HP 8710w 2.6/BD/3600M/4Gb Unboxed - Review and Questions

Ok, so I received my 8710w through the post today from Dabs.com and thought I would share some unboxing photos and my initial thoughts and questions on it.





HP 8710w Accesories Box
Contains:-
180w PSU for Docking station
135w PSU for Laptop
Battery
Modem Cable
BT11 adapter
Installation DVD/CD's


I have to say that I'm very impressed with this laptop, I checked it out at another company and was impressed with its size and weight to power ratio, I also use a Boxx laptop (a paving slab of a power station) and also a 17" MBP and was looking for something inbetween.

I've yet to put it through its full test but so far its been good, the screen is amazing, I've been browsing this site mostly for reviews and articles on the 8710w for a while now trying to fathom whether this is the one, so thanks to everyone who has been writing about it. I did read a negative thread about the screen quality but mine seems ok, I'll have to check the hardware stats later, atm I'm enjoying setting it up.

As soon as I turned it on it booted up the XP set-up, I didn't ask me for a XP serial or present me with an option to install any other flavour of windows although the box included an XP disc and also Vista in 32 and 64 bit. I didn't see a disk for XP64 (I had hoped). Going through the installation was very quick and I had my machine running in minutes. I will be trying to configure it to 64bit at a later date (I want to get an 8gb kit when I visit the US in Oct.) but for now I will run in XP.

So far everything has worked, gigabit ethernet / USB (a lot faster than my desktop!?) / wi-fi / bluetooth /fingerprint reader.

I did get a bit worried when I popped in 'Black Hawk Down' on Blu-Ray. NOTHING happened, gulp, I had read about this in another thread also. I had assumed the auto-play would have kicked in but no, I went to WinDVD8 and this loaded the disc straight up. BUT.... the picture looks very grainy, flicking through the movie this changed and the characters outlines had that crispness the HD brings. I think it was just the start of the movie that was shot like that.

A problem I do have with this laptop is it's slight to big for my DaKine rucksack, the 17"MBP just about fit at a squeeze (the boxx no way!) luckily I found a spare 'Crumpler Gimp 17' sleeve that fits it at a stretch. Does anybody have a nice case for this? I'm looking for something with solid protection on it.

Anyway, enough writing, I'm going to play with it a little more and see what it can do.

If anyone can tell me about changing the OS or point me in the right direction I would be most grateful. It does have a serial for vista on the bottom of the case so I imagine it can't be that difficult, but I am interested in whether or not I can change to xp64.

thanks

Ant
(flickr links didn't work so I upd the pics here)

 

great, I just got mine too, fantasic machine.

 

Glad that you like it. I'd say the 8710w is my best purchase to date. We should create a thread for 8710w owners now that there are quite a few enthusiasts around.

 

It looks very nice, but i'm not very familiar with the business line.

 

Great idea chrixx

 

I am in same boat as 4n7. I have the 8710w KV010PA. On intial start up, I didn't get prompted to choose between 32 or 64 bit Vista OS when I started it up. It just seemed to load 32bit Win XP. How do I now get the OS to Vista 64 bit??? The specifications HP Spec Sheet PDF does say it comes presintalled with Vista Business 32/64 and WinXP Professional.

Cheers

Spiderman

 

you have to reformat using the vista disc provided and the key on the bottom of the laptop.

 

Any more pictures? Thanks.