Whether you’re a designer, photographer, videographer, or other creative professional, a good mobile workstation needs to be powerful enough to stand in for a blazing desktop yet portable enough to take on location. HP goes way beyond those base requirements with its EliteBook 8730w. It combines fast components, powerful discrete graphics, and a groundbreaking 15-million color display using HP’s DreamColor technology. At $3,242 (after an 18 percent rebate), this workstation isn’t cheap, but its worth the premium for those who want much more than just the typical high-def screen.
Design
Like other notebooks in HP’s high-end EliteBook line, the 8730w has a brushed anodized aluminum lid and chassis, which gives this hefty workstation a dose of understated class. Meanwhile, the keyboard has HP’s DuraKey finish, whose fingerprint-resistant UV coating promises to be six times more scratch-resistant than HP’s previous business notebooks. And, unlike the recently released ProBook line, the EliteBook series has a firm latch, as opposed to a lid that you can simply lift open.
At 15.5 x 11.1 x 1.3 inches, the 8730w is not much larger than the 17-inch MacBook Pro, but at 8 pounds (not including the power brick), it’s 1.4 pounds heavier. It’s also lighter and smaller than the Lenovo ThinkPad W700, which weighs 8.3 pounds and measures 16.1 x 12.2 x 1.6 inches.
Above the keyboard is a thin strip of touch-enabled controls, including QuickLook, Wi-Fi, mute, and volume. The controls were very responsive, but HP could have included a few more—perhaps creative professionals using this machine would appreciate multimedia controls. There’s a large section in the center of this strip that’s blank, which initially had us wondering if some of the buttons were deactivated.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The deck of the 8730w is wide enough to accommodate a full numeric keypad to the right of the keyboard. We could type easily on the keys, which have a slightly rough texture, and there was no flex, either. The 8730w has both a touchpad and a pointing stick; like HP’s other business notebooks, the touchpad had little friction, and was easy to use. The pointing stick, as is HP’s wont, is concave rather than convex; and while this indentation is meant to accommodate your finger, it may take some getting used to if you’re more familiar with a ThinkPad-style pointer.
There are two sets of mouse buttons (for the pointer or the touchpad), which were comfortable, but felt too floppy. Interestingly, each set has a third mouse button. By default, each can be used to scroll through Web pages when used in conjunction with the touchpad, but can be customized to perform other actions.
Ports and Webcam
HP makes good use of all the space around the 8730w; on the left side are HDMI, VGA, USB, and FireWire 400 ports, along with an ExpressCard/54 and Smart Card slot. On the right are three USB ports, eSATA, and Ethernet and modem ports. The front of the workstation has a 6-in-1 memory card reader and headphone and mic ports. There are no ports on the rear, but HP included a docking port on the underside. While our unit did not come with one, you can add a 2.0-megapixel Webcam for $24.
Display and Audio
Our configuration of the 8730w featured a 17-inch, 1920 x 1200-pixel display with HP DreamColor technology, which makes it capable of displaying more than 15 million colors, whereas most notebook displays recognize 260,000 colors. (HP also sells a standalone display for $1,999 that recognizes 1 billion colors.) In addition to a much larger gamut, the colors themselves look better: HP promises that reds, blues, and greens look deeper, blacks are four times as dark, and whites are more adjustable.
HP developed the technology in collaboration with the film studio DreamWorks Animation SKG. Indeed, while animators and other video professionals are one group for whom color accuracy is critical, these nuances in color are also crucial for photographers and other artistic types. The RGB-LED backlit screen has a brightness of 300 nits (about 50 percent brighter than other screens; the Lenovo ThinkPad W700’s screeen has a brightness of 400 nits), and features a contrast ratio of 800:1 (where 300:1 is more typical).
While the 8730w lacks the built-in color calibrator on the W700 we reviewed, this HP’s Mobile Display Assistant software guides you through a series of windows to accurately render colors on screen.
The ripples on water and the texture of concrete were perfectly rendered and action was crisp when watching a Blu-ray of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. The stubble of the five-o’clock shadow on a general’s face in a trailer for Monsters vs. Aliens made us want to get a shave.
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