EliteBook 700 series - Elitebook 725 G2, EliteBook 745 G2 and EliteBook 755 G2 announced?

Dear all,
Was going to the HP Norway website when I found this:

EliteBook 725G2
HP EliteBook 725 G2 bærbar PC| HP® Norge

EliteBook 745 G2
HP EliteBook 745 G2 bærbar PC| HP® Norge

EliteBook 755 G2:
HP EliteBook 755 G2 bærbar PC| HP® Norge

Seems interesting. They are touchscreen, and run on AMD.

Sincerely,

SB

 

Would've preferred larger battery and/or higher powered APUs... But I'm going to make a note to check back a week or two from now for more information.

 

Looks like they took the page down for the 725. I really want to know the specs on that... It might finally be the laptop to replace my Thinkpad X201. I'm so disappointed in Lenovo's recent changes... I hope the specs on this don't disappoint.

 

http://www8.hp.com/no/no/products/laptops/product-detail.html?oid=6732446#!tab=specs

The specs are there

 

For me, that URL just redirects to Bærbare | HP® Norge where it shows all the different models.

Would you mind posting a screenshot or something? My biggest hope for this is that it doesn't weigh more than 3 lbs...

 

HP Africa updated their page. Information is in English:

EliteBook 745 G2: HP EliteBook 745 G2 Notebook PC| HP® Africa

EDIT: This is interesting:

HP Long Life 3-cell, 50 WHr Li-ion
HP Long Life Slice 6-cell, 60 WHr Li-ion (secondary, optional)

The Long Life Slice is essentially a plate of battery cells that can be attached to the laptop. I'm interpreting those two battery options could be combined, thus giving a total battery capacity of 100 WHr (although at an increased weight and price).

The laptop also has a TPM chip, which means Bitlocker can be used without needing a workaround with an SD card or flash drive to store the encryption key.

 

Nice! Looks like the 725 specs are on there too (that's the one I'm interested in): HP EliteBook 725 G2 Notebook PC| HP® Africa

What I think the key features are:

Code:

Weight:
Starting at 1.36 kg (non-touch); Starting at 1.55 kg (touch)

Memory:
16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3L SDRAM

Memory slots:
2 SODIMM

Display:
31,75 cm (12.5") diagonal HD SVA anti-glare flat LED-backlit (1366 x 768)
31,75 cm (12.5") diagonal FHD UWVA slim touch screen (1920 x 1080)

(I assume SVA = Standard viewing angle, UWVA = Ultra-wide viewing angle, so the 1080p screen is IPS)

Ports:
2xUSB3.0, 1xUSB3.0 charging, 1 DisplayPort, 1 VGA, 1 headphone/microphone combo, 1 x RJ45

I'm really liking the look of this so far. It would have been nice to have a non-touch option for the FHD screen, to save on cost and weight. Also kind of sucks that pageup + pagedown are fn keys on the up/down arrows (unfortunate but not as horrible as, say, what Lenovo did with the X1 Carbon function row). The dimensions and appearance are identical to the Elitebook 820, which has Haswell inside. A better battery would have also been nice - 46Whr is a little small. I'd like to see battery life and the price before replacing my X201 with this.

 

EDIT: Nevermind

 

Now that I took a look at that too, I'm also starting to become interested. Looks like it may be a tough choice.

Your assumption about the battery is correct, and the Elitebook 840 works the same way (it's the exact same chassis - same size, weight, and appearance): HP EliteBook 840 G1 review: A gem of a business laptop | PCWorld

It's 3.48lbs for the non-touch model. But it does have more ports, a larger screen, and the keyboard is better (e.g. dedicated pgup/pgdown buttons) compared to its 12" sibling.

 

Just looked up the price of a HP Long Life Slice 6-cell.

I couldn't find the model that the Elitebook 840 uses, but all of the other HP models were around $180 to $300... Holy crap that is an expensive 6-cell external battery.

 

1. What does the laptop have that is better than existing haswell business laptops with slice battery option?

2. Will next year's broadwell laptops be slower than haswell ones?

3. Why do they make 15+ inch laptops without numpads, the right side of the keyboard. Are there advantages of having a larger left side and no right side?

4.

 

1. All we know for sure is that it will have better graphics, and that it should be cheaper compared to Intel. Still waiting for the reviews to find out how battery life will be.

2. Doubtful - I'm not sure why you would ask that?

Very strange how the 725 touch is heavier than the 745 non-touch. Unfortunately the 1080p 725 is only available with a touchscreen, and the 1080p 745 isn't available yet. If I'm going to have to carry around an extra 0.5 lbs, I'd rather get a larger screen than a touch panel which I won't use. Good thing I have a working laptop for now, so no rush. I'd be willing to go with a Broadwell Thinkpad as well, if Lenovo manages to get their act together.

 

I decided not long ago to forget Lenovo and the T440s I wanted to love. I've been a Thinkpad owner for years.

Ended up deciding on a ZBook 14, but then this one got announced.

Apart from differenvce between AMD/Intel(+nvidia), it seems it might even be the same chassis. What's really the difference between 745 G2 and ZBook 14? I don't get it. The AMD one is presumably a lot LOT cheaper as well.

 

The Elitebook 745's 1080p panel is limited to the configurable laptop models.

Aka, if you want 1080p and an A10, you have to pay $1690. Nearly a $800 upgrade from the 1600x900 stock model priced at $929 with the same specs (except for the screen).

 

There are five models on the norwegian HP site for 745. The cheapest one is $1366 USD with 4GB RAM, Mechanical HD, 1600x900 screen and A8/R5.
The one I want is the most expensive one and costs 58% more at $2166 USD. You will then get 8GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 1920x1080 screen and A10/R6.

So here at least it's not a ~100% price hike, but about 60%. The upgraded model is F1Q20EA.

(And yeah, prices are crazy over here).

 

The 1080p model isn't even available here in Canada, and it doesn't look like I can configure any of the available models either. So I guess my wallet is safe for now... Probably wouldn't mind 1600x900, but IPS is a must.

 

Did you ever end speaking to a rep about this LCD price gouging?

 

Yesterday, I contacted a sales rep (after convincing the HP sales chat bot to switch me to an actual sales person) and he said that the 1080p panel was only limited to the customizable models.

I convinced the sales representative to give a 25% discount, which might seem a lot, but that only brings the price down to $1267.50, which makes the 900p to 1080p panel upgrade cost $338.50. Though I still find that too expensive.

On a side note when I was speaking to a different sales representative about the $929 laptop with the 900p screen, I mentioned that the laptop was slightly too expensive and that I was a college student. He bluntly told me that I could go with the laptop with a 768p screen, and later he told me that he can't offer discounts if I'm buying only one laptop.

 

Edit 1: I am not in any way associated or promoting this company or advertising but providing the current lowest price for the 725 that i was able to find and share.

Comet Supply is selling the 725 G2 J5N82UT for $1223.04 shipped and insured making it over $100 less than what HP wants from their site (after taxes and or shipping costs). This is the exact model HP Smart Buy EliteBook 725 G2 J5N82UT at the lowest price I found. I tried asking HP for a discount but they would not budge on the Smart Buy models as those are preconfigured and sold as is. The configured models are much more expensive.

HEWLETT PACKARD HEWJ5N82UT#ABA J5N82UT 725G2 A10 7350B 12 5 180 4 Win

Model: HEW J5N82UT#ABA
HP Smart Buy EliteBook 725 G2, AMD Quad-Core A10 Pro-7350B (3.3 GHz/2.1 GHz, 4MB L2 cache, 4 cores) 4GB 1600 1D, 180GB SSD, 12.5-inch, FHD TouchUMA: Radeon R6, No Optical, 802.11a/b/g/n + BT 4.0,BT, TPM, 720p HD webcam, Win8.1 Pro 64, DASH3-Cell 46Wh, 3/3/0 J5N82UT

Subtotal: $1195.65
Insurance: $27.39
Shipping: $0.00
Total: $1223.04


Edit 2: I didn't realize the 820 was out for a few months now.

Here's a picture of what the HP Elitebook 820 G1 guts look like and what we can expect from the 725 G2. I doubt the 725 G2 has the M.2/NGFF connector though.



Edit 3: HP coupon for CTO 725 G2: CTO725G2

 

Picked up the J5N82UT A10 PRO-7350B with 1080p IPS and backlit KB. Great display and ultra portable with a magnesium alloy chassis. Battery life 4-8 hr. 3450 CPU mark passmark v8 ev. 2x8gb 1600 DDR3L

Sent from my XT1049 using Tapatalk

 

Nice machine! I needed something for travel and was looking at the HP 210 G1. The 725 G1 looks a lot nicer of course. I think the CPU is similar to the i3 in the 210 G1.

on the 725 G2 is the HDD easy to get at? no M.2 slot?

how well does the FHD panel workout on the 12.5" space? FHD is only a touchscreen? on the HD 1366 panel, I think it can be touch and non-touch?

how large is the power brick?

I would want Win7 and non-touch most likely.

Thanks

 

Edit: The HP EliteBook 725 G2 J5N82UT lacks an M.2 slot for an SSD unfortunately. It does however have an M.2 slot for WWAN from what I seen when i had my unit.

HDD is very easy to get at, simply unlock the case cover and slide the case cover off. The HDD is held in place by 4 small bolts.

The FHD display is awesome. To me, the colors look great and the brightness goes really high. I haven't tried it outdoors yet. Yes FHD is only touchscreen for the 725 G2. I'm not sure about the HD display as I wanted FHD IPS.

The AC adapter is very small and only 45W! This is one of the perks of an ULV APU.

Luckily for you Windows 7 fully is supported as there are drivers available from HP. As a matter of fact, when I get my replacement unit, I want to test out Windows 7 to see if I can do some CPU overclocking and other benchmark testing.

 

Maybe just stick with Win8 on this machine. I like the size and FHD panel. Looks like the CPU will be fast enough for basics, I just don't want anything too slow like a Atom or Celeron type thing.

I don't see anything else that really fits in the 11.6-12.5" size. Still researching.

Thanks again

 

Let me put it to you this way, I've been using my Acer Aspire V5-122P for over a year now on a daily basis and it uses an AMD A6-1450 (8 W TDP, 1066 RAM, 1.4 GHz) and for the most part it has served me well. That was enough for basics.

I also chose the 725 for its size, performance and features. I may post a YouTube video of it.

I found the J5N82UT for $1,203.00 shipped! This is the lowest price I've seen so far for this particular configuration. You'll save $24 or 2% with an instant rebate, ends on 8/29/2014 as compared to other sites selling the same unit.

 

Hi,

best choice for an AMD-Device! I will buy mine soon, sadly here in Europe the Elitebooks aren't available yet.

How would you discribe the quality of the Keyboard? Can you compare it to other Notebooks ( Thinkpad for example)?
Moreover the quality of the Display is very important to me; can you get some colormeter?

Another important thing is the battery lifetime. Did you do any tests until now? Would be interessting to see how long it runs without any modifications.
After the batterytest maybe you could repeat it with some undervolting (this tool should work with Kaveri: AmdMsrTweaker - New Versions

Tanks in advance!
Greeting from Europe.

ps: the 46Wh Battery is a joke for that price...

 

Any chance you could boot Ubuntu or another flavor of Linux on it as a test? Supposedly the new Kaveri APU's already have some decent open source and binary driver support but it would be nice for an actual confirmation. I am looking at the config J5N98UT#ABA. It is basically like yours except a 1366x768 matte screen as well as a HDD instead of the SSD. However it is about $300 cheaper which is nice.

 

Interesting. Crucial suggests that this 16GB DDR3-1866 kit is a compatible upgrade for the 745 G2. I wonder if the faster ram would help boost the APU performance given how it helped the FX-7600P. I suppose HP might limit the ram to 1600Mhz via the bios, but it might be worth a try!

 

I would describe the keyboard as a little shallow and not like a ThinkPad keyboard at all as the keys are flat and not rounded. However it is still easy to type on as the keys are big enough, well separated and have sufficient feedback for touch typing. If I had to compare it I would say it is more like my Acer Aspire V5-122P's keyboard, not a ThinkPad keyboard but a usable touch type comfortable keyboard. The last convertible I had was a Lenovo Yoga 11 and that had slightly rounded keys but an extremely shallow and short key travel. It will take me some time to readjust to this 725 keyboard layout as some of the commonly used keys are in different positions than I am used to. Note: The backlight in the keyboard turns ON when you touch the touchpad and (if i remember right) when you move the mouse using the mouse stick in the center of the keyboard.

The display is one of the reasons I wanted the 725. It is an LG display but I don't know the part number. According to HP the brightness goes up to 300 nits, and the HD SVA displays only to 200 nits. It is brighter than my Acer Aspire V5-122P. Colors look rich and vibrant and blacks black. I don't have software or hardware (I'm guessing that's what colormeter is?) to measure how accurate the display is. What should I do?

I haven't done any timed battery tests. When I was using it and checking the battery life meter i would see 4-8 hours, if that means anything. I was looking forward to trying some overclocking and undervolting actually so I want to thank you for finding that for me. Sweet, AmdMsrTweaker has preliminary Kaveri support! I cannot wait to get my replacement 725 to try it out.

Yeah the 46 Wh battery seems a bit small. It is a long life 3 year battery though.

I downloaded ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64 and have it ready to try once I receive my replacement 725.

I've been using 1366x768 in 11.6" but being an IPS display it does change the end result experience. An IPS display is a must for me now and I'm willing to pay for it. It does depend on each individual personal preference and situation.

As much as I'd like for the 700 series to be able to uss DDR3L-1866 RAM, I doubt it will work at that speed. This has been the case in my past experience. The IMC will simply run it at 1600 MHz which is the max AMD designed these ULV chips to operate at. If I get a chance to try 1866 MHz RAM with my A10 PRO-7350B I'll be sure to let ya'll know.

 

I own a Elitebook 755 (J0X38AW#ABD) and run it with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

There are two major problems: Brightness and wifi

The wifi device
> 02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4359]
comes up but no networks are ever found, neither with the broadcom-sti driver provided by Ubuntu nor with the one from Broadcoms website.
WIth the preinstalled WIndows 7 PRO it works flawlessly.
It does not seem to be a killswitch issue. For now I'm using a usb-wifi adapter :/
I filed this as a bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/broadcom-sta/+bug/1343151

The brightness is max and cant be reduced (at least using the latest fglrx driver (linux-amd-catalyst-14.6-beta-v1.0-jul11).
Neither with the keys (which change the brighness bar but not the bightness), nor using the console
("echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness").
I did not file this as a bug as the fglrx does not seem to officialy support the Mobile Kaveri APU ( Download Drivers).
I did not investigate the issue using the open source driver.

Apart from that, the device runs fine with Linux (Special Keys, Audio, Mic, Touchpad, Camera, Bluetooth, CPU frequencies, OpenGL, SD-card reader, even suspend-to-ram with fglrx)

 

My 725 replacement is due to arrive Friday 8/1/2014. Can you run AmdMsrWeaker in Windows for me and tell me or show me what you can adjust?

Hopefully those two main issues with Ubuntu get straightened out. I would like to use it part time.

 

I cannot use windows right now because I deleted the windows partitions.

But I fiddled around with the brightness control and got it working.
I followed these suggestions ( Hans' hacking log - The brightness saga) and the kernel option that works for me is: acpi_osi="!Windows 2012"

 

Nice! One problem fixed, one problem left. Thanks for sharing your experiences with Linux.

Have you done any upgrade or modification to your J0X38AW#ABD?

 

Yes. I replaced the RAM with a kit of two Kingston KHX1600C9S3L/8G (doubles memory bandwidth and improves Kaveri graphics performance) and replaced the HDD with a Samsung SSD 840 Series (DXT07B0Q).

Edit:
I investigated further on the wifi issue and reallyhave no clue why the wifi adapter isnt working. The same hardware (same pci-id) seems to work in a wide range of Ubuntu certified systems: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/catalog/component/pci/14e4:4359/

 

Have you tried the hp driver for the elitebook 840 for the broadcom chip? It is technically an rpm for suse, but i don't see why you couldn't just copy the wl.ko to the appropriate place and load it.

Soo... after toying around with the 2013 slim docking station and my elitebook 850, I realized that the ubuntu driver for the HD4400 chip doesn't support MST.. so the dock won't work with both displayports under linux. However, there are some experimental patches to the i915 driver so I may try that next. But, I wonder the 745/755 with the fglrx driver would work?

 

Any results with the undervolting (and the resulting batterytime)?

 

I tried the -desktop and -default wl.ko from Index of /pub/linux/packman/suse/13.1/Essentials/x86_64
but both gave an error:
> modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'wl': Exec format error

 

I am very interested in this laptop, and will probably be buying one this weekend. I was thinking 14" was the way to go, and I probably would if the 745 offered a standard voltage A10, but I don't think I will be missing much while getting better battery life. This A10-7350B is the same as the FX-7400P, but apparantly the Pro version from HP is supposed to be more robust/reliable.

Since you guys have swapped the RAM, can you comment on the RAM that comes from HP? Do they use 1.35V CL11 DDR3-1600?

Anyone think its worthwhile or perhaps any detriment to use two 8GB SODIMMs in this laptop? I'm thinking it will use a little more power than having 2 4GB SODIMMs and not sure if the APU will benefit from it. If I buy aftermarket RAM it would probably be the 1.35V CL9 Crucial kit, whether 8GB or 16GB. I doubt we would be able to get 1866 RAM to work with it, because attempts of mine in the past to run AMD integrated memory controllers faster required more voltage.

 

The Ubuntu wifi bug got confirmed. It seems that its not limited to the HP Laptop. I also informed the broadcom support.

Regarding the brightness issue I'm not sure where to file the bug.

Regarding the RAM. I don't think 8 Gb vs 16 Gb will make much of a difference.
I bought 2x8Gb LDDR3-1600 because I have some workloads that benefit from huge amounts of ram.
With 8 Gb and with 16 Gb, 1Gb of RAM is reserved for graphics.
When using only 1 module @ 1600MHz the catalyst control center reports a bandwidth of 12.8 Gb/s, when using 2 modules, 25.6 Gb/s.

 

Yep, sounds good. I think for the wireless card the next thing I would try is putting a known working atheros or broadcom chip in there. It is pretty easy to replace and from what I understand the bios doesnt have a whitelist.

 

Can you reserve more than 1GB for graphics? Definately need two RAM sticks for dual channel on the AMD big core APUs. Hopefully small core APUs will get dual channel in the next revision since they are in so many 15" notebooks, or basically two DDR4 channels/DIMMs.

I cannot believe they sell these preconfigured laptops with one 8GB DIMM when two 4GB DIMMs would perform so much better.

 

The BIOS offers no option to manually set the amount of memory reserved for graphics. In my Desktop Kaveri setup this is possible.

The laptop came with one Hynix 4Gb DIMM installed.

 

I would think 1gb would be enough for anything you can run on it. My elitebook 850 allows me to select up to 512mb max so you already get doulbe what the intel igp can do.

 

The good news:
I received my replacement J5N82UT and I got to put it through some tests.

The bad news:
The replacement J5N82UT was missing the center rubber nub for the mouse and there's a spec of dust underneath the touchscreen that I felt was kind of annoying to look at. It's going back, and I may order from elsewhere. The heck is going on with HP quality?!

I'll have it for another day to do some testing. I keep having to wait just to get my hands on this computer. Also as i mentioned before when CPU/GPU are pushed hard (i.e. OC, OV) the magnesium case absords/transfer heat very well and gets very hot on the bottom of the laptop. The RAM, FCH and APU areas get freakin hot to the touch and I would not put that on my lap. Underclocking and undervolting keeps the case cool. Shutting off APM and Turbo is possible which results in a cooler quieter running laptop but then you'll be operating at 1.07 GHz on High Performance.

Supports Kaveri:
AMD OverDrive 4.3.1.0690
AmdMsrTweaker 1.1

Does not support Kaveri:
PScheck


Seems like it like when the CPU is pushed it does throttle. When running the Microsoft Fish Bowl HTML5 test the CPU clock falls to and stays at 1.07 GHz. Disabling Turbo resulted in the CPU raising back up to and staying at 2.10 GHz.

With AMD Over Drive it is possible to over/under clock/volt the GPU and over/under volt and under clock the CPU.

CPU multipliers are locked though.

AMD Over Drive reports that the CPU does spend some time in the 33x multiplier 3.3 GHz, however Task Manager reads 3.10 GHz at times.


I was first learning the limits of the multipliers, VID and settings. I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to undervolting and throttle detection. I'll try to reproduce the same tests as the notebookcheck Acer A10-7300 review.


Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64Bit 141 cb (vs 139 cb)
I just ran CINEBENCH R15 64-bit and watched the 4 core clocks for the duration of the Multi-Core CPU test. Scored 141 cb, and for the majority of the test the clock speed fluctuated from 1.6 - 1.9 GHz. Task Manager reported 1.7 GHz, I'm guessing TM averages the clock speeds and updates slower?

Cinebench R15 CPU Single 64Bit 53 cb (vs 44 cb)
Single-Core CPU test showed an average of 2.4 GHz, with a range of 2.1 - 2.8 GHz and a score of 53 cb (MP Ratio 2.65x).

Cinebench R15 OpenGL 64Bit 17.62 fps (vs 22.53 fps)
The OpenGL test resulted in 17.62 fps with average CPU core clock of 1.1 GHz. GPU fluctuated from 287.5 - 552.8 MHz averaging approx. 410.6 MHz.

Cinebench R15 Ref. Match 64Bit 98 %

This was done on a factory non-modified J5N82UT, Single-Channel RAM, Intel Sandforece SSD, factory HP video drivers, etc. It performs similar to the notebookcheck review, slightly faster single-core CPU score, similar multi-core CPU score. OpenGL was higher on the A10-7300 because it was using Dual-Channel RAM. I'll try and redo the tests with Dual-Channel RAM later.

Edit:

PCMark 7 = 3223 score
Prime 95 Blend = Avg. 1.5 GHz CPU, Max 573 MHz GPU
Prime 95 Blend + FurMark = Avg. 1.1 GHz CPU, Max 292 MHz GPU


Undervolted = CPU P-states, Northbridge P-states
Minecraft = 1.3 - 1.6 GHz CPU, Max 556.8 MHz GPU, Max graphics, 1080p, 20-40 fps, Avg. 25 fps
Prime 95 Blend = Avg. 1.5 GHz CPU, Max 560.9 MHz GPU, CPU Temperature Max 60*C (vs 66.8*C)
Prime 95 Blend + FurMark = Avg. 1.1 GHz CPU, Max 291.7 MHz GPU, CPU/GPU Temperature Max 60.5*C (vs 69.3*C)
Cinebench R15 CPU Multi 64Bit 150 cb (vs 139 cb)
Cinebench R15 CPU Single 64Bit 56 cb (vs 44 cb)
Cinebench R15 OpenGL 64Bit 20.34 fps (vs 22.53 fps)

 

Nice work, too bad about the dust spec, could it be a dead pixel?

Can you adjust the memory contorller voltage and speed at all?

 

It was not a dead pixel because I can see behind it.

No you cannot adjust the memory controller voltage or speed. According to AMD overdrive you can adjust the core clock but I cannot confirm whether it makes an improvement.

Sent from my XT1049 using Tapatalk

 

So you were able to undervolt the Kaveri... thats a huge relief!
How low could you reduce the Voltage?
The scores with the undervolted Kaveri (i assume the edit showes the results of the undervolting) are higher than the one without.
So the throttling must have been reduced because of the undervoltig!

Too bad we cant change the settings of the memory controller... would have been a very interessting device to play with!

 

For those with the A10-7350B, would you say its snappy in everday applications like web browsing, email, opening or creating adobe files, and microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint? And doing it simultaneouly. Surprisingly my ThinkPad, which is old, just cannot keep up with a lot of crap these days.

I think the only reason I personally will get the ULV APU is to get something real small like the 725, because if HP offered the FX-7600P in the 745, or the 14" ProBook like they already offer the older A10-4600 and 5750 I would get it in a heartbeat. The HP 645 is very configurable with APU and display choices which is awesome, I have just been waiting for Kaveri.

I may get the 725 now, and if they update the ProBook pick one up later.

 

It's possible they might release it during the fall (October-November) since that's usually the period where some business laptops are released.

Though by that time I'm I would already have a new laptop. Unless if I mess with Amazon's 30 day return policy by constantly returning laptops (assuming there's no shipping/restocking fees).


EDIT: I find it interesting how the FX-7600P has more GPU cores and relatively high clock rate compared to the mid-range Radeon 8000Ms, such as the 8750M.

Either AMD really improved power efficiency, or we're looking at a potential TDP throttling like the A10-7350B.

 

For all owners and future buyers of Elitebook 850 G1, there is 850 dedicated page here.

 

Yes I was able to undervolt with AmdMsrTweaker mostly. AMD Over Drive only has some functions which are configurable for the A10 PRO-7350B and is really meant for overclocking the CPU of the unlocked "K" series of desktop Kaveri APUs. In OD, there's a slider to adjust the memory core clock up to 1300 MHz but it doesn't seem to do anything from what I can tell yet. Turbo can be shut off for a session.

Spoiler

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I cannot say I'm 100% sure the undervolting decreased throttling but it sort of looks that way doesn't it. I want to do further testing and not jump to conclusions yet.

I'd say the A10 PRO-7350B feels snappy (factory Intel SSD aside) in everyday applications. Its great to see two sodimm slots for up to 16GB of RAM too. I plan to run some VMs and use many Google tabs within many windows as well as some miscellaneous sensor software at times so 16 GB is needed to keep things running smoothly. Add a SanDisk II or Samsung Pro SSD and you're flying. I'm biased but I'd say go for the 725 for its smallest size. The FHD LG IPS display looks sharp and the backlit kb feels is a necessary tool in my AMD-based laptops. You can even toss in a Broadcom 802.11 ac WLAN card if you'd like or an M.2 WWAN card too if you need to.

It'll likely be HP that releases a model with an FX-7600P.

Well the FX-7600P has to share the TDP with the CPU too and a 8750M doesn't. I'd expect to see more throttling from the APU than the sole GPU though.

The 35W TDP would allow the CPU and GPU to really stretch their legs running much higher clocks, higher clocked RAM, faster PCIe bus, etc.

I think we've beaten the dead horse already but a 45W mobile unlocked "FX" APU would sell like hot cakes. Just do it already AMD! Okay I'll stop dreaming.