A few months ago we posted our review of the HP ProBook 6360b, the latest addition to HP's "b" series notebooks and their starting time in a xiii.three" grade factor. Today we'll be looking at another business-form notebook from HP, the EliteBook 8460p. Equally its proper name suggests, this arrangement is a step above the standard business-minded 6360b and as such, it's billed equally a Large Enterprise Business organization product. The "professional" EliteBook retails for near $300 more than the ProBook, merely is that premium worthwhile?

Our review unit is armed with an Intel Cadre i5-2520M operating at two.50GHz (3.2GHz Turbo Boost), 4GB of 1333 MHz DDR3 memory, a 320GB 7200RPM hard drive, Intel Centrino 802.11 a/b/yard/n, Bluetooth ii.1 + EDR, a removable 6-cell (62WHr) Li-Ion battery, a DVD +/-RW SuperMulti DL optical drive with LightScribe and a 14.0" LED-backlit Hd anti-glare display with a native resolution of 1366 x 768. Graphics are processed using an AMD Radeon HD 6470M with 1GB of dedicated DDR3 retention.

As configured today, our sample machine retails for $1,061.99 at Newegg.

The arrangement measures 13.31" x 9.11" ten 1.25" (Westward/D/H) and weighs 4.56lbs, making it slightly thinner than the 6360b but at the same time, nigh half a pound heavier. Fifty-fifty with the decreased thickness, the organisation is still a little bit fatter than most other recent notebooks we've looked at.

At first glance the two business organization notebooks appear very similar, only there are some pretty obvious differences. Much like the ProBook, the EliteBook features an HP DuraFinish smudge, wear and scratch-resistant blanket on the outer shell that will go along the system looking newer for longer.

The color is dissimilar every bit the EliteBook features a platinum paint scheme while the ProBook had a tungsten tint. The same stylized HP logo tin be found on the lid. This unit of measurement featured an enhanced HP DuraCase which is designed to run into military standards (MIL-STD 810G for driblet, vibration, dust, temperature, stupor, altitude and high temperature).

On the front end of the EliteBook is a push-button way lid latch on the bottom base of operations. The left side has four pin-pigsty sized LED activity indicators. From left to right: wireless, ability, charging and disk activeness.

The right side has accommodations for headphones and a microphone, an eSATA/USB philharmonic port, powered USB port, a DisplayPort connector, cooling vents and a Kensington lock slot. On the back of the notebook is a modem jack, VGA-out and a network jack. The aluminum hinge and removable battery are also easily viewable from this vantage point.

The left side shows the ability connector, 1394a connector, ii USB three.0 connectors, an SD/MMC menu reader, a 54mm ExpressCard slot and the optical bulldoze.

The bottom of the notebook is nearly identical to what we saw on the ProBook, which was pleasing. There are several safe feet that provide stability and lift, a docking port and secondary bombardment connector. This notebook also uses the same quick-release access console, making it easy to get inside for maintenance or upgrades.

Under the access console, nosotros find that there is an boosted RAM expansion bay and it looks like the optical drive can exist taken out by removing a screw.

Nosotros found the speaker placement a scrap odd. This EliteBook uses 2 speakers: one is left of the lid latch near the front of the system while the other is further left of this, near the side of the system past the optical drive tray. We will explore the furnishings of this later in the review.

The six-row chiclet-manner keyboard is virtually identical to what's used on the ProBook. Once again, this is a skillful thing every bit we really liked the layout and experience of that board. At that place is no backlight, although HP has included a tiny pop-out keyboard light beside the webcam at the top of the display. It's a overnice gesture only virtually useless.

One key difference, nonetheless, is that HP has included a Pointstick and two pick buttons -- very similar to Lenovo's TrackPoint pointing device. Additionally, the touchpad is 0.5" wider than the ProBook's and the mouse click buttons retain the same slap-up feel.

In a conference phone call to talk over the notebook's features, HP claimed the touchpad was constructed of chemically strengthened glass, but when I pressed for more details, the HP team declined to comment further on the type of chemical or anything else about it.

A fingerprint reader is situated on the correct side of the palm rest merely under the arrow keys. The 14.0" LED-backlit Hard disk drive anti-glare brandish is surrounded by a blackness bezel that looks fitting. An integrated webcam is centered in a higher place the display with dual microphones on either side of the lens. While we weren't sent ane for testing, there are optional external batteries bachelor that attach to the bottom of the ProBook for extended battery life, including the BB09 Ultra Extended Life bombardment that claims up to 32 hours of runtime.