HP G60-230us 16-inch Budget Laptop PC

Apr 15 2009 - HP's G60 budget laptop offers some solid features for its price range, but this comes at the sacrifice of some key components. Most noteable of these is the removal of any PC expansion card slot that prevents the system from being expanded beyond what is built into the laptop. Still, in exchange for this, it comes with a larger than average hard drive, 16-inch screen and enough room to fit a numeric keypad on the keyboard. A decent overall budget system as long as one can live with its limits.

Apr 15 2009 - HP's G60-230us offers up an average level of performance with its Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200 processor. This is slightly faster than the more common T3400 but most won't notice. The 3GB of memory is useful but it is using slower PC2-5300 DDR2 memory compared to faster PC2-6400. Upgrading to 4GB of memory can also be problematic due to the 32-bit version of Vista and how it handles above 3GB of memory.

Storage is one area where the HP G60-230us is better than most budget laptops. Its 320GB hard drive provides it with more space for applications and data over the more common 250GB drives. The dual layer DVD burner also supports burning labels directly to LightScribe compatible media.

The 16-inch display provides the HP G60 with a few advantages. While it isn't much larger than the 15.4 and 15.6-inch screens, it can be beneficial for those with less than perfect eyesight with an easier to read screen. It does use a glossy coating though that can increase the glare in certain light conditions. The larger display also provides room for the keyboard area to have a numeric keyboard in addition to the standard keys. This is very useful for those people that need to do lots of data input but don't necessarily want to use an external keyboard or a 17-inch laptop.

One area where the HP G60 really suffers though is its peripheral expansion. While it does feature an HDMI port and an average number of USB ports, HP has elected to not include an ExpressCard slot on the system. This prevents users from adding additional features to the laptop that are not already built-in. Examples include wide-area wireless cards, eSATA ports and even the chance for external graphics.

All in all, a decent laptop if you don't mind the trade off in features.