Pros: Excellent battery life (3+ hours with normal usage), inexpensive for what you get. Cons: No floppy drive, slow 4200RPM Hard Drive, Single battery bay, not the lightest.

** Full Review **

Wifi is everywhere these days. It's so popular that every notebook manufacturer HAS to include it in their notebooks or risk being passed up by the consumer. Intel recently pushed out a new CPU and Chipset package called "Centrino" (formerly codenamed "Banias") to address the 4 things that make notebooks popular (or less so) - USB 2.0, Weight, Battery life and wireless networking. The Centrino cpu itself takes a slightly different approach than the Pentium 4 series which favors clock speed above all else. The Centrino is designed to do "more work" per clock cycle (or "hertz"). While this is nothing new to the computer era (AMD has been doing it with the Athlon for years) this is Intel's first foray into this type of processor. Another way the Centrino achieves increased performance is by having a larger on-chip chunk of cache - 1 megabyte to be exact - for storing operations that the CPU will frequently be requesting/performing. Intel hopes that by lowering clock speeds and increasing the amount of work their Centrino CPU can do per clock cycle will translate into better overall performance without the battery life hit.

There's dozens (if not hundreds) of centrino models out there from every major manufacturer. The HP/Compaq x1010us DK571 is the "mass market" version of this notebook, available at most outlets such as "Best Buy". This is the version that I will be reviewing. However, it needs to be said that this notebook CAN be configured to your specs on HP's online shopping store, so if the specs included with this notebook aren't impressive enough for you, you should take a run through HP's configuration site and see what kind of a price you get.

** The Notebook Iteself **

Since the rate of return at stores like Best Buy is so high, the first thing the salesperson did was open it up and boot it to ensure I wouldn't come back an hour later with a DOA unit. This gave me the first real glimpse of the unit that wasn't badly beaten by the mobs in the store that pull off keyboard keys, etc.

The notebook itself is not the LIGHTEST notebook i've ever carried, but it's by no means the heaviest either. At around 6.5 lbs, it's not the lightest of the Centrino lineup.

The 15" screen itself is of very high quality and is the first thing anyone ever notices about this unit. It has a wide aspect resolution of 1280x800 - obviously with DVD playback in mind. This is all you can get on this mass-market model, but you can opt for a much higher resolution panel on HP's website. It's obvious that the quality control process is becoming more stringent since it's been a LONG time since i've had a notebook arrive home with "dead" or "stuck" pixels.

The display itself is powered by an ATI 9200 Mobility chipset with 32MB of dedicated DDR video memory, which allows for 2d and 3d graphics for gaming, though it's only DirectX 8 compatible. If you want any of the fancy DirectX 9 features (most won't care) this chipset won't cut it. But for my needs it's 100% fine.

The keyboard is comfortable to use, though initially I had a glitch with the shift keys (they didn't work all the time) that was later fixed with a bios update. The touchpad is your standard fare touchpad, nothing exciting here. The touchpad does provide a scrolling function on the right hand side which is separate from the actual touchpad itself. Since everyone is likely addicted to the scroll wheels on their mice, providing some kind of scroll function on notebooks these days seems to be the norm. One handy feature: there's a 1.5 inch LED that tells when the touchpad is active, and a button of the same size to disable the touchpad so you don't mistakenly move your cursor during furious bouts of typing. I find this very handy, since I usually hook up a USB mouse anyway.

Speaking of which, there's a decent complement of ports on this notebook. They include:

3 USB 2.0 ports (2 rear, one left side) 1 Parallel port (rear) 10/100 Ethernet port (rear) VGA port for an external monitor, can even be run as a "dual monitor" setup (rear) S-Video out (rear) Modem (rear) DC in (right - kind of oddly placed, but doesn't seem to get in the way) 1394 firewire (4 pin, rear) PC card (left), 1 slot, type I or type II only, cardbus Headphone out (front) Line-in (front)

So, there's a couple of gotchas here. First, the firewire port is 4 pin as opposed to 6 pin, meaning the devices you connect to it must be self-powered or have an alternate power source besides the extra 2 pins that usually come on a firewire cable. For instance, Apple Ipods will charge up when connected to a 6 pin firewire connection, but will not when connected to a 4 pin firewire connection.

The 2nd gotcha is the absence of a serial port. While I personally don't need one, some of you may. Just about everything is USB now though.

** Onboard Features **

The graphics subsystem on this notebook is actually better than I expected. While it's certainly not a notebook for a "hardcore gamer", you CAN play any game you want on it. I regularly play Shadowbane on this notebook, and the performance is stellar. I can use all features (it's a DirectX 8 game) and still run at good performance. Though I do wish the DK571 model had 64MB of video memory as opposed to the included 32MB. 3D texturing is VERY video-RAM intensive, and Shadowbane itself would benefit a great deal from more texture memory - like most games. I can't speak to the TV-out features, since i've never used them.

The DK571 supports both hard-wired 10/100 ethernet and 802.11B wireless (with HP providing an option for Bluetooth as well if you purchase from their website). Since wifi is one of the core chipset components with Centrino, obviously Intel wants to push it. Now, i'm a seasoned expert on wifi. Typically the most compatible and best performing cards in the industry belong to the Proxim series of "Orinoco Wireless" cards. In fact, there was a little bit of strife with Intel early on with the centrino when notebook manufacturers were packaging their notebooks with non-centrino wifi modules in favor of other "better performing" modules. This got Intel's panties in a bunch and they told these vendors that they couldn't put the "Centrino" sticker on them if they didn't use the Intel chipset-supplied wifi.

Included with the x1010 DK571 is a combination DVD-reader/CD Burner (24x8x8 - 24x CD writing, 8x DVD reading, 8x CDR-writing). It does NOT burn DVD's, it only allows you to read them for data or DVD playback. However, the CD burning performance on this drive is excellent. I have no complaints here.

Upgradeability is high, which I really didn't expect from a notebook this cheap. I took a few moments to snoop around the innards of my DK571. The hard drive bay is easily accessible allowing for quick Hard Disk upgrades. The CPU is socketed and not soldered, so if you find a faster centrino CPU, by all means, slap it in. The wifi module is also socketed, which I suppose would allow you to upgrade to a Wireless-G or Wireless-G/Bluetooth combo card.

** Performance **

There isn't a whole lot to say here.

Basic CPU performance is EXCELLENT! While my DK571 weighs in at a paltry 1.3 ghz, it benchmarks as a 1.7-1.8ghz P4 for all intents and purposes. More than enough for today's applications (and even games). That 1MB of on-die CPU cache really makes a huge difference.

Hard Disk performance of the DK571 is very mediocre thanks to the 4200RPM Hard Drive. More on that below.

The ATI Radeon 9200 graphics chipset does a pretty good job, far better than I expected. It will run just about any game you throw at it, and run it quite well. While it doesn't support DirectX 9 features, I don't know of any popular games that use any

The display performance is very good. The screen is bright and doesn't suffer from huge amounts of pixel response blur. I don't know the actual rating, but i'd put it at around 25ms.

** The Pitfalls **

So far I've told you mostly good things about the DK571 model, but it's not ALL roses. There are a few black marks this notebook gets, though they're hardly unexpected for the price:

The x1010us DK571 comes with a 60GB HD manufactured by Toshiba. It sports a 4200RPM spindle speed, which is pretty slow. I have to admit, this is far too slow for most PC users these days, but faster RPM's on a hard drive definitely equate to shorter battery life. At one point my friend was configuring an x1010 over the phone with an HP sales rep, and he said that there were 3 HD's available on their website: the 4200RPM Toshiba, the 5400RPM Travelstar and the 7200RPM Travelstar. While the 5400RPM drive offers a VERY significant increase in performance, it has nearly zero hit to your battery runtime. The 7200RPM Hitachi sucks the juice down fast though. HP Sales Rep's words, not mine - but it appears the sweet spot is the 5400RPM drive. I'm still very curious about the 7200RPM drive though, since it's rare that I stray from a power outlet.

The performance of the wifi on the x1010 DK571 is only average. I get far more range out of my old standby Orinoco Silver card, and can maintain connections even in spotty wifi situations. The bottom line is that the wifi included with Centrino DOES work, but don't let it stop you from buying a notebook that has a Centrino CPU with a different manufacturer's wifi card. It will likely perform better, but the jury is out on whether it will affect your battery life.

Speaking of the battery, one battery is supplied, and one battery bay is all you get. One of the nice things about the Dell Centrino notebooks is that you can get dual battery bays and get ridiculous battery life in upwards of 7 hours. While at 3 hours average the DK571 is no slouch, you simply don't have the option of a 2nd battery bay.

Another smaller black mark is the memory provided. The unit itself has two memory slots, using 2 modules at 256MB each. This basically means that if you want to upgrade your memory to 1GB, you have 2 useless modules you'll have to sell on Ebay. But this will likely not be too much of a problem for most as PC2100 512MB modules are ridiculously cheap as of late. Also, accessing the first memory module is pretty easy - just a couple of screws. The 2nd one is a little trickier, requiring you to unscrew a few more screws then pop the keyboard out. Popping the keyboard out reveals the 2nd memory module and the socketed CPU.

One caveat about the widescreen aspect of this notebook. If you're a gamer, you need to know that not all games support custom resolutions. Since "1280x800" is a very oddball resolution, you MAY be stuck playing your game at 800x600 and living with the black bars on each side of the panel. Star Wars Galaxies is one of those games. While MOST games support customizable resolutions, some require you to edit ini files or registry entries to do so. Just one thing to keep in mind. Luckily for me, Shadowbane supports custom resolutions, allowing you to type in whatever resolution you want.

One more minor annoyance. There's a blue LED on the front of the unit that shows the WIFI module is active. You can deactivate the wifi module to conserve battery life by pressing a button on the front of the unit. I can't tell you how many times i've been laying in bed with my notebook, only to have accidentally hit this button while it's resting on my legs. A minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.

** The Bottom Line **

Overall, i'm quite happy with this notebook. At $ after rebates, I feel I got quite a bit of power for my money. I have no real hesitation recommending this notebook, and you'd be hard pressed to find comparable features on another notebook this cheap.