HP Elitebook 8560w specifications

I've been eagerly awaiting news of this model all year after being unable to get the 8540w last year and rushed off to the hp site to peruse the specifications. On the whole it is what we'd expect except for a few points.

1. No mention of SATA III.
2. No mention of Thunderbolt implementation.
3. The ATI Firepro M5950 card.

If the first two are true that is a HUGE disappointment and would cause me to look hard elsewhere. How can HP omit two such crucial technologies in a high end workstation in 2011?

In the case of the video card, I only hope its not as similarly disappointing as last year's card. Not that it was a poor card, but for the level of machine I had hoped for something more powerful. This year the MBP 15 comes with a 6750 based card (is becoming a serious contender for my 2k usd) and I would expect the ATI option in the HP to match and hopefully exceed that.

Everyone please feel free to weigh in with their thoughts and opinions on this machine.

 

2. is very unlikely, dont get you hopes up for TB in any business laptop other than macbooks until Ivy Bridge

And saying TB is crucial is pretty odd as there is less than 5 devices currently available with the tech.

 

These aren't consumer notebooks we're buying here. Workstations tend to be used for three to five (or more) years. I'd bet there will be more than five devices for Thunderbolt come this time next year. Anyway, its more SATA III that I consider to be crucial (poor choice of words). Also, that Firepro card had better be competitive.

 

great choice of words, actually
I am planning on using my Crucial Real SSD C300 128GB 6GBit/s, now in my 8530p.

But still stuck with SATA II in the 8x60x series.

 

The lack of SATA III would be a dealbreaker but there was no way that they could have gotten Thunderbolt. Apple had to get it first because it was their baby and these things take a while to come down the pipeline.

 

Supposedly the M5950 is based upon the Radeon HD 6770M.

http://hpfansite.com/hp-elitebook/amd-firepro-m3900-m5950-m8900-radeon-counterparts-revealed/

 

Thats not so bad then. Improved over the 6750 but keeps TDP to 25 Watts. Lets hope the SATA III issue works out similarly well too.

 

why don't they have an HDMI port? I don't want to use a dumb adapter

 

HDMI is for consumers, while business users still use VGA and it's replacement DP. As for the other points, workstations tend to stick with devices that are legacy compatible and not so much with next generation connectors such as Thunderbolt. SATA/600 also isn't a big deal at this time since most SSDs don't even utilize SATA/150 for their most important specs, random R/W. You won't notice a performance difference between SATA/600 and SATA/300 for virtually all day to day tasks as sequential R/W speeds are more than sufficient on the latter and are not used that much.

 

Intel QM67 chipset has SATA III and HP 8560w has QM67 so this issue should be out of discussion.

 

Most corporate laptops (including Lenovo and Dell) don't have HDMI because in the business environment, people that use external monitors for the mobile workstations has high-end monitors that works best with DisplayPorts or Dual DVI. Therefore, HDMI is not really a necessary feature for the business market.

 

This is what I wrote in one of the dozen threads..

 

If it helps any, it's really not a very cumbersome adapter. You can either get a cord that has Displayport on one end and HDMI on the other, and it works great with video and audio in most machines - in other words, no inconvenience at all, and it doesn't cost much more than the cheap HDMI/HDMI cables. Also, you can get a fairly small "dongle" for under $10 on Amazon and elsewhere, and if you don't like to "hang" it off your computer, just attach it to one end of an HDMI cable, and attach that end to your computer's displayport. Now that I think of it, it's more trouble to explain this than to do it!

 

Where are you getting those numbers from... I highly doubt the idle power is anywhere near that.

 

Hello,

While I do understand what you are saying, I am a business IT consultant and a consumer. My 2 biggest clients have projectors with HDMI inputs and my projector at work has HDMI also. they do also have VGA, but I feel safe in saying HDMI is sweeping the consumer and business world for audio/video hookups. If they want to make it an option that is fine with me, I'll pay an extra $5.00 - $10.00 to help old HP out through these rough times.

the newest SSD drives from Intel's 510 Series and Corsair C400 series will be using SATA III.

lets get past the PR. HP is a technology company and they are shoe horning "business" users into specific models that are classified as business use and they charge a premium price, but the business people I work for are demanding a lot more from their technology purchases.

Further, Dell's next Precision laptop is going to have DispayPort, VGA and HDMI
( http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/wsm6600/en/sfits/sfits_en.pdf )

 

HI,

thanks,

regarding your tag-line. if you are really upset about the 8540, have you considered just getting the 8560p or 8560w that should be out in a few weeks?

also, I just received an email from HP with coupon codes for 18% off the 8540p and 24% off the 8540w, so at the least, I hope you can cancel that original order. ( let me know if you want the coupon code, I'm waiting for the 8560w )

 

Dell's next precision workstation laptop has VGA, DisplayPort and HDMI

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/wsm6600/en/sfits/sfits_en.pdf

Most of the business conference rooms I go into have 55" + LCD screens and those all have 3-4 HDMI ports, it is becoming standard around her to use an LCD TV for presentations and not a projector.

there is no reason a "business" laptop can't have an HDMI port

 

The QM67 chipset supports up to two ports of SATAIII and up to 6 of SATAII. While you'd certainly hope that means they "wired up" the two internal ports as SATA III, you still don't know for sure yet. I really want to know the answer to this one. But, I already know I'll buy one even without SATAIII. I'll just grumble while I do it.

 

From the quickspecs in the link, I had to google the older models.

It didn't say idle, it's average. I don't know exactly what that means, but the point is that it's higher compared to older generations.

 

Perhaps because its using more powerful components. The idle and median power numbers may be better than previous years but the peak numbers are probably much higher. In this case, it would skew the 'average' (depending on the definition of average) values quite a bit.

 

I think I've found it. The 8560w have a max operating power <200 W, 50 W higher than the last model.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13529_na/13529_na.HTML
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/13995_na/13995_na.HTML

 

Well said! HP has lost touch with business class customers and their needs. They are spec-ing "workstations" with consumer features and cannot supply the kinds of features and components that Dell Precision and Lenovo routinely do even if their order forms suggest they can. They have a great deal of catching up to do to be at parity (and a lot of price cutting as well) - and then they have to explain their shiny Apple-clone new workstations with "entertainment" screens with 16 X 9 aspect ratios.