HP 15.6" Full HD i7 TouchSmart Ultrabook

[k87]

@sdc100

What a weird computer … I’ve never seen a model combine so many cutting edge features with such a bad CPU. On the plus side, we have an IPS touchscreen, Thunderbolt port, Beats audio and SSD. But the entire computer is driven by a PUNY i7-3517U, which has a very low Passmark of 3743. That’s i5 territory, and about half of most i7 laptops I’ve seen. For example, Woot recently had the Toshiba P875-S7102 with an i7-3630QM (Passmark 7758) for about $500. This has nice window dressing, the innards are on par with a $320 laptop.

ps - I’m so shocked by the low Passmark score that I suspect it’s a typo on someone’s part.

I can’t justify buying it but I thank HP from the bottom of my heart for moving on from the 1366x768 resolution.

[gak0090]

@sdc100

What a weird computer … I’ve never seen a model combine so many cutting edge features with such a bad CPU. On the plus side, we have an IPS touchscreen, Thunderbolt port, Beats audio and SSD. But the entire computer is driven by a PUNY i7-3517U, which has a very low Passmark of 3743. That’s i5 territory, and about half of most i7 laptops I’ve seen. For example, Woot recently had the Toshiba P875-S7102 with an i7-3630QM (Passmark 7758) for about $500. This has nice window dressing, the innards are on par with a $320 laptop.

ps - I’m so shocked by the low Passmark score that I suspect it’s a typo on someone’s part.

No typo. For ultrabooks they generally use low voltage processors. The passmark achieved with this processor is almost the same as the I5-3230m…but the I7 gets there on 17 watts, while the I5 needs 35 watts. This processor is still a decent performer especially in the ultrabook class.

edit: The I7-3630QM has a TDP of 45 watts, it would never find itself into an ultrabook.

[gak0090]

Woot has actually discovered the HP chupacabra (I’ve been watching millionaire matchmaker too long).

It seems that HP engineers actually sat down and thought about a design, instead of just randomly throwing a bunch of components together. Its got a decent processor low voltage I7, 8GB ram, touch, 1920x1080, IPS, SSD cache all in a slim light 15.6" package that looks pretty sweet.

Woot is selling it for $700 which is actually a pretty good deal.

[ThunderThighs]

@greyday

Plus the “tech” specs on that page aren’t overly technical. I sort of assumed they were just saying “hey, casual user, it’s SATA!”. Which is really not even necessary to say.

I think a lot use SATA to reference hard drives because HD has taken on a new meaning - high def - e.g. 750GB SATA.

[bartdog]

how about that battery?

[gak0090]

@bartdog

how about that battery?

Battery life is typical for a Windows laptop at about 3.5 hours for continuous use (after reading a bunch of reviews). Although intermittent use is pretty good with Intel rapid start technology and the SSD cache- it switches on pretty fast (so you can put to sleep to conserve battery). Bottom line is when you go with these slim form factors, it means smaller battery- so even though the components are quite efficient the battery gets shrunk to the point where the run time ends up being the same as a regular laptop.

[shaggyshaw]

Trying to find out if all components are compatible with Mac OS X. It would be a pretty good deal if it could be turned into a hackintosh.

[dpuett]

@greyday

Can you post a link to this? I find it incredibly hard to believe that a modern laptop would be operating at sata2 specs, much less sata1…

@sdc100

I think it’s an erroneous omission on HP’s part. If you look at pg 10 the manual, it states that the SSD uses a SATA3 interface. Before that, it indicates that the HDD uses “SATA.” My guess is that it left out the “3” by mistake. After all, I don’t think it’s possible to have different interfaces for the HDD and SDD using the same hard drive controller.

@sdc100

I’m pretty sure the HDD uses SATA3. If you look at pg 10 of the manual, you’d see that the SSD uses SATA3. One drive controller cannot run SATA1 simultaneously with SATA3 so both must be SATA3.

@greyday

Plus the “tech” specs on that page aren’t overly technical. I sort of assumed they were just saying “hey, casual user, it’s SATA!”. Which is really not even necessary to say.

I thought the same things. Unfortunately, the hard drive uses SATA1.

Here’s the manual. http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03572829.pdf On page 2, the hard drive is listed as SATA while the mSATA is listed as SATA3.

Keep in mind, the 32GB mSATA isn’t being used as a “hard drive.” It is being used as a cache drive. Smart Response Technology - Wikipedia So it doesn’t use the same controller chip as the hard drive.

If you go to page 79 of the same doc mentioned above, the hard drive transfer speed is listed as 1.1 GB/sec. I actually think that is a typo instead of 1.1Gb/sec. But it matches SATA transfer speeds.

It looks like HP is using a cheaper chip for the hard drive controller and SATA3 for the caching mSATA drive through the Z68 chipset.

It is possible to swap out the mSATA drive to a 256GB mSATA drive and use just that drive as the boot drive. That would give full SATA3 speed to the storage and increase battery life almost an hour due to removing the spinning drive. However, I wanted to replace the hard drive with an SSD I already have but I’m not going to hamstring it with SATA1 speeds.

I think $850 is a steal for this laptop (laptop & warranty) but not if I have to add another $200 for a 256GB mSATA drive.

[gak0090]

@dpuett

I thought the same things. Unfortunately, the hard drive uses SATA.

Here’s the manual. http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c03572829.pdf On page 2, the hard drive is listed as SATA while the mSATA is listed as SATA3.

Keep in mind, the 32GB mSATA isn’t being used as a “hard drive.” It is being used as a cache drive. Smart Response Technology - Wikipedia

If you go to page 79 of the same doc mentioned above, the hard drive transfer speed is listed as 1.1 GB/sec. I actually think that is a typo instead of 1.1Gb/sec. But it matches SATA transfer speeds.

It looks like HP is using a cheaper chip for the hard drive controller and SATA3 for the caching mSATA drive through the Z68 chipset.

It is possible to swap out the mSATA drive to a 256GB mSATA drive and use just that drive as the boot drive. That would give full SATA3 speed to the storage and increase battery life almost an hour due to removing the spinning drive. However, I wanted to replace the hard drive with an SSD I already have but I’m not going to hamstring it with SATA1 speeds.

I’m still not sure that the HD is plain SATA though. The chipset in the MB is HM77 that has SATA II, SATA III.

I’m more prone to believe that they made an error on their transfer rates, than thinking they had a way to get SATA I out of this chipset.

Intel Support

[dpuett]

@gak0090

I’m still not sure that the HD is plain SATA though. The chipset in the MB is HM77 that has SATA II, SATA III.

I’m more prone to believe that they made an error on their transfer rates, than thinking they had a way to get SATA I out of this chipset.

Intel Support

The reviewer at amazon stated that the hard drive uses SATA2, so the controller could be SATA2 while HP uses an older 5400 rpm drive with SATA1.

I guess that could be true. However, SATA2 still hamstrings SSD transfer rates. So my 256GB SSD will not get its 500 MB/sec read and write speeds but less than half that.

Believe me, I wish I was wrong and someone could prove this uses SATA3 for the hard drive. I’d buy one in a heartbeat. It is very tough finding a laptop with a DisplayPort for $700.

[adr5]

They are getting warmer. If this had a Haswell chip and a decent video card, I would have jumped on it.

[daffy4u]

@dpuett

Believe me, I wish I was wrong and someone could prove this uses SATA3 for the hard drive. I’d buy one in a heartbeat. It is very tough finding a laptop with a DisplayPort for $700.

Since I own this laptop maybe I can help. How would I go about checking?

My Belarc Advisor report lists the following chipsets:

Intel(R) Mobile Express Chipset SATA RAID Controller
Microsoft Storage Spaces Controller
Intel(R) 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1E26
Intel(R) 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller - 1E2D
Intel(R) USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller - 0100 (Microsoft)

BTW, I believe this model is about a year old, so it is behind on some specs. I really needed a Windows machine with a Thunderbolt port and this was the best of the current bunch (about a month ago anyway) without jumping up to a gaming laptop.

I have my eye on the new HP zBook with Haswell.

[gak0090]

@dpuett

The reviewer at amazon stated that the hard drive uses SATA2, so the controller could be SATA2 while HP uses an older 5400 rpm drive with SATA1.

I guess that could be true. However, SATA2 still hamstrings SSD transfer rates. So my 256GB SSD will not get its 500 MB/sec read and write speeds but less than half that.

Believe me, I wish I was wrong and someone could prove this uses SATA3 for the hard drive. I’d buy one in a heartbeat. It is very tough finding a laptop with a DisplayPort for $700.

That makes sense that the HD is actually SATA I plugged into a SATA II port and that the tranfer specs are based on the HD specs not on the laptop specs

I saw a review on Amazon that said the mSATA was SATA III (where the SSD cache is attached) while the HD is attached to SATA II. Read this review, this guy was able to upgrade using the mSATA

http://www.amazon.com/review/RI75E9MW9Q6R7/ref=cm_srch_res_rtr_alt_3

compatible msata SSD
http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=4834E667A5CA7304

[draigun]

Guess my post didn’t go through. But, Woot! This is the fifth touch screen laptop deal in the last nine days. Let’s get some variety again!