HP Compaq nx6125 biometric laptop

AMD's Turion gets its first HP business notebook outing

By Lars-Göran Nilsson • Get more from this author

21st April 2006 11:33 GMT

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HP hasn't skimped on storage. The nx6125 comes with an 80GB hard drive - the review sample had a Seagate unit - with a spin speed of 5,400rpm, which is quickly becoming the norm for 2.5in HDDs. The optical drive comes from Panasonic and writes to DVD±R media at 8x, DVD±RW at 4x and DVD+R dual-layer at 2.4x. A copy of Sonic RecordNow! is included for burning discs, although this isn't a product for advanced users.

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Connectivity is also well catered for, with a total of three USB 2.0 ports, two on the left side and one on the back; a four-pin FireWire connector; a D-sub for an external monitor; S-video for use with a projector or TV; Gigabit Ethernet; and a 56Kbps modem - everything, in short, you'd expect. There is also a PC Card slot and a separate Express Card 54 bay, allowing a wide range of expansion cards, old and new, to be used with the nx6125. At the front is multi-format memory card reader that accepts SD, MMC, SmartMedia, XD and MemorySticks.

The nx6125 features built in Wi-Fi, natch. The controller is from Broadcom and supports the 802.11 b and g standards. Bluetooth is also part of the package, although I'm not a big fan of the Bluetooth code HP is using here as it's not the easiest to set up and use.

It seems that many companies still think - bizarrely - a business notebook shouldn't have a widescreen display, and that's why the nx6125 has a square 15in panel. The review model has a 1,400 x 1,050 resolution, although other models in the range only run to 1,024 x 768 - too low, in my opinion, for a screen this size. HP hasn't gone for one of the new glossy type of screens either, but the display is nonetheless bright and easy to read.

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