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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ExodusC - Friday, August 13, 2010 - link
Has AnandTech been able to get their hands on an Envy 14 to review it? I'm typing from mine now, and I absolutely love it. I'd like to see what AnandTech thinks about it, compared to the plethora of other laptops you guys get to review...JarredWalton - Saturday, August 14, 2010 - link
Not yet, but hopefully real soon (finally!)CurseTheSky - Saturday, August 14, 2010 - link
I'll second the Envy 14 review recommendation. In a world where the Macbook Pro seems like the only option if you want a good, solid, "consumer-level" notebook, the Envy 14 is a breath of fresh air.Essentially it comes down to a trade-off between the two. OSX vs. Windows 7, and better battery life (MBP 13) vs. better processor / graphics card / screen (Envy 14).
zoxo - Sunday, August 15, 2010 - link
I have 2 problems with the envy14. Although it supposedly has a great screen, it does not (yet) come in matte. The second problem is, that it's only really available in the us. Europe is out of luck there. (as usual with notebooks I might add)ExodusC - Sunday, August 15, 2010 - link
I agree the glossy screen can be annoying, but if it gets to where the reflections annoy me, I just crank up the brightness-- and HP didn't lie, this thing gets really bright. I have considered a matte screen protector that would help alleviate it, but as of now I'm okay with the glossy panel.I agree that the availability in Europe seems poor-- I've read around and it seems hard to find there, aside from maybe Germany.
djjazzyjeff1965 - Monday, August 16, 2010 - link
Envy 14 would be a lot more attractive if it had a matte screen, a non-underclocked GPU and ditched the gratuitous branding ("Beats" audio, the name "Envy") designed to appeal to 13 year-olds with small penises.djjazzyjeff1965 - Monday, August 16, 2010 - link
Oh, and if they didn't hand off the design to somebody's daughter who thought that flowers would be pretty.Envy 14 - so close, yet so far.
jasperjones - Friday, August 13, 2010 - link
I was hoping for this review :) aorn, the one other business-class notebook I'd like to see reviewed is the E6410.Two minor things:
"The other sweet touch is the retractable light above the screen that shines onto the keyboard, basically the same thing as the ThinkLight. I prefer backlit keyboards, but the keyboard light works just as well."
I don't understand why people consider backlit keyboard/retractable light a useful feature. If you're serious about keyboard quality, you're probably touch typing anyway, right?
"I don't really understand is why business notebooks have started using DisplayPort instead of the more common HDMI standard."
So that you can attach a 2560x1600 resolution external display? I know that HDMI 1.3a and higher specifies (optional, afaik) support for resolutions greater than 1920x1200, but I've yet to see that higher-resolution support in a notebook.
mino - Saturday, August 14, 2010 - link
"I don't understand why people consider backlit keyboard/retractable light a useful feature. If you're serious about keyboard quality, you're probably touch typing anyway, right?"Wrong.
ThinkLight (and copies) is VERY useful thing for 2 reasons:
- it allows for built- in ability to operate without ANY external light, anywhere, anytime
- notebook keyboard are very much "non-standard", so typing by memory is hard and special/custom key operation downright impossible without seeing the keyboard.
jconan - Sunday, August 15, 2010 - link
typing by memory is typically for hunt and seek typist. For people who have been typing without even looking at the keys, this not useful unless using non-standardized keys. I rarely look at the keys unless there are nuances like the mac keyboards because of the command key inclusion and missing keys ie prntscrn, scrnlock, pause and inclusion of more function keys,