Hewlett Packard EliteBook 8560p Notebook Review

by Paul Lilly — Tuesday, May 31, 2011, 10:30 AM EDT

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Performance Summary & Conclusion

Performance Summary: If concentrating strictly on the benchmarks, HP's EliteBook 8560p carried itself well in most of our general purpose tests and turned in the kind of performance you would expect out of a Sandy Bridge system. The Core i7 2620M doesn't offer the same punch that a quad-core chip does, but it speeds along at 2.7GHz, and even faster when Turbo Boost kicks in. We also credit the fast system RAM and 7200RPM hard drive for the system's well-rounded performance. Where the 8560p falters a bit, as expected, is in gaming. Even though this is a notebook aimed at business users, we would liked to have seen a better showing in our game tests, especially since the notebook's 15.6-inch screen sports an undemanding 1600x900 resolution. Not only that, but HP doesn't afford end users the option of upgrading to a faster GPU, so if you plan to game during your downtime or in between meetings, you'll be better served by whipping out your Nintendo 3DS or Sony PSP.

So the EliteBook 8560p isn't great at games, no biggie. This is a business notebook, after all, and in that regard, the 8560p shines. It starts with a rugged design and beautiful brushed aluminum that resists finger prints and smudges, but that's just the beginning. Flip the lid open and you're treated to an elegant looking interior that includes a full-sized keyboard, physical quick launch buttons, and a ginormous touchpad.

The touchpad itself is reason alone to consider the 8560p, and once you're used to the gesture controls, you'll find that using a traditional touchpad pales in comparison. Gesture controls are slick and make it easy to manipulate the on-screen action without constantly wishing you would have remembered to bring along an external mouse.

HP put a lot of thought in designing the EliteBook 8560p, not just on the hardware, but the software side too. It isn't cluttered with junkware, but it's equipped with useful utilities, like HP ProtectTools, a series of technologies that help ensure your secret data stays that way. HP also made it easy to wrangle all these tools, as well as the power options and connectivity sources, through straightforward menus. We also appreciate the inclusion of HP's QuickWeb, a pre-boot environment that gets you online and gives you access to social networking, email, and other tasks without sitting around waiting for Windows to load.

We're not stoked with the GPU, and the omission of an HDMI port strikes us as odd. Otherwise, the EliteBook 8560p is a solidly built PC that will serve business users well.


Rugged design and brushed aluminum Huge touchpad with gestures support Lots of USB ports, including USB 3.0 Several useful utilities and security features baked in Tool-less access to internal components	Poor gaming performance No HDMI port