The HP 6720s presents itself with a surprisingly modern design, especially considering the usually conservative style of Compaq business notebooks. Whereas it's big and little brothers show spartan and clunky design, the 6720s offers elegant shapes and a slim case. Especially the indentation in the case around the keyboard almost  resembles VAIO notebooks from far east - but only on a small scale. Various other such details, like the charge status LED directly on the power connection on the left side of the case, help to modernise the look of the notebook line.

Despite the redesigned case, the HP Compaq 6720s stays loyal to it's roots . Ease of use and functionality continue to dominate over appearance. The working space is properly arranged and tidy. All keys and buttons are clearly marked and located where one expects them to be. Neither input devices nor interfaces are hard to understand.

The surface feel of the silver plastic case reminds a lot of the low cost 3000er product line made by the Chinese competitor Lenovo. While this is certainly not too bad, it doesen't really boost the haptics rating of the 6720s. The silver surface is very sensitive to scratches, but shows good resistance to dust and finger prints. Although the case bends through around the WLAN hot key and the keyboard if pressure is applied, and some other small flaws become apparent at a second glance, workmanship and stability of the case are sufficient for this price class.

The lid of the HP Compaq gets an average stability rating. Even light pressure on the outer side is sufficient to bend the surface through. Stronger pressure disturbs the image, which is usual for this class. The hinges on the other hand do their job and keep the LCD always safely in the chosen position. They also don't need any additional hook to keep the lid shut.

The interface equipment of the HP Compaq 6720s is below average.

Interfaces for modem, LAN, WLAN and Bluetooth are provided to communicate with the rest of the world. External devices can be plugged into the three USB ports. Unfortunately, HP put them not only directly next to each other, but also below the ExpressCard slot on the left side of the notebook. A large expansion card or a big USB stick can easily block most of the available ports - very inconvenient. The HP Compaq 6720s also offers a memory card reader for MMC and SD cards and, as usual for this class, only a VGA connection to send analog video to external displays.

Temperature

While the test sample only moderately heats up during daily usage, it doesen't look as good in our temperature test. Reasons for this are the room temperature of 25.0 degrees Celsius when the test was taken and of course also the test conditions, which means running extended periods of time under maximum load . After an hour we measured temperatures per Infrared. The upper surface of the notebook below the keyboard was acceptable 35.6 degrees warm, but the bottom heated up to 52 degrees. It is thus not recommended to keep the notebook on your laps in summer while doing demanding tasks.

The battery life of the HP Compaq 6720s is acceptable in our test. Although the notebook only manages 70 minutes under full load with the Battery Eaters classic test, the 47 watt battery lasts for more than 5 hours in the undemanding idle mode test with minimum display brightness before running empty. This equates a power consumption of 9 watt. However, the same test with activated WLAN and maximum display brightness depletes the battery in about 150 minutes - power consumption: about 18 watt.

As opposed to most other HP Compaq notebooks, it is not possible to extend battery life of the 6720s with an additional battery , since the required interface on the back is missing.