HP 8510p vs HP nw8440?

Hi all,
I have difficulty with choosing between these two notebooks. Both are similarly priced and both do meet my needs.

The positives for the 8510p are the Santa Rosa cpu, has Dx10 compatible graphics card, and bigger hard disk.

The positives for the NW8440 are the higher screen resolution, faster hard disk (7200 rpm), and 3 year warranty.

The specs are as follows:
HP 8510p (AUD$2,242)
----------------------
- 15.4" WSXGA (1600x1050)
- Vista Business
- C2D T7500 2.2GHz CPU
- ATI HD2600 256MB graphics
- 1GB RAM
- 160GB HDD 5,400rpm
- DL DVDRW
- 1 year warranty

HP NW8440 (AUD$2,199)
------------------------
- 15.4" WUXGA (1900x1200)
- Vista Business
- C2D T7400 2.16GHz CPU
- ATI FireGL V5200 256MB graphics
- 1GB RAM
- 100GB HDD 7,200rpm
- DL DVDRW
- 3 year warranty

If you were to choose between these two, which one would you prefer?
Is there any major reason why one is better than the other?
Thanks for your help.

 

The NW is a workstation model. It's update is the 8510W.

 

^ It's probably about the price.

I'd take the 8510p for it's better battery life, graphics and cooling system.

 

What do you mean by about the price? Workstations have Quadro/FireGL cards & WUXGA screens available.

 

Yes, I think that's the reason it's on sale. Generally in Australia, the HP workstation models are far more expensive.

Can you clarify what you mean by "about the price"? They both are almost the same price now. Yes, the NW was way overpriced previously.

You got a point here about the battery life.
I am not much of a gamer and so the Dx10 is not important to me.

I think I might just toss a coin in a week's time.

 

Well they are both solid machines. Since you don't care about dx10 you can choose which keyboard has a better layout for you

 

Well the decision got easier. The NW8440 has sold out.

It was cheap in this particular shop because it was closing down. It's under administration now. I wasn't aware of this at the time of my post.

Thanks to all of you for input. HP 8510p is the choice.

 

Of course it was the choice. Nobody wants an outdated model.

 

I understand what you are saying.
It's just that technology is moving so fast that nothing is "current" for long. Penryn is on the way in Jan. That's only two months away.

 

If you're ordering from CWorld, make sure you can actually get the unit when you pay or else you'll lose everything.

 

I was just refering to the poster above - probably you compared those two models because they cost the same, not because they're from the same family (w or p).

 

You are spot on! It's CWorld. Thanks for the advice. I was going to buy the NW unit tomorrow morning from work because of the fast hard disk, 3yr warranty, and high screen resolution.
Then it was mentioned here and elsewhere about the heat problem and so I will go with the 8510p unit instead.

Some things from CWorld are a steal though...

You have any comment about "http://www.betterit.com.au" ?
I am thinking of buying it from them.

Yes, I am comparing them due to the same price.
I have been very active looking at various options to suit my needs/budget.
It's been narrowed down to these two and the Macbook pro (wish list).

Now it's down to 8510p. It's a painful exercise.

 

It will probably take more time (I guess they will not upgrade as soon as the processors become available) before HP will use Penryns in his notebook. But you could wait for three months to find out.

 

I own an nw8440 and also have some new 8510p's at the office, the 8510's I received are all buggy however hopefully not all are that way so I'll continue in that vein.

nw8440 has a dimmer screen, not a little dimmer, a lot dimmer. It has a smaller faster hard drive but is a very solid machine over all. I have the WUXGA screen on my 8440 and the 8510 is WXSGA so if you don't need a super bright display the 8440 really fits a lot on that 15" screen.

The 8510 feels fast but the machine feels cheaper than the 8440, the speakers aren't as good and the touch buttons are nice on consumer machines but feel out of place on this unit.

I have had better luck with the workstation version of these laptops so I wish you luck in your desicion.

 

The workstation would be my ideal choice but I can't afford it. The 8510p I got is 3rd-party ensembled and cost half the price compared to the 8510w model. The 8510p is still way better than the Asus I have currently.

Besides I run the Vista 64-bit. Hopefully there's less problems with this version. I am waiting for my Office license to activate the Office and also waiting for a 7200 rpm hard disk. So far, no major dramas yet.

 

The 8510p isn't 3rd party assembled. What do you mean?

 

He means that probably he got it from a 3rd party.

 

It is 3-party assembled. Let me explain.
In Australia, HP sells a base model of 8510p called "RQ555AV" to some vendor(s). The vendor (distributor) then use this base model and ensemble a model called "04681953".

That is, they add the cpu, hard disk, etc... The base model comes with the same graphics card, screen , etc.. My details here are a bit fuzzy. (Not 100% sure)

It comes with one year warranty instead of three and the warranty is covered by HP. (100% sure)
The specs are as mentioned above. (100% sure)

It's a lot cheaper than the 8510p model sold by HP (about 30% cheaper). (100% sure)
Even after I upgrade to a 7200rpm hdd and 4 GB ram, it is still about AUD$500 cheaper.
I know because I just bought one. (110% sure)

There are some discussions on this already:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=174043

Hope this clears some confusion, if any.

 

If you read that post, you'll see that I was the poster who explained it and it seems my point has been misunderstood. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2517115&postcount=52
There is no vendor assembly involved here. HP ships a complete unit to the reseller, not a partial base unit (they can't ship a partial unit because the processor, RAM, HDD all have to be HP branded and labelled or else warranty claims will go messy). The reseller has a configuration tool that enables them to build CTO units and RQ555AV is the HP product number for the base chassis. The reseller tells the distributor the configuration they want, like processor, HDD, etc. and orders in bulk. It's pretty standard. This is different from the preconfigured units which are usually retailed. I also believe the margins on preconfigured units are higher.
CTOs are not always cheaper, in fact they are usually more expensive. This was one of the exception.

 

Just to enlighten people on the nw8440 heat issue:

The CPU on my nw8440, on a light load (surfing the net, iTunes, etc), usually hovers around 50-52 degrees C. Under heavier loads, it can get close to 80 degrees. Once the workload decreases to idle, however, the CPU easily goes from 80 degrees to 50 degrees in roughly 5 seconds.

The HD, depending on how long it's been running and how hard is working, will range from around 36-47 degrees C, but I've NEVER seen it go beyond 47 degrees, even on the toughest workloads. BTW, my HD spins at 7200RPM. I imagine that 5400RPM drives will run cooler.

My question is: are these temps pretty high or normal? I know the HD temps are pretty high, but I don't know how cool the CPU should be. I've considered getting a cooling pad for my notebook, but I need to know what the "normal" CPU and HD temps should be before I can justify getting one.

I do not have any information on the GPU temperature, unfortunately.

 

Good luck, the second one we received I formatted and installed Vista Business from scratch, so far so good. We'll see if it has the second monitor issue our others have run into.

 

You could be right. I am not sure about the base unit, CTO and hence I've put a (not 100% sure) comment. Maybe a (not sure) comment would have been more appropriate.

I am not sure how HP makes profit though. The unit I got is AUD$2,220.
HP's model costs about AUD$3,000 with similar config.
After going through the distributor and reseller, I wonder where HP makes the money in this case.

 

2200 is still a lot of money for a laptop, the price they ask for the 8510P on the HP website is inflated. This is because the P series is meant for business with large orders at discounted prices.

My guess would be the $2200 HP is part of a suppliers bulk order program and it helps to get rid of the excess T7500. I would certainly grab it since i don't see this lasting indefinitely. Intel is meant to be short of processors so after this batch is gone it might not be available again.

 

Currently, it seems HP has excess T7500 with limited T7700 and T7800. The T7500 is being offered at a very good price point, so if you're configuring, get the T7500 if you don't need more processing power.
Despite the price point, there's still a considerable margin to be made, especially for commercial notebooks.