I always had questioned the need for a “third mouse button” on a notebook PC but the middle button above/below the HP Elitebook 8730w’s touchpad is certainly more useful than it looks. Coming from some of HP’s smaller notebook PCs with your conventional two buttons, I really appreciate the extra button. The MAIN two things I like about it: It’s so easy to activate the “track and scroll” feature to move left/right and up/down just by moving the cursor and ESPECIALLY simple to open/close new tabs in Firefox.
On a two button mouse, I had to hover over an internet link and either 1) press both the left and right buttons together or 2) right click and “open in new tab”. Now I just hit the center button.
And oh, I managed to get my hands on and try out the new Apple MacBook Pro last weekend (you know, the one with the glass trackpad). Honestly, I don’t quite care at all for a “glass trackpad” which has no buttons, no tactile feedback as to “where” the button is. The entire trackpad is “clickable” but is more “clicky” towards the bottom – a design that supposedly gives you more space to move and scroll but I digress.
Call me old-school or “un-cool” but I’d rather have my two (or three) buttons back, thanks =) . If I wanted more “mouse power”, I’d attach an external mouse to one of the three (or four on the HP 8730w) USB ports on my Compaq notebook. The MacBook/MacBook Pro notebooks only have two USB ports, so an external mouse would take up a precious USB port, leaving just one more left… ah, that probably explains what’s up with the glass trackpad.
Here we go again, sitting on the Elitebook 8730w’s lap. On Saturday it was the Elitebook 8730w and the Mini Note 2133. This time it’s the HP Mini 1000, pretty much the same as the comparison last week except the 2133 looked like a “mini-me” of the Elitebook 8730w in that picture – the aluminum design of the Mini Note is a whole lot like the 8730w’s magnesium alloy construction. The HP Mini 1000 isn’t switched on in the picture above; the battery was out of juice after roughly 2.5 hours of usage.
Alright, you gotta admit – this is beautiful, a HP Mini Note 2133 netbook placed on the HP Elitebook 8730w Mobile Workstation. Just like a baby sitting on daddy’s lap. The perfect combo for anyone with hard core productivity in mind (ie photographers, script coders) – a small little netbook for working on the go and a big notebook at home or in the office for crunching data, graphics, photos and anything else you throw at it.
Let me give you a real life example of this perfect dual notebook set up. Let’s say you’re a photographer – maybe a sports photographer or you take wedding pictures – and you’ve just done with a photo shoot. The HP Mini Note 2133 is tiny enough to fit into your camera bag with ease to be brought along with you. You can display your photos on-the-go, straight out of the camera on the HP Mini Note 2133… either via a wireless transfer accessory that moves photos on the fly from the camera to your mini notebook while you take photos, or the old school way of using a card reader (the HP Mini Note 2133 has a built-in SD/SDHC card reader by the way).
Your clients will be impressed with the ability for them to choose which photos they like almost immediately after a shoot; normally they would have to wait for a “samples selection disc” from the photographer then pick their photos. With that out of the way, you go back home, process the photos on that huge powerhouse Elitebook 8730w and deliver them to your clients quickly and effectively. There you have it, improved workflow.
Of course, it’s not only photographers who will benefit greatly from this setup… just be a little creative with suiting the two PC’s to your needs, the possibilities are endless.
Note 1: The HP Elitebook 8730w is a fantastic PC, but sadly, doesn’t belong to me.
Note 2: *Points at the Voodoo theme on the HP Mini 2133 and smiles proudly*
