HP Elitebook 8740w Mobile Workstation
Yes, it’s party time and there couldn’t have been a better time than today. I’d like to make a big announcement today: after a rather lazy 2010, HP Fansite is making a big fat comeback this year (and I promise a six month hiatus will never happen again!). Today’s world moves so quickly, too quickly, that much can happen in six months. Fortunately for the holiday season, all that talk about Palm and HP’s new Pre smartphones and tablets, and more talk about Palm (and RIP Palm!), HP’s other departments have remained relatively low profile with few to no announcements… until CES and new HP Pavilion notebooks last month and today’s announcement of new ProBook and Elitebook business laptops.
And what have I been up to? A lot actually! I won’t go on and on about my life story, but key events you might be interested in include:
- I attended CES last month in Vegas. The show was huge, with plenty to see; glasses-free 3D, the push to go beyond Full HD entertainment and, of course, tablets, are things to set your sights on this year.
- I’ve been working on a redesign for HP Fansite. Expect to see our new look this week, and when you do, don’t forget to shoot me an email to tell me what you think =)
- I finally got my dream notebook for Christmas (don’t ask
) and I’m using it all the time, every day: the HP Elitebook 8740w Mobile Workstation, also, as of today, what I believe to be the last of HP’s “chiseled, sleek, modern” styled business notebooks before they go all retro and utilitarian/old-school.
It’s good to be back. Thank you to our loyal readers for sticking around for so long! And stay tuned for HP news coverage, reviews and more!
New 2011 HP Elitebook design (Elitebook 8460p pictured)
HP has just announced their new business notebooks, refreshed for 2011. There’s 6 new ProBook models, with their screen sizes spanning from 13.3 to 17.3 inches, in your choice of two flavors; the more feature-packed ProBook 6000-b line or the more affordable ProBook 4000-s series. What’s in the spotlight in today’s range of announcements are the two new models in HP’s uppity-up Elitebook high-end business notebook range. The new 14 inch Elitebook 8460p and 15.6 inch Elitebook 8560p models succeed last year’s EliteBook 8440p and EliteBook 8540p notebooks respectively. For most part, the guts and port selection on these two are the same as their predecessors… what’s changed includes the new 2011 Intel Sandy Bridge (Second generation Intel Core i-series) mobile processors in them, Intel HD300-series integrated graphics (or AMD Radeon 6470M if you go the discrete graphics route) and USB 3.0 port availability (though just one of four ports, the other three will be USB 2.0).
Perhaps the most controversial of them all, in my opinion, is HP’s new take on the design of their business notebooks. The new Elitebooks are supposedly slightly more rugged and more accessible (there’s a single panel covering the entire bottom of the notebook that pops off with the tug of a switch) than previous models, but they don’t look… how does one put it… they don’t quite look as sleek as the old design (example). I know it’s been a loooong time, too long, since I last posted and I apologize for that (and I’ve got a surprise for all you readers, coming this week), that won’t happen again… but now, I wanna hear YOUR take on HP’s new design for their business notebook line. Personally, well, I’m praying hard with fingers crossed that the new EliteBook 2560p ultra-portable and EliteBook 8460w, EliteBook 8560w and EliteBook 8760w mobile workstation notebooks will, at least, not look like the result of a bunch of HP design engineers going all “retro, eccentric and Lady Gaga” at the drawing board… as was probably the case when they made today’s eight new ProBook and EliteBook models!
Hey guys, I just wanted to update you guys on why I haven’t been covering much news lately in the ever interesting world of HP (Especially the unfolding of recent events). I’ve been busy packing and packing and packing… and tomorrow I’ll be moving to California for at least the next two years of my life (but the nearer to HP Palo Alto, the better, right? as one reader wrote in an email to me =) . So, look forward to updates next week and things to return back to ‘business as usual’ status by the end of this month. Again, I’m so sorry for the lack of updates (but I’ll be back!)
-Brad
Nvidia has just announced their first bunch of “Fermi” Quadro workstation class graphics card that supports DirectX 11 for both desktops and notebooks. The Nvidia Quadro FX5000M not only has 2 GB of memory (which we already knew about from ‘service parts’ for the Elitebook 8740w that have been posted on HP’s website for months now), but is superior to the current (and now, former) top of the line Quadro FX3800M in almost every way imaginable, at least on paper.
Aside from having double the memory, the Quadro FX5000M is also Nvidia’s first, and currently only, mobile Quadro card supporting the latest iterations of DirectX (DX11), OpenGL (Open GL 4.0) and shader model (5.0). Compared to the Quadro FX3800M, the FX5000M has more than double the number of cores (320 vs 128 cores), 20% more bandwidth (76.8 vs 64 GB/sec) and of course, again, has 2 GB of GDDR5 memory (vs the FX3800M topping out at 1 GB; GDDR3). There’s even an unseen “improvement” in terms of heat/power consumption, since the Quadro FX5000M still has a TDP of 100W, so theoretically it should perform much better than older flagship Quadro cards, while consuming similar amounts of energy.
The best part of all this is that the Quadro FX5000M will be available for the Elitebook 8740w in the future, though at an unspecified date and price. If you’ve already gotten an Elitebook 8740w, fear not for there’s always the ability to swap parts like people have been doing for ages… You’d better start studying that 8740w service manual now!
In an interesting (and heartbreaking, for some) report by CNBC, it has been confirmed that HP will not be coming up with any Windows Phone 7 devices (which invalidates the info provided during the Windows Phone 7 launch event, which was before HP bought over Palm). Instead, they’ll be focusing on getting WebOS phones (and tablets, duh) out… in fact, we did mention mid this week that WebOS 2.0 will be coming by the end of this year, presumably with at least one device running the operating system (PalmPad anyone?!).
And what will happen to the iPAQ brand? Well, I hope HP addresses and answers that next…
