of course this all depends on how good the users' hacking skills are as one would need to hack through finding out which ASCII value is generated by each key and then reconfigure accordingly if using nonMS based OS's such as UNIX based systems.
The screen tilts to 120˚ which is a bit of a shame as a 180˚ tilt would be much better, however saying that it really isn't that much of big issue as the 180˚ tilt would be a bit difficult to achieve utilizing the same hinge mechanism that is currently in place. This hinge mechanism also gives the notebook an added level of attractiveness when opened so the 60˚ sacrifice isn't that much to pay and also one can adapt their personal viewing style to compensate.
Overall luminosity is good for the display, although I'm not sure if the model in front of me came with the 'standard' or 'high brightness' screen which is also listed on the HP.com website. The resolution at 1280x800 is pretty good and actually probably enough for this type of machine being in the 'ultraportable' range as this is not a gaming laptop and for work related environments is more then sufficient. In fact 1280x800 seems about the norm with this size of screen as another one of my machines with a 12.1” WXGA 16:10 format display, also comes with the same resolution which is perfect viewing size. I think any higher resolution and seeing what's on the display would be very difficult indeed in a generic sense, especially with small text and icon sizes.
While the display is closed the machine feels rock solid and upon opening it, the motion is smooth and when positioned at the desired viewing angle sits perfectly with nothing but physical intervention or a gale force wind being able to move it.
The keyboard feels incredibly solid with absolutely no structural flex at all while typing and even gives the sensation that there are no components underneath, only a solid surface which is a pretty welcome illusion. Likewise the palm rests do a similar job of keeping the structural rigidity intact when pressure is applied and when palms are rested on them feel very comfortable to type on for an elongated period of time. Even when picked up with the screen opened in 'user operation mode' the spaceframe does a very good job of canceling torsional and tensile stress applied to the chassis which results again in a very solid feel. The only disappointing side is the structural strength under the CDROM drive. When picked up and fingers are positioned on this point there is quite a bit of chassis flex which gets worse if fingers are positioned directly below the drives bezel which actually bends.
2. Internal and Tech Specs:
The Hp Compaq 2230s has a very attractive specification list; This list includes the Intel Core2Duo T6570 processor running at a clock frequency of 2.1GHz with 2MB L2 cache and an 800MHz front side bus. The system is capable of taking up to 8GB of memory which for a 12.1” laptop is actually quite impressive, of course this is provided that one has installed a 64bit operating system which utilizes EM64T (extended memory technology) as a 32bit OS is limited to only ~4GB memory (theoretical max as realistic
maximum is somewhat less due to system resource mappings and GPU memory which also needs to be mapped – can be approximated by calculation: (2^32) gives 4.29x10^9 which then dividing by 1024^3 results in 4GB).
For the remaining hardware list; a hybrid discrete/integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD GFX accelerator with up to 384MB of VRAM. This is actually quite interesting as 256MB of memory is dedicated to the GPU with 128MB being shareable with the host based OS, this is powered by the Intel GM45 chipset.
Again, as already mentioned the system can take up to 8GB of memory utilizing the dual channel memory capabilities of DDR2 Synchronous Dynamic Random Access based chipsets. This actually means that using any single SODIMM (small outline dual inline