HP Compaq nw9440 Review Discussion

The HP Compaq nw9440 is a 17" screen business laptop featuring a full size keyboard and numeric pad. It also offers a top end Core 2 Duo processor and powerful NVIDIA Quadro FX 1500M graphics card that allows it to perform well in gaming, after business hours are over.

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Nice setup there. Did you notice a decrease in performance when using your fingerprint scanner? When I enabled it on my nx9420 (nearly the same as yours, but weaker), gaming was unacceptable.

 

Wow, those 3DMark scores are incredible, better than the Alienware. I agree that the extra build quality you get from a business laptop is definitely nice to have. Well researched buy here. Thanks for the great review!

 

Wow thats a very sweet HP I cant believe how much better it looks over the dv9000 series.

 

wow, it is quite light for a 17"... W2 light!

 

The HP business line is excellent, far superior to the Pavilion line. The workstation line is a bit pricy, but the regular notebook line is better in that regard.
I really like the rubber mouse buttons on them, however trivial that might seem, plus the trackpoint.

 

Can I ask whether the fans run at all times?

 

Nice hard drive, 3dmark / pcmark, and super pi scores. That along with a nice looking solid built laptop, this is a tough one to top. very nice.

 

you say no dvi out on dock... i think the white connector next to the blue s-video out is the dvi out.

 

Nice review when i bought my HP NC 8430 am was skeptic about HP notebooks also but there business line is solid.

 

Nice review!

 

He said there's no DVI without the dock. Which is totally true. There's only VGA and s-video on the nx9420/nw9440. It's on the dock though (which I wish I had).

 

nice review...I am waiting on my nx9420 the NW9440's leetle brother...

 

MGS2392 - I didn't see a decrease in gaming performance at all. The fingerprint scanner only runs at the login, and then I've disabled most of the "HP Credential Manager" over-management functions. For example, it tries to be an end-all, be-all password manager and integrate itself into almost every new application you have. But I don't need it to function like that, so I set it up to only work when I need it. Go in and play with the settings, and you might get your gaming performance back.

IdontexistM8 - If I put my hand down by the vent, I can feel a little bit of airflow but can't hear a thing. Sometimes at startup and when playing a game for awhile the fans kick on high power for a bit and you can hear them if you're listening, but it's nothing more than a dull whooshing sound from the air movement... no buzz or motor sound from the fans themselves.

jherber - DVI out on the dock, none without the dock. I like the dock so much I just bought a second one to use at home.

grumpy3b - One of my partners got the nx9420 on my recommendation. I'll be curious to see how that nVidia Quadro NVS 510M stacks up.

I was pleasantly surprised with the HP business class. It really changed my tune about HP computers altogether (they've always had great printers, in my opinion.)

I hope this review helps a lot of people with some decision making. I was happy to do it.

 

Nice review and very useful --- I looked around quite a bit for information about the nw9440 before purchasing mine at the end of last year, and didn't find much that was current, so I'm sure this will help a lot of people.

As far as I can tell (I could be wrong), the construction is even better than what you say, with a magnesium alloy lid and alloy top plate on the chassis around the keyboard tray. My performance was great also -- I got 58 secs on super-pi, with the T7400 core 2 duo, and 4110 on 3DMark06.

So I hesitate add a slightly cautionary note about my experience, since I really liked the laptop too.

When I tried playing certain games (e.g. Gothic III, Titan Quest) on the nw9440 I got consistent crashes (to a black screen, with locked keyboard and power on -- I had to power off and restart to fix it) after only a few minutes. At first, I assumed this must be caused by some incompatibility of the games with the Quadro GPU and I tried installing the most recent nVidia forceware drivers, then I thought it must be interference from some background application, but eventually I traced it to the GPU overheating. This really surprised me, since the machine does not run hot or loud at all.

The thing that finally convinced me was when I turned down the setting of the GPU on the nVidia PowerMizer control panel from "max performance" to "balanced" (which drops the 3DMark06 score to about 1900), I was able to run Titan Quest continuously for 10 hours with stable GPU temps around 62 C; I then did nothting except turn up the setting to "max performance". In 5 minutes, the GPU temp shot up to about 77 C and the machine crashed.

I've found a few other reports on the web of people who seem to have had similar problems with their nw9440. I'm assuming this is just an issue with a few units, but I'd recommend anyone getting an nw9440 to check it out.

I've somewhat reluctantantly requested an RMA and a replacement (the original machine came with an essentially perfect WUXGA+ screen with no dead/stuck pixels, minimal light leakage, so who knows if the replacement will be as good), but IMO a machine like this shouldn't crash running anything.

While HP did give me an RMA without much problem, they were slightly stickier about it than I would've liked. I'd made sure when buying it that HP had a 30 day return guarantee, since I was buying the machine sight unseen. I got it from a reseller, who shaved about 5 days off that to give them time to contact HP (so that's something to be careful of, but I was well within the return period). Then HP wouldn't give the reseller an RMA without me getting a case number from HP first.

The HP support didn't super-impress me. I had to tell the first guy I spoke with (before I'd contacted the reseller) that the nw9440 had a dedicated GPU, not integrated graphics. The second guy (after I described the issue to him in detail, told him why I wanted to get an case number, went through his troubleshooting steps, and explained what else I'd tried) suggested that I send it back so they could replace the motherboard, which I really doubt would've helped, so I declined. He went and talked to his supervisor and gave me the case number.

Edit: Just as an update, HP FedEx'd a new nw9440 which arrived a week after their approval of an RMA for replacement. I've only had it a day, but the new machine seems to have no problems at all, and definitely doesn't crash like the first one, so I'm very satisfied with their service.

 

I would say the crashing issue must be on a few units, because I've not experienced it. I've played Mount & Blade with all settings maximized, battles resized up to 65+, and Stronghold Legends with all settings maximized, for several hours at a time. No crashes at all.

It's only after awhile that the fans even kick to high power, so they must have fixed something in that nVidia Quadro FX 1500M.

 

Thanks for the added info Miller..

Sadly the 17" WSXGA doesn't seem to be available in the UK. only the WUXGA which is just too much for my eyes.

I'm very tempted to import one from the US, even with VAT and shipping I'm looking at a £400+ saving over an EU model.

Slightly OT but apart from some keyboard differences are there any import perils I should be aware of? I have checked the HP warranty is global (and still 3 years) so that shouldn't be a problem.

 

Those 3dmarks were a little low for the 1500M. I got 6400 with stock clocks. Does HP include much bloat on the laptop?

Nice machine by the way.

 

Actually, I think it's pretty high for a 1500M: his PCMark05 score was 5,364; his 3DMark05 score was 7,288. (My machine, with a slightly faster 2.16 GHz core 2 duo, scored 7,306 on 3DMark05 pretty much out of the box.)

There isn't really any bloatware on the notebook, though there is various more business oriented stuff which you may or may not want (a security suite, including a credential manager for the finger print reader, an embedded security chip, and some BIOS management; backup and recovery stuff; quick launch program for buttons in presentations; an HP wireless/bluetooth assistant; an HP help and support center for updating drivers, software) plus an Intervideo dvd player, Lightscribe, and Symantec anti-virus with 60-day subscription.

 

I forgot all about the 60-day Norton. I loaded AVG on my old laptop to give it to my sister-in-law without the worries of the subscription monster in a year, and liked it so much that I immediately deleted the 60-day Norton and installed AVG on my HP.

Everything else, all the HP business management apps, you can customize to set them to run only on things you want them to run on. With 1GB of system memory, I don't even notice a performance factor with the extra processes running, and they're relatively small background processes anyway.

 

As a current user of 2 (1 backup) HP nw8000's and an owner of a nc8000 (wife's), I am quite happy with them.

Note that these were Compaq machines, so this is why they are so good!

Does the nw9440 have the capability of dual-hard drives like my nw8000's??

I need to go with a core2duo, as my machine (2.1 mhz PentiumM) can't take the load even with 2 GB RAM, winXPpro...

TIA!

 

I didn't see an option on the config for dual hard drives. I've really not got a need for a RAID configuration (data is accessed from and saved to the server, applications can be replaced easily), so I didn't even check that out when I was researching.

 

nice review!

 

Miller I have a question about the Dock station.

Can you hook 2 external LCD's up to the dock, One on VGA and one on the DVI ?

HP stated they do not support dual external connections on any of there docks. Dock looks like the same one uses for nc6400.

If anyone has this setup with 2 external LCD displays. Please send me info on how to do this.

My current Laptop (Not HP) supports dual external display!