A workhorse laptop that won?t break the bank, literally. Naturally, good things begin with an HP. The American PC maker?s not-so-recent notebook, HP G42, sits between the budget Compaq Presario line and entertainment-focused HP Pavilion range, offering a complete computing experience at an affordable price point. While it may not sport the latest USB 3.0 standard or come with Blu-ray options or switchable graphics, the notebook?s feature set is competent enough for most users who just want an inexpensive portable with decent hardware performance.
The 14-inch LED glossy screen is bright and provides crisp visuals but had narrow viewing angles. Watching 720p movies was a delight although there was some blurring present when watching a video with fast paced action.
The diamond textured finish of the G42 not only makes the laptop fingerprint free but also gives it a unique identity to make it stand out from the huge crowd of glossy finish laptops in the budget range. The velvet red coloured unit we received is a colour exclusive only to the G42, while imperial blue is shared with the other G series laptops. The build quality is quite satisfactory with the entire notebook having a solid feel overall.
The full size island style keyboard was comfortable to type on and the spacing was just about right. Typing felt noticeably faster since the low profile keys need to travel less than half the distance when compared to desktop keyboards. On the other hand, the touchpad was a mixed bag. The textured finish provided accurate and precise cursor movement but the mouse keys were sluggish. The single rocker was a bit too thin and sometimes did not register a keypress.
The touchpad toggle had a mind of its own however. A light brush of the palm while typing would sometimes enable it at the most inopportune moment and re enabling it required us to literally bash our finger. Thankfully, a small orange indicator present informed us of the current status of the touchpad. Another alarming thing was that the laptop got too hot at times, which is a problem prevalent with many of the HP laptops.
Other features include an HDMI port, Altec Lansing speakers and a LightScribe-enabled DVD writer. The latter, in conjunction with LightScribe discs, allows the laptop laser to embed text and graphics on the label side of the optical media.
With the Passmark 7 benchmark, the laptop scored 845 marks which is acceptable for the budget range where the laptop rests. 1572 in 3DMark indicates that any gaming will be confined to 2D Farmville or other flash games on the Web. Using up all cores of the i3 processor gave us a battery life of only 1:27 hours and a maximum of 2:57 hours of battery life on a normal usage which is really tragic considering the the laptop size is just 14 inches.
The laptop does score on the point that it comes preloaded with Windows 7 Home Basic and runs on a Core i3 processor with 3GB of RAM. However, we were disheartened by the battery life on the machine. Overall, the laptop is a good choice for students who would prefer to use the laptop majorly at home or in a class where they have a power source to charge the battery when required. The G42 doesn?t aim high and succeeds at what it is meant to do?basic computing at an affordable price.
Specs
Dimensions: 34.2 x 22.8 x 3.15 cm (W x D x H)
Display size: 14.0-inch high-definition LED HP Brightview Display
Display resolution: 1366 x 768
Operating system: Windows 7 Home Basic 64-bit
Processors: Intel Core i5-480M processor
Chipset: Intel HM55 chipset
Standard memory:
4 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 (1 x 4 GB)
Internal drives: 500 GB SATA (5400 rpm)
Webcam: Webcam with Integrated Microphone (VGA)
Audio features: Altec Lansing speakers
Weight: 2.20 kg
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