Hands On with HP's New ProBook 400 Series Discussion

Last week, we got an early look at some of HP's new business-oriented notebooks - the ProBook 400 Series. Part of the company's mid-year refresh, the new ProBooks pack some exciting technology inside, including Intel's next-generation 'Haswell' CPUs (to be fair, HP was very careful to explicitlynot say Haswell, likely on request from Intel).

Read the full content of this Article: Hands On with HP's New ProBook 400 Series

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are they rebranding the pavillion line to probook as well? its double duty now? They are unofficially envy and probook?

and who was the retarded that design those things, with so much BYO right now and the clear path that HP tries to make they come up with that?

I hope they dont kill elitebooks, thats actually one of their good designs

 

What? No. I'm not sure where you got this idea, but the ProBooks aren't taking over the Pavilion or EliteBook lines. They've been around for a while, and this is their refresh.

 

As J.R. says, the only thing that HP is doing different is trying to develop a coherent design philosophy for all HP notebooks ... "to bring together their entire lineup of PCs under a single design theme."

It's not that HP wants to get rid of Pavilion or Elitebook (which would be crazy considering the revenue generated by those consumer and enterprise-class notebooks). It's just that HP wants to tweak designs so that HP notebooks are immediately recognizable as HP notebooks. When consumers and business users see any HP laptop they should immediately say, "That's an HP" rather than, "Is that the new MacBook? Wait a minute, that's not the Apple logo!"

 

Yeah, the company had a guy at the press event just to talk about their new design ideals - it was a little drinking the Kool-Aid, and some of the talk was more than a little bit overwrought. Despite all that, it's nice to see HP tackle the issue. I was just chatting with Jerry a couple of weeks ago about this exact problem; how one of the many reasons Apple has been successful is because they have a single point that signs off on every product design.

Now, it's true that HP makes far, far more and diverse products than a company like Apple. Despite that, they can do a lot to make the products all reflect general design ideals and themes...to design products such that when someone sees them, they know it's an HP. Dell has finally started doing it, and now so has HP, and I think it'll pay off.

 

No DisplayPort or back-lit keyboard? How about mSATA or NGFF slot inside? Can the lid be opened 180 degrees? Wonder if these notebooks are as serviceable as previous generations, especially the b series. Looking at the new design language that is probably coming to the Thinkpad L series, granted they dont skimp on features, the L series refresh might be my next notebook, though ive always preferred the probooks before.

 

Wait guys I think I expressed myself in the very wrong way. Its not that Im saying that HP is killing their lines by removing them, Im saying what you guys explained they are killing their lines with bad design that has spread throughout their line, and I hoped that it didnt contaminate the elitebooks, their last bastion of good design

I get the whole idea of unifying the design, shrinking the line as meg did last year, but that thing is outrageously bad. They are different from the mbp esque envy, so they decided to go towards dell, with just raised back (which was never pretty or useful) and a different type of palm rest, they are obscenely round

 

It's absolutely a different look for them. I don't think it's bad, necessarily, but it definitely feels more consumer-y than it does business, and I'm not sure that's really where HP wants to be heading. We saw the beginnings of the change with the release of the x2 ElitePad last year, so I'm sure you can draw some conclusions about the path HP seems to be heading down.

 

I like the new refreshed design, especially the 14" models, the 13" version looks strange with the gap between the screen and body. I say this refresh was necessary for Probooks, they were ugly and very thick. Unfortunately the USB connectors still too close to each other, cannot possible to stick two pendrives near each other.

 

Haha, I really, really liked the 13-inch models, probably because they felt noticeably more portable, I think.

 

They realized that BYO moves things, so consumerization is a trend in enterprise class all around, however that is a very poor design choice, if you look closely the palmrest is the one from pavillion ages ago, that was reintroduced, god knows why. The raised back is from the new design of the pavillion line and the rest of the body as well

I really disliked all of them. I hope that they dont kill the 9470m (of the elitebooks for that matter with that hideous thing), I was thinking in buying a haswell one for my mother

 

somehow, I think the old NX/NC/NW line (ended with nc8430/nw8440) was one of their best designs.

I'm bored with this all way rounded, shiny-silver-metal, hinges-down, island-style-flat keyboard, minimalist design,
that, I guess, was introduced by apple and is now used almost everywhere..

 

I think only you see anything apple in there, and its really too much to say that its minimalist

 

Is this a replacement for the S series only, or S and B? The B series is much nicer imho.

 

The intimation was that these are HP's ProBooks, now, period.

 

Hmm... I don't think I could trust those hinges lasting more than a couple of years at best...

 

Maybe. I can't say one way or the other, but I will note that HP loves to overengineer hinges on everything.