Made for business users on a budget looking for a big screen and enough performance to last the next few years, HP’s 4720s is the newest 17-inch member of the company’s popular ProBook line. With a snappy Core i5 CPU, discrete graphics, a high-res 1600 x 900 screen, and good battery life, this desktop replacement (starting at $925; $1,059 as configured) has what it takes to sit on a lot of desks. We also like the built-in software and security options. Unfortunately, an awkward touchpad prevents the 4720s from getting a higher rating.

Design
At 6.8 pounds and 16.2 x 10.5 x 1.1 inches, the 4720s is considerably more portable than other 17 and 18-inch systems like the Toshiba Satellite P505 (8.6 pounds), Dell Studio 17 (7.8 pounds), and Acer Aspire 8940G (9.2 pounds). Like other ProBooks, the 4720s has a brushed aluminum lid and deck with a glossy black plastic bezel and keyboard mount. Unlike the ProBook 5310m, which had a slick black aluminum lid and deck, the 4720s’s lid and deck are a bland coffee color. The bottom of the machine is constructed from hard plastic.



Keyboard and Touchpad
At first glance, the ProBook 4720s’s keyboard seems like everything we’d want in a workstation keyboard; it has a numeric keypad, all the keys are properly positioned, and there’s plenty of room to stretch out. As soon as we hpprobook4720s_sf_touchpad.jpgstarted typing, our opinion changed. The keys were a little small for our fingers, and not as responsive as we’d like. On the Ten Thumbs typing test, we scored a weak 74 words per minute with a subpar 4-percent error rate, while our typical score is 80 wpm with a 1-percent error rate.

The touchpad is much more difficult to work with than the keyboard, and the cursor jumped around as we navigated the desktop. Because the mouse buttons are built into the touchpad, users who use both hands will have a serious problem with the pointer jumping as they try to click. The pad supports multitouch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom, but we found them to be rather jerky and hard to control.



Quick Specs :
CPU: 2.26-GHz Intel Core i5 M450
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional (32-bit)
RAM/Upgradable to: 4GB/4GB
Hard Drive Size/Speed: 500GB/7,200 rpm
Display Size/Resolution: 17.3 inches/1600 x 900
Optical Drive: 8X DVD-RW
Graphics Card/Video Memory: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4500/512MB