HP EliteBook 8440w: On-the-Go Workstation
by Vivek Gowri on August 13, 2010 10:10 PM ESTHP EliteBook 8440w—Conclusion
In the mobile workstation class, there are only really three major players: Dell, Lenovo, and HP. And maybe Apple as well, if you want to consider the artistic/design side of things. In that group, the EliteBook 8440w ends up being a fairly unique product—it's the only real workstation class 14" notebook on the market.
In the sub-17" group, there are five workstation models: the 8440w, the 15.6" 8540w, the ThinkPad W510, the Precision M4500 (also a 15.6"), and the MacBook Pro 15 (if you want make a case for it as a creative workstation). The 15" models, at minimum, have GPUs based on the GT 330M—in the MBP's case, it has the GT 330M itself, while the others all have the equivalent Quadro FX 880M. The M4500 and 8540w also have the GT 335M-based Quadro FX 1800M available as an option. The W510 has a quad-core i7 standard, the M4500 has it as an option.
And it's not like the 8440w is any cheaper—as I mentioned earlier, the base W510 slightly undercuts our 8440w SKU, while the M4500 starts at $1250 and goes up from there (it's about the same price as the W510 when optioned equivalently.) The 8540w matches the 8440w spec for spec at the same price, except that it has a more powerful graphics card. There's just a lot more power under the hood of the 15" workstations for about the same money, and the 8440w's value proposition can't hold up.
The 8440w does score points for being more portable than the rest and having tons of battery life. However, with that said, it's not that much lighter. The 8440w is listed at 4.9lbs with a 6-cell battery, but with the 9-cell as reviewed, it's closer to 5.3 or 5.4lbs (no exact figure quoted by HP). The ThinkPad W510 comes in at 5.89lbs, the M4500 at 6.0, and the 8540w at 6.5lbs (all with 6-cell batteries). For both the W510 and M4500, the high capacity battery isn't as large as the 8440w's, so the weight difference with a 9-cell is less than with the 8440w. Overall, between the 8440w and the W510/M4500, you're looking at less than a 1lb difference in carrying weight. Which, when you think about it, isn't a lot to sacrifice given the amount of additional CPU and GPU horsepower you get out of the bargain, though that will all make itself felt in the battery life figures.
So really, that's what it comes down to. If absolute portability and battery life is your biggest concern in a mobile workstation, the 8440w is your only choice. And it is a fine one at that, with a great chassis and fantastic build quality. But speaking as an engineer, I can't honestly recommend it over the equally well-built and far more powerful 15" equivalents—the performance benefits outweigh the 15-20% increase in carrying weight and the reduced battery life. For a mobile user doing a lot of CAD work or engineering simulation (finite element analysis, computational fluid dynamics, thermal analysis, etc), it's important to get as much computing power as possible, and the 8440w simply doesn't have it.
Lest this feel like an overly negative conclusion, let me just say that I really enjoyed my time with the 8440w. The build quality is superlative, and after going through a bunch of consumer portables, it felt great to use such an out and out business class system. However, the specs and performance simply can't justify the $1649 pricetag when the same money can get so much more power in other notebooks. If you like the 8440w but want more potency, the shift to the 8540w comes as an easy recommendation.
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sheltem - Saturday, August 14, 2010 - link
Displayport also enables the usage of more than 2 monitors driven by a single card because a native it's digital signal does not require a ramdac.mrphones - Saturday, August 14, 2010 - link
I have been using the Elitebook line of laptops at my company now for 2 years. The 6930P and now the 8440P. The only thing I was disappointed with HP about was they changed the docking station. All my previous models, NC6400, 6910P and 6930P models could use the same docking stations. Why HP did this, I don't know, but I have 12 of these 8440P models and they are nice.KorruptioN - Sunday, August 15, 2010 - link
Apparently this is because the current docking station connection cannot accommodate the DisplayPort traffic. I'm not too happy about it either, but oh well...DanaG - Monday, August 16, 2010 - link
The reason they changed it is for the DisplayPort availability, after all. If you get the 15" or 17" EliteBook with ATI, you can use up to 5 of the following ports at once, thanks to Eyefinity:On the laptop: LVDS (internal panel), VGA, DisplayPort.
On the fanciest dock: 2 DVI, 2 DisplayPort.
Regarding high-DPI, that's one reason I can't use desktops: all desktop displays have utter crap DPI. I wish I could buy even a laptop display (DreamColor 2* would be best) in a desktop enclosure!
* 15" or 17", 1920x1080 or 1920x1200 (respectively), IPS, 30-bit color.
kasakka - Saturday, August 14, 2010 - link
Seems like it still has that crappy touchstrip for volume controls and whatnot. It just works poorly in my experience.Also it's strange that they went with the full size Displayport instead of the Mini-Displayport. I guess they figured that since they're keeping that bulky VGA might have the full size DP too.
To be honest I don't find the Elitebook line-up particularly impessive at all. A bit too bulky, mediocre keyboard and trackpad.
dlineate - Saturday, August 14, 2010 - link
I propose adding the Sony Vaio Z to the list.13.1" 1600x900, i5-540M/i6-620M, 1-2 64-256GB SSDs,
BlueRay R, etc.. etc.
All in ~3lbs! (starting @ ~$1900)
Best of all, 1920x1080 display avail for only an extra $100.
I know that's a crazy resolution, but bump your font size and you can still get more in your text editor because it'll be so crisp.
Anyways, for portable workstations, I rate them proportional to $screen_res/$weight, with a constraint on weight to ~5lbs. This thing is by far the best by that metric imho.
I mostly code, not compile or game, so I don't care about the CPU or GPU.
Of course, the cost does approach infinity as weight approaches 0. =)
Apparently in Europe you can get a kit that swaps the optical drive for standard hard drive, which I'd use to compliment a 64G SSD (which are not standard sizes).
Other reviews say it's pretty sturdy. I'd love to see Anand review this.
Or better, give one away.
My only gripe is that it's a Sony, so getting *nix/bsd support likely a pita. I used to use a Picturebook, but they implement hardware in so many non-standard ways (glued together w/ windows "drivers") that I swore never again. Will probably change my mind though if no one else ever manufactures a small high res display ever again.
PS What happened to the more reasonably priced Thinkpad X201s w/ 12" 1400x900?
strikeback03 - Saturday, August 14, 2010 - link
Obviously what you call a workstation depends on what work you do with it, but I imagine they require professional level GPUs to call something a workstation. And the ThinkPad T series are not included in their list, so there must be more options they are considering.This HP keyboard has the FN key in the wrong spot and still has the stupid strip of buttons to the right of Backspace/Enter/shift, so I still very much prefer the Thinkpad keyboard.
seanleeforever - Monday, August 16, 2010 - link
complete agree with strikeback03i have a elitebook for over half a year now and i could not stop complaining the stupid volume stripe (Vivek, did you even try to play that volume control at all? it is utterly useless and the single most stupid thing anyone can put on a laptop, let alone a BUSINESS laptop), i challenge you to precisely control volume to 20% 50% and 75%, then go back to 20%.. guess what, you cannot do it without overshoot and undershoot.
the keyboard is great... really? you got to use some better keyboards because you standard is really too low. HP keyboard is alright. their texture and curvature and feedback response is lacking (but i suppose this is personal preference, many like Sony and apple's no feedback keyboard and i just hate them absolutely).
now.. like strikeback03 said. the FN key is in the wrong place (as well as all other non-thinkpad keyboards). case in point, measure the distance of the 'ctrl' and 'z' 'x' 'c' of your favorite desktop keyboard, and measure that on thinkpad/hp notebook keyboard, you will find the thinkpad keyboard provides better travel distance when you perform copy/paste/undo.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - link
On the keyboard layout, I couldn't disagree more! But then, it's totally a personal preference. Anand likes the Fn key in the bottom-left with the CTRL in what position. I can't stand that arrangement and invariably hit "Fn+C" and "Fn+V" (and various other combinations) when I want the CTRL key. You may be correct in saying that the CTRL key is closer to the CVXZ on ThinkPad, but then on virtually any destkop keyboard there's so much more space between the keys that I can't say I prefer the "close" arrangement.I also played with the 8440w and found it to be a decent system overall, but just too expensive. I could easily type without any major complaints, and the system feels very sturdy. Get a Quadro FX 880M in there (48 cores) and this would have been a much better mobile workstation.
Kishkumen - Saturday, August 14, 2010 - link
Great review! I've been pondering upon the merits of the elitebook line for some time. I especially appreciate all the attention to detail you gave the LCD (as well as mentioning other good Matte display options though limited they may be). I hate how much LCD quality is glossed over in reviews (pun intended). Your review was everything I needed. Looking forward to your future work.