Though plenty of 17-inch wide-screen laptops are on the market, the HP Compaq nx9420 is the only one of them from a major vendor that's designed specifically for large business and enterprise deployment. Starting at approximately $1,399, the nx9420 is a bit pricier than HP's consumer-focused siblings (the Pavilion dv8000 starts at $999), but it's also considerably more powerful. The base configuration features a 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo T2300 processor, 512MB of fast 533MHz RAM, an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 graphics card with 256MB memory, an 80GB hard drive spinning at 5,400rpm, and a CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. Higher-end configurations include Intel Core Duo processors in speeds up to 2.16GHz, up to 4GB of RAM, 100GB hard drives (with a 100GB, 7,200rpm option), and DVD burners.
Our $2,399 nx9420 test unit was configured with some high-end components: a top-of-the-line 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo T2600 processor; 1GB of DDR2 RAM (1x1024); an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 GPU with 256MB of VRAM; and an 80GB, 5,400rpm hard drive. We were impressed with its performance and pleased with its corporate-level security features. For all the details, read our full review of the HP Compaq nx9420.