New Business Laptop

[pacificobuzz]

Hello all,

I am looking to buy a new business laptop here shortly, and I am having trouble deciding on which one. Mainly I am looking at the hp elitebook/probook models. I am not biased on the company, but I do prefer HP. This computer will not be used for gaming at all, however it will be used for loads of dreamweaver, photoshop, illustrator and MS Office.

I am looking at only one model of the Probook because of the 3rd gen Intel Core i7-3612QM offered. Does anyone have any experience with his processor vs the i5 3210M? Is there a big difference in heat production? The benchmarks rate the i7 much higher which is why I'm favoring it right now.

As for the models of the laptops: Does the elitebook really make that big of a difference in cooling as opposed to the probook? I know it passes military grade testing for heat, but that is a main concern of mine. I do work my laptops pretty hard and get annoyed when the fans go crazy.

Preferred screen size is 14"-15.6".

HP Probook 4540s:
http/shopping1.hp.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/WW-USSMBPublicStore-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductUUID=4TgQ7EN5E6YAAAE5PJxU97mT&CatalogCategoryID=&JumpTo=OfferList

HP Elitebook 8470p:
http/shopping1.hp.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/WW-USSMBPublicStore-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductUUID=JFoQ7EN5TWwAAAE36IoDRUHJ&CatalogCategoryID=&JumpTo=OfferList

Any help, advice or previous experience with these machines/processor would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Tibbs01]

The i5 is a dual core with hyperthreading and turbo boost. The i7 listed is a quad core with the same features. You would be much better served for your listed purposes with the i7 in my opinion as I am sure you would also be multi-tasking quite a bit. I am not sure if/how much hotter the i7 would run.

I would definitely consider a Lenovo T430 or T530. They are very durable and have a much nicer keyboard, just make sure to upgrade from the 1366x768 screen (poor quality) if you go that route.

 

[pacificobuzz]

Thanks for the information tibbs01, I greatly appreciate it. Sounds like the i7 is the way to go, I will look at the Lenovo as well.

Any other information would be appreciated as well!

 

[johnbl]

both machines use a 65 watt power adapter, generally I7 will put out a little more heat due to the extra cores when they are in use and not shutdown. I think both of these processors are rated with the same 35 watt max power requirements. The main difference is in the chipset the q chipset series allows a vendor to fix your computer from the cloud even if it will not boot. As to noise both machines are use the cpu's graphics processor, both use a 7200 hard drive also, often a lot of the noise comes from the higher speed hard drive. The HP site indicated the I7 laptop will cut your battery life by 10 -20 percent.
NOTE: if you can replace the harddrive with a SSD drive you will save on heat, noise and battery life. For me, I fix my own machines so I skip the Q chipset and get the best processor I can get.

 

[pacificobuzz]

according to benchmarks, the temps of the 8470p you've linked to are quite good as well as noise handling, display is slightly above average, build quality is superb, keyboard and mouse are good too (subjective though)

You can get a laptop with a better screen for that price actually.

Can you describe the type of work you will do on this machine?
I'm asking to understand whether you need a good gpu or not. Probably not - and than you can save some money.

I will be purely doing work, and a little web browsing. Mostly Adobe products - Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, and also MS Office products. I won't be playing games on it at all, I have a desktop I use for gaming.

Thanks for your input!

 

[pacificobuzz]

both machines use a 65 watt power adapter, generally I7 will put out a little more heat due to the extra cores when they are in use and not shutdown. I think both of these processors are rated with the same 35 watt max power requirements. The main difference is in the chipset the q chipset series allows a vendor to fix your computer from the cloud even if it will not boot. As to noise both machines are use the cpu's graphics processor, both use a 7200 hard drive also, often a lot of the noise comes from the higher speed hard drive. The HP site indicated the I7 laptop will cut your battery life by 10 -20 percent.
NOTE: if you can replace the harddrive with a SSD drive you will save on heat, noise and battery life. For me, I fix my own machines so I skip the Q chipset and get the best processor I can get.

Thanks for your input. I work on and built my own desktop, I have never really fooled around with modifying a laptop. Would an SSD be fairly easy to swap in after purchasing the probook/elitebook? I would imagine it's similar to a desktop HDD replacement.

Thanks!

 

[Tibbs01]

Thanks for your input. I work on and built my own desktop, I have never really fooled around with modifying a laptop. Would an SSD be fairly easy to swap in after purchasing the probook/elitebook? I would imagine it's similar to a desktop HDD replacement.

Thanks!

I don't think you would have any problem and you can almost always get a better SSD for cheaper by doing it DIY versus purchasing one pre-installed from a manufacturer. Most mainstream laptop manufacturer's are almost always way overpriced for their RAM and storage upgrades.

 

[johnbl]

Thanks for your input. I work on and built my own desktop, I have never really fooled around with modifying a laptop. Would an SSD be fairly easy to swap in after purchasing the probook/elitebook? I would imagine it's similar to a desktop HDD replacement.

Thanks!

It is often hit or miss on how easy it is to change out a laptop hard drive to a SSD drive. I did it on my ASUS laptop, it had a opening over the drive on the underside. Removed one screw put in the new drive, put the cover back on and proceeded to install the OS. My wife's ASUS laptop on the other hand took me several hours, I had to take it apart from the keyboard down. It was much newer, light and thin, all put together with a few screws and lots of hidden tabs with no direct access to the drive from the underside.

Best to actually look at the tech specs of the laptop and see if there is a access to the drive from the bottom otherwise you have to know where all the little plastic tabs are hidden to take it apart without breaking them off.

OEM have to charge more for SSD drives for many reasons. Many have their setup process geared to spinning HDD drives where they can just image a OS on to the drive sever banks of drives at a time.
they can not use this same process with a SSD drive because of the device internal designs. They really do need to do a file by file install of the OS to prevent issues that cause them support costs and returns for "defective" hardware.

I know people do image SSD with OS's but they then blame the drive manufacture when the drive appears to fail a few months down the road.