HP EliteBook Folio 9470m Ultrabook Review: Ultrabooks in Enterprise
by Dustin Sklavos on March 29, 2013 12:01 AM ESTSystem Performance
At this point in Ivy Bridge's life, performance is a fairly known quantity. I'm kind of curious to tease out the differences between the newer (and very similar) Intel Core i5-3337U with the older i5-3427U, and thankfully I can do exactly that. HP's EliteBook Folio 9470m should be ever so slightly faster than the Dell XPS 13 due to its higher turbo clock, but we'll see how that works out.
As a general rule, the 9470m's i5-3427U is ever-so-slightly faster than the XPS 13's i5-3337U. It's consistent (excepting the Cinebench single-threaded performance), but it's there. That said, it's still pretty negligible, and again I would find it difficult to recommend upgrading to an i7.
Interestingly but unsurprisingly, the Folio's missing second memory channel (due to only one of the DIMM slots being populated) has a consistent effect on the HD 4000 IGP's performance, taking about 10% of its performance off of the table. For enterprise users, the HD 4000's performance shouldn't be a big deal, but if you're interested in getting a little extra zazz out of it, install a second DIMM.
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B3an - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
Don't bother reviewing this junk in the future. It don't deserve the publicity.chanman - Saturday, March 30, 2013 - link
Speaking of chiclet keyboards, I just took a look at Lenovo's website and... when did they roll out chiclets across all their model lines? Time ones was, only the near-consumer Edges and sub 12" ultraportables had them, but it looks like its standard now, even on their W-class mobile workstationsmeacupla - Sunday, March 31, 2013 - link
about a year ago when all their older models were retired.Chiclet keys or not are really minor points compared to layout. Left side getting full keys or right side having an easy to hit enter and shift is way more important than chiclet or not.
JDG1980 - Saturday, March 30, 2013 - link
Agree with everyone else - at this price point, 1366x768 TN is an absolute deal-breaker, completely inexcusable. The *minimum* acceptable standard should be 1080p IPS. You can get away with a cheap panel on a $299 bargain-basement special, but they have no place in Ultrabooks.lo2dk - Saturday, March 30, 2013 - link
useless display resolution is useless display resolutionantiocles - Saturday, March 30, 2013 - link
I work inside a certain company that uses exclusively HP notebooks for the employees. It amazes me how many people will, as the first thing they do on a new computer, drop the resolution down to ridiculously low levels with badly distorted text. They don't seem to be able to read larger text, and have grown used to the distortion. I cringe every time I see someone with a nice high res IPS screen on their mobile workstation running down at these resolutions.We all here agree that this screen is crap and worthless, but I know there are a surprisingly large number of workers in the enterprise market that look at a higher res screen as a downside... :-(
StrangerGuy - Sunday, March 31, 2013 - link
That's why bargain basement laptops keep selling, most users simply don't care and won't pay for quality.The real joke however is Intel thinks they can take those, put in a smaller form factor then jack up the price so much and expect to sell crazy numbers like iPhone 4 did.
danbi - Sunday, March 31, 2013 - link
Let's leave the crappy display alone, no one caring about the productivity of their workers will buy such when better are available.But one other thing continues to amaze me -- the obsession of those PC makers with proprietary docking solutions. Not only are they vendor proprietary, but they also change from model to model, even in the same generation! What is wrong with those people? Why not just stick to something like Thunderbolt and be done???
No Thunderbolt docks available? Then, why wait? Just build ONE Thunderbolt dock for all of your notebooks and have the market.
abrar - Sunday, March 31, 2013 - link
is it possible to use a pen on this device ? (the display is touchable, right ?)SteveLord - Sunday, March 31, 2013 - link
Here's how you can tell most of those commenting do not work in an enterprise environment, much less any sort of IT. Every time a business laptop is reviewed, they immediately focus on screen resolution and never let go of it.