HP has been a brand of quality and performance from a decade and today we take a look at HP EliteBook 8740w.EliteBook 8740w has been built to meet military toughness standards. Whether it be dust, temperature, humidity, vibration, or altitude, the EliteBook 8740w is built to survive it and keep performing. Internally, the 320GB 7,200rpm hard drive is cushioned with shock-dampening material and wrapped in a magnesium drive cage with hardened steel pins holding everything together. A three-axis accelerometer detects motion and activates additional hard drive protection against drops and shocks.The spill-resistant full-size keyboard sports chiclet-style keys, with a pointing stick in the middle of it, and a full-sized numeric pad on the right. The keyboard is comfortably spaced, but the keys are a bit mushy for my liking. The three-button touchpad supports multitouch controls such as two-finger scrolling and zoom.Though HP's multitouch solutions have been hit or miss in the past year, the EliteBook 8740w appears to have multitouch done right. It registers second-finger input, but isn't so sensitive that gets tripped up by stray brushes with the touchpad, and the surface of the touchpad feels smooth under the fingertips.The notebook lives up to its conceived application purpose in terms of looks. Dark surfaces everywhere, only interrupted by a few blue turquoise colored LED status indicators, mocks modesty in the office. Upon looking closer, you see the brushed aluminum surfaces that bring the notebook back to the top level haptically.Over the massive looking hinges that have a sufficient hold on the heavy display in practically every position, we work our way to the display's upper edge, including the installed webcam. Here, we likely find one of the few, and admittedly controversial "critique points" of the case – the display latch hook. No, inferior plastic has been used here. The ramshorn system even keeps the display very securely in a closed position. It's simply the metal's inelegant mushroom shape that protrudes out of the display. When the display is closed, both thorns are fed into the other side and lock. This can be reversed by pushing the generously sized slider on the notebooks front.HP EliteBook is filled to the brim with equipment and features that optimize performance for the professional user. Connectivity options abound, with two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, an ExpressCard slot, 7-in-1 memory card reader, and audio input and output. Additional security is added thanks to a fingerprint scanner and SmartCard reader. It also supports Computrace LoJack Pro, so your computer can be tracked and retrieved if lost or stolen.The EliteBook 8740w also includes QuickLook 3, which offers instant access to your cached Outlook data, even from a powered-off state. Where older iterations of QuickLook could only show you what was already in your Outlook cache, such as e-mails, contacts, calendar events and task lists, the newest version allows you to edit and update this data on the fly, with updates synching automatically upon power up.As usual, the keyboard unit fits tight in the base unit and can only be depressed insignificantly to a part, but doesn't yield as much that the typing feel is affected. The typing feel stands out by a sufficient keystroke length, clear pressure point and pleasant stroke. The quiet soundscape is also agreeable and can even convince prolific typists.
A possible reason for reproach could be the missing keyboard light in our model. According to HP's specifications, this (key backlight) should be available in selected models.Another utility that allows instant accessibility outside of Windows is HP QuickWeb. This utility lets you access the Internet in a full browser that is independent from the Windows operating system. Not only does this let you skip long boot times to hop online, it also allows access even if Windows has crashed, keeping you connected even during a Windows melt-down.The maximum resolution is 1920x1200 pixels at a point density of 133 dpi. Thus, the 8740w bids the maximum possible overview in a notebook and the installed display is suitable for professional applications right from the start. Beyond that, it is also possible to connect one or several monitors to the device. The existing display port provides an accordingly high resolution even for large monitors (e.g. 30", 2560x1600 pixels). We've tested it with the Matrox Dual Head2Go and connected the Elitebook with two 24 inch monitors (Dell 2408 Wfp, 1920x1200).The HP Elitebook always stays cool during average office usage. The wrist-rest remain almost cool with up to 27.9°C, while the maximum temperature measured on the top also is very low with 32.3°C. The base unit's bottom only heats up slightly more and reaches up to 36.6°C in this operating state.In the "worst case" scenario, that is the stress test of several hours, the highest temperature on the base unit's upper left corner increased to a maximum of 44.1°C. The wrist-rest area still remained relatively cool with up to 28.8°C. The bottom heated up to 46.4°C, which is just as acceptable for such a strong workstation.HP EliteBook 8740w's battery lasted for 110 minutes only in our battery test which is wrost but for a workstation it not that wrost.
Lets take a look at Benchmarks results....
- Good CPU + GPU combination for a workstation.
- Good Design.
- Excellent audio Quality.
- Nice Display.
- Bad keyboard.
- Short battery life.
- Heavy.
