HP EliteBook 8530w Review

finally i received my Hp 8730w

first impression : wow what a machine

review: there could pop up some problems like measuring the bottom temperature, sound ,...

so i'm going to leave this to the pro's, i'll do a benchmark when everything is installed

 

So lets hear some reviews of these elitebooks, has anyone pushed it at all so far?

 

I am thinking of getting an 8530w as my main pc for work. Work includes solidworks and photoshop and such. Think this will suffice? Obviously i will be running an external monitor...

 

I gust go my new 8530w 11/13, and it seems good.
I noticed some things that bother me:
There are known ACPI issues, so installing Linux can be difficult
The plastic on the bottom does not seem very strong, especially on the vents.
The power light slowly dims and brightens again when in stand by mode like a Mac
There is not a utility to look at available WiFi networks other than the windows one pre-installed
The laptop is big. The body measures 17" diagonal.
The brushed although the brushed aluminum seems to be scratch proof enough, it starts looking bad with skin oil and mysterious little marks (that can be removed with a pencle eraser) on it.
The wifi could have better reception
There could be a AC power light
There was a screw missing from the bottom of my laptop, and the sticker that is the business card holder was placed so cricked that it is almost unusable.

I like it overall, but there is deferentially room for improvement.

Oh, the back is 1.5" thick for blindpan.

Ian

 

But isn't the thing SUSE certified?
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13093_na/13093_na.html#Standard Features

 

I received my 8530w last night so here are some raw impressions.
Build quality seems pretty good, better than consumer lines that's for sure. My only complaint is that, with the lid closed, the screen squeaks when pressed.
I have the WUXGA screen and I was afraid i wouldn't like it. I love it. With normal windows dpi text is a little small (for me) but not so much so that it tires me. Otherwise the screen seems very good, no dead pixels here, max brightness is good (not great like on led screens), colors seems better than average (for a laptop screen, compared to a good ips or pva it still looks like crap
I have tried fallout3 (1440 high settings) and warcraft 3 (1920 max settings) on it (the videocard is 770m quadro) and both work flawlessly (much to my surprize). When gaming the fan starts to move more hot air but the laptop itself didnt get as hot so as to bother me (but it was laying on a table not on my lap).
If there is anything else you want to know, or any program or test you want me to try please say so; i know info on the 8530 is pretty scarce on the net, and i kinda took a leap a faith buying this thing, but so far i love it.
My general config is:
Core2Duo T9600 (2.8ghz)
2gb rab
WUXGA screen
320gb 7200rpm hdd
nividia quadro 770m
rest is pretty standard 8530w
Price was 1700 euros (with vat) with 3 yr warranty.

 

Hi, i am planning to buy a new HP EliteBook 8530w but i'm still worry about the warranty. Does this product include an international warranty??? I only managed to get an information that i will get a 3 year on-site warranty for this product.

The international become quite a big concern for me because i might need to relocate to asia pasific area next year (for now, i'm in europe).

Hope someone can help me to get the information.

Thanks.

 

Yes you do, the notebook will be covered in every country that sells the 8530w. (meaning they will have the parts).

 

I have started a separate thread on my experience thus far in the HP forums, but all and all, I am pretty impressed with the 8530w so far. The speakers need replacing for sure, which I am working on getting a technician in. Purrcat, there is another utility for the wifi, it is an intel one, plug in ur drivers disk and its under the optional software section, among alot of other stuff, I am glad they didnt fill the pc with stuff before it came. But other then that, no problems thus far. I use it mainly for cad.

 

look on your driver cd-rom the intel WLAN utility is definitely included, but is not usable for business network wich is a bit of a downside

 

this may be a stupid question, but would using the intel wlan boost the wifi strength at all

 

No it shouldn't. If you want to boost the strength of the signal whilst on battery...

Network conditions > right click on wireless card > properties > general > configure > advanced > and tweak around with the settings.

But it will cut down your battery life by disabling the power saving options.

 

Just ordered one after a long look at the W400 and E4400. Deal maker was the full height 2nd HDD and ability to host 8GB RAM.

Adam

 

looks very nice, i didnt know it could be configured with the ati 3650. so im guessing the battery life will be muuuuch better that the reviews clocked time

 

With the 12 cell it was reporting 10 hours remaining

 

PCMark06 result of 6229 with Vista Business 64 on a T9600

 

Hi!
Can you just buy a second hdd and then install it your self? or do you need some adapter from hp?

I was considering getting an ssd as primary and then replace the optical drive to a 7200 rpm hdd.

// KungWaz

 

I just purchased the modestly configured KSO54 version of the 8530w and I'm very happy with it.

I wanted to mention a few things which might help others.

I wasn't ready for Vista, so I requested the XP option. Laptop was delivered with XP SP1 with Internet Explorer version 5. A (free) Windows update download from Microsoft handled that.

The two touch-sensitive "media" buttons are programmable. I linked them to my two most frequently used applications.

HP offers a 90w car adapter accessory which has a great feature you can use to preserve your battery life: you can use the adapter to run on A/C power without charging your battery. The stock power adapter which is delivered with the laptop doesn't have that feature.

 

comgrats on your purchase. HP's business models are quite sturdy. my sister's HP work laptop was rock solid!!

 

Have they dropped the price on this thing or is it still REALLY expensive?

 

Did you try scratching the casing with a steel wool pad ? And did you stand on the laptop ?
If its really that scracth resistant, its really impressive. But how do they manage it ? Isnt aluminum softer than steel ?

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: I especially liked that JerryJ had to get around NBR's word filter :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

 

Hi guys,

I'm about to buy a 8530w laptop, with P8600, 250 Gb /5400rpm, WSXGA+WVA display and ATI Mobitilty FireGL V5700, mainly for graphic design work. Those of you who already bought it are satisfied? Would you have chosen another laptop if you knew how it is? I ask this because of the problems reported in this post.

Can anyone tell me which manufacturer made the firewire chipset for this laptop, please? (Go in Controp Panel > System > Hardware > Device manager and look for IEEE 1394 ).
I heard that for or audio recording on laptops there are some chipsets that doesn't work well.

Thank you.

 

There's a video of it on HP's website. At least the steel wool thing. I personally wouldn't want to try the stand on top of laptop part though.

 

JerryJ, thanks for such a fantastic review. I just got an 8530w for myself (I converted from a ThinkPad T400 believe it or not) and I'm psyched. It's an unbelievably well built machine, more so than the T400 in my experience, which I find to be squishy. The EliteBook is absurdly sturdy, and feels like a tank. It reminds me of how I felt when I got my first HP nc6000: "man this feels like a tank." And those machines still run great. I'm a very satisfied 8530w owner. (770M)

 

Is the 1920x1200 screen same as on 8510w or better?

 

It is the same screen.

 

I wonder if this one has the same frying MoBo flaw as the Dell M4400 with the same hardware...or is the the GPU not soldered into the MoBo?

 

the videocard on the 8530w is not on the motherboard, it is a separate card plugged into a pci express slot on the motherboard.

 

so is it upgradeable?

 

Physically yes, it is MXM. But whether or not there will be a bios out there to support it, we don't know. In most cases, the price is not justifiable.

 

For the most part, the MXM slot on HP notebooks, as far as I can tell, have a white list, just like their WLAN cards.

 

That is most probably true too.

 

lol..just wondering.
now, would it be a MXM2.1 or 3?

 

Excellent review! Very well-written and a lot of pictures which I like.
It seems as a pretty powerful laptop and the price is reasonable.

 

Nice review!
I still love the look of the previous generation Too much silver for my taste.

 

Wow, that's fairly high for this little beast. I live in Oz, so it gets a tad warm here in summer, but my 8510p has the help of RMClock to keep CPU voltage, and therefore temp, down a bit. It never gets above 45C, even on a hot day - though I don't play serious games on it or anything, just coding & Photoshop. Mostly sits around 25-35C or 40C if it's on my lap for a while with no air underneath.

Give RMClock a try. My unit is 100% stable with all steps on 0.9250V.

Also make sure you clean out the dust every 6 months or so, it really collects against the inside of the grille next to the fan. A regular clean-out of the fan housing and side grille does wonders for temps.

 

I looking at buying the 8530w this week and having trouble deciding between the NVidia 770m and ATI Firegl V5700. I plan on using the computer for general office, web surfing, and Adobe Design CS4 (mainly dreamweaver and photoshop). Movie watching and gaming would be limited to vacation, but would be nice to do Unreal Tournament. Is the NVidia card worth the extra money in your opinion?

 

I can't give you direct feedback, but here is some information that should help you make a decision.

GPU Benchmarks:
FX 770M
FireGL V5700

Laptop Reviews:
8530w with FX 770M
W500 with V5700

 

Your graphics needs do not seem to be very intensive, so I would stick with the cheaper FireGL V5700.

 

I'm looking to pick up a secondhand 8530w which has Vista on it. Is there an HP-supported path to get an upgrade to Windows 7 for an 8530w?

I know that you can buy a new one with Win 7 pre-installed, and I was hoping to be able to use the same HP image to get this current install updated.

Thanks...

 

The new machines come with Windows 7 and is no problem for upgrade. A bios update has Windows 7 OEM SLIC 2.1 string in it already.
New bios notes :
- Adds support for the Microsoft Windows 7 Operating Systems. - Adds the serial number to the Type 2 field in the SMBIOS table. This enables the use of utilities that look for the serial number in this location.