Laptop Review: HP EliteBook 8440w

It's spelled out in the w suffix: HP considers its EliteBook 8440w to be not just a notebook computer but a full-fledged workstation, carrying ISV (independent software vendor) certifications for demanding CAD, engineering, and scientific applications and packing professional-grade Nvidia Quadro FX 380M graphics.

We've seen mobile workstations before, but they've almost always been luggables rather than laptops -- hefty systems with 17-inch or larger screens to show off design or rendering software. The 8440w is truly portable -- a tad under six pounds, with a screen measuring just 14 inches diagonally.

According to HP, the paradox is by popular demand: Design pros asked for a workstation that packed plenty of power when deskbound with a couple of monitors at a docking station, but that could be carried easily enough to show work at a client's site or conference room. And though the EliteBook's screen is small(ish), its resolution is high -- 1,600 by 900 bright, sharp, eye-pleasing pixels, enough to give the 512MB Quadro FX adapter a workout.

The machine's no skinny mini, either. Chunky for a 14-inch notebook, the EliteBook series is HP's business-rugged line, with features ranging from a 3D accelerometer that parks the hard drive in the event of a fall to a spill-resistant keyboard with drain channels, all wrapped up in a magnesium-alloy chassis with a magnesium/aluminum display enclosure that's rated to withstand 300 pounds of pressure without damaging the LCD. We didn't administer any torture tests, but we gave the 8440w a few friendly jolts and accidentally stepped on its closed lid with no ill effects.

A Fully Loaded Laptop PC

The EliteBook 8440w costs $1,649 as tested. That high-end price gets you a high-end Intel CPU -- the Core i7-620M, a dual-core, four-thread processor that runs at 2.66GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.33GHz, with two 256K Level 2 caches and 4MB of shared Level 3 cache. It's matched with 4GB of DDR3/1333 memory; a Seagate 320GB, 7,200-rpm hard disk; and a LightScribe DVD±RW drive.

On the system's left side are three USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port, headphone and microphone jacks, and an ExpressCard slot. At the right are modem and Ethernet ports and a combo eSATA/USB port; DisplayPort and VGA video outputs are at the rear. There's an SD/MMC flash-card slot up front and both Bluetooth and 802.11a/g/n wireless under the hood.

The keyboard has a first-class layout, with dedicated Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys and with Ctrl and Delete keys in their respective proper corners at bottom left and top right, and a good typing feel, with one quirk: Our test unit's space bar needed a firm tap instead of our usual thumb flick, so during our first hour we kept omitting spaces between words until we learned to give the bar a good smack. The keyboard isn't backlit, but there's a cute little lamp that shines down, ThinkPad-style, from the bezel above the screen for typing in dim light.

Another ThinkPad-like feature is the presence of two cursor controllers, a mini-joystick or pointing stick between the G and H keys and a touchpad in the palm rest, with left and right mouse buttons for each. Both work smoothly, though the touchpad is somewhat squat and small (and its buttons, hinged at the top, need to be pressed in the middle or at the bottom, not at the top, for mouse clicks to register).

If we had a grumble or two about the EliteBook's keyboard, we had no complaints with its battery life. The nine-cell battery pack protrudes slightly from the system's rear; built to last through more recharge/discharge cycles than the average laptop battery, it's covered by the system's three-year warranty. We saw four hours and 20 minutes of DVD viewing and averaged five hours, plus or minus 10 minutes, of mixed software installation, Web surfing, and word processing.

Serious Speed

It's no quad-core screamer, but the 8440w isn't far from the top of the notebook performance charts, either. Our test system racked up a score of 6,948 in PCMark Vantage; rendered Cinebench R10's sample scene in a swift 94 seconds; and managed 8.2 frames per second in R11.5's tough OpenGL animation. At its native 1,600 by 900 resolution, it posted a 3DMark06 score of 3,050 and posted 6.7 fps in Unigine's formidable Heaven 2.0 benchmark.

Preinstalled software includes SkyRoom, a videoconferencing platform that lets up to four people on an office network or VPN not only see and speak with one another but share an application screen; HP sells it starting at $149 per seat, but it's free with the EliteBook. HP Power Assistant is a handy utility that lets you switch among and see the effects of different power schemes, unchecking boxes to turn off features such as Bluetooth or Aero when you're desperate for those last few minutes of battery life.

It's not cheap, but the EliteBook 8440w has one of the highest power-to-portability ratios we've encountered in many years of laptop testing. Indeed, its potent CPU and GPU and high-resolution screen make it the mightiest 14-inch laptop we've ever tested, and its battery life impresses as well. If you crave entry- to mid-level workstation muscle in a package more portable than you thought possible, check it out.