Pushing from the back of the screen produces ripples in the LCD. There is not much flex in the screen, even when closing the top with one hand. When carrying the laptop around I find that the DVD drive occasionally pops open (when power is on), but I think that tends to happy on any tray-based drive. Overall the feel of this build is pretty solid.

The HP 8510p (right) compared to an Apple MacBook Pro (left) ( view large image) This 8510p was purchased for $1,479 directly through HP via a phone representative. With that I was sold on the 8510 and returned the T61 without ever opening it. I was able to play the entire DVD plus have another 30 minutes of battery life to do some work on the internet. I played a 2h 10min DVD on default settings (60 percent brightness, Bluetooth on, wireless on) with audio playing through the laptop speakers. I was worried that the 256MB dedicated card in the 8510p would kill battery life, so the first thing I did after setting up the 8510p was to test the battery. Both systems were spec’d identically with the exception of battery capacity and video card. I actually purchased both units and because HP offers an unconditional 30-day return policy I opened it first (Lenovo has a horrible restocking fee policy). My broad requirements were a 15.4' WSXGA+ laptop with good battery life and XP Professional. My old laptop died and I researched for about a month before deciding on the 8510p. Power: 8-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (73WHr) with HP Fast Charge, 90W HP Smart AC Adapter.Weight: 6.1 lbs (weight will vary by configuration).Ports and connectors: Four USB 2.0 ports, VGA, HDMI, stereo microphone in, stereo headphone/line out, 1394a, power connector, RJ-11/modem, RJ-45/ethernet, docking connector, secondary battery connector.Expansion slots' One Type I/II PC Card slot supports 32-bit CardBus and 16-bit cards, Secure Digital slot.Communications: Intel Gigabit Network Connection (10/100/1000 NIC),9 56K v.92 modem.Audio: High Definition Audio, stereo speakers, stereo headphone/line out, stereo microphone in, integrated microphone.Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600, 256MB of video memory (512MB Hypermemory).Hard drive: SATA 160GB 5400rpm, HP 3D DriveGuard.Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo processor T7300 2GHz 4MB L2 cache 800MHz front side bus.Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional.

8510p drivers