8740w vs W701 - why did you buy the 8740w?

A question to buyers of the 8740w's. If you looked at the Lenovo W701 as potential competition, what made you buy the HP? Any regrets?

 

No replies yet? Really? I'd figure all the DC2 owner would be falling all over themselves.

You asked "why", and I decided "why" for myself well before I ordered and got it. Which is pretty much summed up in this post:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...-best-screens-photoediting-2.html#post6486482

Regrets? Well let me say, no, it's not perfect.
1) Reboots pretty much guarantee a boot it reboots to a black screen; so unless I forget, I don't do it.
2) And many cold boots do too; just the other day took 4 tries before my screen wasn't black!
3) I got the ATI card, and the current driver's 2D performance yields slower performance than my T9400 laptop w/integrated graphics.
4) I seriously doubt 10-bit actually works in CS5 like it's said it can & does.
5) And the manner HP decided to manage gamuts w/the Mobile Display Assistant software is buggy, dramatically shifting the hue if you alter brightness by any other means than the MDA (but not immediately; various actions trigger the actual event to occur)

....So I come back to, "Any regrets?" Absolutely None!

There's not one thing I described that can't (and better not) get fixed in bios, drivers, or software. And I hands-down get the absolute best display to post process digital photographs on the whole time.

 

^^ 1) and 2) will most likely be fixed with a power drain
That's what I did and so far ... crossing fingers and toes

 

The question ia effectively solved. I've put more 8740w's on order.

 

More? o0!! How many do you need, lol?

 

Just three.

 

Either you're wealthy or you live from this! I guess you're european like me and you know the high prices HP charges here for EliteBooks LOL

 

Matte. Lots'o talkie talk about it over time.

 

I didn't look too closely at the W701 here are some of my reasons for choosing the 8740w:
- Brushed aluminum looks better than the boring matte black plastics of the W701.
- From a gamer's perspective, the FirePro 7820 is a faster and cheaper card than the FX2800M. I was able to mod the Catalyst Mobility drivers to accept the FirePro 7820.
- 8740w is very DIY upgrade friendly. The graphics card is MXM and you can easily access the CPU.

 

I'm thinking of getting the 8740w as well. I am trying to decide between getting the CD/DVD player and the additional hard drive. If I get the CD/DVD can I get the enclosure to swap it out for a HDD? If so where would I get it from?

I am sure I would use the HDD, but feel nervous without the DVD/CD. If I get an external DVD/CD can I use this to reinstall the OS if I need to?

Any other thoughts/things to consider?

Thanks,

 

Just b/c the GPU is MXM, doesn't mean it's very upgradeable - it's still limited to the selection available to the 8740w only, and since HP won't be adding any better GPUs, except the expensive nVidia 5000M, IMO it isn't any more upgradeable than other business notebooks such as the Dell Precision M6500 (not sure about W701).

You don't even need a DVD drive to install Windows or programs, you can use any USB drive to do it.

 

True, but HP offers more options for the GPU (FX2800M/FX3800M/FX5000M/M7820) and it's quite easy to replace the GPU, just remove the keyboard and the touch panel - ~7 screws. It took me 2-3 mins to remove the heatsink.

Also, I have some hope about HP adding support for AMD 6000 FriePro.
They were the first to offer M7820 (4 months ahead of Dell) and already have FX5000M for a month.