The HP ProBook 5310m Owners' Club

A brilliant thread, this, which I've been following intently for far too long! My mind is pretty much made up - I can deal with the finger prints - I'm getting the 5310m - but a final question remains.. Which display do I choose?

I will be using it for programming, light graphics editing, browsing, quite possibly watching films as well. Mostly at home, and practically never outdoors, but you never know..
Right now I'm leaning towards a BrightView display, with the motivation that from what I've read here the display isn't that superb and a glossy surface would help, and that if I after all won't be able to stand the reflections I can always attach a matte screen protector anyway.

How sensible do you think my reasoning is, and how good would a BrightView display with a matte screen protector work?

 

does anybody know if this will fit?
i like the added storage
http://www.brenthaven.com/catalog-trek_sleeve.html

 

Looks like they have a Macbook Pro in that bag so the 5310m should fit just nicely mate.

 

thanks just bought it

 

Glad to hear you've been following along.

I don't recall anyone here getting their 5310m with the BrightView glossy display, therefore I don't know whether HP actually uses a different display or it is simply the same display with a glossy coating; my bet is on the latter.
The glossy coating will help bring out some contrast and make the display look a bit clearer, but I wouldn't recommend it due to the reflections. Also, I think models with the BrightView display cost significantly more.

While not the best, I have found the 5310m's display to be more than usable and very easy on the eyes. Contrast is by default weak, but if you color calibrate the monitor it gets noticeably better.

 

Mine just came in, and so far, I LOVE IT.

 

Hi,

I read somewhere that some HP Notebooks contain a 'Lock' preventing usage of 3'rd party Mini PCIe cards. (WLAN cards etc)

Is that a true story?
If so - Which HP Laptops have this Lock ?

Thanks

 

Congrats! I'm curious, any problems with the space bar?

 

does anyone know where in Canada I can replace the screen on my probook 5310m. It cracked a week after I bought it. I still don't know how seeing that there is not a scratch on it I just opened it up one day and there was a huge crack across the screen.

 

Yes.

Instead of electrical tape, I found double-sided tape to have a better feel. I cut out a .25"x.25" of double-tape and it works awesome. Even though it's fixed, i'm still pissed about it.

Outside of the spacebar, no issues. Now I just have to get acclimated to Windows 7. I miss my carrots by the start menu.

 

I think you would get a better response if you asked in the "HP, Compaq & Voodoo PC" forum

 

Thanx for the reply! You've given me something to think about now. Perhaps taking the plunge into a whole new world of crystal bright, insanity provoking contrast would need more careful.. reflection.

 

How is the screen on the 5310m? Is it bright with vibrant colors? Can you as a 5310m owner please check this little test image and tell me if the background color is shown as grey or light green? Thanks

[thread]443043[/thread]

 

You can see what I think of the 5310m's screen in my review here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=432540
As far as that screenshot goes, I see a light green. I have my 5310m's screen calibrated with a ColorVision Spyder2Express device though. I found that calibrating the screen makes it much better than stock; it significantly improves the contrast. The viewing angle should be a non-issue as long as you view the screen head-on +/-20 degrees vertically/horizontally.

Yes, reflections are definitely something to consider. In basically any environment they can be a problem, especially where there are fluorescent lights (offices, etc) and where there are lighting sources directly behind you.

About half of the notebooks I owned over the last five years have had glossy, the other half matte. I prefer matte by far - glossy is slightly better to look at assuming the environment has no reflections, but often I find the environment heavily favors matte screens.

 

Since you use a hardware screen calibrator, I am guessing you are a graphics designer, with higher expectations of your screens than the average user..
I appreciate your input, as well as the very competent review, and the colour profiles!

Regarding using LED for the backlight, a brilliant move, as this should give the display two or three times the life compared to a CCFL, without any reddish tint near the end of its lifetime or in low temperatures!

It would be interesting to see comparisons of battery life vs. performance for the two different CPUs. The SU2300 draws 17.6 A ( http://www.intel.com/design/mobile/datashts/321111.pdf), while the SP9300 consumes 37 A ( http://download.intel.com/design/mobile/datashts/32012001.pdf). I wonder if it's more than twice as fast as well.. perhaps TwiztOG43 or anyone else who went with the Celeron could do some of the tests Charles did: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5496305&postcount=8

 

not one person knows where to get the screen on this notebook fixed

 

Have you tried contacting HP? They should be fairly capable of replacing the display.. especially if it's a warranty claim.

 

Thanks, so the screen must be good enough for some graphics work after calibration? Maybe I should invest in a calibrator.

 

i doubt they would consider this under warranty, but they will fix it for the right price

 

Well that would depend on what the problem is. It's not unheard of that brand new expensive electrical devices have inexplicably died without being mishandled. I once bought a motherboard that showed absolutely no signs of life, straight out of the box. Either way, HP will be able to replace the screen.

BTW, TwiztOG43, you got the Celeron CPU. Would you mind doing a few battery and performance benchmarks for us?

 

By the way, is 8GB RAM supported in the 5310m?

 

sure no problem... what program do you guys recommend? haven't been here in a while
i know that tiger direct has them with xp preloaded so im guessing you guys want both xp and W7 or will either OS be ok? because im planning on upgrading to W7 in a couple days when i get an 8gb sd card.

cant wait in a couple hours I'll have it

 

i believe its 4gb

 

The most sensible way would be to replicate Charles' procedure and setup as described here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5496305&postcount=8
I am referring mainly to the wPrime, but possible also the PCMark tests if you're feeling brave. wPrime only abuses the CPU whereas PCMark takes into account hard drive (which are identical) and RAM as well. You will find the utilities here: http://www.wprime.net/ and here: http://www.futuremark.com/download/pcmark05/

And as for the battery test.. I guess you'll just have to huddle up in the sofa and set out on a 4+ hour informal surfing session, just as Charles did.. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5496296&postcount=7

Indeed. http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/321957-321957-64295-3929941-3955552-4021356.html

 

Ok....update on my spacebar:

it's back to crap again. I need HP to fix this.

Even after trying it with both double tape and electrical tape, it goes back to normal. Presumably it wears down on the tape after so many uses.

Any other suggestions guys?

 

I think a screen calibrator is a good investment. I purchased my Spyder2Express for ~$70 on Amazon, and since then I have used it on all my computers. It has improved my viewing experience and I would not hesitate to buy it again.

You are welcome. I'm actually just a 'standard' user, I don't do anything related to graphics save for the occasional (very) basic picture editing. I use a screen calibrator mainly because it bothers me when displays are too cold colored. The vast majority of notebooks use average or below-average quality displays with such characteristics, and a screen calibrator can help correct for some of that. All of the recent notebooks I have bought and tested (from MSI, ASUS, HP) have had low-quality displays. It's just something you have to deal with unless you want to spend the big bucks for mobile workstations (ThinkPad W500, HP 8730w . . .).

As noted, 4GB is the max. The 5310m only has a single So-DIMM slot otherwise it could take 8GB.

As noted, any of the benchmarks I ran in my review would work. If you are going to run wPrime, download v1.55. Right-click the .exe, run as Administrator, and when it opens go into Advanced settings and change the # of threads to 2. Click save and run both the 32M and 1024M benchmarks; the 1024M will take some time.

Battery life rundown tests would be great too. Preferably with minimal brightness and light usage (word processing/Internet surfing).

That's surprising - to my knowledge you are the first person to report the spacebar going back to old habits. What kind of tape did you use? I used electrical tape and the spacebar has been solid for several weeks now.

 

I used som 3m double tape and I tried some generic electrcal tape.

The electrical tape was also cut into a .25x.25" piece. While the height of the spacebar went up, I can't think why the edges are losing thier responsiveness. I'm just sticking with the setup as it came for now.

 

just recieved it.
wow what can i say, this is so thin, but its such a finger print magnet!

 

Thank you TwiztOG43! Excellent! Well, that you've provided us with a comparison, that is.

Still, only half the performance of the P9300. But the big decider, the final nail in the coffin, at least for me, would be battery tests. The Celeron should consume 23W less power (21 vs 44) at max load (the power consumption in the various sleep states are also less than half for the Celeron). Considering the CPU is the most power hungry part of a computer, the gains in battery life should be noticeable. An extra hour to add to Charles' ~4, perhaps?

 

hmm maybe
anyways, i have been trying to get W7 installed because i couldn't get the USB recognized, but after all of that i finally got W7 running.

other than that, i cant seem to get QuickLook running!
i get this instead
CLICK ON LINK [PIC TOO LARGE]
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/991/1000628o.jpg http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/991/1000628o.jpg

 

Have you configured Outlook properly? Set up a user profile and so on..

 

wait, im lost... how would i do that?
do you mean outlook within W7?
i thought it was separate from the OS

 

As I've understood it, purely by reading reviews and watching video demos, QuickLook interacts with Outlook (hence the name). But it doesn't seem to fiddle with Outlook data directly. So when you boot after having using QuickLook, it 'flushes' the changes made in QuickLook, to Outlook, so that it's available there. Conversely, when shutting down, Outlook data is replicated to a place on the drive where QuickLook can access it.

This would require that Outlook is installed, and that a user profile has been created. But does it come with a MS Office license? Maybe it works with Outlook Express as well?

Official brochure: http://www.hp.com/sbso/solutions/pc_expertise/professional_innovations/hp-quicklook2.pdf

 

I am still up in the air about this laptop. Does anyone know if retail stores would carry it so I can see it for myself? I am concerned about the screen as it appears to be the main negative in Charles review.

Also, can anyone confirm that the system has working XP drivers? I know lots of companies sell "downgrade rights" to Windows XP but they do not have any or very limited driver support.

 

mine came with xp installed

it also came with 4 discs
xp disc
xp drivers
W7 disc
W7 drivers

also the screen is not as bad as it seems, seems pretty normal. what is kind of lacking is the audio, but what can you expect from a business class notebook.

 

Is the audio okay when you have headphones plugged in or is it still lacking?

 

sounds perfectly fine to me. I GOT DEM BEATZ BY DRE.

 

I'm bummed.

The DisplayPort implementation on the HP ProBook 5310m lacks audio. This means I can't use a DisplayPort to HDMI converter to feed a movie into my HDTV that has an HDMI port.

I've searched thoroughly, and the "stereo headphone / microphone combo" device does not exist. This means you will never be able to use an external headphone and mike to reduce echo.

 

It does support audio transfer from a display port:HDMI adapter. I've tried and verified.

 

Not sure what you mean by "stereo headphone / microphone combo device," as there are plenty of headsets out there billed as "gaming headsets" which have both stereo audio and a microphone which satisfy your needs. Some of them come in a USB flavour, which would also work.

Another choice would be to get a headset made for the iPhone that has a microphone built-in; I think those would work as well, though someone can chime in and correct me if i'm wrong.

If you mean you want to use your own microphone and headset at the same time, then you might want to try the DLO headphone splitter for the iPhone. I don't know if it would work for sure, but it says it supports microphone functionality, so I assume you can plug a set of headphones in one and a mic in the other.

http://www.thetwistergroup.com/store/customer/product.php?productid=DLZ70003<>17%20D58641&source=fr

Any more information on this? What kind of DisplayPort to HDMI adapter do you have, and what did you connect it to? Thanks!

About your spacebar, I'm not sure I can help you. I can tell you that after I fixed mine, I haven't had any problems with it. I put two squares of electrical tape in the center of the spacebar, where the spacebar contacts the rubber nub that actually registers the click.

 

I used a SIIG adapter from Fry's that was around 30$.

I connected it to a LG 22" TV and it worked as soon as it plugged it in. It automatically shut off all sound from the audio out port and ran all sound through the HDMI.

That spacebar issue is just really frustrating to me right now. I feel like I paid a premium for a 'business-class' laptop, and then to get this issue...PO.

 

a couple questions...

1. is there a way to turn off the touchpad? [it seems a bit bigger than im used to, so i keep accidentally touching it as i type

2. is there a way to remove smudges on the aluminum? i tried the cloth provided, and it only removes light smudges

3. can anyone recommend a good film or vinyl [transparent] that would adhere well to this laptop?

 

also...
4. i thought it was possible to charge usb devices while the laptop was off? [unless im thinking of another notebook]

i remember it was said somewhere, i tried my iphone but it doesnt seem to be working.

 

Have you tried the powered USB port? If anything, that should support it. Perhaps there's a BIOS setting that needs to be enabled as well.

 

This might work:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20091201005916/en

1. HP does not provide any controls to do that in software or hardware.

2. I use a damp microfiber cloth, it works very well. A bit of rubbing alcohol also helps.

3. No one has tried putting a material like Invisible Shield on their 5310m yet IIRC.

4. The 5310m doesn't have one of those ports unfortunately.

 

thanks for the input

as for #4, i was probably thinking of the HP 5101, which i was going to get but i wanted the HD screen, but you would have to get a customized model, and in the end of it all it would cost as much as or more than this laptop[5310m]

 

oh, by the way charles, did you get Quicklook running? i cant seem to do it.
how frustrating

 

also another problem i encountered when i updated to W7

i cant seem to get the Bluetooth working either.

i tried installing the drivers for it but when ever i try to install it i get a message saying that there is no bluetooth device connected

 

Hi All,

I am new to the forum but before purchasing my 5310m consulted this very thread so thank you already for the wealth of information that you have provided.

I do however have a query for anyone with the 5310m/su9300 processor does your fan vary speeds or stay running flat out(max) contantly all the time as my fan is very noisy I just wanted to confirm before wasting HP time getting a new one sent out. I have tried the BIOS setting for always on AC but this makes no difference.

Thank you

MGAN