Hewlett Packard HSTNN C13C

by SuzyQ
(Richmond, Virginia)

My laptop is a Hewlett Packard HSTNN C13C. My decision to purchase this model over others that I had been looking at came down to an offer I couldn’t refuse.

This is primarily a business model, and my company was placing a large order for use by our field associates. The employees were given a one-time opportunity to purchase the same unit at a substantial discount.

After checking out the features and specifications, I felt that it was a good value at the time, and I would have peace of mind knowing that many others in my company were using the same machine.

The laptop was outfitted with a T7200 processor running at 2 GHz. It has 2 GB of memory and an 80 GB hard drive. At the time, this was sufficient for my needs and it still is, although I have purchased an external drive for storage purposes.

The best thing about the laptop is that it is a workhorse. It is solid and has given me years of dependable performance. The screen is crisp and clear and it works well for the image editing I am required to do.

It isn’t as lightweight as I would like, but it also isn’t the heaviest laptop on the market. The worst thing about the laptop for me is the location of the touchpad.

It seems that it should be centered under the entire keyboard, and instead it is off to the left. For me, this is a nuisance, but that is just personal preference.

The other bad thing is that the battery life is not very good at all. I have gotten less than three hours on a new, fully charged battery and they start depleting very quickly.

My current battery is less than a year old and it only holds about 15 minutes of a charge. I also would prefer if the AC connector was located in the back of the laptop instead of on the left side.

The keyboard is a bit soft and spongy and as I mentioned earlier, the touchpad is located in the wrong spot for my preferences. The speakers are barely adequate, although I don’t need to use audio very much, so that is of little concern to me.

Overall, the speed is adequate for my needs, except when I’m working on something complicated and have many programs open. I also telecommute on occasion and have to connect through a VPN.

The speed and performance deteriorate when I’m on the VPN. I think that has more to do with security settings than the laptop itself.

Based on the opportunity I had to purchase this laptop at a good price, I would definitely recommend it to a friend if they could get the same deal.

I would consider a HP laptop in the future, but would want to make sure that the keyboard and touchpad were more ergonomically designed for my preferences. I would also want more memory and a bigger hard drive. Therefore, it would come down to value based on features and performance.