HP ProBook 5330m
- Category: Notebook Computers
July 5, 2011
Editor's Rating
- Sturdy, attractive design
- Well-designed keyboard
- Wireless connectivity options
- No USB 3.0
- No optical disc drive
The HP ProBook 5330m is a budget-friendly, attractive business 13.3-inch laptop. It offers solid performance thanks to the Intel Core i3 dual-core processor and some unique features too, like a spill-resistance keyboard and fingerprint reader for added security.
The HP ProBook 5330m measures 12.9 x 8.9 x 1.1-inches (wdh) and weighs 4.1-pounds, which makes it quite portable for business users. It has a boxy design that really makes it fit into a small business or enterprise environment. It has a sturdy aluminum and magnesium chassis. The keyboard deck has a two-style design, with a lighter brushed aluminum design around the outside and a darker design on the palm rests.
The chiclet-style keyboard has black keys and they're backlit, which really helps if you're using it in a dark environment. The keyboard is spill-resistant, but that doesn't mean it can withstand a whole can of soda. The keys are nicely sized and the keys have a good feel to them. On the far right side under the keyboard, there is a fingerprint reader for increased security. The touchpad is centered under the spacebar, which is a little offset to the left. It is multitouch enabled and it worked with good responsiveness.
The 13.3-inch display has a native resolution of 1366 x 786-pixels and has a matte finish that helps to reduce glare from ambient glare. Because of the matte finish, it does mute the colors just slightly, but nothing too extreme.
On the HP ProBook 5330m, you'll find almost every port available on a laptop these days, except for one big one: USB 3.0. This has rapidly become standard on almost all recent laptops, so that is rather disappointing. It does, however, have three USB 2.0 ports (one is a USB 2.0/eSATA port), HDMI-out, VGA-out, Gigabit Ethernet and a multi-format memory card reader. There is no optical disc drive on this laptop, so that may or may not be a deal breaker for some users.
Specifications of this laptop include a new "Sandy Bridge" dual-core Intel Core i3-2310M CPU (2.1GHz), 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 500GB hard drive and integrated Intel GMA HD 3000 graphics. Wireless connectivity on this laptop is this laptop's strong quality because you get 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 and cellular data support for GSM networks. HP includes Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) as the operating system.
Performance with the HP ProBook 5330m is very good, especially for business or home users. You'll have no problems Web browsing, using productivity software or streaming HD video from the Internet. Graphics performance for 3D gaming, on the other hand, is not so good due to the integrated Intel graphics.
Battery performance with the included 4-cell battery is good at around 4 hours, which is standard for this type of laptop with a similar battery.
