Test Drive--HP Compaq nx9600

Notebook PC

By Jeffrey Hastings -- School Library Journal, 6/1/2005

HP, 3000 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185 (800) HP-INVENT www.hp.com $2249. Pictured with the xb2000 expansion base, $249.99.

I need a new home computer. I've been painfully aware of that fact for at least a year now but, as I've shopped around, one key question has kept me from making a purchase: Do I want a laptop or a desktop?

It's a tough call. I do 90 percent of my work on a desktop and I appreciate the large monitor, full-sized keyboard and mouse, and especially, the easy connectivity to outboard devices, like cameras and audio gear. On the other hand, it's nice—and sometimes necessary—to break free from the desk now and then. The HP Compaq nx9600 is designed to address these competing concerns; when used with the xb2000 expansion base, it has all of the powerful, comfortable convenience of a high-end desktop, but it's also up for a road trip now and then.

The model I tested featured a formidable 3.6 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, 1GB of SDRAM, an 80 GB hard drive, four USB 2.0 ports, Bluetooth connectivity, a six-in-one media card slot, a FireWire port and, generally, more useful ins and outs than I can mention here. I found it very capable of doing all the more demanding things my desktop does—from gaming to editing video.

But sleek it ain't. At almost nine and a half pounds and with Pleistocene paw-print-sized dimensions of over 11 by 15 and a half inches, your colleagues are definitely gonna gawk when you unfold this bad boy on the conference room table and expose its cinemascopic 17-inch screen. One of my coworkers scoffed at the laptop's ponderous proportions, as I sat in a hot spot using the machine's built-in 802.11 wireless capability to access the Net. "I see you brought your briefcase," he quipped.

But I had the last laugh that evening, when I returned home and docked the machine onto the expansion base, fired up a bowl of popcorn, and then kicked back and enjoyed a wide-screen feature film on DVD, complete with truly remarkable audio from the dock's Harmon Kardon sound system. And, in the morning, with the expansion base's wireless keyboard and mouse once again ready for business, I felt I finally had the best of both worlds. If you don't mind sacrificing a bit of notebook portability for all the power and flexibility you'd expect in a desktop, check out the HP Compaq nx9600.