Short review of my entry level 8740W

Hi guys, just wanted to share my thoughts of my base model 8740W. Some great full reviews have been done on the powerhouse spec'd machines so no need for a long review from me

I was in the market for a base model 17" workstation with an aluminum chasis, trackpoint mouse (love em'), at least WSXGA (1680x1050) resolution and an i5 or better processor. Ebay was my shopping center since I buy and sell there frequently. My old laptop was getting bogged down by some large illustrator files and I was longing to try out some newer games than half-life2.

My candidates were:

MacbookPro 17" - I learned on a mac in college years ago but nowadays inflated prices IMO, no trackpoint, HD low profile screen and non compatability issues.

Dell precision m6400/6500 - Good prices but read too many graphic card and power supply nightmare stories.

IBM Thinkpad W700/701 - Decent prices but base models come with XGA+ (1440x900) res. and not crazy for the Nvidia FX 2700. The Ds model is my dream machine if I could justify the cost though, dual screen and built in waycom tablet!

And then I found the HP 8740W- WSXGA screen, i5 and ATI firepro 8720. Perfect for my needs. Found a few wholesalers selling the "open box new" units for just under a grand! Click, I owned one, what a deal!
Also bought on ebay the same night-
4 more gig of ram-$45
2nd hard drive bay-$24
3 IBM trackpoint eraserheads-$5 (thnx for the tip aikimox)
and against advice from others, a backlit keyboard-$17 (direct from china, not ebay. Has some extra symbols on keys but identical otherwise, original HP's are made in china too)

When I opened the box a week and a half later I was very pleased with the overall loook and build quality of this machine, pics don't do it justice. I prefer the lack of 2nd HD bay in favor of the smaller size than the dell and IBM. It's not light of course but my previous laptop was a dell M70 (lol really), and it wasn't light either. The 200w power supply is large but smaller than the competitors.



The WSXGA screen is gorgeous! You can't tell in that oudoor pic with the light sensor controlling brightness but the colors are bright and vibrant on high and full screen black is evenly black. I can't imagine the dreamcolor panel after seeing this one! My old M70 originally sported a 15" WUXGA (1920x1200) screen, which I fell out of love with eventually and swapped in a WSXGA panel. So, I was a little worried 17" WSXGA (1680x1050) might be too low resolution, but actually it's fine for me. I left the text set at default %125. The only time I change it to the smaller %100 text is in real estate pig programs like Adobe Flash and Premiere. This actually decreases the size of the tool panels giving a little more room. There have been a few times while reading text on websites where I thought to myself, I'm glad my resolution is no higher for this.

The standard keyboard is fine, not flexy like wallmart HP machines. I would rather have no dedicated numeric pad though, although most elitebook owners feel the opposite. I don't use it and I prefer a trackpoint closer to center. The backlit keyboard I swapped in does have flex, not in the keys themselves but the entire top of the keypad. I don't find it that anoying, more dissapointing. I was warned beforehand but I use the keyboard alot in the dark, mainly for adobe shortcut keys and occasional gaming, not typing like this.

The trackpoint is a must for me, ever since my IBM T-23. I work alot lounging on the couch with no room for a mouse and I prefer this tool to a mouse anyway, except for gaming. The trackpads are useless for complex lasso selections in photoshop and the bezier curve tool in illustrator. I found the HP eraserhead too hard and slippery for me, thnx to reviews on here I wasn't surprised and as stated above I had IBM tracks on the way. I went with the mushroom shape button and all was well for a few days. Soon, however, it began to sit crooked and feel sloppy. After closer inspection, I noticed the IBM trackpoints are quite a bit deeper than HP's. There are 2 size square cutouts in these buttons. The IBM ones were sitting so high, the smaller sqaure cutout wasn't even in use (seems the smaller sqare's function is to add rigidity and stability). So, I cut a sliver of rubber off the open end of the IBM button and voila. It sat perfect and the flex, crookedness and "roaming" was gone, but enough about the little eraserhead lol.

hmm what else, ahh, performance of course. As you can guess, there was a very noticeable difference from my 2.13 single core centrino. The i5/firepro combo handles the large illustrator files much easier and booting OS and other programs is a snap. Where I don't see a huge improvement in power is in saving these files, the bottleneck of this system is definitely the 7200 hard drive. (my M70 has a 7200 as well.) A look at the win7 performance Information confirms this. It reads as follows-

Processor-6.5 / Ram-6.5 / General Graphics-6.7 / Gaming Graphics-6.7 / Hard Drive-5.9.

I will soon be upgrading to a Solid State HD. I see brand name 128Gb units lurking on ebay for about $150, they've really come down in price. Right now I have Windows7/Photoshop/Illustrator/Flash and 3 large games on the hard drive and not much else. Used space is about 75 GB. A 128SSD should be fine for running my OS and programs/games, my 320Gb 7200 will become my storage drive thnx to the 2nd HD bay. I can't wait to see the performance difference, I've never tried a SSD. They are supposed to use less juice as well which is always welcome. My battery life however has been around the 2 - 2 1/2 hour range which is very acceptable for such a powerhouse IMO. It seems quad core systems with the WUXGA dreamcolor panels are getting less, which would make sense I suppose.

As far as games go, the firepro 7820 runs Crysis on very high without a hiccup, much better gaming performance than the quadro equivelents. It's hard to believe it's considered a business card based off the killer gaming Radeon 5870. What a powerful card to find in an entry level model! Crysis 2 will be the next test...

Anyway, I said this would be a short little review so I will end it now. I hope I've given a little insight into the entry level 8740W for those deciding on a system. I did plenty of research and for my needs at least, gaming and graphics, this is the clear winner in this price range IMHO. I brought this beast over to my brother's house where we compared it to his girlfriend's consumer model 17" Toshiba and the difference in build quality is striking. It's business class or nothing for me. Bottom line, a few weeks in and so far no surprises, no crashes and I love it.

 

Nice review. This is the machine I will get if 8560w and 8760w fail to have decent graphical advancement from previous generation.

All 2-3 people I know of here in this forum are pleased with the wsxga screen. And it will be a bless as the system gets older, it buys me some time until the next upgrade

 

What is the IBM trackpoint eraserheads your mentioning?

 

thnx guys. oh and it is 1680x1050. I was always under the impression that WSXGA is 1680x1050, No? I'll add the actual numbers and make it clearer in the mini-review.

 

I got curious so checked wikipedia,

In the 16:10 aspect ratio world it seems- WXGA is 1280x800, WXGA+ is 1440x900, WSXGA+ is 1680x1050 and WUXGA is 1920x1200.

Just regular WSXGA doesn't seem to officially exist? I guess that's why people always drop the + ?

my next laptop is going to be WHUXGA, 7680x4800

 

I have the same model as the original poster, and I can vouch for the WSXGA+. It's bright, sharp and clear. I thought for sure that my first modification would be a WUXGA, but I'm in no rush.

I have 6GB ram, a Momentus XT Hybrid for the main drive and a 7200rpm in the optical bay. I think step #1 will be a new SSD for the main drive, and the hybrid as the secondary.

Anyone know if using modded Catalyst drivers makes a huge difference in game performance?

Loving my Elitebook right now. HP and their workstation laptops have made me a believer.

 

Nice reivew on this entry level model Thank you very much~~ I m thinking of getting this model too Could u tell me your model number ? is it WH277UA or XT908UT or something else ? is your processor i5-560m or i5-520m ? Thanks

 

Nice review! Enjoy the beast!

 

One more question, could u tell me where did u get your open-box 8740w and under one grand? I m looking for a good source to get this baby i m asking my friend to purchase one and ship to canada for me... 8740w here is expensive T__T thank you very much

 

I don't know about the OP, but I actually took a chance and bought mine on eBay - with duty (tax) and everything it was *just* over $1,000 CAD. It was factory refurbished by HP, and I was shocked to find that it had one year warranty - which I plan to purchase an extension for.

Mine is the i5-520m. I wanted to buy an i7-640m and put it in the laptop, but even though it is a dual-core CPU, it may need the quad core motherboard. Although, to be honest, the 520m is doing me fine right now!

 

Hi, mine's the WH27 model one, with the 520m. (2.9GHz in turbo boost i think?) Actually the guy that sold me my HP doesn't have any more listed. I saw a couple of others though a few days ago .... one guy has refurbished ones, the other is stating "new, no box" If it's refurbished, it is a 1 year warranty, for 3 years you have to call HP and pay $129 for the extra 2 years. As for the guy selling "new no box", they have backlit keyboards and the 560m. But he is stating "comes with new power supply". Well if it's a brand new computer of course it comes with a new power supply? Sounds suspicious. I would make sure it comes with the factory HP 200w power supply. I would also get the service tag and contact HP. If they are indeed brand new, it should have the standard 3 year warranty.

I'm also in Canada, New Brunswick actually. That's why I buy alot of stuff thru ebay. When you go to future shop and see the junk they sell for $1000...

 

I m in toronto... really sad that there is no place to go for hands-on this machine in here...Futureshop doesn't sell any business model laptop T____T

I m thinking about getting a refurbished one from some wholesale online store in US(not ebay, or maybe pcRUSH-outlet on ebay) and let my friend ship the unit to canada...

Did u get it on ebay.com or ebay.ca? How much duty and taxes did u pay when it got imported to canada? How long does the custom holds the item?

Thank you sooo much for answering my questions

 

That is awesome, even just with one year warranty

The only difference i could think of between quad-core motherboard and dual-core motherboard is the number of memory slots. quad-core motherboard has 4, and dual-core motherboard has only 2 because dual-core processor could only recognize 2 slots. You might not need to get qual-core motherboard for your i7-640m even a quad-core cpu, and the motherboard u have should work just fine(unless u want more than 16g memory) But get a heatsink for quad-core cpu could be a good idea. Gladly that part is orderable in Canada and it seems that HP gives free shipping on that one with about $36. (order from US parts store is $10 cheaper, but need to add $11 more for shipping, it is almost the same )

Total just over $1,000 CAD is great Did u get your 8740w on ebay.com or ebay.ca? Could u tell me the model number and the seller? Could I extend the warranty in Canada since it is refurbished unit and only available in US? How much duty or tax did u pay?

Sorry about too many questions ... but i really wanna get one~ Thank you very much

 

No worries on the questions -anything I can do to help!

1 year of actual, honest to goodness HP warranty is actually more than I was expecting, buying it on eBay and all I don't mind paying to extend the warranty. It's funny...I change laptops a LOT, but I think I'm actually sticking with this one for a while.

So, I would need the CPU and the quad core heatsink and it should work...you're tempting me

My model is WH274U and it was ebay.ca. I'll look through my ebay for the seller and will PM you (I'm still new to actually posting in the forum, so I don't know what the rules are around that). In regards to the warranty, with the workstation laptops, the warranty is global. I checked my warranty status on the HP.CA website, and had the option to extend it if I chose, so I'm pretty sure I can. I'll probably call HP tomorrow to ask

 

I assume the 1yr is mail-in right? But if you extend to 3yrs, is that still mail-in or NBD on-site?

I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. The dual core processors are limited to recognizing 16GB so 4x4GB would be ok if you had the slots. I thought I read somewhere that Dell had 4 dimm on their dual core M6500, but I just tried their CTO and was limited to selecting 2 dimm ram options with dual-core CPUs. But maybe the slots are there on the Dell. In any case, it doesn't really mater on the 8740w. You only get 2 slots on the dual core.

 

sorry about that thank u for the correct info

 

By Siorah's tests that is the case. And no, the dual-core board on the Dell M6500 only has 2 slots, same as the 8740w.