HP EliteBook 8530w Review

Our pre-production EliteBook 8530w came with the Intel T9400 processor, clocking in at 2.53GHz, and jammed packed with 6MB of cache. For graphics, HP included an Nvidia Quadro 770M series video card with 512MB of GDDR3 memory. A fast 160GB 7200 RPM hard drive was also included, which helped applications load without much lag. This workstation consistently exceeded our expectations, thanks in large part to the workstation-class GPU. Serious users will find this machine packs plenty of power for even the most demanding tasks, and "normal" users who are only concerned with working in Microsoft Office and encoding the occassional video for work will have more power than they know what to do with it.

In a day and age when more and more notebooks are offering hybrid graphics (a combination of both integrated and dedicated graphics that allow you to reduce power consumption when you don't need extreme graphics performance) we would have liked to see a hybrid graphics solution inside the Elitebook 8530w. As it stands, this isn't a deal killer because most people interested in this notebook are concerned about performance ... not getting every possible minute of battery life.

With that said, let's jump into the performance benchmarks.

wPrime is a program that forces the processor to do recursive mathematical calculations, the advantage of this program is that it is multi-threaded and can use both processor cores at once, thereby giving more accurate benchmarking measurements than Super Pi.

PCMark05 comparison results:

3DMark06 comparison results:

As an added bonus, we also tested the EliteBook 8530w with the new PCMark Vantage benchmark, and notebook returned a score of 3,944.

HDTune storage drive performance test:

Keyboard and Touchpad

The full-size keyboard on the 8530w is nice and large and features the new "HP DuraKeys" which is a highly durable textured finish applied to each key have a nice matte appearance and prevents the "shine" that appears on old keyboards after the buildup of dirt and oils from your fingertips.

The layout of the keyboard is just slightly different than what you might find on the HP consumer notebooks. The individual key presses are quiet without loud clicking sounds as you type.  Keys are flatter and have a little less space in between them. The key spacing had to make room for the addition of the pointstick and you might also notice the longer backspace, backslash, enter, and shift keys which also force a minor relocation of the arrow keys. This takes a little bit to get used to, but overall the keyboard layout is extremely nice for a 15-inch laptop.

Above the keyboard also rests a series of touch-sensitive media buttons similar to what you find on HP consumer notebooks.  There is an Info, WiFi Toggle, Presentation Mode, and Mute touch buttons on this glossy strip.  Additionally, next to the Mute button is a volume control slider that enables the user to raise and lower the volume by sliding their finger across that area.

The touchpad also features the DuraFinish so that oils from your fingertip don't build up on the surface and make the touchpad look weathered after just a few months. The Synaptics touchpad is very responsive to my touch, and the three rubber mouse buttons are quiet and about the right size.  There is also a secondary set of mouse buttons above the touchpad to work with the pointstick that comes with all 8530w's.  The pointstick is amazingly accurate and comfortable to use.

The only negative we experienced with the touchpad interface on our pre-production unit is that the rubber touchpad buttons didn't always register a click when you press them. This is because the rubber surface of each button "bends" around the actual button that triggers the click. If you don't press just the right spot at the exact center of each button then the button won't register that you pressed it. The secondary buttons located above the touchpad (the ones used for the pointstick) didn't have this problem, so we're not sure if it's a design issue or just a problem with this particular pre-production unit.

We would have also liked to see a dedicated touchpad disable button (like the ones HP uses on their consumer notebooks) so that you can disable the touchpad if you're using the pointstick or an external mouse.

Ports and Features

The 8530w features a good number of ports on all sides, so let us take a brief tour ...

Left side:

Here we see the stwo USB ports, GigE Ethernet, HDMI-out, eSATA port, Firewire 400, an ExpressCard/54 slot, smart card slot, and a multi-card reaader.

Right side:

Audio-out jack, microphone/line-in jack, two USB ports, BluRay optical drive, modem port and security lock slot.

Rear side:

The battery, AC power jack, and the VGA out jack.

Front side:

There are no ports on the front, just indicator lights and the speakers.

Bottom side:

Also, on the underside there is a docking connector and the second battery port.  Both RAM slots are accessible from the bottom under the RAM access cover.

The 8530w features an 802.11 a/b/g/draft-n WiFi card and Bluetooth 2.0, both of which always worked without any dropped signals.

Heat and Noise

During normal use (browsing the web or working on a text document) the EliteBook 8530w remained nice and quiet. However, after watching some streaming video online and after stressing the graphics the cooling fan inside the laptop gets quite loud.  When doing tasks that stress the processor and graphics card, the laptop's fan works hard to keep this laptop cool.  This is something of a mixed blessing in that while noisy, it helps to lower the internal temperatures and helps extend the life of your notebook components.

Finally, we recorded the following external temperatures using an IR thermometer after running two consecutive PCMark05 benchmarks. This should serve as an indicator of how hot the notebook will get after about 30 minutes of serious use. All temperatures are listed in degrees Fahrenheit. While the 8530w isn't the coldest notebook we've reviewed, it does stay amazing cool considering the powerful processor and graphics.

Battery

The battery life is basically unchanged from the last refresh in which HP claims that the laptop will achieve up to 4 hours of life when unplugged.  During our timed tests, the laptop was set up for the ‘High Performance' profile, screen brightness at about 60%, WiFi on, and accessing the hard drive while listening to music files and editing documents in Microsoft Office.  The laptop shut down after exactly 3 hours and 38 minutes with 3% of the battery left, which is reasonable for a laptop with so much power running in "high performance" mode.  Battery life can also be extended via using the "power saver" power profile in Vista, or with a secondary 8-Cell or 12-Cell battery which can more than double the battery life according to HP.

Conclusion

The HP EliteBook 8530w is one of the most impressive workstation-class 15.4" notebooks we've seen.  Whether you're a small business owner looking for a durable notebook with plenty of performance or a large business looking to outfit a large staff of creative professionals with mobile workstations, the EliteBook 8530w makes a smart choice. However, there's no such thing as a perfect notebook and our pre-production unit of the 8530w was not without its flaws.

While there are a few things we can criticize about the 8530w, it's hard to be too critical of a pre-production unit because there is always a "possibility" that a minor issue (such as touchpad buttons or cooling fan volume) could be resolved with the final versions that ship to customers. Still, based on the review unit we have on hand we feel our relatively minor criticism is warranted.

Bottom line, there are many reasons why professionals need to buy the HP EliteBook 8530w and very few reasons not to.

Pros

• One of the most full-featured and rugged 15.4" workstation notebooks.
• Extreme graphics power, top notch overall horsepower.
• High-resolution screen with good viewing angles and excellent brightness.
• Available BluRay drive.
• Extended battery life available via a second battery port.
• Attractive and sleek design.

Cons

• Pricey because of the workstation GPU and rugged build quality.
• Heavy ... very heavy with the power adapter.
• Rubber touchpad buttons don't always register a click when you press them.
• Less than ideal location for speakers.
• Fan can run loud and push out a lot of hot air.