HP EliteBook Revolve 810 :Review

Pros

• Durable and compact simplistic design
• High quality touchpad
• SSD

Cons

• Mediocre display
• Disappointing battery life
• High price

The HP EliteBook Revolve 810 is a traditional convertible, meaning its screen rotates to switch this ultraportable from notebook to tablet mode. Still, HP keeps the Revolve fresh, with an attractive, durable, and light design, an excellent keyboard and a fast SSD. However, with the device costing $1,450 , Is the HP EliteBook’s return-to-basics a step in the right direction? Read the full review to find out.

Design

he HP EliteBook Revolve employs an eye-catching layered design, with its smaller 11.6-inch display dropping off onto the larger bottom portion of the chassis. The sleek magnesium and aluminum chassis is coated in a soft-touch finish, which is not only comfortable while carrying the notebook, but when using it as well. As an added benefit, the chassis hides fingerprints. With the exception of the bottom, which is matte black, all the surfaces have a silver-aluminum color.Revolve is clearly a laptop that can pretend to be a tablet.

The Revolve has been tested by HP for vibration, drop, dust, and temperature extremes, but it’s not intended to be a true super-rugged machine. We didn’t specifically test durability, but it’s a more solid-feeling machine than most laptops.

At 11.2 x 8.4 x 0.8 inches and weighing 3 pounds, the Revolve 810 is light for a notebook, but on the heavy side for a tablet. some users may find the device uncomfortable to use as a tablet for an extended period of time, but the HP EliteBook Revolve still offers impressive portability on par with most competing notebooks.

Hardware and Performance

Revolve 810 has an 1.9-GHz Intel Core i5-3437U processor, 4GB of fused RAM, and a 128GB SSD, which can took care of any and all business tasks with ease. The entry-level $1,249 version comes with a Core i3-3227U processor. Configurations come with up to a 256GB SSD, and you can upgrade the RAM up to 12GB. The Intel HD graphics 4000 GPU in the Revolve 810 isn’t designed for gaming, but is good enough for everyday tasks such as watching HD movies.

On PCMark 7, a synthetic benchmark that measures overall performance, the Revolve scored 4,554, which bested the ultraportable average of 3,627 and the ThinkPad Twist (3,108), but fell a little short of the Dell XPS 12, which has a 1.7-GHz Intel Core i5-3317U, and scored 4,727. Its SSD was equally fast when duplicating 4.97GB of multimedia files on the LAPTOP File Transfer Test, taking just 32 seconds to complete the task.

the device houses two USB 3.0 ports, a Kensington lock slot, a Display port, and an Ethernet port. The right side of the device also offers a few additional ports and buttons including; a proprietary dock port, a microSD slot, a headphone jack, independent volume controls, an auto-rotate display button, and a power button.

Display

The 11.6-inch touch screen on the Revolve has a resolution of 1366 x 768. The limited resolution is certainly a weak point for the device; Still, the resolution is more than suitable for most tasks, and we especially like the wide viewing angles with solid color contrast, which help when the Revolve is in tablet mode. Business users will also appreciate the fact that the display is made of Corning Gorilla Glass 2, which will help protect it in tablet mode. 

As a convertible notebook the display also offers touch controls. Swipes, clicks, and multi-finger gestures are responsive and read quickly. 

Keyboard and Touchpad

The HP EliteBook Revolve is able to offer more spacing than expected from a 11.6-inch notebook on its Chiclet Style keyboard. It still isn’t spacious by any stretch of the imagination, but there is adequate room to ensure that users can work quickly and efficiently.

Typing on the Revolve 810 was a delight. Each key offers a braised smooth texture which provides additional friction. Key-depth is fairly standard and it’s easy to tell when a key has been fully compressed. The slightly gritty texture on the top kept our fingers in place. Its backlighting was evenly lit, and bright enough for us to type comfortably in a darkened room. We also like that the keyboard is spill-resistant; a drain in the bottom funnels any liquid safely through the chassis, and presumably onto your desk.

The touchpad which is equipped with Alps drivers performs well, reading swipes and gestures accurately with no lag. The pad’s smooth surface and tight precision makes more delectate gestures like highlighting text easy as well. The only issue with the touchpad is its lack of customization options.

Webcam and Speakers

Revolve’s 720p webcam captured colorful-but-grainy images. While it will be sufficient for Skype calls, we wouldn’t recommend taking any self-portraits.

The HP EliteBook Revolve houses two DTS Studio Sound speakers along the bottom right and left portions of the chassis. The HP EliteBook speakers manage to provide enough amplification suitable for a small group of people or a modest-sized room. The device offers consistent sound quality with no noticeable distortion even at 100 percent capacity.

Battery Life and Heating Performance

During Web surfing via Wi-Fi, 5 hours and 27 minutes runtime was scored on LAPTOP Battery Test and  4 hours and 45 minutes via a video-playback test. the Revolve 810 falls about 20 minutes short of the XPS 12 (5:46), and about half an hour below the category average of 5:56. Still, it’s much better than the ThinkPad Twist’s runtime of 4:36.

The HP Revolve houses heat vents along the bottom chassis and right hand side of the device. In most cases, the convertible notebook remains cool with relatively no noise. However, watching extended media or pushing the machine to its capacity will result in the notebook becoming noticeably warmer and producing a faint hum.

The temperature never reaches the point where it becomes uncomfortable, but users will notice the heat when the machine is stressed.

Security Features,Software and Warranty

HP loads the Revolve with a number of security measures, including TPM 1.2, HP BIOS protection, Computrace, Face recognition and HP SpareKey. The notebook also comes with an NFC chip, but we would have also liked to have seen a fingerprint reader. An optional LANDesk Management Suite enables IT departments to remotely update or lock the notebook.

Software includes HP ePrint, Evernote, Skitch, a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office 2010. The HP-branded Cyberlink Media Suite lets you manage all the multimedia stored on your notebook.

The EliteBook Revolve comes with a limited one-year warranty, with options for a three-year warranty. Users also have access to HP Elite Premium Support, a dedicated toll-free U.S.-based customer support line available 24/7.

Conclusion

As a business focused device, the HP EliteBook Revolve 810 delivers on most fronts. The best things the EliteBook Revolve 810 has going for it are clean design and comfortable feel, plus system speed. Price and battery life are the weaknesses. For $1,449, though, we’d prefer longer battery life. If you are looking for productivity and want a device that will get the job done, plain and simple, will be well severed by the HP EliteBook Revolve 810.