HP EliteBook 8440w Review

HP EliteBook 8440w
EDITORS'RATING
8.610

http://computershopper.com/laptops/reviews/hp-elitebook-8440w

PROSExcellent performance; solid, business-rugged construction; very comfortable keyboard; high-res screen; lots of extras

CONSBulky and heavy; small touch pad

EDITORS' TAKEThe HP EliteBook 8440w uses a top-end Intel processor and Nvidia Quadro graphics engine to deliver excellent performance to mobile professionals. It’s a bit bulkier than other 14-inch laptops, but you get a lot of features for a reasonable price.
Price (at time of review): $1,649 (direct)


Key Specs

Processor: 2.66GHz Intel Core i7-620MMemory: 4GB RAM Storage: 320GB hard driveOptical Drive: DVD±RWScreen: 14 inches (1,600x900 native resolution)Graphics: Nvidia Quadro FX 380M (512MB)Weight: 5.5 poundsDimensions (HWD): 1.5x13.2x9.3 inchesOperating System: Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)

HP EliteBook 8440w Review

Reviewed by: Jamie Bsales Review Date: January 2010

Buyers may be flocking to shiny, low-cost laptops, but there’s still a segment of the population that needs a fast machine that can take the rigors of road use. For those business and power users, HP offers its EliteBook line. The new EliteBook 8440w is a workstation-class model that features a top-end Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia Quadro graphics engine, and all manner of extras stuffed into a business-rugged magnesium and aluminum shell. It isn’t the most svelte 14-inch laptop you can buy, but it’s certainly one of the most powerful, and the $1,649 price is reasonable for all it includes.

The EliteBook 8440w is set apart by its platform-mate, the less expensive EliteBook 8440p, by an industrial-chic gunmetal-gray lid in place of the 8440p’s platinum color. The EliteBook 8440w looks sharp, but even the dark color can’t hide the fact that this is a bulky machine. Despite its 14-inch screen, the laptop measures 1.5 inches thick and weighs about 5.5 pounds with the included nine-cell battery. Unlike some previous EliteBooks, the 8440w’s chunky, squared-off chassis is decidedly more ThinkPad than MacBook Pro in its design aesthetic.

The EliteBook 8440w features a strong magnesium and aluminum lid rated to withstand 300 pounds of pressure without damage to the screen. The gunmetal finish is cool, too.

Mobile pros likely will forgive the few extra ounces to gain the platform’s business-rugged features. The chassis of the EliteBook 8440w combines a rigid magnesium base with an aluminum-and-magnesium display enclosure rated to withstand 300 pounds of crush pressure without damaging the screen. The design also meets U.S. military spec MIL-STD-810G for environmental hazards, including temperature extremes and humidity exposure. The spill-resistant keyboard has drain channels built in to help protect the notebook in the event of a minor spill. HP also includes 3D DriveGuard active protection for the hard drive to protect your data in case you drop the unit.

The EliteBook 8440w includes a full complement of ports, including some that are vanishing from so many other new laptops these days. You get three standard USB ports, plus a fourth that’s a USB/eSATA combo; a FireWire port; DisplayPort and VGA video connectors; and LAN, modem, headphone, and mic jacks. HP has included an ExpressCard/54 slot and an SD/MultiMediaCard flash-memory reader, plus a docking connector. All models also include Bluetooth 2.1 and 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity, plus a 2-megapixel Webcam.

On the left you’ll find three USB ports, FireWire, an ExpressCard/54 slot, and headphone and mic jacks.

The $1,649 configuration includes a multi-format DVD burner with LightScribe labeling (a Blu-ray burner is an option), a fingerprint reader, and a 320GB 7,200rpm hard drive. (You can step up to a 500GB drive, or a 160GB or 256GB solid state drive.) Also optional on all models is carrier-agnostic wireless broadband via the Gobi Mobile Broadband 2000 chipset, which includes new GPS support. And HP notes that required antennas are built in to all EliteBook 8440 models, so if you order a machine without internal WWAN and decide to add it later, you’ll be set.

On the right-hand side of the 8440w you’ll find the optical drive, a USB/eSATA combo port, and Ethernet and modem jacks.

In addition to the long hardware feature set, the EliteBook 8440w comes with an impressive array of software extras. You get HP QuickLook and HP QuickWeb preboot environments, which let you check your e-mail, calendar, and contacts or surf the Web via a full-featured browser without booting to the included Windows 7 Professional 64-bit operating system. The updated HP ProtectTools suite includes utilities to irrecoverably delete files, completely wipe the hard drive (ideal when it’s time to retire or pass along the machine), recover a forgotten password, and more. The preloaded HP SkyRoom is a powerful videoconferencing solution that even supports desktop sharing, making it useful for remote presentations and other meetings.

HP also includes HP Power Assistant, an easy-to-use utility that lets you extend battery life by managing various system settings such as screen brightness, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and so on, in one place. Power Assistant can even show you approximately how much more runtime lowering the screen brightness or tweaking another setting would get you, which can be helpful on a long flight when you’re trying to eke out that extra 30 minutes.

The 8440w has two video-out connectors on the back: VGA and DisplayPort.

Pop open the lid, and you’ll be greeted by a roomy keyboard that is exceedingly comfortable to use. The keyboard has a solid feel, and the individual keys have a good amount of up/down travel. We also appreciate the dedicated volume and mute soft keys above the keyboard, as well as the handy white LED above the screen that you can turn on to illuminate the keyboard (a handy feature that Lenovo ThinkPads have had for a while). HP has included both a pointing stick and a touch pad, though the required two sets of mouse buttons means the pad has to be pretty squat. But the pad is gesture-enabled, supporting two-finger motions for scrolling, zooming, and the like.

The 8440w features a roomy, exceedingly comfortable keyboard. You get dedicated volume keys and both a pointing stick and a touch pad, though the pad is a little cramped.

The 14-inch screen is a strong point. The 1,600x900 native resolution is high for a panel this size but necessary for what workstation users demand. The panel has an anti-glare coating, which is appropriate for a business machine likely to see use in a conference room or on a job site. That said, while the panel’s viewing angle in Windows applications is very wide side to side, you’ll find yourself adjusting the screen angle to be in the sweet spot in the vertical plane. And as with most other recent laptop panels we’ve seen, the viewing angle is considerably narrower for video playback.

Audio from the EliteBook 8440w’s stereo speakers is acceptable but not stellar. They deliver some bass punch and decent volume, but the sound is still a bit thin and constrained overall. The Webcam can deliver a usable image in a dark room, if that’s how you tend to chat, but in normal lighting conditions, highlights are overexposed and the image exhibits a lot of motion blur. Given that this is a business machine, we would have opted for better bright-light image quality over low-light sensitivity.

Where the EliteBook 8440w really excels is in performance. The top-end configuration comes with 4GB of fast 1,333MHz DDR3 RAM (the platform supports up to 8GB total) and an Intel Core i7-620M CPU, which runs at 2.66GHz for normal tasks and 3.33GHz when Intel’s Turbo Boost technology kicks in. Being a workstation build, the EliteBook 8440w delivers the Nvidia Quadro FX 380M graphics engine. These parts (plus that fast hard drive mentioned earlier) pushed the EliteBook 8440w’s score on Futuremark’s PCMark Vantage benchmark test, which measures overall system performance, to an impressive 6,697. That’s the best score we’ve seen from any laptop tested to date, on any system. The Nvidia Quadro FX 380M graphics engine has been certified to work with leading CAD/CAM, engineering, architectural, and other workstation applications. Mobile pros who don’t need such a specialized graphics processor might opt for the lower-cost EliteBook 8440p model, which can be ordered with more pedestrian Intel or Nvidia NVS 3100 graphics.

The EliteBook 8440w’s score of 8,977 on Cinebench 10 also puts it in the upper echelon of all laptops. The 8440w was an impressive performer on our multimedia tests, churning through our standard Windows Media Encoder video file in 3 minutes and 54 seconds and converting our 11 iTunes test tracks in just 3 minutes and 15 seconds—again among the best results we’ve seen from a laptop, and the absolute best for the thin-and-light category.

The Quadro FX GPU performed well on our real-world gaming tests, delivering a score of 4,167 on 3DMark06 and a decent 45.4 frames per second on Company of Heroes (both at 1,024x768 resolution). While those results aren’t as high as you’ll see from a gaming-oriented CPU, they are above average nonetheless. And keep in mind that the Quadro FX chip is more about guaranteed compatibility with the leading professional workstation applications than it is about killing enemies in shoot-’em-ups.

Our test configuration included HP's nine-cell extended battery (as opposed to the six-cell unit on lower-priced builds), and we saw a respectable 3 hours and 42 minutes of runtime on our harsh DVD rundown test. Gauging from that, a full workday of computing with more judicious use is not out of the question. Also, the EliteBook 8440w includes a new generation of power cell that HP claims will retain its power-delivery abilities for years. Instead of battery capacity diminishing noticeably after 300 charge/discharge cycles—which means buying a new battery in 12 to 18 months—the company says the HP Long Life Battery should still deliver 80 percent of its original capacity after 1,000 charging cycles. HP is so confident, in fact, that it has extended the system’s three-year warranty to include the battery; most other laptop warranties cover the battery for only a year.

The HP EliteBook 8440w isn’t for everyone. Many mobile pros will be fine with the less-expensive 8440p models available. That said, $1,649 is a very nice price for what you get, and there are no real competitors at this price. You could spend about $800 more for theLenovo ThinkPad T400s Multi-touch; you’d get a cool touch screen but lesser performance. But if you need a true mobile workstation that can deliver the performance those applications demand in a package that isn’t too delicate for daily travel and doesn’t break the bank, the EliteBook 8440w is an excellent choice.Price (at time of review): $1,649 (direct)