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Tuesday November 24, 2009 8:02 AM AEST
Skip Navigation LinksPC Authority > Features > HP’s notebook disassembly stage show
HP’s notebook disassembly stage show
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FEATURE

HP’s notebook disassembly stage show

by Ed Dawson  on Aug 8, 2007
1 comment in this discussion
"HP products would have to be better than the opposition because their after sales service is worse than anyone else's"
By Eugene Hobbs
 
click to view full size image
Presenter and the HP keyboard.


The first comparison that HP made between the four models was external durability, especially relating to the resilience of keyboard materials. Our presenter explained that you often notice with existing notebooks that the keyboards often develop shiny spots on the most frequently used keys, especially the space bar. This is especially true of journalists’ computers, so this point causing a number of acknowledging murmurs among the audience attending.

click to view full size image
Presenter and the HP keyboard.


The presenter went on to explain that the simulation of thousands of keystrokes was done with a mechanical process called a taber test, which drags a cylindrical object back and forth along the keyboard 250,000 times. The results of this keyboard-wearing test were then shown, which were apparently carried out by an independent lab, Trace Laboratories.

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The Acer keyboard after the taber test.


The Acer’s keyboard took a drastic beating in the taber test, showing vicious white scratches which had etched into the space bar’s surface. Indeed, the journalist gentleman beside me had typed so many words into his personal Acer notebook, that the entire keyboard exhibited a well-worn, polished appearance, as if sand-blasted. This was not part of the test, rather a coincidental confirmation of the speaker’s comments.

click to view full size image
The Acer keyboard after the taber test.


The Lenovo keyboard also exhibited scratching to a lesser degree than the Acer, as did the Dell, but the HP Compaq seemed more resilient showing only the well-documented ‘shiny’ wearing. In this test, the HP Compaq keyboard was the least damaged by the taber test, with only a marginal effect on the plastic surface. Were these keyboards treated exactly the same during testing? We can’t confirm it. But the HP’s resilience was put down to the HP Compaq’s ‘Durakeys’ finish, a transparent coating over the keys that resists visible wearing, up to 50 times more than keyboards without it. HP has apparently bought the rights to this technology for one year, claiming that only HP keyboards will have this level of friction resistance. HP Durafinish is another technology that was showcased, which is a lamination process that surrounds the keyboard deck, improving the wear resistance of this area.

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Dell keyboard after the taber test.


Is it fair to compare keyboards that are specially treated for wear resistance against those that aren’t? Of course not, and we expect that most of the notebook manufacturers will follow suit with resilient keyboard coatings this year. However HP appears to be first with it.

A side issue is that along with the ‘shiny’ evidence of wear, the character labels on a keyboard begin to be sanded off with heavy use, potentially making the keyboard difficult to read. Indeed, the very keyboard that composed this piece is losing the coloured printing that labels each key. The left Control key label is all but indistinguishable, while the A key is losing flecks of its identity, while the space bar and center row of characters are showing the tell-tale signs of wear, in shiny spots of varying dimensions.

click to view full size image
Lenovo keyboard after the taber test.


Your mileage will vary, depending on the amount of typing you do. This desktop keyboard has suffered near-continuously typing for nigh on twelve months during business hours, so it’s perhaps not surprising that it’s showing signs of abuse.

At the same time, isn’t covering a notebook’s keys with impenetrable hard plastic ensuring that they’ll remain in the landscape for hundreds of years after being discarded? This is potentially a point of environmental concern. If an average notebook is used for two years, is it really necessary to harden the keyboard to the point of being indestructible? By the time it’s worn out, you’ll likely be looking at upgrading anyway.

click to view full size image
The HP Compaq keyboard after the taber test.


Another item mentioned in this round was adding privacy filters to notebook screens. The privacy filter is of course a flat piece of transparent plastic that is placed over a notebook display, that prevents people next to you in an aeroplane or departure lounge from reading your screen – it makes the screen contents invisible to observers, other that the user who is looking directly at it. The key comparison here was that HP Compaq have a privacy filter that’s specially cut to fit each model of notebook, so that the use of sticky tape or other adhesives was not necessary to fix the privacy filter in place.

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