Hands on: HP EliteBook 2170p review

There's more to the notebook market than just Ultrabooks, you know? That's the message from HP at least, who unleashed its "smallest and lightest ever" business PC over at a press event in Shanghai – the HP EliteBook 2170p.

Weighing just 1.3kg with a 11.6-inch display, the HP EliteBook 2170p is designed for the man-about-town type – presumably HP thinks that its compact size makes it perfect man-bag fodder. "But why isn't it an Ultrabook?" we hear you cry. The answer to that is simple – it's a chunky monkey.

We didn't have our tape-measure to hand, but we can assure you that it's a fair bit fatter than the 18mm maximum that Intel states 13.3-inch and smaller displays need to fall under to qualify for the slimline Ultrabook tag.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just because it doesn't gain entry to the current notebook cool-club, that doesn't mean it's not a notable machine. After all, this is a mobile PC that's almost 100g lighter than HP's new Ultrabook flagship - the Spectre XT.

And despite its slightly expanded waistline we were quite impressed after spending some time with the EliteBook 2170p at the China showcase.

Its grey finish may be a tad plastic-tastic, but it's a solid looking and feeling machine and one you'd feel confident about chucking in your work-bag for a bumpy ride to the office. And when you get there it'll dock nicely into your HP dock – it's designed to work with existing setups.

Not that you'll necessarily need to dock though – it has a 9 hour battery life, thanks to the power-saving features provided by Intel's third generation Core processor lurking inside. The CPU sits alongside up to 16GB of DDR3 RAM, and your choice of all manner of HDD and SDD storage options.

The display, which seemed pretty vibrant even under the spotlights of the Shanghai Expo Centre, is an 11.6-inch, 1,366 x 768, one.

It has a full-sized, spill-resistant keyboard; a touchpad with more buttons than you'll know what to do with and there's an option of having a 720p HD webcam built in as well.

Connectivity is via its USB 3.0 port, the USB 3.0 charging port, a DisplayPort, an Ethernet connector as well as good-old VGA.

The HP EliteBook 2170p release date is June. It may not grab the same sort of headlines as its Ultrabook cousins but our initial impressions are rather good indeed. There's no word on pricing at present.