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Now here’s a brand manager’s nightmare. As we all know HP owns Compaq but there’s little evidence of the HP logo on the N620c, apart from some small references on the base of the chassis. So unlike the nx7000 reviewed earlier this week, at first glance this machine looks like a Compaq notebook through and through. Also because the N620c features Intel’s notebook orientated Pentium-M processor and 855PM chipset I was half expecting to see the heart shaped Centrino logo somewhere on the unit, but this was not to be. Not a sign of it, and that’s because HP Compaq has done away with Intel’s Calexico mini-PCI wireless card usually found on full Centrino-enabled machines and therefore cannot use Intel Centrino branding. That said, HP Compaq hasn’t left you in the lurch wirelessly and instead has incorporated it’s own solution with what the company calls the MultiPort.

As you can see from our photographs there’s a silver section built into the lid. This screws off revealing the contact points for optional Bluetooth, 802.11b WiFi or GPRS WAN modules which snap into place. I say optional because unfortunately our review sample is the base model and didn’t ship with any of the modules. Of course you have to pay extra for the modules and you can expect to fork out approximately £58.85 for the Bluetooth solution, £66.27 for the WiFi one and £219.73 for the GPRS WAN module. Whichever option you choose at the time of purchase, the N620c should arrive with the module preinstalled but disabled by default.

Before you can use the device you have to run through the initial software setup that seems to be the norm these days on a newly purchased notebook. After this, the wireless module needs to be enabled with a quick press of the Fn and F2 keys followed by the installation of its relevant drivers. HP Compaq conveniently stores these drivers and all the third party software on the hard disk so that they can be selectively installed by way of a setup wizard – much better than using numerous driver CDs.

Once setup, the N620c is a very capable machine and is clearly aimed at the corporate market with its truly impressive battery life. A quick glance at MobileMark’s battery life test reveals a total time of 315 minutes before the system shut down. That’s just over five hours worth of uninterrupted work while on the move – ideal for those travelling sales reps and the like. It also weighs in at a decent 2.2Kg and the dimensions are kept to a reasonably slim 305 x 249 x 30.5mm (w x d x h). This makes the N620c quite portable and together with the magnesium alloy chassis quite a robust beast too. Overall styling has a certain bland yet functional air about it that will appeal to some but put others off. I am not really a fan.

As I’ve mentioned, the low power consumption of the N620c is pretty striking. The Pentium-M CPU itself manages to save power in a number of ways including multiple drops in processor clock speed and voltage when running purely on battery power. The processor can also shut off and/or redistribute system power to different components, and with a large 1MB Level 2 cache, which can also be minimally powered, the result is one of prolonged battery life. Furthermore, the 855PM chipset is designed with power usage in mind and can dynamically disable the input and output buffer in the system bus and memory for lower power consumption. Sticking with the 855PM chipset, you’ll find that the graphics are not integrated and there’s actually a 4x AGP interface that, in this case is hooked up to an ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 with 32MB of memory.

In terms of performance, this Pentium-M runs at 1.5GHz and has been combined with a decent 512MB helping of DDR SDRAM. This provides ample speed for, lets face it, office applications which the mainstream business user will be using. In fact, the scores were pretty much comparable to the nx7000, which isn’t too much of a surprise considering that it features similar components.

As for the screen the N620c’s 14.1in TFT supports a native resolution of 1,400 x 1,050, which in use, is a bit too high for my liking and makes text look a tad small. This resolution is much better suited to a 15.1in TFT screen, but despite this, the definition remains remarkably good. The hard drive is a capacious 60GB, and if you want to make backups of your data a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive is fitted into the right side of the chassis.

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