Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g, Draft-N) and Bluetooth 2.0 are both built in, along with Gigabit Ethernet for wired connections. For wide-area wireless connectivity, 3G is an option, although this was not fitted in our review sample. An antenna sits in the top right-hand side of the lid and is released by pressing a small button next to it.
Our review sample had an 80GB hard drive, with 60GB and 100GB also available. All of these drives spin at a relatively sedate 4,200rpm. There is no optical drive, which must be added as an external Multibay II option if required.
Ports and connectors are spread around three of the four sides of this laptop: the front is bare apart from the sliding on/off button.
The right-hand side carries a FireWire port, headphone and microphone connectors, a single USB 2.0 port and an SD card reader. There's also a fingerprint sensor on the right-hand side, but this is unobtrusively located on the edge of the lid.
On the left-hand side you'll find a second USB port and a sliding illuminated button for turning Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on (blue) and off (red). The button controls both radios with a single sliding action, but it would be preferable to have separate manual controls for the two connections. Between the wireless button and the USB port is the HP 'info button'; this brings up the HP Info Centre, a dialogue box hosting various device management utilities and system information.
In the middle of the left-hand side is an ExpressCard/54 slot. A smartcard reader can be housed here too, although this was not present in our review sample.
At the back are the modem and Ethernet connectors and a VGA-out port. The back of the lid section has two small recessed buttons that can only be pressed by using an object such as the digitiser stylus. One rotates the screen between landscape and portrait orientation, while the provides a convenient Ctrl-Alt-Del command if you're in tablet mode.
Performance
The HP Compaq 2710p delivers a Windows Experience Index (WEI) rating of 2.4 (out of 5.9). The WEI takes the value of the lowest component score, which in this case is for Graphics (desktop performance for Windows Aero).
Other scores range from 4.4 for Processor (calculations per second) to 3.0 for Gaming Graphics (3D business and gaming graphics performance), taking in 4.2 for RAM (memory operations per second) and 3.7 for Primary hard disk (disk data transfer rate) along the way.
None of these scores is particularly high, which illustrates that if you choose an ultraportable laptop you inevitably sacrifice some performance. The best way to squeeze more speed from the system would be to upgrade the RAM to at least 2GB.
HP does not make a claim for this system's battery life, and unfortunately the standard 6-cell Li-ion battery in our review sample refused to hold a charge so we were unable to produce any kind of benchmark.
Conclusion
The HP Compaq 2710p stands out as a business laptop by virtue of its stylish design. It's not the lightest ultraportable, though, and many mobile professionals will want to specify the 3G option, which will increase the cost. The lack of an optical drive and a touchpad may also bother some potential buyers.
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday
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