The business laptop market is divided into two parts: laptops and mobile workstations. Workstation-class systems offer faster processors and better graphics accelerators, and sometimes additional features beyond the usual business options. In this review, the HP EliteBook 8540w Mobile Workstation will be reviewed and benchmarked against.
The HP EliteBook 8540w test laptop had the following specifications:
Processor - Intel Core i7-620M (2.66GHz, 4MB L2 cache)
Operating System - Microsoft Genuine Windows 7 Professional (32-bit)
Display - 15.6-inch HD + LED-backlit (1600 x 900) anti-glare
Video adapter - NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M 1 GB DDR3 video memory
System Memory - 4GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM (3GB can be used with 32-bit operating system)
Hard Drive - 320GB Seagate 7200 RPM
Wireless Communications - Intel Ultimate-N 6300 AGN WiFi, 1Gb Ethernet, Modem, and Bluetooth Compatibility
Battery - 8-cell battery 73Wh (14.4V)
Construction and design
The HP EliteBook Mobile Workstation is very similar to its standard EliteBook notebooks. The EliteBook has a very stylish design with brushed metal finishes that add a touch of sophistication to the usually boring design of business notebooks. The metal coating gives the laptop a catchy look, helps to hide fingerprints and fine dirt, and is protected from minor scratches. HP went as far as covering the area around the screen mount with this material, showing the importance of even small areas to the design. Brushed metal blends very harmoniously with the black body and dark inlay around the keyboard and touchpad.
The EliteBook feels one piece when you pick it up. The combination of high-quality plastic housing and brushed metal gives the structure very good rigidity, so that even with considerable effort, the structure showed no signs of twisting or sagging. The display lid has very little flex, but compared to other business notebooks, this was an excellent result. The screen lid does its job well and protects the screen reliably. Brushed metal resists scratches and prints, so your laptop surface doesn't wear out as quickly as painted laptops. The screen is very well protected, as even in the case of strong pressure from the outside, there was no distortion on the screen.
When you open the laptop and start pressing down on the wrist rest area, the first thing you will feel is how tightly the case is assembled. Thin brushed metal plates have good support from the inside, with absolutely no sagging, even with significant forces. The keyboard has a slight deflection, if you press on it with force, the deflection may be 1-2mm.
On most notebooks, the bottom of the chassis is generally not rigid enough in the area where the optical drive is located. By pressing in this area, a slight deflection is felt until the case wall rests against the edge of the optical drive.
Consumers looking to upgrade the HP EliteBook 8540w will be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to upgrade. Each component that can be replaced by an ordinary user - RAM, hard disk, CMOS battery, and WWAN card - all are located in separate sections and have an individual plate. The laptop has the ability to expand the memory up to 16GB of RAM. In our configuration, the laptop had two RAM slots; one is located at the bottom of the case and the other under the keyboard. Both slots were occupied by memory modules.
Display and speakers
The 15.6-inch HD + display on the 8540w looks good compared to most of the business displays we've reviewed.If you are a graphic designer or someone looking for a really good display, HP has a DreamColor Matrix option for the 8540w. The color saturation is excellent, better than the average TN matrix. Some specs say the 8540w is a WVA, so it's no surprise the display looks so good.
The measurements showed an average contrast ratio of 734: 1, which is above average for most notebooks. Peak brightness was 213 nits at the center of the display and 196 nits near the edge. The black level was decent, ranging from 0.32 to 0.25 nits, with no bleeding at the edges. This display would be great for both photo editing and HD movie viewing. The backlight brightness is more than adequate for working in bright office lighting, but it is slightly lacking when working in direct sunlight.
Viewing angles are slightly above average, but still less than those of PVA or IPS matrices. Vertical viewing angles are about 15-20 degrees, as the angle increases, the colors begin to invert and darken. Horizontal viewing angles are much better, colors remain natural even at very wide viewing angles. Currently, one of the matrixes that could compare with the test panel is the FHD 1080P panel found in the Lenovo ThinkPad W510 and T510.
The built-in speakers are slightly inferior to notebooks for home use of this size, but when compared only to business notebooks, they look adequate. For listening to music or watching videos from the Internet, speakers are more than enough, but if you want to watch a movie on the road, it is better to use headphones. Users who would like to connect the system to an HDTV TV or home audio system will be disappointed with the DisplayPort, which is responsible for transferring video data. On this particular laptop, the DisplayPort cannot carry audio streaming. Another problem you might run into is that the DisplayPort is not compatible with most consumer TVs. It will be easier to connect to a computer monitor, which are increasingly equipped with multiple connection interfaces.
Keyboard and touchpad
The HP EliteBook keyboard is designed to feel like a "Chiclet" style, but feel like a classic. The tops of the keys are flat with sharp edges that slope downward so that the edges around the buttons are visible, so there is plenty of room for the keys. It can be seen that the keyboard is a synthesis of the classic keyboard with its cup-shaped keys, and the Chiclet style keyboard with its learning curve. After a few days of work, you will adapt to the new style and make fewer mistakes. The construction of the keyboard is very robust, with a good supportive structure that almost never flexes anywhere. Under high pressure, you can slightly bend the button, but as soon as it rests against the body element, it is almost impossible to bend further.
The keyboard has a contrasting color - white letters on the background of black buttons. It is possible to work at night without external lighting using a special backlight located at the top of the display, which has a switch. The buttons are soft and quiet, making this keyboard very suitable for work in places where people would not want to hear background noise.
The EliteBook 8540w offers a medium-sized Synaptics touchpad that is comfortable to use and has no lag. The touchpad is very fast, has a sufficient refresh rate, so during operation you will not see the "tail" behind the cursor, especially when you move objects quickly. The surface of the touchpad is slightly textured and has a matte finish, making it easy to glide over even with damp fingers. The EliteBook also offers the option of using a mini-joystick if you prefer this type of pointing device. The mini-joystick interface was very fast and it was not a problem to use it.
It was a pleasant surprise that the creators of the EliteBook 8540w added a middle mouse button to the touchpad and mini-joystick.Most laptops only include left and right mouse buttons, which is not always convenient if you use the tab key a lot. Also, the purpose of this button can be programmed for various actions. The Dell Precision M4500 also includes a third button for the touchpad and mini-joystick, while the Lenovo ThinkPad left two buttons in the touchpad and added a third button for the mini-joystick.
Ports and other equipment
The HP EliteBook offers a wide variety of ports, including some not found in most notebook computers. The 8540w comes with two USB 3.0 ports, perfect for connecting high-speed storage devices without the need for a second eSATA cable or FireWire port. In addition to USB 3.0 ports, the laptop also has three common USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400, eSATA, DisplayPort, VGA-out, and audio outputs. This workstation is practically the record for the complete set of ports and interfaces in its category. Also included is a smart card reader, ExpressCard / 54 slot, and an SDHC card slot.
Performance
The HP EliteBook 8540w Mobile Workstation features a dual-core Intel Core i7-620M processor, 320GB 7200 rpm hard drive, NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M professional graphics, and 4GB of RAM. Due to the 32-bit operating system installed, some of the memory was not used. Therefore, it is recommended to install 64-bit versions of operating systems so that the system can use memory over 4GB or more.
Comparing the EliteBook 8540p with the NVIDIA NVS 5100m graphics card, the Quadro FX 880M graphics card was able to perform certain 3D tasks at a higher speed. Performance in 3D games was also better, but not much. Quadro video cards are more adapted for CAD programs (Autocad, for example) or for rendering, instead of playing games, games, if you want, you can also play. Using the test program SPECviewperf 10, which measures the performance in CAD programs and rendering, we measured the performance of this workstation with similar systems.
Wprime CPU performance score (the lower the score, the higher the performance):
PCMark05 measures the overall system performance (the higher the score, the better the performance):
PCMark Vantage measures the overall system performance (the higher the score, the better the performance):
3DMark06 measures performance in games (the higher the score, the better the performance):
Specviewperf 10 measures the overall performance of the processor and video card in various applications used for video editing, animation, CAD programs (the higher the result, the higher the performance):
CrystalDiskMark measures hard drive performance:
Heat dissipation and noise
The HP EliteBook 8540w does a pretty good job of dissipating heat with its very fast processor and powerful graphics card, but compared to other notebooks, the cooling system is slightly louder. From a distance of 15 cm from the fan grill, we measured the fan noise, which reached 50dB during the stress test. During daily operation, the fan noise is almost inaudible; the sound can be compared to a slight whisper. Measurements have shown that the 8540w workstation has a higher heat dissipation level compared to the 8540p laptop, but this is understandable due to the fact that the 8540w has a more powerful processor and video card. The temperature of the metal coating on the wrist and keyboard area remained at an acceptable level. This is very important, since on some models the metal trim elements practically take on the role of a radiator - their surface heats up to a level uncomfortable for the palms.
Standalone operation
The HP EliteBook 8540w performed well in battery tests, even with an Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M graphics. During a battery test with screen brightness set to 70%, Wi-Fi on, and refreshing the web page every 60 seconds, the system was drawing between 15 and 17 watts of power.The total battery life was 3 hours and 6 minutes, which is lower than the EliteBook 8540p's 5 hours and 5 minutes, which, however, has a weaker configuration. But even this result is very good and allows you to usefully spend time during a meeting or lecture.
Software
HP Power Assistant guides the user to configure the laptop battery usage profile. You can see not only the remaining operating time, the level of power use, but you can also see this data in the graphs of how much electricity the laptop has consumed, and if you enter the size of your local electricity tariff, you can get data - how much you will spend on electricity in day, month, year. Another interesting program is that it calculates your contribution to CO2 emissions based on the operating time of a laptop, so this is a very useful utility, for example, for company executives who need to explain to their subordinates that they need to turn off their laptops at the end of the day.
Conclusion
The HP EliteBook 8540w Mobile Workstation delivers very solid performance in our tests, coupled with superb design and build quality. Compared to the standard EliteBook 8540p, which has similar configuration and performance, the workstation is more expensive - the difference is between $ 150-300. The more affordable 8540w comes with a Core i5 processor and an ATI FirePro M5800 graphics card. All in all, if you are looking for a Workstation laptop, the HP EliteBook Series is just what you need.
Benefits:
Excellent build quality
Stylish and practical design
Good performance
Disadvantages:
There is no option to select a backlit keyboard model
