Gorgeous 17-inch DreamColor screen; full-sized keyboard with separate numeric pad; good performance; solid build quality; good selection of models in the range
No display calibration device supplied; fiddly touch-sensitive volume control; expensive
Offering superb performance, a fantastic DreamColor screen, excellent build quality and a good keyboard, the HP EliteBook 8730w is a great workstation-class laptop, although it comes with a hefty price tag
8 Excellent
Reviewed by Charles McLellan
HP's 17-inch workstation-class EliteBook 8730w is about as far from a netbook as an Aston Martin is from a Ford Fiesta. That's not to belittle netbooks or Fiestas, but, when you want to get somewhere fast and in comfort, you need the appropriate tool for the job. The job in question here is anything that requires an excellent graphics sub-system and a degree of portability. Photo and video editors, engineers and financial analysts would be typical users of this class of laptop.
The standout feature on our review sample, the FU471ET model, is its gorgeous 1,920x1,200-pixel DreamColor display -- the clearest, sharpest and most colour-rich we've seen on any laptop. The display and other high-end features make this a premium-priced product, at around £2,500, but there are plenty of models in the 8730w family, ranging in price from a reasonable £1,500 to a princely £4,350.
Design
With its 17-inch screen, the 8730w is never going to be a lightweight, but it's actually quite svelte-looking -- apart from the footprint -- and weighs a luggable 3.4kg. Its dimensions are 393 by 32 by 282mm. The finish is largely brushed aluminium, with black surrounds to the screen and keyboard.
A laptop aimed at graphics professionals is going to need a high-quality screen, and here the 8730w -- specifically, models with the DreamColor display technology -- delivers big time. What hits you when you put a high-quality test image on-screen (like those available on HP's Graphic Arts Image Bank) is the sheer depth and vibrancy of colour. It's no illusion either, as this screen can display 16.7 million colours (24-bit colour) rather than the 262,144 (18-bit colour) of standard laptop LCDs.
Almost everything else about the screen is excellent too, including its native resolution (1,920x1,200 pixels), backlighting (RGB LED, with ambient light sensor), viewing angles (especially in the horizontal plane) and matte rather than reflective finish.
HP supplies a Mobile Display Assistant that helps you select preset colour spaces, such as sRGB, Adobe RGB or Native/Full (the default), or set a specific white point. Some graphics professionals may require more adjustability than HP provides out of the box: Lenovo, by contrast, supplies a Pantone colour calibrator with its workstation-class ThinkPad W-series laptops.
The keyboard area is large enough to accommodate a 102-key keyboard with a separate number pad on the right-hand side. All the keys are full size, except for the row of half-height function keys at the top. The action is positive, with an audible click, and there's no flex in the keyboard at all.
There are dual options for moving the cursor around, each with their own set of three mouse buttons: a pointing stick between the G, B and H keys and a touchpad with a vertical scroll zone on the right-hand side. As well as the touchpad, the wrist-rest area carries a fingerprint reader in the bottom right-hand corner. The laptop's otherwise classy looks are spoiled slightly by the all-too-common cluster of vendor stickers, just above the fingerprint reader.
Between the keyboard and the screen is a strip containing the power button and a number of touch-sensitive LED-illuminated controls. From the left, these bring up the HP Info Center dialogue box; turn the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios on and off; bring up the presentation settings dialogue box; mute the audio; adjust the volume (using a slider); and bring up the calculator.
Not only does the 8730w look smart, but the build quality is also very good. The brushed aluminium finish is scratch-resistant and the screen hinges feel reassuringly solid, as does the keyboard. The screen section does flex slightly, but it's a good centimetre thick and should withstand all but the most determined ill-treatment. Finally, there's a sturdy mechanism to keep the lid firmly attached to the system unit when the clamshell is closed up.
Features
As befits a workstation-class system, the 8730w has a top-notch set of components inside. The processor in our FU471ET review model is a 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9600, which has 6MB of Level 2 cache and a 1,066MHz front-side bus. The chipset is Intel's PM45 Express.
Although HP's Web site lists the FU471ET as coming with 4GB of RAM as standard (expandable to 8GB in total), our review sample had 3GB. Our review unit also came with Windows XP Professional installed, although the standard OS is Vista Business (with an XP downgrade option). You can also specify SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 if required.
The graphics processor, naturally, is a discrete affair, in the shape of Nvidia's Quadro FX 2700M. This has 512MB of dedicated video memory and comes with a fully featured control panel that includes a drop-down menu of 3D settings for a wide range of certified third-party applications. Other models in the 8730w range step the GPU up to the Quadro FX 3700M with 1GB of video RAM.
For storage there's a fast (7,200rpm) 320GB Seagate Momentus hard drive, protected against bumps and shocks by HP's 3D DriveGuard system. If you need more capacity, you can replace the optical drive -- a LightScribe double-layer multi-format DVD rewriter -- with another hard drive: HP sells a 5,400rpm 250GB drive for around £205.
Intel's WiFi Link 5300, which supports 802.11a/b/g and draft-n Wi-Fi, looks after wireless networking, and Bluetooth 2.0 is also present for short-range wireless connectivity. Wired networking is handled by Intel's Gigabit Ethernet module, and there's even a 56Kbps modem, although it's unlikely to see much use these days.
There's plenty of room on this system for ports and connectors, and HP doesn't stint. There are four USB ports, for example, plus a combined USB/eSATA port. The USB/eSATA port and three of the USB ports are on the right-hand side, along with the optical drive and the Ethernet and modem ports.
The left-hand side has a combined ExpressCard/54 and Smart Card slot at the front, followed by a USB port, a 4-pin FireWire port, VGA and HDMI ports, and the power input. The fascia carries the audio jacks and a multi-format flash card reader. The lack of dual-link DVI-out is the only possible niggle: if you need this, you'll have to invest in one of HP's optional docking stations.
The li-ion battery, which occupies most of the back, is a hefty eight-cell, 73Wh unit. Additional battery options for those who need to maximise mains-free uptime include a 52Wh, extended-life battery (around £90) and a 95Wh, ultra-capacity battery (around £160). The power brick, incidentally, is a distinctly hefty 150W unit.
Performance
It should be no surprise to hear that the 8730w is a nippy laptop, given its 2.8GHz dual-core CPU, 3GB of RAM, discrete Quadro FX 2700M graphics and fast 7,200rpm hard disk. We ran PassMark Software's PerformanceTest 7.0 and got an overall score of 913.8. By way of comparison, a Lenovo ThinkPad W500 (2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, Vista) in Passmark's comparison database scored 879.6.
HP claims battery life of up to 4.25 hours with the supplied eight-cell, 73Wh battery. We tested this by measuring the system's power consumption using a Voltcraft VC-940 digital multimeter under a variety of conditions. With the system idling, Wi-Fi off and the screen set to 50 per cent brightness, the average power draw was 24.1W, giving a battery life estimate of 3 hours.
Turning the screen brightness up to 100 per cent, activating Wi-Fi and giving the laptop a decent workload (running PerformanceTest 7.0 and playing a Web-based flash video over Wi-Fi) boosted the average power consumption to 65.1W and reduced the estimated battery life to just 1.1 hours.
Although the 8730w isn't anyone's idea of a truly portable computer, it may on occasion need to run on battery power. If you're likely to need much more than an hour, we'd suggest investing in one of the extended battery options.
Conclusion
The workstation-class HP EliteBook 8730's performance, superb DreamColor screen and excellent build quality make it a pleasure to use. It would suit any power user requiring a top-notch graphics sub-system.
Additional editing by Charles Kloet
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