HP Fansite

Elitebook 8440 and 8540 have better heat dissipation than old generation

I just finished several hours of intensely working out HP’s new Elitebook 8440p, Elitebook 8440w and Elitebook 8540w models this week running several games in a row (special thanks to several friends who helped). Well, to be frank, we weren’t just ‘officially’ testing them – we had lots of fun playing the latest game titles and creating fancy CAD car models while at it!

I’m not gonna post a whole bunch of benchmark and temperature numbers here, perhaps at a later point in time, but today, I want to keep things simple and straightforward. The HP Elitebook 8440 and 8540 models have very much improved heat control compared to previous models. So far, I’m not sure what’s bringing such a huge improvement – better fan speed control, reshuffled component layout or more efficient components – but there was a tangible difference I could feel. After about 8 hours of running a mix of AutoCAD, 3Ds Max, Left4Dead 2 and Need for Speed Shift, I could literally hold the quad core Elitebook 8440w and 8540w models using my bare hands, by the bottom of the notebook, without getting my fingers and hands fried. The dual-core Core i5 running Elitebook 8440p fared much better: after going through the same stress test, it really didn’t feel as if the notebook had been doing any work at all – it was as cool as a notebook that had merely been idling with some windows open.

For comparison’s sake, I wouldn’t touch the bottom of any old generation Elitebook that I knew had just undergone some heavy task lifting because they can literally burn!

Off topic: Anyone know why notebooks can suddenly ‘switch off’ and how to solve this problem? There was an Elitebook 8730w (among other various notebooks) at the gathering which frequently (and suddenly) switch off without warning. I suspect it’s due to overheating (processor can go up to 90-100 degrees Celcius running the same apps/games as above) though I’ve tried cleaning the fan and even removing the bottom panel for better airflow – but no luck.

Apple iPad vs HP Slate?! And my predictions

Somewhere in the middle of this week, Apple dropped the news on their iPad “tablet”, putting an end to almost a decade of rumors and speculation about their mythical tablet. Well, turns out the Apple iPad is not what people had expected it to be; in fact, far from it. While initial speculation and plenty of wishful thinking portrayed the “future” (then-vaporware) Apple iPad to be the best of both worlds – iPhone ease of use and fluid touch interface combined with full (or almost full) Mac OS X operating system functionality and features – the real deal turned out to be quite underwhelming. So, what is the Apple iPad exactly? Is it a revolutionary (or magical, as Apple puts it on their website) device? Is it the best thing since sliced bread, or at least, the best thing since the iPhone was announced? No, and no. The Apple iPad is nothing more than a “big” iPod Touch; as many people would put it, and I have to agree.

So far, the Apple iPad has invoked mostly negative responses from the public, while I’m seeing plenty of media publications still trying to hype up the product in an effort to cover up its shortcomings. Nope, I’m not trying to bash the Apple iPad here just because this site is called the “HP Fansite” – granted I have had a good experience with HP’s stuff, I have used/tested many other products of various brands before and I make an effort to provide unbiased, constructive views of other brands’ goods (and when needed, criticisms with concrete reasoning). I have a handful buddies who are big supporters of Apple, and yet, they agree and have been wondering “what was Apple thinking?!” when word first came out about the iPad and its features and functions. “Far off from what I had expected it to be” was everyone’s main response, Apple loyalist or not, when I asked them what they thought of the iPad at a dinner gathering + Left4Dead 2 LAN party on Thursday. In case anyone was wondering, YES, Apple fans who also own Windows PC’s (for gaming, non-Mac supported applications and such) and don’t act like the fanboys you see on the internet do indeed exist – and they’re nice people to talk to!

Conveniently, there was a short, little feature video about the HP Slate posted this very week, just less than two days before Apple’s official announcement of the iPad. In many ways, the HP Slate is similar to the Apple iPad – that touchscreen-only (no physical keyboard) form factor, similar size and design, ability to function as e-book readers and multimedia devices, and even identical starting price of $500! The main areas where the HP Slate pulls away, far ahead of the Apple iPad, is in terms of operating system, functionality and performance. Here’s how:

• The HP Slate will come with a full-fledged Windows 7 operating system, and knowing HP, probably enhanced for touchscreen input with an additional interface overlay (such as Bump Top 3D found on the HP Touchsmart tm2). On the other hand, the Apple iPad runs on a variation of the iPod Touch/iPhone OS, which we all know many appreciate but a mobile operating system just doesn’t cut it on a non-mobile phone device and pales in comparison to a full desktop experience OS.
• I remember clearly that just three years ago, Apple was boasting about the “widescreen” on its iPhone (well, not true widescreen anyway, since it has a 3:2 ratio, but that’s just Apple…) and now the iPad comes with a non-widescreen 4:3 touch display. Chances are you won’t be running AutoCAD with a slim and portable device under 10 inches, but would like to play some music or watch a movie or two on it. That’s just it – the HP Slate’s 16:10 widescreen display ensures that precious screen real estate is mostly dedicated to the video/movie you’re watching… instead of the thick black letterbox bars above/below your movie on the iPad’s 4:3 non-wide display
• Adobe Flash – if you’ve been keeping up (or managed to keep up) with the flood of Apple iPad news-hype by various media outlets, you would know on the sidelines, a certain big company called Adobe (you know, they guys who develop Photoshop and Illustrator) have been and are still busy complaining about Apple’s refusal to support Adobe Flash on their iPod Touch, iPhone and now, iPad devices. That means no Hulu TV playback, no Facebook or Flash games, no YouTube, no interactive websites, no this and no that on the Apple iPad. All those things that you take for granted on your computer (Facebook games and YouTube seem to be the most prominent, based on what I’ve seen), you can NOT do on the Apple iPad because it lacks Adobe Flash.
  All that happening while you can be happily skipping along, maintaining your Farmville farms on Facebook, watching your favorite TV shows on Hulu and Iron Man 2 trailer on YouTube using the HP Slate. As I mentioned, the HP Slate runs Windows 7, which will gladly support Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, Sun Java and any other application you use on your ‘full-size’ notebook or desktop!
• High definition video playback – the HP Slate can play back high definition (720p) video and movies, and is likely to be able to play them on your huge living room TV via a built-in HDMI or DisplayPort output port. The Apple iPad, in comparison, can only playback ‘standard definition’ 576p video. And you gotta see it to believe it – watching HD movies and videos compared to ‘standard’ ones can make a whole world of difference in detail levels and entertainment immersion (sorta).

In short, the HP Slate is everything that people wanted the Apple iPad to be, but the iPad just isn’t that dream device everyone had expected – again, it’s just a big iPod Touch! The factor that plays a part in ‘who wins’ is when HP will make the HP Slate available to the masses. Apple has already set a release date for the iPad for March 2010, while HP has given a rather vague “available in 2010″ availability date for the HP Slate. If HP gets their act together in time and releases the Slate around the same time or perhaps slightly after the iPad, then it could deliver a potential blow to Apple’s ‘tablet’ sales.

With the same base price with far more features and functions, it’s a close-to brainless decision to pick the HP Slate over the Apple iPad (unless you’re that Apple kool-aid drinking guy/girl still wearing your pair of rose-tinted shades when you purchase the iPad)

Another factor that will determine the iPad’s success/failure is consumer awareness. The HP Slate made a big debut at CES 2010 (thanks to the announcement made together with Microsoft) but apparently not big enough, as I see it. There are still many people who don’t know about the HP Slate, but do know about the Apple iPad. Then there’s brainwashing by the media – I know consumers nowadays are slightly more informed and up to date with information than before, but that too, is not enough. The truth needs to get out there (preferably by March 2010) so that the Apple iPad isn’t as pretty or cool or useful as the media portray it to be. Really, I’m sounding like a broken tape recorder and you may have heard this on other sites as well – the Apple iPad is nothing more but a big iPod Touch, and it’s true.

I still foresee, however, that Apple will still sell at least a truckload of iPad’s because there are still people who want it (no matter how incapable and useless it is, especially if you already have an iPod Touch or iPhone or Zune HD) just to look uber cool in front of their friends.

Nevertheless, the final outcome of this battle will become apparent once both the HP Slate and Apple iPad start selling, and sales figures are posted. A very interesting battle indeed, and an exciting 2010 to come!

HP Night Light illuminates Elitebook 8440p playing Left4Dead 2

HP Night Light in action on Elitebook 8440p running Left4Dead 2

Wondering how effective the HP Night Light is in HP’s Elitebook models? How about the gaming performance of the HP Elitebook 8440p when it comes to the sequel to everyone’s favorite zombie-horror game? Well, everyone, I’ve got a treat for you today: you get the answers to both questions in this single article! I just happened to be playing Left4Dead 2 on a friend’s newly acquired Elitebook 8440p (don’t forget to plug in the charger for maximum performance!) and come on, what’s a survival horror/zombie game without playing in the dark for ambience? So last weekend, I switched off all the lights in the room, whipped out the HP Elitebook 8440p and started up Left4Dead 2 for a little “Dark Carnival” multiplayer LAN fun!

As you can see, the HP Night Light (the little light above the notebook’s display) illuminates the entire keyboard pretty well and even the area around it (you can spot my travel mouse to the right if you look hard enough). What’s great about HP’s implementation of their Night Light is that it isn’t annoying or too bright; and there’s no light leakage, so the illumination is focused solely on the keyboard area.

As for gaming performance, I ran Left4Dead 2 (yes, with my newly installed Zoey skin/voice mod!) on a HP Elitebook 8440p configured with 2.53 GHz dual core Intel Core i5 540M, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, 320 GB 7200 RPM hard disk drive and 512 MB Nvidia Quadro NVS 3100M graphics with the following settings in Left4Dead 2:

• 1600 x 900 resolution
• No film grain
• 2X MSAA anti-aliasing
• 2X anisotropic filtering
• Vertical sync disabled
• Multicore rendering enabled
• Shader – Low (GPU dependent)
• Effects – High (CPU dependent)
• Model/texture – Medium
• Available memory – High

Turns out that the Elitebook 8440p performed pretty well with the settings above, with frame rates hovering around 24 to 40 frames per second: enough for navigating through all the action from saferoom to saferoom. I have one big tip for gaming on notebooks running the latest Intel Core i5 and Core i7 mobile processors: Always plug in the notebook to a nearby power outlet. This new generation of processors are even more picky and sensitive than their old Core 2 Duo counterparts – bringing performance down to minimal levels to stinge on power when running off the battery. Only when plugged in do these new processors run at full tilt, even letting Intel’s Turbo Boost kick in whenever possible, for maximum performance.

Oh, in case anyone is wondering, I tested the Elitebook 8440p with the uncut, butt-kicking version of Left4Dead 2. There’s word that the cut/censored version of Left4Dead 2 brings a noticeable frame rate increase thanks to reduced levels of in-game blood and gore (among other things).

This message: Sent from my Elitebook

Hey everyone, guess what? A friend of mine got his Elitebook 8440p just last week equipped with the Intel Core i5 540M 2.53 GHz dual core processor and not-so-well known Nvidia Quadro NVS 3100M graphics. While he’s still doing some hard disk spring cleaning and organizing data from his old Dell to be moved to their new home, he’s feeling nice enough to let me have a little spin with his new tech toy. So far, the Elitebook 8440p feels a whole lot like the Elitebook 8440w I reviewed when it first came out – including the nice, spill-proof, tactile partial-chiclet keyboard. There’s an odd change to the items above the display though: the webcam has been shifted slightly to the right (but now in a position more centralized than the 8440w’s webcam) and the HP Night Light is slightly more ‘right side’  biased than that of the 8440w.

I’ll be writing up a review on the Elitebook 8440p soon, once I spend more time with this thing; with opinions and user experience input from my friend once he starts using the notebook for real. What I can tell you so far is that gaming performance has been surprisingly underwhelming – compared to the 8440w, I had to tune down Left4Dead 2 to 1280 x 720 and Low settings in order to play at 20 FPS (8440w manages almost double the frame rate with higher settings). I’ll have to do more testing on this, maybe update a few drivers or something. EDIT: Turns out Core i5 is real picky on whether the notebook is plugged in when it comes to choosing either performance or power saving. With the charger plugged into the HP Elitebook 8440p, I managed to play Left4Dead 2 with a frame rate ranging from 24 to 40 FPS – frame rate only drops down to 10 FPS if you’re running off battery power.

Elitebook owners, try this BIOS update for UEFI booting? (at your own risk)

One of our readers, Gary T, testing the new Elitebook 8440w just sent in an email saying that the new Elitebooks work well with Windows and Linux UEFI boot mode. He also recommends that current Elitebook owners try (at their own risk of course) to use new Elitebook BIOS updates (such as this one) to see if the old Intel device and wireless issues go away.