September 14, 2008 9:09 am GMT
Warning: The HP EliteBook 6930 may resist more than you can
by Gary IllyesTesting notebooks for me can be a pain. Often they get on the operator’s mind in no time with their short battery life, lack of drivers for specific operating systems and the slowness, lack of performance.
I always have a little fear in me when I get a new notebook to test it, how will it be, will it be just another pain or this time a magnificent thing?
The latter this time.
I got a HP Elitebook 6930, HP usually means quality in my country, but there are exceptions, too, unfortunately. The firm which borrowed me the EliteBook told me it has Vista Business preinstalled. I was quite shocked when I saw the XP boot-screen, the notebook came in a sealed box which had on its side written the specification of the notebook, it was stated that the notebook comes with Vista installed, so what happened is very weird.
OK, the first impression: the HP EliteBook 6930 is beautiful. It’s design is very clever, the screen has an anti-glare layer so it’s perfect in (almost) all the situations. My only issue is the aluminum case where you place your hands while writing, it’s frigging cold. It warms up quite fast, but till warms up, it’s very cold.
So, let’s turn the notebook on. I waited for XP to load, the battery was discharged almost completely so I thought to begin some tests before testing the autonomy of the batteries.
As usual, I loaded a HQ (720i) video. The notebook i got has an Intel GMA 4500MHD video card. These cards are not the best for viewing high quality media, because they are designed for mobility not performance. But the movie was rolling smoothly, no issues. I guess this is the result of the extremely high performance processor. This HP EliteBook’s heart is an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor which is working at 2.26 GHz, has 3MB (!) L2 cache, and is a FSB (front side bus) at 1066 MHz.
Next test till I wait the batteries to charge: playing The Elder Scrols: Oblivion. The game loaded quite fast, not as fast as on my desktop PC, but fast enough to not damage my impressions about the EliteBook 6930. Started to play, I expected a good, smooth play, I was wrong. Even though the processor could handle the game and the 2GB of DDR2 RAM working at 800 MHZ is more than enough to play, the poor quality Intel GMA video card is not designed for game-play.
I tried to search for drivers, because my last test for the Acer eMachines e510 gave some real headaches. For this one was very easy, HP has it’s driverbase made accessible for anyone, you can download the drivers for XP and versions of Vista here.
The batteries got charged, so I plugged the power-cord off. XP immediately switched to power saver mode, which i switched back to high performance immediately, and I started to write this article. I started to write it at 9 AM, now is 11:43 AM and the batteries are at 84% charge level. This is weird for me because any notebook I used would discharge in almost 3 hours and this is almost fully charged. So I started to research a bit, because this is very weird. At least for me, of course.
The first result in Google: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2008/080908a.html
This could be the situation in my case, I called the firm which gave me the notebook, it turned out that this particular item *is* configured ultra-capacity battery.
I let the notebook sitting on the desk, with all functions (wireless, camera, etc.) turned on and waited. After 3 hours I returned to see what happened. Nothing, it was still working, charge level at 54%. Another 3 hours passed by and the charge level is still 29%. Amazing.
Now is 8PM and I’m about to finish this review. The review of the HP Elitebook 6930, an awesome choice for everyone who travels with his notebook. Gees, it lasted without issues 12 hours, without special drivers or power saver settings.
methode on Sun, 14th Sep 2008 2:40 pm
AN: As i didn’t get a price for this awesomeness i think it’s not available yet in Europe, at least not with the ultra-capacity battery. I didn’t check it out at the retailers, i just don’t think.
So, should this post be a pre-review?
Anyway, some people from the US HP Support after a short discussion told me that it should last with only batteries about 24 hours ONLY if the hard disk is a special one, the screen is else, the BIOS is updated and the video card’s software is updated. Kinda too much ifs.
The Benq Joybook A52… Should make you happy | Developer Oracles on Sun, 28th Sep 2008 9:54 am
[...] cheap notebook. Since I played a lot with the HP EliteBook I fear a bit to start testing a low-price [...]
Michael T on Fri, 5th Dec 2008 5:11 pm
WARNING – This is one of HP’s worst laptops. All you have to do is a search for hp6930 problems or issues and you will see a laundry list of UNSOLVED and UNTREATABLE errors.
DO NOT BUY this laptop and if you already have, get used to rebooting very often and disabling ALL startup items and quicklaunch buttons.
WORST LAPTOP EVER
Shemp on Thu, 12th Feb 2009 8:51 pm
This is my first HP, and I am having problems with the video card. I notice review stated they tested with playing The Elder Scrols: Oblivion. I load up World of Warcraft, it runs for a little while then ends up locking up the entire PC. If you get it to unlock the game wont launch because it can’t find a suitable display device. I am currently hunting for a better video driver than the one HP has. API doesn’t even have one listed on their site and they make the darn card.
methode on Thu, 12th Feb 2009 9:38 pm
Well, I don’t know what type of ATI card the notebook has because the one we tested had an Intel GMA, maybe you could provide some more information about it and I might find you a driver at our supplier.
I don’t know whether you are aware of this link, but it might be a good idea to download the most up to date video card driver:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=3688870&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=3688868&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=2098#11360
Anyway, for me it sounds like an overheated GPU issue. In this case you should head back to the shop you bought the laptop from. The warranty should cover the change of the malfunctioning GPU
olly on Thu, 26th Mar 2009 8:44 am
you say that its not that good with playing games on,but thats the thing though it is not meant for playing games on,it is a buissness laptop!
Gary Illyes on Thu, 26th Mar 2009 8:53 am
We test notebooks from many points of view, including gaming, because if we do not, users will complain we didn’t look at that particular aspect of the notebook.
Thanks for your comment
Daniel Correa on Mon, 27th Jul 2009 7:03 pm
I receibed my 6930 like 1 month ago, 4 gb Ram and a ATI 3450 Hd video card, i have installed windows 7 and rinnung XP on a virtual machine at the same time. no slowness, or Driver problems. Call of duty 5 and Gears of Wars runs fast. extremely long battery life. (happy)