All about the HP EliteBook 8560w

The 15 inch HP EliteBook 8560w has more in common with its larger sibling, the EliteBook 8760w, than the EliteBook 8460w. is the newly announced Mobile Workstation model from today. Its 15 by 10 inch footprint sits right between the 8460w and 8760w, and resembles them with a MIL-STD 810G business-rugged gunmetal gray exterior design.

The EliteBook 8560w gives you the choice of Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processors, from the 2.5 GHz dual core Core i5-2520M all the way up to the 2.3 GHz quad core Core i7-2820QM. It’s unknown if the 8560w will get the Core i7-2920XM Extreme Edition processor option in the future. The notebook comes with two DDR3 1333 MHz RAM slots with dual-core processors, and four RAM slots with any quad-core option, letting you have up to 16 GB and 32 GB of RAM respectively. There is a single 2.5 inch storage drive bay which HP allows you to configure with a hard disk or SSD.

The 16:9 ratio 15.6 inch display has 1600 x 900 resolution as a standard but can be upgraded to a Full HD 1920 x 1080 option. A third upgrade option is a Full HD DreamColor display (an extremely color-precise display for working with photos and videos). These are the same options that were available on the preceding EliteBook 8540w. HP says the ‘regular’ EliteBook 8560w will be 1.36 inches thin, while models equipped with the DreamColor panel will measure a slightly thicker 1.44 inches.

The EliteBook 8560w gives you a choice to pick one of three (also newly launched) workstation-class graphics cards:

• 1 GB GDDR5 AMD FirePro M5950
• 2 GB DDR3 Nvidia Quadro 2000M (has faster clock rates than the 1000M listed below)
• 2 GB DDR3 Nvidia Quadro 1000M

HP mentions AMD’s Eyefinity technology will allow a FirePro M5950 equipped EliteBook to support up to five external displays. No word so far about how many external monitors the Nvidia options will support. The HP EliteBook 8560w also does not appear to support switchable graphics to conserve battery life.

Like its two siblings released today, the EliteBook 8560w sports a new full-chiclet style keyboard, orange colored pointing stick, larger multi-touch trackpad and replaces the old (and sometimes imprecise) touch-sensitive control strip above the keyboard with hardware keys to HP Quick Web, wireless on/off and mute functions. The screen latches have been changed slightly, the speakers have received “SRS Premium Audio” branding and the ambient light sensor has been moved to the top of the screen (near the webcam).

There is also a new (and ugly, in my opinion) silver strip decal along the bottom of the EliteBook 8560w which boasts the notebook’s “Mobile Workstation” status in a questionable orange-colored font. However, some (including me) might be impressed with the new circular finish and backlit HP logo.

Port selection on the EliteBook 8560w include 2 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0 ports (one of them is an ‘always-on’ port, for charging devices when the PC is off), USB 2.0 + eSATA combo port, dedicated headphone and microphone jacks, Firewire, VGA, Display Port, Express Card 54 and SD/MMC slot. Again, no word if the EliteBook 8560w will support super high capacity SDXC cards.

The EliteBook 8560w does away with the standard HP Night Light previously found on the 8540w and gives you a choice to equip it with an optional backlit keyboard. From what I can tell so far, the EliteBook 8560w seems to share the same keyboard as the EliteBook 8760w, which is a full chiclet-style keyboard with a numberpad on the right.

The EliteBook 8560w weighs 6.7 pounds or 3.0 kg without an optical drive, and 6.9 pounds or 3.1 kg with one. Compared to the 15 inch MacBook Pro’s 5.6 pounds (2.5 kg), it may seem slightly heavier but its weight is comparable to other Mobile Workstations (from Lenovo and Dell), and the ruggedness of the 8560w more than makes up for the slight additional heft.

Like other HP business notebooks (well, at least the upper tier models), the EliteBook 8560w is compatible with an optional docking station which features a lot more ports (including ports to hook up those external monitors!). The upgrade bay lets users replace the original DVD drive with an optional Blu-ray drive, secondary hard disk or a ‘dummy drive’ to save weight.

HP unofficially puts battery life of the EliteBook 8560w at 5 hours with its 8 cell battery, which you can extend with the optional secondary 8 or 12 cell battery. Speaking of batteries, the EliteBook 8560w shares the same 8 cell primary battery as the larger EliteBook 8760w.

The EliteBook 8560w will become available in May for a starting price of $1350.

All about the HP EliteBook 8460w

The HP EliteBook 8460w is the newly announced Mobile Workstation model from today. Having a 14 inch screen and measuring not much larger than a traditional document (about 13 by 9 inches), it’s the smallest of HP’s Mobile Workstation models. In terms of design, it resembles its “p-series” twin, the EliteBook 8460p, except it has a gunmetal-gray design.

The EliteBook 8460w is meets MIL-STD 810G “military standards” which is just a really fancy way of saying “business rugged”. HP says the DuraCase construction of the notebook has been tested against drops, vibrations, dust, altitude and high temperature; and specifically talk about the aluminum-alloy hinges and titanium alloy latches this new notebook has (The construction of the preceding 8440w’s hinges and latches is unknown, presumably metal, but it was already pretty solid!)

The EliteBook 8460w will feature options for Intel’s new Sandy Bridge dual core Core i5 processors as well as dual and quad core Core i7 processors, two DDR3 1333 MHz RAM slots (regardless of processor choice) and a single 2.5 inch storage drive bay.

That 14 inch display is one with a 16:9 “widescreen” (ugh!) ratio with your choice of standard 1366 x 768 resolution or high-resolution 1600 x 900 option. These two options appear to be carried over (highly likely the same display panel) from its predecessor, the EliteBook 8440w.

The EliteBook 8460w comes standard with a 1 GB GDDR3 AMD FirePro M3900 workstation-class graphics card and does not have switchable graphics. The graphics card, however, supports multiple display output (AMD Eyefinity) up to four external monitors.

Like all HP’s EliteBook models of the past, the EliteBook 8460w will continue to be compatible with an optional docking station, extended secondary batteries (available in 8 cell or 12 cell capacities) and features an upgrade bay (You can replace the original DVD drive with a Blu-ray drive, secondary hard disk or a blank filler to save weight).

What’s changed on the EliteBook 8460w is the introduction of a new full-chiclet style keyboard (versus partial chiclet on the EliteBook 8440w, though the keyboard layout remains unchanged), an orange colored pointing stick, larger multi-touch trackpad and replacement of the touch-sensitive control strip above the keyboard with hardware keys to HP Quick Web, wireless on/off and mute functions. There is also an updated lid latching system and relocation of the ambient light sensor to the top of the screen (near the webcam), a smart move. The speakers also now have “SRS Premium Sound” branding but we’ll see how good they are when we review the notebook.

Connectivity options include 2 USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 ‘always-on’ port (so you can charge devices like your phone while the 8460w is off), USB 2.0 + eSATA combo port, dedicated headphone and microphone jacks, Firewire, VGA, Display Port, Express Card 54 and SD/MMC slot. HP is quiet so far on whether the EliteBook 8460w will support super high capacity SDXC cards.

Unlike its bigger brothers, the EliteBook 8560w and EliteBook 8760w which have backlit keyboards, the EliteBook 8460w continues to sport the HP Night Light (a small LED light above the display that shines down on the keyboard) and no backlit keyboard.

In terms of weight, the HP EliteBook 8460w is very light, weighing in at 4.9 pounds or 2.2 kg without an optical drive, and 5.2 pounds or 2.4 kg with one.

HP’s unofficial battery life estimate from their press conference is “6 to 7 hours” for the EliteBook 8460w on its 6 cell battery. You can replace the primary 6 cell battery with a 9 cell one, or add on a second 8 or 12 cell battery to greatly extend battery life.

The EliteBook 8460w will start shipping in May with a starting price of $1300.

Adobe announces Creative Suite 5.5

Adobe kicked this week off with the release of their line of new Creative Suite 5.5 products (from Photoshop to Dreamweaver to Premiere Pro), which are moderate upgrades to the software family from their previous Creative Suite 5. Adobe is apparently going to switch from their regular 18 month cycle between software versions to a longer 24 month cycle, but adding in a “point-five (.5)” incremental upgrade in between, so 0.5 and 1.0 versions will leap-frog each other every two years (expect to see Adobe Creative Suite 6 in 2012 at around this time of year, I guess).

The folks at Adobe are also adding a subscription based model (yes adding, not moving to… I see a lot of tech websites misreporting this fact) to their Creative Suite software, so you can now “pay to use” their software on a monthly basis in two digit figures, instead of having to drop a big three to four digit monetary lump-sum for buying the software. Well, nice move Adobe, but anyone with simple math skills (or a calculator) will figure this costs almost as much as buying a new ‘full’ version of the software every two years… reminds me of car leasing to be frank; and just like leasing versus buying a car, I think it makes more sense to buy to own software instead of subscribing to a subscription based model! I suppose people who don’t have big piles of cash lying around and don’t want to take up a loan just to purchase software might see this move by Adobe as a good thing…

Crysis 2 chase scene video posted; review to come

I’ve just posted a video that I made earlier this week of one of my favorite parts from the newly released Crysis 2: the freeway chase scene. My EliteBook has been cranking away hard at two big game titles all week long: Crysis 2 and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. So far, I’m loving both, though I am highly annoyed that this third iteration of Assassin’s Creed still has yet to take advantage of 16:10 display ratios (yup, those black bars at the top and bottom that letterbox the screen are still present!). I’ve had the chance to playtest Crysis 2 extensively for a while now, and I expect a full write-up and in-depth review of the game to be online tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Mozilla Firefox 4 Final released?!

I think it’s here, the final version of Firefox 4 is finally out (no pun intended)! I’ve been running Firefox 4 RC for awhile on my Elitebook and just several seconds ago, I got an update prompt when opening Firefox and literally two seconds later after the update, I got my homepage (but oddly, no “your Firefox has been updated” splash page) and the “RC” was dropped from my About page. So far, everything looks and feels exactly like the Release Candidate before it, but supposedly Firefox 4.0 Final fixes any remaining underlying bugs.