HP 8740w Review! - Full Metal Jacket!

I can't really tell you what card to buy, but I'll recommend the ATI card so that you can save some money. It has greater performance bang for the buck, and in-card DirectX 11 support. It does not support CUDA. As long as you do not need CUDA support for anything you will be doing and the software you will be using workds well with the card & drivers (i.e. certificated to operate, if that is necessary), it's the better value.

The NVIDIA FX2800M only has DirectX 10 support, but supports CUDA. Others would be in a better position to say for sure, but NVIDIA may provide you better support with some engineering programs; but don't quote me on that.

No, the HP MDA software offers no capability to calibrate on its own. Again, it's just a gamut selector/switcher to switch between pre-configured gamuts. To be critical, I do not believe anyone has reported the accuracy of those gamuts yet after their own calibration to check them.

 

p.s. The M7820 definitely "out-specs" the FX2800M

ATI FirePro M7820 - Notebookcheck.net Tech

NVIDIA Quadro FX 2800M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Better/faster memory type, newer generation DirectX and Shader support, lower power consumption, etc. The Shader's clock-speed may be much slower on the ATI, but it doesn't seem to be to the ATI's detriment. I don't know how the Comparison Chart ratings are determined, but the FX2800M is said to be 11% slower than the M7820.

 

Thank you very much. I would have kept the lenovo w701 if it was an ips display panel. it is a nice notebook w. all in one conveniance. But i will see what the hp is all about. the card ati is new to this serious Hp 8740w. it said from my reading that it might have issues w. photoshop cs 4 and 5 withe the Cuda issue. i am not a tech guy so i realy dont know if it will effect my edditing photoshop color works.thanks

 

If you're serious about the HP, consider checking out the 8740w owner's lounge.

 

what is the owners loung?!!!!where is that ?

 

Here you go

Keep in mind that you'll have a slightly warmer/noisier running system compared to your W701 (which has 2 fans instead of a single fan found in 8740w)

 

Windows just went Basic on me...2nd time this has happened

EDIT: and now it switched back

 

Keep in mind that you have a newly fledged and unpolished tech in your system - FX5000M. It will take some BIOS+Drivers updates to iron things out.

 

What time was it when it happened? Windows 7 does some performace related stuff at certain time at night, it involves changing to basic theme and back.

 

In his case, there's more to it than just a theme switching which could also happen when video driver crashes and then gets reloaded by the OS.
He's got sudden restarts/shutdowns as well.
HP has officially confirmed that the latest BIOS version doesn't work well with the FX5000M. The irony is - previous BIOS versions don't support this new card at all

 

That happened to me twice. It came with a long delay loading the OS, then a warning that my profile was unable to be loaded and I was operating with a default profile. I immediately shutdown, crossed fingers, and started back up after waiting a few seconds. This time it booted cleanly with my profile & associated desktop.

 

I only had it happen once and even then, it was because of the driver crash when switching between intensive gaming and HD video playback. It didn't require any restarts and the system message was about the GPU driver being successfully recovered.

 

Huh?

10char

 

Since these kinds of talks aren't allowed in this section - will PM you

 

For the past several posts I thought we were in the Owner's Lounge.

 

o not buy the Elitebooks. I had a hinge break - it just stuck as i was opening it one morning, and literally ripped the right hinge away from the screen. The laptop was still under warranty but HP refused to honor the warranty repair. They clearly were trying everything they could to keep from honoring the warranty with the most bizarre and childish interactions with HP service reps.

They claimed it was my fault, although they couldn't actually explain how i could have possibly only broken the right hinge and not both. Stay very far away from this product. I had an IBM Thinkpad for 5 years and put it through the wringer from grad school (and after) with ZERO problems. And this computer has been treated with kid gloves as it's only work and in a dock 90% of the time. If this laptop cannot stand up to this, then it has no business in a work setting. Also, check out their marketing and how they stress the ruggedness of the laptop - and more humorously (well not to me) they tout the durability OF THE HINGES. Ha.

If they would have honored the $130 repair, then I would say it has been a good machine (other than the clunky HP apps that constantly crash and cause issues with hibernation/sleep). I still cannot believe they would not repair this and put me through over 2 days of grief with their India reps, nasty customer service reps, and petty accusations of their customer. I, for one, will NEVER buy another HP product due to this $130 issue. And my company is/was a full HP shop with probably $100,000k worth of HP products purchased in the last couple years. Seems totally foolish, but then the HP reps clearly didn't care as I even tried to split the difference and keep some HP loyalty. They were obviously told to do anything and everything the could to not honor warranty repairs. Sad.

 

@bwlove,
I understand your concern.
What model did/do you have?
In 15 years of IT, I have seen many such cases with most vendors/manufacturers (including IBM/Lenovo). From what you described, it looks like your HP was/is a consumer grade system - a Pavilion?
It would make sense as those have cheap plastic touch panels and generally cheaper components. I find it hard to believe that you could actually rip the hinge out on the latest Elitebooks, but maybe I'm wrong.

This system is available from March/April and so far we haven't heard of any such case (hinge break).

 

Hi Aikimox,

I PM'd you about some info on the Elitebooks, if you have some time.

Thank you very much!

 

kgamadia -- I updated your permissions so you can now send PMs. Usually it requires 5 posts to be able to PM (just so we can defend against spammers).

 

Nice review Aikimox.
I don't know if someone already pointed this out, but I need say that you definitely should adjust the two screens to the same luminance. What I see from the comparison pictures is that M17X screen is overexposed. So highlight details are blown out and dark areas appear not as "dark" as they should be, which lowers the contrast and saturation people perceive. The is a typical problem of modern digital camera (especially in jpeg shooting) as the image sensor has compromised dynamic range.

 

Thanks for pointing this out. The M17X screen is set to 1.8 gamma instead of 2.2. Even at lower brightness I still see the same overexposure effect. Unfortunately I have no tools to calibrate the screen properly, hence the stock vs stock comparison. That's what most users will see out of the box.

 

It is kind of weird to me that dell's rgbled screens require gamma 1.8 to perform well ( I saw a review about this). I believe the results you got. I just want to point this out so that people can know that the differences could sometimes be magnified.

 

@Charles P. Jefferies

Thanks for the authorization / explanation about the PMs. Makes perfect sense, but it had me scratching my head at the time.

 

Wow, i just wish to see such lcd and other, more common, laptops...

 

Unfortunately, that's not likely to happen for some time. Dreamcolor is _expensive_, it's about a $500 upcharge from the regular TN WXGA screen. You could buy an entire notebook for that price.

 

It's expensive because consumers are brainwashed into thinking that way. Marketing 101. Make it special and rare and demand whatever price you want for it. There is no technological reason for it to be that way.

Just a couple of years ago, when the Dreamcolor 1 was all the rage (it's on the high ends 8730ws in case anyone forgot already), this panel, which HP sells for $400 as an upgrade, could be purchase online for $100 just one year after it made its debut at HP.

I'll bet you that if you find out the manufacturer name and part number for the new panel, it will be a fairly simple matter of some time and searching to find it online from a chinese or korean manufacturer.

Dreamcolor is expensive at this time because we, as consumers, accept the song and dance of the marketers to be the truth. I don't, because I recognize it's all a performance just like a movie or a comedy skit. No way will I ever pay MSRP on anything I purchase. That's for people who have money to waste and love to be guinea pigs. A little time and a little search usually uncovers the item's true price and origins.

That being said, it's not trivial to replace a non Dreamcolor LCD with a Dreamcolor LCD on the 8740w from looking at the schematics, not as easy as it was for the 8730w.

Sorry to those who prefer short sound bites for babbling on, happy new year, I just woke up from a dream seing what the next tablet computer will look like... And no, it doesn't look anything like the Ipad, and it'll be flexible and less than 2mm at its thickest. I vividly saw its layers in the dream and I know it is possible with technology existing today (oled, flexible PCBs, polymer film battery, and it will recharge by direct induction...

 

@83bj60,
Well, the question is what choice do you have? Lead a revolution army and topple the existing empire to build your own? Or wait till you may find a cheap DC2 source panel on the net and try installing it into your machine? The system is here from the last April and in a couple of months will be replaced by 8750w with a 1080p (most likely) screen. Still no success of getting a DC2 of eBay for 100$. You're right, with time and patience everything is possible. But time itself is precious. Those who work in color critical environment need it now, not 2 years later.
Also, wasn't the previous DC gen a TN panel? Those would cost as low as 100$. DC2 is a 30-bit IPS and according to some reviews and my personal impression, is very close to the quality of 2000$+ IPS monitors. And given the discounts you can get from HP - the system is way cheaper than a Precision M6500 or W701 with similar specs and RGB LED TN.
Here's a review by notebookcheck.

 

More like a lot of time and searching. It's been something like half a year since these have been introduced, and _nobody_ has been able to source one. All we get from various screen identification utilities has been that it's a LG with the identifier LGD0270, and the couple times we've seen a DC2 screen available on eBay it's been over $1000 (well, there was one for a few hundred, but when someone tried to buy it, they were told that the wrong screen had been advertised, and the listing was canceled). It may be a situation like the Radiance screens or the Envy; there's only one manufacturer for these, and they won't share. The fact that it's a 16:10 IPS screen (unlike the TN DC1 screen, which is/was shared with many other manufacturers like Dell and Lenovo) doesn't help matters either. If you can source a cheap one, then there'll be numerous people beating down a path to your door.

 

Is it marketing 101 or economics 101? How much demand is there for a 17" 16:10 rgb ips panel? Not much, since theres one device that uses it, and it's not even sold in stores. Therefore, supply is low and economy of scale never comes into effect. Without mass production, each individual unit shares the initial r&d and production costs, making them the price it is now.

 

Good to know, Akimox. I agree that it only takes one to find THE source and then it spreads on the net... The hardest thing is of course to find the source! Thanks for the heads up.

I'm quite happy with the 8730w and got used to the uneven background coloring. I understand the 8740 panel shows a similar behaviour, from my readings; I just wish there was a way to overlay a mask to cancel this (even if it means lowering the lighting intensity). Unfortunately, I am not nearly technically proficient enough and computer savvy enough to actually make such a software mask that would in effect modify the output on a per coordinates basis, to cancel out that lighting discrepancy. But that's another story, and one that apparently has not been discussed anywhere online as far as I know.

 

Actually, after a couple of screen replacements, I got a panel with perfect background color uniformity, be it white or black. HP needs to invest more into their quality control. I also discovered many (25-30) stuck pixels on the first screen.
But at last I can say that the screen is beyond amazing, even my picky eyes can't find a reason to complain anymore (and I had many things to say against the second best panel - RGB LED TN screen found in M6500, AW M17X etc).

 

True, I've had maybe 12-15 RGBLED (E2E and matte) screens pass my way via M6400's, M6500's, and a few 1737's and the best panel yet was on a ~$580.00 scratch n dent refurb 1737 w/ RGBLED which had the best even lighting and picture quality I've seen on an RGBLED panel ever and zero dead pixels (Conversely, the worst ever was a 1737 with the most atrocious, washed out RGBLED panel I've ever encountered). I found myself doing double and triple takes because the quality was so crisp. I compared it to my buddy's 1737 w/ RGBLED panel and it was hard to believe both were the same LG panel.

Even in the realm of high end panels, you will encounter your fair share of lemons and stars.

I'd probably pass out seeing a top notch DC2 flexin'.





I ended up keeping the 1737 as a backup because the panel was so sick.

 

of topic ...but aikimox ...when i open and close my laptop ..i heard the plastic craking ..if i don't use the center to open ....if i move the screen by using one hand more on side i heard that even sometime in the center ....is it some you guyz also have or am i maniac ?

 

Close the lid and examine the silver frames around the hinges on the lid. The sound may be present if there are gaps, bad assembly of the lid. If you can't live with it, get the panel replaced and hopefully, the next one will be better. My first lid had that sound, but that was not the reason for replacing it, really.

 

Great to know that screen is better than the DC1 ever was! And sorry I misquote in my last post instead of Judicator

In any case - you are right, the poor quality control is totally unacceptable when dealing with so-called "high-end" laptops. I don't want to get into the dreamcolor replacement saga anymore, I've got a slightly better panel than I started with, but I can tell you this: quality is NOT related to price AT ALL, as my son's $379 HP laptop has better backlight evenness than the DC on my 8730w!

Like someone else said, the the problem getting a high end laptop is that you may be getting rare components whose kinks haven't been worked out and may actually be of WORSE quality than those in a more common machine built on cheaper but proven technology!

 

basically when i press with my finger on the plastic i feel like this is playin ...near for exemple the logo hp on the screen bottom let's say 3 cm on its left i touch and it's cracking ....so i pressed higher to clipse some maybe and it's even worse !

 

You beat me in pickiness

 

The reliability of low-end machines is typically good since the company will be producing a LOT of them and therefore they need to have a low failure rate if the company wants to remain profitable.

I think the price of the DC2 screen is 100% justified. It's not a cheap screen to make -- the IPS production process has always been expensive, not to mention this one has fancy RGBLED backlighting and special circuitry to go with it. It's truly an amazing screen; once you get used to it . . . tough to go to anything else and be impressed by it (impossible for me, thus far).

 

I see we agree on the assessment, but not on the interpretation.

Cheaper models are cheaper not primarily because they cost less to produce, but because they produce so many of them. Big Difference! But, I admit, same result.

It's all economics and marketing 101. Make products en masse, sell cheap and make big profits. Make few (remember the IBM T221), and sell very expensively. R&D to produce 1,000 LCDs= R&D to produce 100,000. And as we know, most of the cost IS in R&D, it's not surprising the costs for rare panels is going to be high.

As for the DC panel's superiority... You don't have to convince me, even if I haven't seen the DC2. I work with two laptops and the DC on my 8730w is definitely much nicer to look at, except on predominantly white backgrounds because of the darn backlight unevenness. I am unfortunately very sensitive to that and have been looking for a software overlay utility to compensate for that. Considering how many screens exhibit visible backlighting unevenness, I am surprised no one looked into this before. How difficult would it be to generate a table that would subtract RGB values for each pixel depending on its location on the screen to compensate for the unevenness?

Say RGB values are measured at 255, 245,255 at the lower left corner (DC 1) and 245, 245, 255 on the lower right corner. Should it not be possible to dynamically compensate on the video card frame buffer, in the manner of some kind of an overlay function, a software filter pane of sorts like what is used in games for transparency effects?

 

Yep ...i know
But i expect a 2010 pro range hp laptop to at least as good as a 3 years old 8710w witch is not the case !!

 

Ok so when I first got my 8740w, the front right foot (by the fingerprint scanner) was slightly raised, so I had to put a folded post-it note to make the laptop even. Then I went on a trip with my laptop and... the front left foot was raised, while the other 3 were flat.

Ok...

And now, all 4 corners of the laptop sit perfectly fine on the desk. What is going on? Is the laptop chassis flexing, or are the rubber feet evening themselves out?

 

flexible .....
Wonder if a precision 4500 isn't better built (ugly as well but i found my friends latitude to be build like a tank ...)

 

I'm writing this from my 8 years old IBM R40, which had ZERO issues from the day 1 till now. There was a time,...

There's of course a mild flexing in the chassis.

 

25-30 dead pixels??? I already freak out when I see 1 dead pixel! Do you guys all have screens without any dead pixels or is that just not possible with such a high resolution screen?

 

It's quite possible. I think the industry standard is that about 3% of all panels have dead pixels. It's been a while since I've looked into the numbers (about a year or so, I believe).

 

one dead pixel here .....the tolerance is where it's placed ...in my case it's near the bordzer so f ...off ...but i miss the good old dayz ...still got a gateway with 0 dead pixel after 10 years !

 

My current screen has zero dead pixels but previous replacements had.

 

Although the DC1 panels on my 8730w ALL exhibit at least some color tinging in the backlight (red on lower left, bluish on lower right), NONE of the three I had ever had a dead or stuck pixel.

There is a free utility to unstuck stuck pixels if you feel like trying it: UDPixel - udpix.free.fr. It works by repeatedly cycle offending pixels on and off.

 

^^ I tried it along with many other programs. Went as far as letting the program run overnight. Even tried massaging and knocking the affected area with the system both off and on. Not a single stuck pixel was revived. It worked however on the RGB LED TN (M17X). Maybe these reviving methods do not work on IPS screens? Dunno...

 

ud pixel never worked for me ....tried massage , undead pixel long cycle, insults ...nothing !!!

The only thing that worked since, is self persuasion :" don't pay attention , zo, it's ok"