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With
quick boot-up times, long battery life, and thin, lightweight form factors, all
Ultrabooks already have the makings of great business notebooks. But when it
comes time to connect one to a conference room projector, replace the battery
or just keep the data onboard locked up and secure, they’re not up to the task.
HP hopes to remedy that with the 14-inch EliteBook Folio 9470m, its first
purebred business Ultrabook.
While its predecessor, the Folio 13, helped blur the lines between
business and consumer hardware, the 9470m ignores the middle road for a more
no-compromises approach, retrofitting a standard Ultrabook with everything it
needs for the road.
On the connectivity side, that means no
dongles: Ethernet, VGA, and DisplayPort are all native, along with three USB
3.0 ports. You can also outfit it with built-in 4G LTE, and the battery is not
only user replaceable, HP will actually sell an add-on sheet battery that
brings total runtime up to a whopping 20 hours (it’s a rated a fairly standard
9 hours without).
Business notebook aficionados will also be
happy to find a trackpointer (the little rubber pointing nub) in addition to
the usual trackpad. Speaking of that trackpad, it’s huge, and this one keeps
physical left and right mouse buttons intact. To make IT managers happy, it has
a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) for keeping company data under lock and key,
and a docking station for use when you’re more stationary at the office.
At 3.5 pounds and 19 mm thick, it’s not the
most waif of the Ultrabook crop, but it easily reaches Intel’s requirements,
and compared to old-school business ‘books, it’s a featherweight for its size.
The model HP had on hand was a
nonfunctional prototype, but build quality felt right up to EliteBook
standards, which are among the highest out there. (Keep in mind though, that
without the “p” designation at the end of the name, it doesn’t pass the same
military durability standards as some of HP’s other EliteBooks). Interestingly
enough, the prototype also had a sheet battery held on with magnets – HP reps
couldn’t confirm whether this design would make it to the final product, but it
would be an interesting first. And with the SSDs in Ultrabooks finally
eliminating sensitivity to magnets, the shift would make sense.
Of all the hardware shown off at HP’s
Global Influencer Summit in Shanghai, this might actually be one of the
furthest away from arriving: It won’t launch until October, which means no
price attached just yet either. If HP’s other EliteBooks are any indication, we
expect it to be well north of $1,000, but for road warriors, this one might be
worth waiting – and paying – for.
Specifications
nice....
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