HP EliteBook 2540p Review Discussion

The EliteBook 2540p is the latest road-warrior ultraportable notebook from HP. The 2540p offers a 12.1-inch WXGA screen, Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors, built-in optical drive with select configurations, and a plethora of storage options. In our review, we put the new EliteBook through its paces to see how it stacks up against the competition.

Read the full content of this Article: HP EliteBook 2540p Review

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The HDD kills it, unless it is an SSD

 

X18M G2 would do nicely. Either swapping it over the supplied Toshiba 1.8" HDD, or buying the 2.5" HDD 2540P model and the parts to add it into the 1.8" drive bay.

Strange why the Lenovo X201 gets an extra hr of battery life for what is very similar hardware. I would have expected the X201 to get less battery life, since the X201 uses a 2.5" HDD as opposed to 2540P's lower-power 1.8" HDD.

 

Does the 2540p have a higher-nit display than the 201?

 

Looks very good! Glad to hear this notebook is now silent ( redesigned right side vent) and now has a better screen! My 2530p main complaint is noise and the slow hdd (1.8" ssd soon ). Weird thing about the battery life! What are the capacities of each battery?

 

That's why I asked about the display. It might explain why it has a short (relatively speaking, here) battery life compared to other 12" ultraportables.

 

I can sure as hell sacrifice an hour of battery life for a decent display. Waiting for details in the display department.

 

From the X201 review in regards to screen brightness.

The backlight brightness of all three notebooks was plenty bright to be viewable in an office setting. The X201 was the brightest of the bunch and measured 250cd/m2 at its brightest point. The X201s was second and measured 232cd/m2 at its brightest point. The X201 Tablet came in third measuring 182cd/m2 at its brightest point. If you plan on using the X201 outdoors, Lenovo offers a high-brightness outdoor-viewable screen on the X201 Tablet as an option.

 

Me too.

If I were going to replace my work notebook this year, I think this just might be my next one.

 

nice, Lenovo better watch out soon "Elitebook" will be what is associated with "Quality construction", by the general masses (8530p > T500, by a large margin).

 

A low power switchable nvidia or ati gpu would have really st this apart from the rest.

Give me this a darker metallic shade & material, I could possibly replace my Vaio for this. Can you tell us how the screen compares to the Vaio TT, G or Y?

 

I think it is a nice looking machine personally, although I don't know if I would necessarily get it as my next replacement machine as battery life is personally more important to me than the weighty cpu power the i7 can put out....

I wonder why it is that many years ago the 12" machines were the ones able to crank out the best battery life whereas of late they have fallen behind the 10.x/11.x and 13/14 and even 15.x screened notebooks? Somehow whenever I look the 12 inchers seem to have decent battery life only (like 6-7 hours)....

 

Except that you don't have values of the same sort in your Elitebook review...

 

Good to hear it is quiet. Because it seems like many of the current and previous ultra-light laptops are annoyingly loud.

Look at the new Z. A perfect machine that sounds like a jet engine under load. And even some low power machines like the E4200 are too loud for quiet environments.

Partly this is due to the 4500MHD and 5700HD graphics. They generate a fair share of heat. Add that to a non low voltage i-5 and you need a loud fan.

Are there any other current or prior generation ultralight 12-13" laptops that you can recommend that stay reasonably quit? I am considering the otherwise flawed Fujitsu P8020 just because it is quiet.

 

My Sony Vaio TT can get a little loud under full load, but its nothing to seriously bother you, at least it is not bothering me. I have the intel 4500hd gpu and CULV SU9300 cpu.

 

What's this? A new notebook with a 16:10 screen?!

That alone makes this machine worth buying, even if it's only a 1280x800 panel.

 

How does the HP EliteBook 2540p compare to the HP TM2t?

There are a few things that are holding me back from getting the HP EliteBook 2540p:

- Integrated Graphics Card
- Gets very expensive with custom build (over $2000)

 

For basic work tasks, integrated graphics is preferred for travelers. Also, build quality and customer service is far superior than then consumer HP line.

 

Expresscard makes a US$250 HD5770 DIY ViDock an option. Though need an external LCD.

There's some cheaper 2540P options around:
US$1000 12" HP 2540P i5-540M 2.53 2GB 250GB-2.5" W7P
US$1400 12" HP 2540P i7-620LM 2.13 2GB 160GB-1.8" DVD W7P

 

I've heard the x200 is dead silent but I am not sure. I can tell about my 2530p
with the "fan always on when on AC power" option off is very quiet (i dont stress the machine a lot). Maybe get a 2530p with the ulv SU9400 (no equivalent processor offered in the 2540p and I wish my SL9400 was a SU9400)

If I were you I'll wait for the 32nm ULV chips from intel.

 

you should see my 2501p with a u-7700 cpu and how hot that thing gets. alot of times the laptop s off do to over heating, its why i use the 9 cell battery more often then the 6. the slight lift at the back helps alot with heat.

 

That was my plan until I heard about In tels intentional delays to clear out old CULV inventory.

Its good to hear that at least it is possible to have an i-5 ultralight, because I like the X201's power/battery life combo. I guess I'll just wait and follow the r3eviews as new models get released.

 

Looks like I'm not the only one trying to compare screens of various notebooks. Unfortunately, I've found this information to be among the most difficult to obtain, either from reviews or specs.

The 2540p specs show an average brightness of 200 nits (cd/m2), and a contrast ratio of 400:1. The specs of the X201 are silent on these figures (at least, I haven't found them). Oddly, the X200 specs did include them (200 nits, 250:1 contrast ratio). I've read several people who have felt the X201's display isn't as "good" as the X200, so I'm guessing perhaps the contrast ratio might have come down (but that's just a guess).

It'd be great if someone would do an ultraportable display shootout and rank the displays in some fashion via repeatable metrics (instead of the unfortunately common "nice display" comments that many (non-NBR) reviews contain).

 

Going by manufacturer specs, it looks like 12" ultraportable displays break down as:

1. P770 (Fujitsu) - 300nit, 400:1 contrast
2. 2540p (HP) - 200nit, 400:1 contrast
3. x201s (Lenovo) - 250nit, 300:1 contrast
4. x201 (Lenovo) - 200nit, 250:1 contrast

All are matte, 16:10. x201s is WXGA+, all others are WXGA

I didn't look at display specs for the tablet versions of these, but my guess is that they will all be better. I know the x201t is.

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-75044

http://www.fujitsu.com/hk/services/computing/pc/notebooks/pseries/p770/specs.html

 

What about the 12in Sony Vaio G3(the latest model with the ULV C2D), how does that compare to the aforementioned?

 

Unfortunately, like desktop screens, specs really don't mean much since there is no standardized scale to adhere to. If you look at actual value testing, there is a huge variation from reported specs and actual contrast/brightness.

 

True. There's no substitute for detailed testing a la notebookcheck.

 

Thanks, guys, those are helpful (even if not necessarily meaningful). Hopefully within a manufacturer's own line (e.g., the x201 series), the specs are consistent. Though I do know that Kevin O'Brien stated the X201 was measured slightly brighter than the X201S (250 vs 232 at their brightest points), which does contradict the specs (which I had been unable to find -- thanks, Chris).

I'm not able to find detailed display testing on notebookcheck for either the 2540p, or the X201. Maybe I'd better look again.

 

Finally a successor for my beloved 2510p.

What's the difference between i7-620M and i7-640LM?

I was looking for the 3G modem for it, Just buy the un2420 and I'm set?

Thanks,

Abras

 

This page on Intel's site should tell you much of what you'd like to know about them. Here's the detailed comparison between just those two.

In a nutshell, the LV version has a max TDP of 10W less than the standard voltage chip, and runs normally at 2GHz vs 2.66GHz. The old speed vs battery life tradeoff. (Note that the LV's turbo speed is only slightly faster than the 620M's normal clock speed.)

 

Thank you! I did one with all the 4 cpu options here.

The i5 seems very similar to i7.
i7-640LM seems like the best one for battery life with the option to use the turbo.

Now I just have to verifity about the 3G modem.

Thanks

 

Thanks; I messed up. I had compared the i7-620M and the i7-620LM, not the i7-640LM. Too many similar parts!

I agree; I think of those 4, the i7-640LM is the most attractive option for most people (at least, it is for me).

 

Lower TDP doesn't necessarily mean it will consume lower power. It's more of a marketing gimmick, if anything. Tests were shown with the last generation C2Ds comparing same clocked CPUs with different TDPs, and they didn't have any significant difference in power consumption within standard error. Even on max load, the power consumption differences will not be close to 10W difference.

 

Well, that stinks. So when trying to compare 2 processors and guess at their power usage, is there anything that we can look at to do so (besides reviews)?

 

Well generally speed and cache are the best factors to look at with CPUs using the same generation architecture. LV CPUs generally do use lower power since they are clocked much slower. However, as I was talking about in C2Ds, (haven't used core i series so I'm not sure about how much difference there is), there were some faster clocked P series CPUs with the same or faster clock speed as the lower clocked T series. In actual power consumption tests, at idle and load, there was virtually no difference in power between similarly clocked/cached CPUs, despite TDP difference of 10W. At idle especially, all CPUs downclock (generally to similar speeds), so on battery, most usages won't be noticeably different.

 

Hello,

yes they are !

x201t:
500:1 contract radio
IPS or PVA panels
170° viewing
200 cd/m2 (regular display)
300 cd/m2 (multitouch display)
400 cd/m2 (outdoor display)

 

Not sure where you're getting the panel info for the X201t, but it's definitely not IPS and doubt it's PVA, so I question all the other specs too. Especially since manufacturers tend to overstate brightness and contrast heavily.

 

it can be found in their tabook:
http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/tabook.pdf


the luminance for the outdoor display is somewhere between 399 to 420 nits (or cd/m2) , depending the colorimeter and sofware you use.



some users reported that it's a Toshiba S-PVA screen, FRU 13N7272, PN 42T0697, Model# LT121EE08000

 

Looks like they have IPS only in tablets right now. 12.5" X220 (which will have IPS on premium models) is not out until April.

 

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13566_div/13566_div.HTML

The following are the specifications for the 12.1-inch LED-backlit WXGA anti-glare display of the HP EliteBook 2540p Notebook PC series:

- Active Area (W x H) 10.3 x 6.4 in (26.1 x 16.3 cm)
- Diagonal Size 12.1 in (30.7 cm)
- Contrast Ratio 400:1 (typical)
- Brightness 200 nit (typical)
- Pixel Resolution Pitch 0.204 mm
- Format 1280 x 800
- Configuration RGB Stripe
- Backlight LED
- PPI 125
- Viewing Angle ±30° Horizontal, ±10° Vertical (minimum) SVA
30/30/20/10 (Left/Right/Down/Up) (minimum) or
45/45/35/25 (Left/Right/Down/Up) (typical)