HP ProBook 6360b Notebook Review

Pre-installed Software and Performance

Our ProBook shipped with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit installed, although you have the option of selecting lower-level Windows installs during configuration. HP has done a respectable job of not including too much third-party bloatware. Microsoft Office 2010 comes loaded with the system, but users are left to decide if they want to install the trial (and you'll probably want to uninstall the Bing Bar). Roxio burning software is also included, as is PDF Complete Special Edition.

Although the ProBook is mostly clear of third-party applications, HP made sure to bundle a ton of their own software. I counted no less than 24 HP-specific programs of which HP ProtectTools is the most important. The security suite is meant to be used by enterprises when deploying notebooks to employees, among other things it centralizes security management and aids in the event of password loss or if the machine gets stolen.

Another software feature, HP QuickWeb allows you access to the internet, email, contacts and calendar at the touch of a button without having to wait for Windows to load up. This is similar to what we have seen on desktop motherboards for a while now. HP Power Assistant is similar to Lenovo's Power Manager 3 in that it lets you configure profiles and view power data about the laptop's usage and battery. New out of the box, the ProBook took 57 seconds to boot into a fully usable state of Windows.

We have run our standard suite of benchmark tests on the ProBook 6360b to give you an idea of how the system performs under load. It's worth noting that Intel's Turbo Boost 2 is enabled during testing. Found in second-gen Core series processor, the feature is designed to better manage workloads by dynamically adjusting individual core speeds depending on the processing power is needed. The Core i5-2410M in our unit is clocked at 2.3 GHz and should ramp up to 2.9GHz as needed.

• 13.3" HD AG LED SVA 1366 x 768 display
• Intel Core i5-2410M (2.3GHz - 2.9GHz, 3MB L3 cache)
• 4GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Intel HD 3000 Graphics (650MHz - 1.3GHz)
• Hitachi 320GB 7200RPM hard drive
• Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)

• 13.4" TFT 1366 x 768 display (covered with Corning Gorilla glass)
• Intel Core i5-2520M (2.5GHz - 3.2GHz, 3MB L3 cache)
• 4GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Intel HD 3000 Graphics (650MHz - 1.3GHz)
• Hitachi 320GB 7200RPM hard drive
• Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)

• 14.5" HP Radiance 1600 x 900 display
• Intel Core i5-450M (2.4GHz - 2.66GHz, 3MB L3 cache)
• 4GB DDR3 system memory
• 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
• Seagate Momentus 500GB 7200RPM
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

• 12.5" HD AntiGlare 1366 x 768 display
• Intel ULV Core i5-470UM (1.33GHz, 3MB L2 cache)
• 4GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Intel HD Graphics
• Hitachi 320GB 5400RPM hard drive
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

The iTunes encoding tests consist of converting 14 MP3s (119MB) to 128Kbps ACC files and measuring the operation's duration in seconds. For the file transfer test, we measure how long it takes to copy two sets of files from one location to another on the same hard drive. On the small files test we transfer 557 MP3s, totaling 2.56GB. For the large file, these same MP3s were zipped into a single file measuring 2.52GB.