HP EliteBook Revolve 810

The HP EliteBook Revolve 810 is a traditional convertible, as its screen rotates to switch this ultraportable from notebook to tablet mode. This is another attempt from HP to experiment with hybridizing business-class notebooks.

Good looks, innovative design

The convertible scores high on its looks and is bound to turn heads.You can simply rotate the screen by 180 degrees and fold it flat on top of the keyboard and convert it into a tablet. It has an excellent keyboard, and a sleek magnesium and aluminum chassis that is coated in a soft-touch finish, which is very comfortable to carry and work while on the move. The Revolve is a three-pound, 11.6-inch laptop, but when you flip the display around you get a tablet that's only marginally heavier than other convertibles of its size. And if we compare it with its predecessor, the EliteBook is 30 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter.

It has a rugged body which can take good deal of vibration, dust, altitude and temperature that make it a perfect travel companion. HP uses a grippy, rubber-like silver finish, and, though it does not look as nice as aluminum, it feels good in-hand and helps prevent accidental drops. Underneath the surface is a strong magnesium chassis, and the screen is finished with Gorilla Glass II. Touch display feels great, looks sharp, and has great viewing angles. This notebook should survive rough handling with grace. The swiveling components are pretty torsion-resistant, operating smoothly and without any noise. Overall, we were extremely impressed with its build quality and its sturdiness.

How it fares

The 180 degree revolving screen movement of Revolve is pleasingly smooth and covers the keyboard, which allows for a great tablet experience. The 1366 x 768 display is crisp enough,the touchscreen is responsive and pleasing when using the Windows 8 homescreen. Packed with a 1.9-GHz Intel Core i5-3437U CPU, 4GB of RAM, an Intel HD graphics 4000 GPU, and a 128GB Samsung SSD, the Revolve is great for regular productivity work on the move. As this Revolve is a smaller laptop, the palmrest and touch-pad zones are sized down a little,and it has a spill-resistant keyboard that drains on the bottom tray for funneling away liquid. If you talk about the connectivity option of Revolve then we can say that a volume button rocker, an autorotate lock switch, and an odd spring-loaded power switch toggle grace the right side of the Revolve's base, along with an HP side docking port, headphone jack, and microSD card hidden toward the rear. Rest of the ports that line its back are: Ethernet, DisplayPort 1.2, and two USB 3.0 ports. The laptop gives 5-hours of battery life which is decent enough but as a travel laptop we feel few more hours of battery life can give it an edge over its competitors.

Performance:

In PCMark 7, which measures overall system performance, the Elitebook scored 4481, which puts this laptop right under the Dell XPS 12, but makes it much better then Sony Vaio and Lenovo Ideapad Yoga. In 3DMark 11, it scores 570, which is low, but then this machine is not really meant for gaming. Battery life of course, as discussed earlier, could have been better.