*HP Elitebook 800 Series Owners Lounge*

Two reviews out:

HP EliteBook 840 G1 review: A solid but unspectacular Ultrabook | ZDNet

HP EliteBook 840 G1 review: well-designed and versatile laptop with a powerful processor - PC Advisor

Note that both seem to be UK editions with discrete graphics and a slow 7200 rpm HDD.

 

Seriously, what was ZDNet thinking? Under alternatives, why are they comparing it to the Surface Pro 2 and the Thinkpad Helix? Why in the world would someone going for a 14" business workstation with discrete graphics be considering, instead of that, a 10.6" tablet or an 11.6" hybrid? They should be talking about the Thinkpad 440s, the Fujitsu U904, the Acer Travelmate P645... perhaps some high-end 13.3" models...

 

Isn't there ANYONE out there who can comment on the FHD display on the 850?

 

I had been looking at the t440s before the 840 was announced actually. I like the 840 primarily for its size, screen quality, keyboard, and tons of features (with upgradeability).

The t440s does not allow for full upgrades like the 840. The 840 also supports Verizon WWAN easily and I do not like the ThinkPad's new touchpad design either.

I won't be able to answer for certain about the m.2 drive as I am not using that in my configuration at all.

The 840 is a workhorse and is definitely built to last. My previous machines were not in this category at all. They were HP HDX 18 and older large HP laptops (17" size). I chose this for college due to the small size with tons of features.

 

1040 is a neutered 840 but is slightly smaller. It loses ethernet and I think VGA. Also loses trackpad buttons and pointing stick. Basically it loses a lot of features in the 800 line as a sacrifice for thinness.

 

Thank you, guys, for your reviews.

According to HP EliteBook 840 G1 review - reviews for UK IT professionals - V3.co.uk ”the matte black finish on its chassis is prone to picking up fingerprints and quickly started to look grubby”. So, is it difficult to clean? How does it compare to a display cover made of aluminum, as in Latitude e7440?

Thanks

 

The matte black on the display cover does pick up grease and fingerprints extremely easily. It doesn't make it look terrible but it is noticeable. To clean depending on how dirty you can use a dry cloth or a little water and cloth. Cleans right off.

 

I have an 840, with a cracked display cover already. It fell from a chair and to the floor and the corner of the display cover cracked by the hinge. It's only thick plastic. I've had several of the Elitebook 84xx notebooks and they are buildt as tanks compared to the 840. New display cover has been ordered, for $245. Expensive plastic, ,that also picks up fingerprints but is easily cleaned with a moisted microfiber cloth.

I'm running Win7 and are struggeling getting the WIDI to work. I have a Samsung F8000 series TV and it's listed as a Intel WIDI TV on Intel's site. Screen mirroring worked only one time. And after that first time it's impossible to to connect again. I reinstalled Win7 and again it worked one time, but no more after that. So if any has any experience troubleshooting WIDI, let me know. As for now I have given up trying to find out whats wrong.

Also, I've been looking for a M.2 mini-card SSD 42mm for the 840. As you probably has seen there's a slot beside the Wifi card.
So far I haven't seen anyone selling any cards compatible with the 840. Intel's Pro 1500 series is but I haven't seen any shops selling it, nor any prices. So if anyone find compatible cards let us know.

Link: Intel® Solid-State Drive Pro 1500 Series (M.2): Specification

My model: H5G30EA#ABN
I7-4600U 2,1GHz
8GB
Samsung 840 PRO SSD 256GB
Graphics; 1920x1080
Intel 4400 / AMD Radeon HD 8750M
WIFI Intel AC 7260 >>> Asus RT-AC68U
HP lt4112 Gobi 4G + GPS module
Backlid keyboard
Fingerprint sensor
WIDI ( somethimes)

 

Thank you, Peter and fasst, for letting me know about the display cover.

I am sorry to hear that.

What about this MyDigitalSSD 128GB Super Cache 2 42mm SATA III 6G M.2 NGFF SSD | FNet HybriDisk Software | My Digital Discount ?

 

Happy New Year!

I got some questions:

Does anyone know if the EliteBook 840 touch screen is matte finish or glossy? Also does anyone know if the touch screen on the HP Elitebook 1040 in March would be matte or glossy?

Sincerely,

SB

 

Only the FHD screen is matte, and the FHD screen is only available as non-touchscreen.

The Elitebook 1040 G1 brochure says the forthcoming FHD touchscreen will be matte, but it remains to be seen whether that's accurate and how good it will be. It's also possible that screen will make its way to the other 14" models... but 3 months is a long time to wait.

 

True, three month is a long time to wait. But I change my laptop every 5 years. 3 months for a function I might be using more often in the coming years is not that much, especially when we look at how much Microsoft is investing into touchscreen functions. Another thing is that, all European models and models in North America doesn't say if it has NFC (Near Field Communication). Do you think that NFC is already default on EliteBook 1040?

 

I thought I would share my experience with the 840 G1 especially for other linux users. I have a custom built model with:
i5-4300
16 GB
Intel Integrated Graphics
Intel 7260 AC adapter
Crucial M4 512 GB SSD (Pulled from my old laptop).

The short version is that I like it and have decided to keep it. The thing that almost made me return it ironically was the screen. I have 6 matte display monitors in my house not including 2 addition matte laptops and I was immediately turned off by the colors of the 840 under Korora Linux 19.1 (A fedora-based distro). It seemed like the colors were really washed out even to someone who prefers matte displays. However, after calibrating it with displaycalgui and colormonki the colors appear brighter and more in line with what I expected. The bottom line is I think you really need to calibrate the screen for it to live up to its potential. It's still not my favorite, but it is quite nice.

The battery life is good, but not fantastic under linux. I'm using kernel 3.12 with tlp installed, I've edited /etc/default/tlp to turn on all of the relevant options e.g. Runtime PM for all PCI devices and I've added the following kernel options to the default line in /etc/default/grub acpi_backlight=vendor i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 i915.lvds_downclock=1 i915.i915_enable_fbc=1. The acpi_backlight=vendor is so that you can control the backlight with the fn buttons on the keyboard. I'm getting between 6-8 hours with the internal battery and 15 - 17 hours with the addition of the slice battery. My wife has an air and its hard to it report 12 - 15 hours on its internal battery alone. Although, the battery life I'm getting now is about what you would expect from the Macbook Pro 13 Retina if it had 50Wh battery like the 840 instead ofits 72Wh battery. There are some additional haswell power improvements expected for kernel 3.14 that should improve the battery situation. My usual configuration is 30 - 50% brightness, wifi on and bluetooth off.

Long version

I've been looking for a lightweight 13 - 14 inch laptop with a matte display, 16 GB RAM, with great battery life under linux and good to excellent build quality. It also had to have only Intel integrated graphics, because dual gpu solutions under linux don't work that great yet. Although the AMD situation looks like it will improve greatly over the next year. Over the last 3 years I've had and with the execption of the w520 still have a Thinkpad 400s, Thinkpad W520 and Thinkpad x220. Here are the issues I've had with them:
1. 400s - Gets warm, screen is mediocore, it's alittle heavy with the ultrabay battery (with the 2 batteries you can get 7 - 8 hours under linux). Also the speakers can get burned out and have to be replaced. Mine are currently burned out.
2. W520 - I got rid of this - The screen was great, easily my favorite screen on a laptop. However under windows and occasionally under linux I suffered from the infamous random reboot problem.
3. X220 with 9 cell battery - It's a great laptop especially under linux. My issues are that the screen is too small, I'm tech consultant and I code on the laptop screen when I'm sitting with my kids in the den. I'm also suffering the light spots on the screen that effects some of the x220 and x230.

Needless to say, after reading the reviews for the new t440s (limited user expandability and weird memory configuration) and t440p (too heavy), not to mention the issues users are having with the trackpad under linux, I was ready to try a different manufacturer.

The only option I could find to meet my requirements was 840. I considered the 850 and I may have gotten it if the battery was bigger than the one that came with the 840. I think I would have preferred a 15 inch screen with 1080P. I find that 1080p is too high of resolution on a 14 inch screen without changing the font dpi and increasing the font size in apps especially browsers. I even considered the aforementioned Macbook Pro 13 Retina and running it at a 1680x1050 resolution, but there is a long thread 177+ pages where users are complaining about their brand new 13 inch retina's randomly locking up and having to power cycle to get them to work again. Some folks are doing this 4-6 times a day. After my experience with the W520, I couldn't stomach spending 2 grand and having to deal with those kinds of issues again.

I seriously considered the Haswell Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition, but I ideally wanted a matte screen that was larger than 13 inches. All of the other Dells have some other serious issue Dell XPS 15 (coil whine) or has a discrete gpu Dell Precision M3800.

As for things I would change, I would put in a larger battery even if it meant giving up the 2.5" harddrive slot. There are 2 m.2 slots one for WWAN and one for a cache or other storage drive. Another 20Whs would make this a truly formidable laptop even if it was .25 lbs heavier.

I hope this helps someone making a similar decision. I got my model with a slice battery, 3 year extended warranty and docking station for 2200 with taxes. I consider it a great deal. There was an 18% coupon code on the custom build site when I bought mine. It may still be there for those who are interested.

 

Thanks for reminding me of the coil whine issue - I know one of my big fears is buying a laptop that makes those strange, uncorrectable sounds, and last month when I got my Zbook 14 I was very relieved to find that it is truly silent (except for the fan of course - but when the fan's off, it makes zero sound). No whining, no buzzing (even the HP Spectre 13-3000 seems to have a bit of that), no hissing from the speakers, nothing from the screen regardless of brightness, nothing when plugged into external power... it's all good.

 

Another review from the polish site: HP EliteBook 840. They tested T440s before, linked in that ThinkPad thread.
The UWVA FHD screen is really gorgeous.

 

I thought I'd share my opinion on the HP Elitebook 840 G1. I have 2 of the i7 ones with discrete graphics, SSD drives, and 1080p IPS screen.

I've been a Thinkpad user for about 10 years with some Macbooks mixed in. I've been using an X1 Carbon Touch for the past 6 months, but was looking for something that didn't have a proprietary hard drive.

Before I settled on the Elitebook 840 G1, I had ordered and returned 2 Dell E7440, which both had the infamous cat smell. The new Thinkpad line I had unfortunately ruled out because of the lack of physical buttons and the new T440s is supposedly a real pain in the butt to open with 12 snap latches that people have reported snap off on occasion if you're not being extra careful. I had also considered getting a Surface Pro 2, but I decided that it was probably a generation or two away from being a laptop replacement for me.

Pros:

- The screen is great.

- I find the touchpad surprisingly good. I was not expecting this from a windows PC, but it's actually one of the better touchpads I've used on windows PC. I'm also a fan that there are physical buttons on the touchpad and pointing stick.

- The no-screw access to the computer's innards is a nice touch and makes maintenance quite a bit easier.

- It's nice that there's a battery slice option for all day unplugged work.

- The form factor is actually pretty thin. Really it's not much thicker than the X1 Carbon Touch.

- It has a great variety of ports.

- Performance is great. I have no complaints, though I am not a benchmark fiend. I will leave its competitiveness in it's category for others to decide.

- The fan is very quiet.

- Generally if feels like a very solid machine. I'm pretty happy with the build quality.

Gripes:

- The keyboard is average in my opinion. There is more keyboard flex than I'm used to, and it's especially noticeable below the J/K keys. Despite the flex, it's pleasant enough to type on and it has a solid layout. I'm still getting a little used to the shrunken ctrl key, but I don't expect that to be an issue. Generally it is not up to Thinkpad standards. I'd even prefer Apple keyboards and the keyboard on the Chromebook Pixel is better too. The Dell XPS series also have pretty solid keyboards in my opinion, but lack some useful keys for productivity. I do prefer the Elitebook's keyboard to the Dell Latitude E7440 I returned.

- The pointing stick is also average and not quite as good as a Thinkpad. Maybe it's just different and I'll get used to it over time. The lack of a middle button on the pointing stick (like Thinkpads or Latitudes) is a little annoying. As a result, I'll probably just use the touchpad more.

- While I like that there are actual buttons for the pointing stick / touchpad on the Elitebook, they are a little mushy. Not a deal breaker or anything.

- It feels a little heavy, with mine weighing in at 4lbs.

- I'm not sure if this is a gripe, but the top cover of the laptop is a fingerprint / oil magnet. I do like the soft touch feel though and I could care less about fingerprints, so it doesn't bother me at all.

- I had to return one of the 840 G1s because of a dead pixel / backlight bleed / a defective keyboard that had a ton of flex and loose keys. The next one I got was just fine. 2 for 3 isn't that bad. I have to say that laptop QA for all companies these days seems to be pretty terrible. It is almost rarity for me to keep the first laptop I get. I had to return a T420s twice for various defects, a Chrome Pixel twice because of horrible screen defects, both of my Dell E7440s for the cat smell, an XPS 15 L521x for defective wireless, and one of the Elitebook 840 G1s for reasons listed above. Not a great track record.

- Battery life is acceptable. I usually run my laptops with the high performance profiles, so I'll never get the advertised batter life anyway. With the battery slice, it says I'll get just over 10 hrs with everything cranked up to the max (high performance and max brightness on the display). I'll have to run more tests though, as I rarely have my laptop unplugged and in use that long before being able to charge it.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. If HP improved the keyboard a little bit and maybe made it a little bit thinner / lighter it'd be a near perfect machine in my opinion, assuming I find no other issues with it.

 

Hi dkappelman , your impressions are really useful, may I ask you what do you think about HP Elitebook 840 and Dell latitude E7740 regarding fan noise and screen quality?

I found HP 840 with 1600 x 900 resoultion and Dell E7740 with 1920 x 1080.

Thank you!

 

In terms of fan noise, I didn't have the Dell for very long, but I didn't notice a whole lot of fan noise on the E7440. The HP is very quiet. I barely notice the fan at all.

The screen quality on the HP 840 with the 1920x1080 screen is great. The Dell E7440 with 1920x1080 also looked very good to me.

I'm not entirely sure what the 1600x900 screen in the HP 840 G1 looks like. I don't think it's an IPS display like the 1920x1080. I've had quite a few 14 inch laptops (mainly Thinkpads) with that resolution and they have all been pretty bad looking. Come to think of it, I've never read a good review of a 1600x900 screen in a 14 inch laptop. I would personally stay away from them, especially when there are a number of 14 inch laptops with 1080p offering currently on the market.

 

Is the hard drive on the 820 a 9.5mm or 7mm drive?

 

Thank you for feedback! unfortunately in this country the 1920x1080 screen is available only on model with most expensive configuration (8 gb of ram/SSD etc)

has this HP 840 a mSata slot?

 

Hi vamez9z, thanks for sharing your experience with the 840 G1

Would it be possible to comment on the added volume/weight of the slice battery? A photo of the laptop with/without it would be even greater!

I struggle to get 5-6 hours out of it, with all energy-conserving settings that I can think of. So I'm tempted to go for the slice battery, despite its horrible price... (£200+ in the UK!)

 

I had the Elitebook 840 for a few days with the IPS screen.

Really nice and light, the screen is really good, but full HD in a 14" is a little small for me. The keyboard is not very good, too mushy.
I had the one without dedicated graphics and for the sound sensitive like myself, I have good news, it's REALLY quiet, during idle and light office work and surfing the net the fan is OFF, and with SSD the laptop is completely quiet.

I'm trying to figure out if Elitebook 850 is available with IPS screen, some say yes:

http://h71016.www7.hp.com/MiddleFra...=3712&BaseId=42639&oi=E9CED&BEID=19701&SBLID=
http://h71016.www7.hp.com/MiddleFra...=3712&BaseId=42633&oi=E9CED&BEID=19701&SBLID=

 

Those two models should have the AUO AHVA screens. They have wide viewing angles (probably 70 degrees in all directions) but are not quite as wide as the IPS models. As far as color reproduction goes I think they are 100% sRGB or close to it, however only 6-bit color.

 

If it's the same as the ZBook 15 non-Dreamcolor screen, then it is IPS:



But it's not available in the Business to Business portal, and there's no mention of this screen in the technical documents ?!

 

Oh, in that case it should be an IPS display. Probably the same that is used in the Gigabyte P35K. This would probably make a nice 15.6" Ultrabook. It has pretty good specs for its price.

 

I can upload a photo later. The slice adds about .5 lbs to the 840. The weight difference is definitely noticeable. The balance is significantly different with the slice battery. It's not bad just different with more the weight at the bottom of the laptop rather than more evenly balanced between the top and the bottom as it is without the slice. The difference in battery life is certainly worth it. I would think it is even more so if you have AMD GPU. I bought my configuration with the integrated graphics only as I knew I would be using it only with linux. Indeed I bought mine with SUSE installed instead of Windows.

 

Have anyone tried to fit NGFF M.2 disk in that M2 slot yet? - would that be a performance upgrade over a SSD disk in the SATA 2.5" slot?

 

Thanks for the info, really useful. I got the discrete graphics model, so the extended battery life is def going to be a bonus.

 

Okay, the "Log in as Guest" for BIOS is VERY counter intuitive. Thanks to the poster that mentioned it because NONE of the Zbook docs mentioned that little detail.

 

hi guys its been a while since i owned an hp laptop. it was the 8530w. and i loved it for the most part. but tech moves on and sold it some years ago.but want to know if the hp probook 640 is the exact same as the elitebook 840 except the 640 comes with full processers. aka i5 4200m. it can be configured with a 8750m aswell but is this model anywhere and would it be worth looking at instead of the 840 sinces its much cheaper to buy with better cpu.

 

Hi, is someone using the elitebook 840/850 with touch screen?

do you think will be useful on win8?

 

Hi, I just got my 840G1 and I'm trying to migrate my Centos 6 drive from an 8460W but I see a couple of issues and was wondering if you encountered them.

Did you get this message anywhere during bootup? UNSUPPORTED HARDWARE DEVICE: Intel CPU Model. It doesn't seem to be a big issue since system boots up normally.

The big thing though is kacpid process is taking up 80% of cpu of one core. I've googled it and none of the solutions I read worked for me. I even changed my bios version and tried 1.0.3, 1.0.4 and 1.0.5. What bios version are you running? At this point I'm thinking of a fresh install but I'm trying to avoid doing that at all. Thanks.

 

Sorry for the double post. Totally forgot to quote the orig post.

======================
Hi, I just got my 840G1 and I'm trying to migrate my Centos 6 drive from an 8460W but I see a couple of issues and was wondering if you encountered them.

Did you get this message anywhere during bootup? UNSUPPORTED HARDWARE DEVICE: Intel CPU Model. It doesn't seem to be a big issue since system boots up normally.

The big thing though is kacpid process is taking up 80% of cpu of one core. I've googled it and none of the solutions I read worked for me. I even changed my bios version and tried 1.0.3, 1.0.4 and 1.0.5. What bios version are you running? At this point I'm thinking of a fresh install but I'm trying to avoid doing that at all. Thanks.

 

What kernel are you using? Supposedly you want at least 2.6.32-431 as it has Haswell specific fixes for the processor that the 840 G1 uses.

 

Yes, I'm running the latest - 2.6.32-431.3.1.el6.x86_64

The thing that bothers me is that the kacpid process is using up 80% of cpu0 and so the fan is always on.

 

Just updated bios from 1.04 to 1.05 and now it remembers the keyboard back-light setting after restart or wake up. Previously it would always default to on. Haven't noticed any other changes so far. Oh, and I had to manually look for the bios update on the drivers' website - HP support assistant wouldn't pick it up automatically

 

Hi hope you can help. really thinking to purchase this over the thinkpad t430. i see you have used the w520 so you are used ot the mouse buttons. thinkpads tend to have a silent soft click. how does the 840 buttons fair? Can you hear them on every single click like keys on the keyboard? and how is fan noise comapred to thinkpads since they do it the best in terms of silence even at load?

dont mind if any one else can inout on this if they have had 1st hand experience on thinkpads also.

Thanks

 

Question to people that already have this laptop: do you find it noisy? Does the fan ever stop?

The fan in mine almost never stops, even when the laptop is idling, on a cool hard surface with the power saver profile enabled. CPU temp is around 35C, HDD temp around 30C, yet the fan never stops. It's not really noisy, but you can certainly hear it in a quiet room or when watching a movie at low volume.

HWinfo64 reports fan as constantly spinning at 1k rpm. Maybe this is one of the reasons battery life is not the greatest...

So, how is yours?

 

With regard to the Probook 640 question: it seems that the Elitebook 840 has Haswell ULV processors (lower power usage; longer battery life), does not have a DVD drive and is hence quite a bit lighter. The Probook 640 compard to an Elitebook 840 seems like what a Lenovo T440p is to a T440s. Like with Lenovo, you pay for a lower weight.

 

Thanks for noticing. the weight and the little bit thinness is not so much the deal breaker. its that you literally cannot find the 640 version with 8750m graphics. the main thing is the mouse buttons really. if i was like in a library and click loads. lets say i was playing SC2 which inve never played but i assume it involves lots of clicking. would that amount of clicking be quiet like a thinpad or the way the elitebooks used to be with its rubbery buttons where it had a silent profile.
i think i will buy the 640 version as it will be about $500 cheaper than an 840 with i7 but i do want to game moderatley on this. that will have to be an import job in the far east as usa does not have one and im in the uk. and the uk are crap for certain configs and if we do have something ts on the chaper budget models.

To the other owners out there what is gaming on the 840 like with the 8750m?

 

The touchpad buttons are pretty good. They are not silent like the older Elitebooks but they are not as loud as a clickpad either.

The 8570m/m4100 isn't particularly bad. It scored P1900 for me in 3dmark11, and performs about like 2012's mid range gaming notebooks. The switchable graphics does seem a little more finicky than Nvidia's implementation, however. In particular I have had trouble getting it to select dedicated graphics with games that have launchers that must be run before the game will start. Overall its not going to game as well as your W230st does, but it will be fine for occasional gaming.

It is a shame that the UK site doesn't have any configuration options. Here in the US a configuration with i5/8750m/1080p can be had for ~$1250 after coupon which doesn't seem too bad.

 

The mouse buttons on my ZBook 14 (same as Elitebook 840) are very quiet - way quieter than the Sony Z11 I had previously, which had a click sound far louder than a standard Logitech mouse. And don't forget you can still tap-to-click...

 

I booted up Ubuntu Gnome 13.10 on my Zbook this morning and noitced that no processes are causing high utilization on the i7. However, the dedicated graphics card is also switched on so the fan runs all the time (this is true on Windows as well). This live Ubuntu install is using kernel 3.11.0-6.12 so my guess is the 3.x series kernels have better support for these newer chipsets and processors.

 

Thanks for the replies including you sunfox.. yea I don't min a performance hit to a degree since I haven't really been using my laptop for gaming as such. the only thing I will notice the hit at the moment is bf4. but before the 765m I was using a 6630m
(which is half of the 8750m) mainly uptill end of December when I sold my edge thinkpad and now im missing its function. the main thing is that the clicks are not annoying enough to annoy my other half. and standard mouse buttons where the big no no's and tbf I don't quite like it myself ( her effect has rubbed on a little) so I will end up selling this practically new laptop mainly because I don't like the mouse and I am a trackpoint user.

I am so jalous that I cant fetch one of these laptops for this kinda of price. I see them going for a round $1900+ with i7. cant sayi really noticed them with i5 and i5 would do me. the thing is, it might be worth the price to a degree but if a refresh has at least 50% gpu performance which would delight me. reselling the laptop would be a chore as I have not seen any sold brand new or sold on ebay...HP are hard to sell for good resell fee no matter if you bought it sealed from the shop for £1000 and sold it the next day sealed for £800

 

The trackpoint on the Zbook 14 works well. I don't primarily use it because I prefer the trackpad for gestures, but it does seem to operate smoothly and have a good feel to it. I do not know if it is comparable to the thinkpad trackpoints but chances are since it is the same hardware (Synaptics) it is probably pretty close.

What really amazes me about the Zbook 14 is just how quiet the processor is under load. A lot of my work involves tweaking some code and then re-running our test suite. With the higher voltage processors about two seconds after starting the tests the fan would kick in (usually at max...) and then shut off five seconds later after the tests are done. Does it run slower? Yes, but probably only 20% at most. Its a trade off that is worth it in my opinion.

It looks like the replacement for the 8750M is the R7 M265. I doubt it will perform 50% faster though, it seems to just be the same silicon at faster clock speeds. Probably at most 15% faster. It is too bad the Zbook 14 doesn't have either an expresscard slot or a thunderbolt port like its bigger brothers, it would be a great candidate for something like an eGPU solution.

 

just 20% between which processor? 4600u and 4700mq? or something else....4600m maybe? the main reason why I considered the probook that looked o have the same shell as the 800s is because it has a full core processor which id prob just swap for a low powered quad since you cant change them low powered cpus

 

Actually the 3940xm, in a Dell M6700. The 3940xm tended to hover around 3.8Ghz-3.9Ghz while the tests would run, while the 4600u stays around 3.0Ghz-3.3Ghz. Haswell also slightly improved IPC so what we are left with is a dual core processor that has very decent single threaded performance. After about 20 seconds the 4600u will drop another 10% performance, 2.7Ghz with both cores loaded 100%, but it can maintain that as long as needed. The 4600u does very well in the Zbook, definitely workstation level performance.

 

Any professional reviews of the 840 g1 and/or zbook 14? (Preferably the 1080p matte version) By professional I mean like notebookcheck quality where they check for srgb, adobergb, angles, lighting of each part of the screen, heat of each part and etc?

MY current ultrabook is on its last leg and matte ultrabooks are hard to find, and my patience is wearing thin

 

well im not gonna lie. im mainly using on casual use. no video rendering or professional use. but gamin ghere or there. im not expecting ultra performance but medium to high (not preset setting) how is it for gaming or would you recommend to get the full core cpu? bu tthis is not full term like gaming 8hrs on end. maybe 4hrs tops a time and gta 5.

 

The Probook sounds like a pretty good choice. The weight should be about the same as the W230st. My guess is with the Probook you would lose 20% battery runtime and maybe gain a little heat and noise. The i5 4300m seems like it should perform just as well as the i7 4600u. You will want the 1366x768 lcd, as 1600x900 and 1920x1080 is just too much for the 8750m in my opinion. The performance in games will probably still be a bit slower than the W230st, but at least you would have a trackpoint with physical buttons back and a bit more battery runtime (~5-6 hours on the 650 G1 according to notebookcheck, so should be pretty close on the 640 G1).