Writing tools: a good laptop
After a three month wait, I received my new laptop - an HP 2510p. As I’ve mentioned before, HP doesn’t go in for sexy product names but it does, surprisingly, produce sexy products. (Full disclosure: Hewlett-Packard is a client but I bought this with my own money on its own merits.)
I had been writing about the benefits of mobile working for a long time but I simply wasn’t “living the dream” myself. My very old MacBook was slow and didn’t run all the programs I use everyday. It was time to get an upgrade.
Why the 2510p is cool:
- Built-in 3G mobile broadband. I can get online anywhere at about 1.5mb/s. At home, with just one pip showing in the signal strength, I get about 500kb/s. This is really extraordinary. I can browse the web, pick up email and access my home network anywhere I want. [PS speeds corrected.]
- Full disk encryption. I’ve lost a laptop before and the real loss was the information stored on it. Now I have bulletproof encryption. It took a couple of hours to set up and I’m not sure I’d recommend it for civilians but it really works.
- Fingerprint sensor. I don’t need to remember a million passwords any more. The fingerprint sensor and HP ProtectTools software means I can log into Windows, websites and other password-protected applications with a swipe of my finger.
- Lightweight. The thing weighs less than 4 lbs and it is smaller in real life than its photo suggests. (The same is true when it comes to pictures of me.) This makes it very easy to carry around and so I’m more likely to have it when I need it.
- Bluetooth PC Card mouse. I bought this little mouse with the laptop. It’s way cool. It folds up and stores away in the laptop’s PC card slot when not in use.
Why the 2510p is good for writing:
- Big bright wide screen. I can put two documents side by side and compare them. The screen is very clear and the light sensor adjusts the brightness to preserve battery life.
- Great keyboard. This is a highly subjective matter - I have been known to buy and throw away keyboards I didn’t like. But I like this one. Although the computer is small, the keys are plenty big enough to touch type and they have a satisfying action.
- Familiar software. After a long time using a Mac portable, now I have the exact same software on my main PC as on my laptop and it makes my life easier. This means I can concentrate on writing and stop trying to remember which button does what.
- Easy synchronisation. Vista’s Synchronisation Centre means that I can keep a local copy of all my work on the laptop and automatically synchronise changes. (A Gigabit Ethernet port and 802.11n wireless mean it transfers files very fast.)
- Scrollbar. The trackpad has a little vertical scrollbar on it. This lets you scroll up and down Word documents or web pages very quickly. It’s a nice feature.
A few caveats:
- The whole thing took a day to set up, including applications but I guess that’s true of any new computer.
- Some of the ProtectTools software, including the disk encryption, is not installed by default and there is no documentation to tell you how to get it (but HP’s technical support is excellent and pointed me in the right direction).
- HP QuickLook purports to boot into a mini-Outlook application in seconds but really doesn’t - it takes as long to boot QuickLook as it does to boot windows.
- You really have to buy the 2GB memory expansion to run Vista comfortably and this is not a standard option from HP so it costs a bit to do the upgrade and you need a screwdriver.
- No matter what SD card I try, I can’t get any of them to run fast enough in the SD slot to support ReadyBoost. I think the driver is a bit slow.
- Lastly, I had to wait a long time to get this particular model (with the 3G broadband).
This sounds like a long list but actually, none of these problems are big or long term. Several of them related to Vista not HP anyway. A different laptop probably comes with different gripes. Try changing the battery on a MacBook Air, for example, without sending it back to Apple.
Despite these minor snags, I think the 2510p is by far the best laptop I’ve ever had. If HP made it a bit shinier, gave it a sexy name and got someone as charismatic as Steve Jobs to unveil it to an adoring crowd of fanboys, it would be all over the papers today instead of the new Apple notebook and with better reason.
Richard wrote:
Congrats on the new laptop, but I’m struggling to think what applications you couldn’t use on your MacBook (my own choice of portable). Even if I wasn’t running MS Office, I’d have NeoOffice (most of the keyboard shortcuts are the same). Web browsing is identical. I watch movies and listen to music. I have automatic web back-up (thanks to Mozy) and can happily encrypt my data using OSX’s built-in utilities. And if I need to run Windows… I can! Oh, and the MacBook keyboard is, without question, the best I’ve *ever* used.
Sorry to come off like a clichéd Mac fanboy (so unusual in the comments section of a blog, I know…), but having seen my wife’s laptop running Vista, it would take a lot to make me ditch the Mac. Oh, and have you *seen* the new MacBook Air? Lacks enough hardware to make it unsuitable as one’s only computer. But if you have a desktop at home, it sounds unbelievably good as a travel machine. http://www.apple.com/macbookair/
Posted on 16-Jan-08 at 10:24 am | Permalink
Matthew Stibbe wrote:
I’m a secret Mac fanboy and I love Apple’s industrial design and attention to detail. I was using Macs for years before I bought a PC and I have actually met Guy Kawasaki. So all the Mac fans out there can call off the hitman. I bleed in six colours.
But seriously, here is a list of applications I could run on my old Mac:
* Windows Live Writer which I use for blogging
* NewsGator which I use for reading blogs (Yes, I know they do a Mac one but it’s different)
* Jeppesen FlightStar for flight planning
* Jeppesen JeppView for looking up approach plates
* Outlook 2007. Entourage really sucks in comparison. I ended up using OWA instead.
* Internet Explorer. Yes, I know. I use Firefox for 95% of my browsing but there are sites that don’t work on Safari, Firefox of Mac IE5.
* Dragon Naturally Speaking (although I see they launched a Mac version today!)
* Microsoft Money for my accounts
* Windows Media Center (I use it to watch TV that my media center PC records)
There’s probably some other stuff. I think the main point is that all the buttons work the same on both machines, all the keyboard shortcuts, I’m using Office 2007 and Vista on both and I don’t need to think twice about how to do things.
* My Commercial Pilot’s Licence test prep software
Posted on 16-Jan-08 at 10:39 am | Permalink
Robin Capper wrote:
After a short time with the HP2710p, a company machine not my own, I’d add take a close look at it before buying. It has all 2510 goodies then adds convertible tablet form/UI which is brilliant for making notes etc.
If your writing includes “on the knee” conference reporting or interviewing the tablet’ness is a real bonus
The combination of One Note, MindManager and ActiveWords + Tablet PC input is something no Mac can match.
Posted on 16-Jan-08 at 11:37 am | Permalink
Richard wrote:
Fair points all. But as an OS polyglot (from mainframes to CP/M to Sinclair, MS-DOS, Gem Plus, Windows 3.1, OS 8, Windows 95, OS 9, Linux, Windows XP and now OSX Tiger), I’m afraid I do have to say that OSX is by far the best system I’ve ever used. When I’m doing tech support for my wife or in-laws on their various shades of Windows, I just get so frustrated. Mix OSX with the neat design of my MacBook and you have unassailable brand loyalty - for now.
Out of interest, Matthew, did Parallels not satisfy your Windows needs? None of those apps looks particularly system intensive. I take your point about buttons…
Interesting observation about tablet forms, too. But although I’ve never used one for any length of time, am I so horribly wrong to stick with pen and paper for taking conference notes? The tablet doesn’t seem to have taken off in the way many thought it might.
Posted on 17-Jan-08 at 9:25 am | Permalink
Matthew Stibbe wrote:
I did think about Bootcamp and Parallels but I wasn’t sure if the technology was ready for prime time. Anyway, running VirtualPC on my old Mac was a horrible experience but I think the newer Macs would have done better.
And, yes, OSX is much easier to administer and keep safe. My clients at Microsoft won’t like me saying that but it wouldn’t have taken four hours to download an install 70+ system patches on a Mac before I could use it!
On the other hand, with a TPM chip, full disk encryption and biometrics built in, I think my HP is much more secure - as a laptop - than a Mac. It is also true that if you protect yourself sensibly on a PC, you can have a Mac-like experience with no viruses or whatever.
Posted on 17-Jan-08 at 9:48 am | Permalink
Nick wrote:
For internet use (emailing, youtubing, googling, Skyping with vid, streaming music, etc) I just switch on my mini Asus Eee PC - ready to rock in 28 secs from cold
Posted on 17-Jan-08 at 1:07 pm | Permalink
zhasper wrote:
/me sets mode +nasty_pedant
I can get online anywhere at about 1.5gb/s. At home, with just one pip showing in the signal strength, I get about 500mb/s.
1.5gb/s is 1.5x faster than the fastest possible ethernet connection. 500mb/s is 5x faster than the more normal 100mb/s ethernet connections. 500mb/s is ~50 times faster than dsl…
I *think* that you mean 1.5mb/s and 500kb/s.
/me sets mode -nasty_pedant
Posted on 18-Jan-08 at 9:23 pm | Permalink
Matthew Stibbe wrote:
zhasper, quite right. Sorry. Matthew
Posted on 18-Jan-08 at 11:59 pm | Permalink
Richard wrote:
Oooo - check this out: http://www.axiotron.com/index.php?id=modbook
Although the price is fairly hefty, dare we dream they might eschew the £/$ 1:1 conversion traditional in technology, what with the dollar being so weak?
Posted on 28-Jan-08 at 1:47 pm | Permalink
Bad Language / How to keep data on laptops safe wrote:
[...] I write about security a lot now, I am increasingly concerned about laptop security. (See my article about new laptop with a fingerprint sensor and whole disk [...]
Posted on 12-Feb-08 at 8:16 pm | Permalink
Dan wrote:
Vista? Yuck! I’ll stick with my trusty Macbook.
Posted on 17-Mar-08 at 11:36 pm | Permalink
Mornay le Roux wrote:
HI,
I need help. I got a 2510P laptop that was downgraded from Vista to XP (company reasons) and now the layout of my keybaord is incorrect. What should the language settings be so that it works again.
If I press shift + 9 to get ) on the 2510P i get (
Please help.
Posted on 30-May-08 at 7:09 am | Permalink
Matthew Stibbe wrote:
Sorry Mornay, but I’m not really in a good position to provide technical support for you. First, I haven’t done the XP downgrade (Vista works fine for me, regardless of what Dan thinks). Second, not really my problem - try your company IT department or HP technical support.
Posted on 30-May-08 at 7:11 am | Permalink