LinkBack URL
About LinkBacks
Intro:
A couple of months ago I was in the market for a new PC and came to GottaBeMobile for good advice on what to buy...I really lucked out as the guys here had just started a round of previews on the upcoming PCs from Lenovo and HP so I knew enough about the market to wait for the latest and greatest. I've decided to write this review for this site as the people here really helped me make an educated decision and I'm hoping that my 2 cents will help others in similar situations make a good choice. I'm a student, so making the decision to buy a particular PC was a huge one due to my limited resources...I'm going to be using the computer for a long time and if I messed things up, it would have been a huge problem/headache (I bet a lot of us are in this situation though).
Note: I won't go through the hardware et al. with pictures as Warner has already done a fantastic job of showing you through video what the 2730p looks like and how it compares to other systems out there. I thought it would be more useful to share my uses and experiences with the 2730p.
Background:
I'll talk briefly about who I am and what I'm doing to give an idea of how I use the PC. I've been a professional student for 9 years now and am currently finishing a Ph.D in Molecular Cell Biology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Prior to WashU, I finished a M.Sci in Biochemistry at Georgetown University and worked for the Federal government for 2 years at the National Institutes of Health as a scientist. I bought an Toshiba M200 tablet PC way back in 2004 and really loved it for about 2 years before the battery power died and security at NIH refused to let me use a private computer on the Federal wifi network.
The Machine:
Hp 2730p
1.8 Ghz Dual Core Intel
120 GB HDD
3 GB RAM
Windows Vista Business
Uses:
I use the 2730p everyday and love it. I use the computer for data analysis, word processing, taking notes in classes and seminars and just general computing. Right now I'm doing a large amount of microarray analysis that involves the machine taking thousands of datapoints (one entry at minimum for each gene in the entire human genome) and then comparing that point to another genome and finding different levels of expression. The 2730p handles this kind of work beautifully and doesn't even lag, allowing me to multitask while the cores are working away in the background.
I also ink using on PDF lectures imported into OneNote. Quite a few of my collegues use Mac's to do something similar and I always catch them watching me ink directly onto the notes while they're noisely typing away. I find that typing in lecture is distracting and rather rude for people surrounding you and try to avoid this whenever possible. When working with mechanisms and diagrams in the sciences, I find that typing notes doesn't really work well anyways as you spend more time trying to describe what you're trying to say when a small picture really nails the thought/theory.
My wife attends medical school in Columbia, Missouri so we live inbetween St Louis and Columbia and commute the 60 miles into the city (120 mile+ round trip) everyday. This means that I drive a ton, but also live out my messenger bag while I'm in the lab or at campus. One thing I really love about the 2730p is that it makes it through the entire 10 hour day on battery power with the slice. I really cannot describe how wonderful this is! My old M200 (and my wife's current M700) will burn through a battery in about 2 hours...meaning that you absolutely have to carry the AC charger around which is a huge pain.
Working 120 miles from my wife also means that we use Skype a lot instead of calling when one of us works late in the lab or hospital. The webcam and microphones on the 2730p work perfectly everytime (The M700 webcam works about 50% of the time and requires a restart of the entire machine when the webcam decides not to work)
The Case:
The machine is incredibly well put together, it just feels solid in your hands, not 'plasticky' (like the Toshiba M700). The magnesium case is tough and doesn't scratch or dent. The case also doesn't twist slightly or squeak like the Toshiba is prone to do. The bottom of the computer and the slice battery is rubberized and doesn't slide off a desk or conduct heat, it also feels 'high-tech' and well made to my hands everytime I touch it. HP has really succeeded in making this machine feel well-made and solid. You can tell that there was someone really paying attention to the details when they designed this machine.
The Screen:
The screen is perfect for what it needs to do...you can see it and it looks bright and clear. The ambient light sensor works well and I typically just let the sensor control the brightness (even when inking) and typically don't have any problems seeing things clearly on the screen. The resolution is decent also (something I was worried about with the transition from the M200's 1400x1050 screen resolution). The text isn't pixelated and I find that I always have enough screen space to accomplish whatever I'm working on.
Keyboard:
Feels good to type on and is large enough to touch type quickly.
Trackpad/Pointer:
This is one aspect of the 2730p that could be improved upon. HP added the trackpad to this model and kept the pointer. The trackpad design is interesting as the 'buttons' are flush with the handrest section of the computer. I only use the trackpad normally and find
that have to press these flush buttons multiple times over a long period of time is actually kind of annoying...to press the button and use the small track pad you need to constantly hover you finger over the flush button and then press it deeply. I find this annoying and honestly my finger gets tired and kind of sore from doing this all day. Sometimes I try to use the pointer and its larger buttons to avoid this, but it's a pain.
My wife's Toshiba M700 and my M200 had a strange trackpad issue where the mouse point gets randomly triggered and interrupts writing and other tasks...this was random and incredibly annoying. The 2730p doesn't have this problem and I feel really guilty everytime I hear my wife scream out in frustration that her Toshiba decided to mouse pointer and replace a block of text in word while she is typing quickly.
Battery Life:
With the slice battery and average use I normally get 8-10 hours of wifi-on computing with decent screen brightness. The PC has only run out of power during the day once for me, and that was during a 12 hour day of data analysis that is really CPU intensive. I'm really impressed with how long the batteries last on this machine.
Inking:
Inking works well overall. There is a slight issue where the inking goes a little off-target around the extreme edges of the screen. This happened on my Toshiba M200 also and on my wife's M700 too, a tablet is a tool and honestly I normally don't ink on the extreme edges, just like you don't normally write on the extreme edges of a pad of paper. Bottom line is that the inking works well.
Overall:
The 2730p is a great machine and has really solidified me on buying HP. So far I'm very happy with this purchase. Comparing the 2730p to a Toshiba M200/M700 means that we will be buying HP for as long as they keep making such great tablet PCs.
Edited by: DrewM
Reply With Quote
