8530w P8400 15.4 2048/160 PC

by HP

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 14 x 1.1 inches ; 10.2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 10.2 pounds
• ASIN: B001G1QIUI
• Item model number: KS054UT#ABA
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #235,834 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: March 26, 2009

Product Description

HP Smartbuy 8530w P8400 15.4 2048/160 PC HP Promo 8530w P8400 2.2GHz 160GB hard drive 2GB memory 15.4" WSXGA+ DVD drive 802.11a/b/g/n Windows Vista Business or XP Professional 3-3-3 U.S.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I LOVE this laptop!, May 26, 2009

By 

Carol Logan Newbill (Birmingham, AL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

I am a website and graphic designer. For various reasons I prefer to do most of my work on a laptop rather than a desktop computer. My 2½-year-old Thinkpad T60 was beginning to groan under the strain -- it overheated constantly and began shutting down at unpredictable intervals, more than once causing me to lose work. Definitely, I said to myself, it's time for something new.

I researched carefully for several months before deciding on the 8530w. After a number of hardware problems with the T60 (two new keyboards, two new power supplies, new modem card, new power plug on the motherboard), I didn't think I wanted another Lenovo. I did want a machine built like a tank. I wanted a 15.4 inch, high res antiglare screen. I insisted on XP Pro. This one had all I needed and the price was excellent.

Shipping was fast and the machine was in perfect shape when I unpacked it. It took a day or so to load my software and set it up, and then I took off. It is perfect for my needs. The keys feel responsive and tight. The case is built to meet military standard MIL-STD 810F tests -- i.e., "built like a tank." Battery life is very good, with between 3 and 3½ hours on a full charge, even when running at full steam with the screen brightness all the way up. If I am running several heavy-memory programs at once the cooling fan does come on. It's noticeable in a quiet room, but not obtrusive. Better that than a warped keyboard and random shutdowns.

Other nice touches: A built-in LED keyboard light at the top of the screen. Touch a button and the light pops open, allowing you to type in a dimly-lighted room without turning on a room light and disturbing your partner. I also love the touch-sensitive strip at the top of the keyboard: you can turn on or off the wifi and sound with a simple touch. The strip also contains a volume control -- just brush your finger left to right to turn up the sound, right to left to turn it down. Too cool!

Cons? It is HEAVY. The solid case and drive guard add a lot of weight, and the power brick could be adequately described as a power anchor. Together the two add eight pounds to your laptop bag. A gym membership will not come amiss with this thing. Fortunately, I don't have to carry it around that much.

One other minor annoyance is that the lefthand shift and control keys are quite fussy about touch position. The keyboard is a little wider than the T60's, and if I don't pay attention I find that in fast typing I hit those two keys off center and the pressure does not activate the key. I've been spending a lot of time editing letters that should have been capitalized, and quite often I'll end up with a "v" instead of pasted text when the Ctrl key did not activate.

One last minor problem: The 8530w comes with HP Protect Security Suite (fingerprint sensor and other ways to lock the machine from unauthorized use). During setup, this kept recirculating every half hour and insisting that I set up my fingerprint ID, despite the fact that I had done so at the beginning. This can be remedied, according to HP Support, by doing something extremely scary to the BIOS. I uninstalled the software instead. The Windows password is security enough for my purposes.

All in all, I love this machine. Three-year warranty, beautiful graphics, true color screen, enough computing power to handle all my heavy applications at once without gasping for breath. I *highly* recommend it.

5.0 out of 5 stars The best mobile workstation/gaming laptop ever, May 8, 2011

By 

Igor (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 8530w P8400 15.4 2048/160 PC (Electronics)

I bought this laptop 2 years ago to use for my Graduate School and as my main home/entertainment/gaming computer. It came with the following specs:

* Intel P8600 2.4GHz Processor,

* 4 GB of Ram,

* 320 GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive,

* ATI Radeon HD 3650 Graphics,

* Widescreen 1280x800 anti-glare display,

* LightScribe DVD+/-RW

The body of the laptop is made of aluminum and hard plastic with a very rigid magnesium alloy inner frame. This thing is built like a tank and looks like it can stop a bullet. It is absolutely unbendable and practically unscratchable. At the same time it is not too heavy - a little over 6 lb. It also looks very cool - very like a Macbook Pro. There are no reflective or glossy parts anywhere, so it is easy to keep the laptop clean.

I installed Windows 7 Pro x64, MS Office Pro 2010, Firefox 4, Adobe CS5, Becker CPA Review Software, Avast Antivirus, and several other productivity programs. The system is very stable - I have never had any problem.

I usually keep a dozen Firefox tabs and Office documents open, Windows Media Player playing music, and also work with Adobe or Becker. No sweat. The application performance is very good thanks to the fast processor and speedy 7k HDD. Adobe Suit of course is a resource hog but still works reasonably fast on this computer.

I also installed Crysis, Left 4 Dead, SC2, Bishock, and several other games. All the games (except Crysis) run smoothly on medium settings at the native screen resolution. Crysis is playable on low settings only. Older games like Warcraft 3 run on the highest settings. The laptop does not get too hot and the fan is quiet.

The battery easily lasts 4 hrs when browsing Internet and working with the Office and/or Becker with Wi-Fi on and the screen on medium brightness. So, I think that performance of ATI Radeon HD 3650 is a good compromise between the power and mobility.

The screen is perfect for office/school work and gaming. It is bright, non-reflective and has good contrast. The resolution of 1280x800 is also very suitable for these tasks. The higher resolution would make text appear too small and would not let newer games to be playable in the native resolution. However, as an avid photographer, I would like to have more resolution to work with my pictures.

There is a high resolution (2mp) Web camera and a very good built-in microphone. So, Skype is pleasure to use. The built-in speakers are good and clear, though I usually use external speakers or headphones.

The illuminated keyboard (there is a very cool built-in light) is very comfortable and quiet - one of the best I have ever used. I like the touchpad too - it is very responsive with the soft and quiet buttons. There is an amazingly accurate pointstick - IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad style - with its own dedicated buttons. There are several touch-sensitive media buttons above the keyboard: Info, WiFi Toggle, Presentation Mode, Sound Volume and Mute. Very sleek. The fingerprint reader adds security.

There are lots of connectivity options here:

* Docking port on the bottom - extremely convenient, I use it every day to connect the laptop to a docking station.

* A/B/G/N Wireless LAN which works flawlessly with my campus network,

* 10/100/1000 NIC port - use it to connect to a DSL modem at home

* Bluetooth 2.0 EDR - often use it to connect the computer to my cell phone,

* 56k modem - used once when I took the laptop to Ukraine,

* 4x USB 2.0 ports,

* Very fast ESATA port - use it for back-ups with my external HDD,

* 1394 Firewire port - never used it,

* 1x Headphone out + 1x Microphone in

* HDMI port - connect it to my big HDTV

* VGA out - used it several times to connect the laptop to a projector during presentations

* SD/MS/Pro-MMC Card Reader - use it a lot to transfer pictures from my DSLR

* Express card slot + Smart Card slot - never used them

All the ports are located very conveniently with the Power Socket and the VGA on the back, 2 USB and Network on the far left edge, and the rest in the middle of the sides. So, the cables that are most likely to be connected (and the thickest ones) are on the back and do not get in the way. But I use the docking port on the bottom (unique to business laptops) to connect all wires to the dock (and move them all back at the same time) and then connect/disconnect the laptop with a single push on a button. Priceless!

Long story short - I am very satisfied.