Business Laptop Review

Why Buy a Business Laptop?

Our employment can take us to different cities, states and countries. Oftentimes, one of the most important things we take with us on these work-related excursions is our business laptop. This computing device stores all of our most important documents, presentations, emails and more. Without a strong laptop, traveling to and fro can become a hassle and a headache.

Business-oriented individuals need durable, fast and long-lasting business laptops. A good laptop for business must have several connectivity options for linking different computers and external devices for presentations or other tasks. Having a long-lasting battery life is also a must, because a drained battery on a long business trip can become an aggravating and frustrating occurrence. Overall, the best business laptops help you get your job done no matter where you are or what time it is.

For additional resources and advice, look at our articles on business laptops. Also, don't forget to check out our top three products – the HP EliteBook, Dell Latitude and Samsung Series 7. Each of these laptops offers exceptional features to keep your workflow strong, even while you're on the road. And for a practical, innovative way to access remote files on your laptop.

Business Laptops: What to Look For

There are numerous laptops available that offer excellent features and tools to increase your productivity and help you get all of your computing tasks accomplished with no problems. We looked at the best laptops for completing business-oriented tasks. Below are the criteria we used to evaluate the best business laptops.

Features
A computer's feature set defines how you interact with it on a daily basis. For business users, this means getting the job done no matter where you are. The best business laptops provide an office experience at home, in a coffee shop, on an airplane or on a commuter train. Wherever you happen to be working, make sure the laptop you buy has an operating system that can handle your workload, a screen big enough for you to see comfortably and a battery that will last the entire excursion away from the office.

Performance
Processors and video cards in today's machines perform at speeds that would make The Flash blush. A laptop that is just a couple of years old now feels antiquated and slow. Additionally, business software has become more complicated and requires more system resources to function properly. To this end, ensure that your business laptop has an avant-garde processor and video card. This way you can spend more time working and less time babysitting a progress bar.

Memory/Storage
Those who travel a great deal are experts in packing their suitcases to maximize their portability on the road. Essentially, business laptops are digital suitcases with fewer restrictions on what you can take with you. These days, gigabytes are in ample supply; there's no reason not to pick a business laptop with as much memory and storage as you can put your hands on.

Connectivity
When you reach your destination, it's almost a certainty that you will hook your business laptop up to something. Whether it's simply syncing your iPod or wiring yourself to a physical network, take care that your laptop has the proper ports and connections that enable all your devices to talk to each other. Generally, the more connectivity, the better. An Ethernet port is standard on all devices now. Additionally, most laptops come with at least one USB port. The best have two or three.

Other physical docks that are good but not necessary are VGA ports, media-card readers, webcams, HDMI ports and more.

Wi-Fi is this generation's dial tone. All laptops have it, and if they don't, they should. Another must-have wireless connectivity option to look for is Bluetooth. This technology allows you to connect directly to other computers or devices without the need for a network.

Help & Support
Even well built machines sometimes have faulty equipment or occasionally require maintenance. Unfortunately, you'll almost never have a trained IT professional traveling with you. The manufactures of your business laptop know this and are more than willing to help. Every laptop producer worth its salt provides plentiful help and support options. All you have to do is ask – by email, live chat, forums and more. If you're old fashioned, pick up the phone and dial tech support to speak with a friendly representative.

If you find a computer that provides these features, you will have an excellent business laptop that will give you the computing power you need while you're on the go. Don't settle for just any laptop computer. Find a business laptop that will meet the demands of your busy work-related lifestyle.

HP ProBook 6360b

Sometimes an extra 100MHz isn't worth the money. The HP ProBook 6360b business laptop costs $989 (direct) as one of HP's ready-to-ship models with a 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-2450M processor, 500GB hard drive, and three-year parts and labor warranty. Our test configuration, however, had a slightly quicker 2.6GHz Core i5-2540M CPU and slightly smaller 320GB, 7,200-rpm hard drive. To match it, we had to go into the custom configurator on HP's enterprise site and spend $1,699. That's misleading because such corporate custom orders are rarely for quantities of one—rather, they're for IT-department buys that earn volume discounts—but still, we'd gladly settle for the 2.5GHz model and appreciate the ProBook 6360b's other charms at the expense of unnoticeably slower times in stopwatch tests.

And charms there are, though in a somewhat dated design. HP's ProBook line slots in below the company's EliteBook series as a mainstream, value-conscious choice for small to medium businesses and the likes of government offices and educational institutions. The ProBook 6360b is a 13.3-inch ultraportable with a burnished aluminum lid with latch and a magnesium-reinforced ABS plastic chassis. Though not business-rugged like the EliteBooks, it features a bottom case with a drain to help protect against minor spills.

Design
The ProBook 6360b is of course rectangular, not square, but we found ourselves thinking of it as square in a "not hip, daddy-o" way: It's a bland-looking slab measuring 1.3 by 12.7 by 8.7 inches (HWD) and weighing 4.8 pounds—definitely on the hefty side compared to, for instance, our Editors' Choice ultraportable, the 3.2-pound Toshiba Portege R835-P88 (Best Deal: $779.99 at CompUSA.com).

The 13.3-inch screen offers the usual 1,366 by 768 resolution and a nice matte antiglare finish. Text and fine details looked crisp and colors were vivid across a moderate range of viewing angles. Brightness and contrast were good as long as we kept the backlight to its top three or four settings. Audio is decently loud and clear.

Its chiclet-style keyboard could be the 6360b's best feature. The layout is faultless, with dedicated Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys (albeit with HP's usual laptop quirk of half-sized up and down arrows sandwiched between full-sized left and right arrows), and the slightly scalloped keys fit the fingers comfortably. Typing feel is firm, with good travel. Both a touchpad and pointing stick are on hand for mouse maneuvers; the twin pairs of buttons work smoothly but the concave stick doesn't grip the finger as well as one of Lenovo's TrackPoints.

Three buttons above the keyboard toggle Wi-Fi, launch your Web browser, and mute audio. When the ProBook 6360b is switched off, the middle button launches QuickWeb, which (once configured for a favorite Wi-Fi network) brings up a browser and widgets such as a stock ticker and weather and news headlines in about 20 seconds without booting Windows.

Features
Don't look for Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) for giving presentations on an HDTV set—the ProBook 6360b doesn't even have a wired HDMI port. Nor will you find USB 3.0 for connecting up-to-date storage devices. Instead, the HP has four USB 2.0 ports—one a USB/eSATA combo port—along with Ethernet, FireWire, VGA, DisplayPort, and 56Kbps modem ports, plus microphone and headphone jacks. There's an ExpressCard slot on the left side, just above the DVD±RW drive, and an SD/MMC media reader on the front bezel.

Broadcom 802.11a/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless are standard, as is a docking-station connector on the laptop's bottom. A fingerprint reader below the keyboard gives added security, as does the HP ProtectTools suite preloaded on the 320GB, 7,200-rpm hard drive. The latter is a set of utilities that helps with functions such as encrypting data, managing passwords and authentication, and sanitizing files—overwriting and deleting them so they can't be recovered. Our ProBook had a three-year upgrade to the standard one-year limited warranty, which offers pick-up or carry-in protection with no on-site service.

Performance
HP ProBook 6360b Equipped with a 2.6GHz Core i5-2540M processor and 4GB of RAM, the ProBook 6360b delivers solid performance. Its PCMark 7 score of 2,305 and Handbrake video encoding time of 1 minute 45 seconds are virtually identical to the Toshiba R835-P88's 2,313 and 1:46, respectively. It tied the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 (Best Deal: $1,265.99 at ANTOnline) in CineBench R11.5, with a score of 2.85 points, and was a few seconds faster than its peers in Photoshop CS5 (3:48).

Leader Impression I7A

The Leader Impression I7A ($179 list) is a budget-friendly way to enjoy a taste of Google's latest "Ice Cream Sandwich," Android OS 4.0. This tablet is for geeks only, as it's laggy and somewhat unstable, and doesn't support the Google Play app market. But with a sub-$200 price tag, a decent display, and a surprisingly solid metal enclosure, Android geeks may be willing to put up with its stability and performance issues.

Design and Features
The resemblance between the I7A and the original Apple iPad is uncanny, with both featuring brushed metal backs with flattened edges—only the I7A is shrunken down to 7 inches. At 6.73 by 5.19 by 0.45 inches (HWD) and 9.44 ounces, the I7A is comfortable to hold, but a bit odd-shaped compared with most 7-inchers. The Amazon Kindle Fire ($199, 4 stars) is taller and narrower at 7.5 by 4.7 by .45 inches (HWD), and heavier at 14.6 ounces. Despite using the same 16:9 screen aspect ratio as the Kindle Fire (Best Deal: $199.00 at Amazon), the I7A's body has more of a 4:3 ratio, mimicking the iPad. A hard reset pin hole, micro USB port, mini HDMI port, microSD card slot, and Volume buttons all sit along the top edge. I was easily able to mirror 1080p video onto a large HDTV using an HDMI cable—a nice touch for a budget tablet. The Power button can be found on the left edge, while a Back button can be found on the right. Along the bottom edge is the 3.5mm headphone jack and power port, for charging with the included AC adapter (you can also charge using the included micro USB cable.)

View Slideshow See all (7) slides
Leader Impression I7A : Horizontal
Leader Impression I7A : Back
Leader Impression I7A : With Case
Leader Impression I7A : Angle

The I7A uses a 7-inch TFT LCD with 1,024-by-600-pixel resolution, the same resolution found on the Kindle Fire. The screen itself gets relatively bright, with a wide viewing angle and pleasantly saturated colors. Details are generally sharp, though text has a fuzziness to it that strained my eyes after extended use. There is also some uneven lighting around the edges of the screen. The screen is on par with the one found on the Kobo Vox ($199, 2 stars), though the I7A has a wider viewing angle.

This is a Wi-Fi only tablet that connects to 802.11b/g/n networks, but only on the 2.4GHz band. Leader advertises Bluetooth, but I couldn't find any way to connect to devices. A 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera works with Skype calls, but there is no rear-facing camera. Also included in the box is a protective folio case, which feels a bit cheap, but is useful for propping up the I7A on desks.

Hardware, Performance, and OS
The metal chassis gives the I7A a premium feel, but underneath the hood are far more pedestrian components. The I7A is powered by a single-core 1GHz VIMICRO Cortex-A8 processor and 512MB RAM with 4GB of internal storage. Only 2.56GB are available for user data, but storage can be expanded by up to 32GB with a microSD card.

Given the low-end specs, it was no surprise that the I7A's performance struggles. Home screen animations appeared smooth, but touch input itself is often jerky, scrolling is rarely smooth, and precise movements are limited by what seem like click-stop intervals built into the screen. In a game like Angry Birds, instead of having complete control of infinitely variable shooting angles, finger swipes move the aim up or down at small, but noticeably set intervals. Web pages load a bit slowly and app crashes were fairly common. Switching between video playback and other apps often caused some hang-ups. It's not as bad as the Kobo Vox (Best Deal: $59.98 at Walmart.com), but nowhere near as smooth and hiccup-free as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) ($249, 4 stars), which also runs ICS.

While more and more tablets are getting the "Ice Cream Sandwich" treatment, it was still a pleasant surprise to find Google's latest OS running on such an inexpensive tablet. The I7A uses a stock build without heavy skinning, but it lacks Google apps, including the Google Play app market. Instead, the I7A comes with the GetJar app market, which offers a mediocre selection of third-party apps. Some popular apps like Angry Birds and Dolphin HD browser are here, but the selection is a far cry from the Google Play market. I was able to use the Amazon Appstore to download and install apps like Deer Hunter Reloaded. Leader did include an APK installer for side loading apps, but this isn't exactly a user friendly solution. While the I7A is free of bloatware, some of the pre-loaded apps, like the Kobo reader app, do not work at all.

Video playback is smooth, and the I7A can handle MPEG4, H.264, Xvid, and DivX videos at up to 1080p resolution. In our battery test, which loops a video with brightness set to max and Wi-Fi turned on, the I7A lasted only 3 hours, 15 minutes—a good deal shorter than the Kindle Fire's 4 hours, 55 minutes in the same test.

The Leader Impression I7A offers an interesting combination of solid build quality, moderate performance, and the latest Android OS at one of the lowest prices we've seen yet. But it's outside the standard Google realm, which limits its appeal to folks who know what they're doing with Android tablets, and its imprecise touch input and stability issues keep us from recommending it to average consumers.

Tablet buyers on a budget should spend just $20 more for a more stable Kindle Fire, though that doesn't run ICS. On the other hand, it's entirely possible to hack ICS onto the Fire, and if you're shopping for an edgy tablet like the Leader Impression, you very well might be the kind of person with the skills to do so. If you demand a classy Android 4.0 experience out of the box, pony up for the $249 Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0), which strikes a great balance between performance, features, and price.