*HP EliteBook 8740w Owners Lounge - PART 1*

[SecretAsianMan]

If you're not too worried about the display's color reproduction or TPM, then the VAIO F Series would probably be your best option in terms of price/performance.

. . .

HP 8740w: IPS DC2 display (whenever it returns as an option); durable.

You're comparing a Lexus SUV to a military Humvee. I can say this with certainty, having owned a VAIO AW at home and having used a 8530w at work.

The VAIO you mentioned is a consumer machine. It's a nice-looking one, but ultimately a consumer machine. It's designed for light use and occasional gaming, mostly at home. It's made of plastic and will show wear easily if you don't take care of it. Configurable options will be fewer and primarily positioned for media consumption and gaming. The post-sale support will be bare-bones, as cheap as Sony can get away with.

The EliteBooks (along with ThinkPad Ws and Precisions) are a completely separate class: mobile workstations, business machines. They are designed to be used at full power, all day, every day. They are built (with metal) to travel, to be dropped, to be spilled upon. Business machines are configurable and serviceable, allowing access to drive bays, memory, wireless module, video cards, processors, etc. Configurable options are positioned for work use: docking stations, special batteries, smart card readers, etc. If your EliteBook stops working, a human will come to your location by the next business day and either repair or replace the notebook on the spot.

Of course the VAIO F has a better price/performance ratio than the flagship EliteBook. That is to be expected, since the VAIO is significantly cheaper to produce and support. If price/performance is the overriding factor in your purchasing decision, then the 8740w probably is not the notebook for you. Rather, consider the 8740w if you value durability, versatility, support, and minimizing stoppage of work.

Then there's the DreamColor 2, which might be provably the best display ever sold on a notebook. If it's even half as good as we hope, it will be a game-changer all on it's own.

[lethial]

That is assuming that any of us will get a 8740w sometimes this year to tell about it.

Okay enough pessimism, but I do have a serious but OT question for you guys that have owned an Elitebook-like product for personal use:

When the repair person show up, do you feel the need to have either some snack or drink on hand to give it to them?

I swear, I would feel bad if someone comes to my place and fix something for me (even if it is their company's fault) and I didn't offer them some food and/or drink...

[TechAnimal]

Whilst I would love the power of the 8740w and W701, my back would hate the weight LOL. So i think, realistically, its down to the Lenovo W510 or HP 8540w (with DC2). The Lenovo is about 700usd cheaper than the HP configured with DC2 and FX 1800m. I like the Lenovo touchpad and built in calibrator and slightly less weight but like the HP's power. Anyone have any idea on the cooling and battery performance ability of both?

[Sotton]

I hope the 8740w coloring is better than that of the 8730w but I don't think so

Since it is colored metal my 8730w shows signs of wear where the palms rest (I use only the internal keyboard/touchpad)

The 8710w has plastic for the palm rests but it is not colored as far as I know and shows almost no sign of wear.

[Aikimox]

... Anyone have any idea on the cooling and battery performance ability of both?

Did you read the review in my sig? The performance is great, the cooling is adequate, on par with 8540w as I understand from their forum boards. You can run any modern game from mid settings and up to max in many cases, just don't play power-hungry games like Crysis for many hours as both systems will hit 90C+ on CPU and GPU.

[Aikimox]

There might be no backlit keyboard option for me
The Order Status page has been updated:
VM937AV#ABA KB DP 8740w US
It's the wrong one, right?
In the order summary that was sent to the warehouse it says:
VM929AV#ABA Backlit - Full-sized keyboard with numeric keypad and dual pointing devices (touchpad and pointstick) with scroll zone

Will see what the rep says, worst case scenario - will buy it separately later.

[sheltem]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but what kind of screen does the entry level 8740w ($1999) come with? How do you know if you're getting the DC2 screen? And are there any benchmarks comparing the FirePro M7820 to the 2800m/3800m?

[lethial]

@sheltem, I am not sure what kind of screen you will get for the base config. Besides what has been listed officially for its name.

DC2 screen used to be an option that you can configure on the configuration page (it adds $500+ ) but it has disappeared as an configurable option for now.

I think the order for laptops with DC2 has exceeded their expectation, so they don't have the supply right now. (same goes for the backlit keyboard)

As for the GPU comparison. M7820 is supposed to be derived from the M5870 (consumer card), which should perform better than the current nV laptop GPUs.

[Aikimox]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but what kind of screen does the entry level 8740w ($1999) come with? How do you know if you're getting the DC2 screen? And are there any benchmarks comparing the FirePro M7820 to the 2800m/3800m?

The entry level probably has a 1440x900 screen and it's not a DC2! You need to add 570$ extra for the IPS option with a camera module.

Dunno about pro (CAD, DCC) performance comparison but the FirePro is on par (maybe slightly weaker) with a FX3800M and more powerful than a FX2800M in 3DMark06, it's also much stronger than even a FX3800M in Vantage. Plus, DX11 support. All in all it's much more efficient and future proof. Has about 50W Current Consumption (compared to 100W for FX3800M).

[m8o]

There might be no backlit keyboard option for me
The Order Status page has been updated:
VM937AV#ABA KB DP 8740w US
It's the wrong one, right?

Seems so. Mine reads:
028059913 -- VM929AV#ABA -- 015 -- KB DP Backlit 8740w US