The HP Compaq nc6400 is a mid-sized laptop with an impressive array of communication options, including an integrated connection to Vodafone’s HSDPA “wireless broadband” service. The latter enables mobile workers to stay connected virtually anywhere there is a mobile network signal.

Shipping since December 2006, the nc6400 is designed to offer performance without compromising on mobility. It runs an Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 processor at 1.83GHz with 1GB memory, and boasts an 80GB hard disk, DVD/CD-RW drive and 14.1in wide-screen display. At 2kg, the nc6400 is also relatively light for its size.

For connectivity the nc6400 offers Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an integrated adapter to connect to Vodafone’s 3G Broadband Wireless service. In tests, we were impressed with the performance of the 3G broadband connection, at least when at our Central London offices. Here, Vodafone’s HSDPA service provided enough bandwidth to view streaming video from the internet and we found web pages loaded at a speed comparable to Wi-Fi. Outside London, however, the Vodafone connection dropped back to GPRS.

Firms interested in the nc6400 for its 3G broadband capability will have to subscribe to a Vodafone data plan. These start at £25 per month for up to 250MB of data, with no-limits data plans starting at £45 per month.

Subscribers get a tool called Vodafone Mobile Connect that lets users connect or disconnect from the mobile service and also shows its status. The tool also manages Wi-Fi connections and has an SMS messaging client that resembles Outlook.

The laptop shows a decent level of performance, achieving a score of 23.8 under our Business Winstone 2004 benchmark suite. This compares with 21.2 for a Lenovo ThinkPad X60s laptop tested last year, while a Dell OptiPlex desktop scored 29.3. Both those systems also had Core 2 Duo chips.

However, we found the nc6400 somewhat sluggish when operating on battery power, often taking twice as long to start up as when drawing power from its mains adapter. The laptop lasted for three hours and 51 minutes in our BatteryMark 4.0.1 battery rundown test. This was run with power management disabled, so users should be able to use it for longer, depending on their use of wireless. We found that Wi-Fi in particular drained the battery more rapidly when enabled.

The nc6400’s screen is a decent size, has a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels and is well balanced so the laptop is less likely to tip backwards when used on your lap.

For security, our review unit featured both a built-in fingerprint swipe scanner and a smartcard reader, which can be used with HP’s ProtectTools Security Manager software.

The nc6400 has three USB ports, a single PC Card slot and a further slot at the front for reading Secure Digital (SD) or MMC Flash memory cards.