HP EliteBook 8540p Review

FWIW I have read anywhere from january to february, and from less reputable sources, upto may. I would say its going to be soon, hopefully this week or next, if you search 8540w on twitter you can find some posts of people talking about their new hp laptop they got from work.

 

Thank you. I'm waiting for the 8540w to be released as well.

 

Is there any way to verify whether it uses DDR3 as stated or GDDR3?

 

I am really drawn towards this laptop and a great review! one question though...What is the difference between the "P" and "W" models?

 

P models tend to use consumer GPUs, the W models tend to use workstation GPUs that have drivers optimized for either 2D or 3D work.

 

In general, "W" models therefore tend to be more expensive, so I would suggest going with the "P" model unless you know you will be doing CAD/modeling work with specific programs that can take advantage of a workstation GPU.

 

No CAD or Modeling work. It'll be a business laptop for work. Was looking at the thinkpad line but something about this notebook drew my attention away from the t410/t510

 

I didn't see any mention of an HDMI output port. Is that correct? Do any of the new elitebook models have HDMI?

 

Like many business-class notebooks, it uses DisplayPort instead of the more consumer oriented HDMI. There are DisplayPort to HDMI converters readily available if you need to hook up to a HDMI equipped monitor, however.

 

Display port does the same exact thing as HDMI but without the added cost to the company and ultimately the consumer (we hope?).

 

I too am waiting on the 8540w review as of now its the only 16:9 laptop that looks to be acceptable.

I may be wrong but isn't there a screen resolution and CPU offering difference?

 

The w offers one more CPU than the p (i7-820qm).

The p offer HD and HD+ screens, the w offers HD+ and FHD.

8540p
8540w

 

Thats what I thought, so the "w" would be my only option then. Do you know if it uses the chicklet like keyboard too? I love the keys my brothers 15.6 compaq has and if they are similar that would be great.

edit: looks like it does

 

I'm interested in using the laptop as a blu-ray player and hooking up to the HDMI input of my HDTV. Will the displayport to HDMI cable carry over the audio as well? Will it degrade the quality at all?

thanks!

 

Why wouldnt you just save several hundreds of dollars and get a blue ray player?

 

It should, but actual quality, signal degradation, and audio carry-through will depend on the specific model of the converter and possibly the notebook. Just as a poor HDMI cable can limit the quality of your signal, so can a poorer quality converter not allow for the highest possible signal resolution and strength.

 

curious...how are shipments of the elitebooks? I'm waiting on an envy right now, new orders are delayed by a month and customer service continuously lie to customers and everything is being shipped late. Is this the same quality the elitebook receives?

 

does anyone know when will 8440w and 8540w available for purchase? i'm leaning forward to 8540w because of its look, usb 3.0, FHD.

 

Check it before you wreck it

 

My current laptop is over 6 years old... I need a new one. figure I'd kill two birds with one stone.

Everything I've read online (from cnet.com and pcmag.com) is that the whole "HDMI" cable quality is a hoax by the retailers, trying to unnecessarily make you purchase $100 dollar cables when the cheap cables are equally as good. Especially if you're not running really long lengths. Basically, they've said that even their experts can't really tell a difference in signal quality between the cables and they are interchangeable.

I was more worried about loss due to conversion from one standard to another. I don't really know anything about displayport, but is there any information that cannot be transmitted to the other standard, or isn't supported by the displayport driver on the laptop. If not, displayport would basically just be a different shaped connector for the exact same standard.

what requirements would the laptop need? specific resolution settings to match my tv?

 

http://www.hp.com/canada/products/landing/notebooks/8540w_elitebook.html

The canadian website says the 8540w will arrive on monday. I can only hope that is the same for the USA as well.

 

Ahh ok makes sense now.

 

read that post already, it was hardly answer to my question. pls don't expect everyone with busy life to read every single post in 8 pages-thread

 

you cant be that busy. you just asked a question at least 2 other people already asked with no response

 

Wondering when the Lenovo Thinkpad T410 and T510 will be reviewed, I'm interested in how those laptops compare.

 

Well, no, I wasn't referring to buying a $100 cable, I was more on the difference between a cheap, possibly unshielded $6 budget cable vs a $14-$20 one.

Displayport offers a guide on how to properly implement conversion between the Displayport format and HDMI, but at that point, it's up to the vendor that makes the actual converter to implement things properly (for example, I seem to recall that the cheaper Dell Displayport to HDMI converter has a frequency limitation of some sort in that it'll only go up to 60 Hz or something).

HDMI does support a few things that Displayport doesn't, such as xvYCC color space, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio bitstreams, and CEC signals, but it's questionable whether a lot of those features would even be supported by the notebook in the first place. If all you're doing is using the Displayport to hook your notebook up to your TV, I wouldn't worry too much about the fact of the interface. At that point, the bigger issue would probably be the resolutions your graphics card supports.

It's also worth noting that Displayport mainly tends to show up on business-class machines, and not consumer models, and is thus usually oriented more towards business style presentations, displays, and projectors.

 

As a photography enthusiast, I'm eager to see more concrete info about the 8540w. Does anyone know more about the Full HD display, particularly how much of the AdobeRGB gamut it will cover? Also, will it include any sort of built-in color calibration, like the Lenovo W510? The W510 seems to be the closest competitor to this machine, but it lacks the option of a Blu-ray burner--a startling omission, to my mind.

Also, given that my most intensive use involved post-processing and management of photos--not gaming or 3D graphics--it seems that the 880M graphics card will be plenty. Any contrary thoughts?

 

Thanks for all the info. Yeah, I'm getting the impression that it'll work but in the long run I should just get a seperate blu-ray player.

I realize I'm not the target market with this pc, but I have yet to see another company (i'm looking at you sony and dell) that has this great list of specs.
-core i5 and i7's
-bluray
-SSD available
-4GB+ RAM
-in the 14-16" screen range
-dedicated graphics
-USB 3.0

Maybe there's a refresh coming in Dell and Sony's lines in the next few weeks/months and I can buy a normal consumer device... until then the elitebooks looks to be the frontrunner.

 

Actually, I think the Dell business class refreshes in about a month or so should also have USB 3.0. Really, the only sticky part of your requirements is USB 3.0, which is so new that very few available machines have it. I'm pretty sure you'll see many more machines available with it by about March or so.

 

Yeah, the problem is that I'm the type of person that hears about the next tech and waits for it. Of course something new is always coming you so I never end up buying which is how I wind up having my current laptop for over 6 years.

The USB 3.0 would be nice but its not a dealbreaker... what I would actually like is the Low Voltage i7's. Even though it was released with all the other chips, I don't see any showing up in systems. Any idea when these are supposed to get integrated into consumer products?

 

Sony's closest competitor is the new F series, which is slightly larger (16.4") and lacks USB 3.0. It also lacks the matte screen with 95-100% RGB gamut coverage (although I'm only guessing that the 8540w will offer the latter) and the option of a second hard drive/SSD (will the 8540w?).

That said, I suspect that the F series is also substantially cheaper than the 8540w (and maybe the 8540p) will be, and it seems to be a fairly solid machine. Of course, I expect the build quality of the HP to be better, as it's a business-class notebook. For someone requiring a Blu-ray burner, the Sony and the HP appear to be among the few notebooks available to graphics-intensive users.

I just wish HP would hurry up and release the 8540 line, so we can do more than speculate about some of these things. If it's coming to Canada on 2/1 (according to the HP Canada website), shouldn't it be available in the US at least by then?

 

Maybe the new Sony F will be updated soon, but the way I see it on the website right now, you can only put the quad core i7's in it, which kills battery life completely. Also, the only SSD option I see is for $620, which is rediculous. I've seen 128GB SSD options on Dell machines for $150. To me the next closest machine to what I've been looking for is the Dell XPS 16. They used to allow bluray, but recently disabled it as an option. No USB 3.0 of course, but the rest is really nice.

I would expect US and Canada to release at the same time, then we can look at the prices and options and have a fair comparison. I believe that will be next monday/tuesday. I have heard sony is supposed to have some releases in the next week or two as well. Looks like Feb/March is time frame for all the new arrandale based systems.

 

Actually, the new i7s are pretty good at saving power when idle, when compared to the old C2Qs and C2Ds. I don't know that anyone has any numbers yet on comparisons between the i7s and the new i3s/i5s, though, and it'll obviously use more power at full load.

Dell (and some other companies) seem to be having BluRay supply issues recently. There's been some light speculation that a factory burned down or something, since there seems to be nearly a global shortage of BluRay drives.

 

Is there any word yet on when the 8540p will be available, in the US and UK markets?

 

I'm told we will see them available for order on the website tomorrow (Feb 1). I don't know when shipping will start however.

 

Do they post buy links to them at midnight or are they usually a mid day type thing?

 

Looks like you can now buy pre-configured models from the US website. Added one of them to my basket and it suggests a ship date of 02/08/10.

And they've removed it from the UK site, hopefully thats in preparation for putting it up for sale

 

No FHD on those models.

 

There isn't any SSD's either.

So now its a question of how long until you can configure one to your requirements/budget.

 

Is something is wrong with the specs on some preconfigured models? At the moment, the $2525 model looks like it has the same specs as the $1609 model.

 

I noticed that too. I imagine it's an error and will get corrected before long.

 

I noted that in the other thread, clearly the top 2 8540p models are wrong. More interestingly compare the $1609 8540p to the $1679 8540w and notice all that you get for only $70 more (upgraded GPU and wireless card plus 3 year on site warranty).

 

I'm rather curious as to why they send out review models with the good stuff and their 2 entry models are weaksauce.

 

I'm annoyed too, but did you notice the one reviewed in this thread is available?

 

I'm dissappointed there's no Clarksfield options (720QM/820QM) yet.

Anecdotally, I have a friend who ordered a dvt7 with an i7-820QM about a month ago and his was build delayed until sometime this week. Maybe they're having some problems?

 

My old NC8000 has a VGA connector for (primarily) connecting to display devices, and an S-video for (primarily) outputting to AV devices. Now with the 8450P, you get two ports intended for connecting to display devices, and none for easily connecting to AV equipment.

I've got no beef with DisplayPort, and obviously it can do video, and in theory do everything better than HDMI does. Happy to have it.

But in today's real world, hardly any TVs or AV Receivers/Switchers have DisplayPorts - so if I want to connect to a TV, I need to buy some sort of converter or conversion cable.

Will this cable/converter pass HDCP? Will it pass audio and Dolby etc? Will it automatically handshake to the native resolution of my TV? Do I also need to pack an audio cable - and what type depending on what equipment I'll encounter? Several new things to worry about, and more doodads to buy, keep track of, and remember to bring when leaving the house.

With HDMI, one cable does everything. It's a common cable you'll find in most modern setups - if you forgot to bring it, your hosts will probably have one you can use.

Leaving out HDMI is a FAIL, and makes this machine less versatile.

The new aspect ratio? The low-resolution display? The chicklet-wannabe keybord? FAIL, FAIL, FAIL.

At least the screen is still anti-glare, but I'm sure HP will have 'improved' on that too by next year - I hear the upcoming HP UltraGloss screens in 2.66:1 CinemaScope will be great (20% more pixels - 2128x800 resolution!).

So for now, I'll have to hold on to my trusted NC8000 - with a better, brighter screen than anything made today, a sensible 4x3 aspect ratio, and a real keyboard. I've had $2000 burning a hole in my pocket for some time now, but no-one makes laptops for adults any more, so...

 

HDMI costs money and is designed to replace consumer audio/video electronics connectors (S Video, etc.), while DP is free and is designed to replace business/computer display connectors (VGA, DVI, etc.).

 

For ATI fans, apparently the ATI FirePro M5800 (rumored to be based on the ATI Mobility Radeon 5800 series) will be an option on the 8540w in addition to Nvidia offerings, as reported on Engadget today.

 

My speculation is that it will probably be based off of the 57xx series and be less powerful (shaders) than the M7740 (HD 4860) and use a 128-bit GDDR5 interface, making it more powerful than the FX 1800M's 72 shaders w/ 128-bit GDDR5.

Also, from reviews of the i5/i7 from NBR users and notebookcheck, I don't see any point of getting a quad core i7 or even the 620M. The i5-540M is the best value, offering strong performance against the former two at a lower power consumption and price point.

 

even for multithreaded CAD/CAM/Design apps? I would think something like the i7-820QM would be better than the i5-540M for that type of stuff. Of course, also understanding the limitations of battery life, and being more concerned with power than how long a battery will last etc.