Nx8220 : Any Infos About It ?

[chrispz]

I'd like to know if there are some nx8220 owners out here!
I've seen the model with PM 740 - 80 Gb HD( 5400rpm ) - 1 Gb Ram ( 400 Mhz) -
What about the built quality of the chassis?Is it magmesium ?
Is it firm or it flex holding the lap on the edge?
And the screen quality?

Pleese help me with any impression or information or review of this notebook... it seems there aren't any owners ... but it seems really cool!

Thanx , bye!

[Tommi]

Features here:
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en...-12115178.html

Have a look at quickspecs here:
http://h18002.www1.hp.com/products/q...12139_div.HTML

The chassis is combination of reinforced composite material with in-mould laminate.

[minijohn]

Chrispz,
I have an nx8220, with the same specs as you are looking at. I don't know what the chassis is made of, but everything is very solid, and there is no flex if you lift it up by a front corner even with the lid open. The only bit that I would say is a bit rough as far as fit and finish goes is the LED's on the front edge of the laptop are not quite flush with the rest of the case, so when typing, it can sometimes feel a bit rough on your arm.

The screen quality is very good, although it took me a week or so to get used to the high res! I had an Asus z71v for a couple of hours (it cooked itself twice, so hence the HP), and I did notice what some people refer to as 'sparkle effect' on the Asus, but the HP has none of that - it's very clear. There are absolutely no pixel anomalies on my screen either, which I am really pleased about (I checked with Dead Pixel Buddy). The screen is not of the glossy type like Sony's but it seems to have a bit more of a sheen to it than a standard screen. There are no problems with reflections or anything like that with it.

Overall I am really pleased with the HP, and I am very impressed with the battery life - around 4-4.5hrs with light use and the ambient light sensor enabled. I got a free travel battery for mine (through an HP promotion, although I think that has ended now), and I can get over 7hrs on one charge!

If you have any other questions, ask away and I will do my best to answer, but please be aware that I do not game, so can't give any fps figures for this game or that.

Hope this helps,
Regards,
John.

[chrispz]

Thanx for the help,
so u have a sxga+ on your lcd, isn't it?
I thought it was a wxga... but if u increase de dpi maybe is better...
I think is quite difficoult to read textes with sxga+ or programming...
I'm not a gamer too, I'll use it above all for light 3d design, and for computing stuff , like C C++...and, even if the ddr aren't ddr2, i think it's quite powerfull for taht kind of job... so what about performances?

But the main question is: How about the weight, is quite light to travel around?
I move a lot, and it seemed to me to be really "mobile"...
Otherwise i check a dell d610 with 14" but it's only half kilo less..
Maybe i'll send u other questions.. u're my saver...

Thanx a lot, bye Chris

[minijohn]

Hi Chris,
Yes - the screen is a WSXGA+ (1680x1050) and it's easy enough to increase the dpi if you find the text a bit small. It took me about a week to get used to it coming from a 1024x768 screen, but I have no problems with it now.

I find the performance more than adequate even when on battery for things like Photoshop Elements 3 - when I make edits on the photos the effects can be seen instantly. I have also been playing around a bit with a house design program (Punch Professional Home Design), and with a 2D view and a 3D view open, you can instantly see the effect of the changes you make, and the 3D walk-through is almost too quick!

In terms of weight, it is 2.9kg without the traveel battery, and 3.4kg with it. I move it all around the house and it's easily carry-able in one hand. I have a Tech-Air backpack which I carry it about in when I'm out and about, and you hardly know it's there. The power brick is also small and light.

Edit: To give you an idea of performance, Super Pi ran 2M calculation in 1m33s.

Hope this helps,
John

[chrispz]

Originally Posted by minijohn

Hi Chris,
Yes - the screen is a WSXGA+ (1680x1050) and it's easy enough to increase the dpi if you find the text a bit small. It took me about a week to get used to it coming from a 1024x768 screen, but I have no problems with it now.

I find the performance more than adequate even when on battery for things like Photoshop Elements 3 - when I make edits on the photos the effects can be seen instantly. I have also been playing around a bit with a house design program (Punch Professional Home Design), and with a 2D view and a 3D view open, you can instantly see the effect of the changes you make, and the 3D walk-through is almost too quick!

In terms of weight, it is 2.9kg without the traveel battery, and 3.4kg with it. I move it all around the house and it's easily carry-able in one hand. I have a Tech-Air backpack which I carry it about in when I'm out and about, and you hardly know it's there. The power brick is also small and light.

Edit: To give you an idea of performance, Super Pi ran 2M calculation in 1m33s.

Hope this helps,
John

Hi john,
another question.. your my source of infos
If u press - in a strong way- the lid behind the lcd can you notice any deformation or "bubble" on the lcd?
U know that some laps suffers ot this problem....
Thanx

[minijohn]

Hi Chris,
When you press on the back of the LCD there is a bit of distortion, but you have to press really quite hard to get it. If you are carrying it around in a decent laptop bag, you should have no problems with damaging the LCD.

[Tommi]

Originally Posted by minijohn

Hi Chris,
When you press on the back of the LCD there is a bit of distortion, but you have to press really quite hard to get it. If you are carrying it around in a decent laptop bag, you should have no problems with damaging the LCD.

Yeah, I can get the bubble also on my nw8240. The older nw8000 was apparently more well protected, since I couldn't make bubbles on ts screen.

[chrispz]

Originally Posted by minijohn

Hi Chris,
When you press on the back of the LCD there is a bit of distortion, but you have to press really quite hard to get it. If you are carrying it around in a decent laptop bag, you should have no problems with damaging the LCD.

Ok, John, i took my decisione : in two days i'll buy it... it seems really better than the dell latitude d810, and more or less better than its little brother "latitude d610"...just curious: have u noticed some problem with the fan? ( too loud, not workin' properly.. etc..)
Which utlities do u guess to use ( when the lap will arrive) to check that everything is ok? ( i mean, dead pixs, battery life, lcd luminosity, lap temperature... etc) Any ideas? ( also from tommi, the hp business laps' expert )

today i saw, reading other threads, some problems occured with this lap:

1) "My NX8220 has only 1 Primary IDE Controller that the DVDRW & HDD is connected to. I'm getting performance problems when trying to write to DVD media on this drive. The buffers just continuously just from 5% to 99% throughout the entire burn. The read buffers also constantly drops to 0% and then slowly climbs back up. This happens when burning onto 2.4X +R media, imaging trying to burn to 4X -R media, I'm sure it'll take over 1hr to burn since it'll continuously get buffer underrun problems."

2) "the high pitch noise from the left-side of the machine while running on battery"

Any experience about theese problems?
It would be important to know if it's a common hp nx8220 problem...

Thanx in advance,
Bye Chris


Bye bye

[minijohn]

Hi Chris
When I got my laptop the one of the first things I did was run Dead Pixel Buddy, which is a small program which will display all the primary colours on your whole screen, as well as black and white - it makes any stuck, dead or bright pixels easier to see. For battery life, most people seem to use a DVD to see how long they can watch for. Not sure about temps and lcd luminosity - the screen is easily bright enough for me, so I don't really see a need to measure it! I have no problems with the fan - it is on at a very low speed a lot of the time, but it's pretty quiet even when running flat out.

With regards the other threads, a single IDE controller is a 'feeature' of all Sonoma based laptops - it's part of the Intel chipset spec, so no other similarly equipped laptop will be any different, save the very few that use a SATA hard drive. I have had no issues with burning discs - a full CD took around 10 minutes to burn.

I don't have any high pitched noise from the laptop when running on battery (if it had it, I'd notice, as I am sensitive to that kind of noise - sometimes flourescent lights drive me mad as they emit a high pitched noise, plus I have been using the laptop almost exclusively on battery)

Glad to hear you've made your decision - I'm sure you will be very happy with it,
Regards,
John

[knight01]

Originally Posted by chrispz

today i saw, reading other threads, some problems occured with this lap:

1) "My NX8220 has only 1 Primary IDE Controller that the DVDRW & HDD is connected to. I'm getting performance problems when trying to write to DVD media on this drive. The buffers just continuously just from 5% to 99% throughout the entire burn. The read buffers also constantly drops to 0% and then slowly climbs back up. This happens when burning onto 2.4X +R media, imaging trying to burn to 4X -R media, I'm sure it'll take over 1hr to burn since it'll continuously get buffer underrun problems."

2) "the high pitch noise from the left-side of the machine while running on battery"

Any experience about theese problems?
It would be important to know if it's a common hp nx8220 problem...

Thanx in advance,
Bye Chris

Bye bye

I purchased this laptop few weeks ago and had the same buzzing problem while on battery. The buzzing would start when browsing the net or when moving the mouse, It got louder gradually.
I contacted HP support the day I got it and they said it could be the CPU or the graphics card frequency problem caused by intel Speedstep and could cause problems with these components later-on if I decided to keep the laptop. I got it replaced from the place I got it from and the replacement had the same problem, I returned it for a refund.
I'll wait until HP and Intel sort out the problem with their "915 PCI express chipset and Intel Speedstep" before I consider buying another. Newer Dell's seem to be having the same problem with these chipsets.

Didn't try burning any CD' or DVD's so I'm not aware of the other problem.

HTH

[chrispz]

Hi john,
I'm really satisfied with this lap!!!!
I thought to have a 128 Mb X600, and i found a 64 Mb X600...anyway, not a big problem...
I checked my Hd and i saw only 75Gb... do u know why?
Is it already partitioned and where i've to look for the remaining "hidden" 5Gb?
Finally i didn't notice any noise... but i have to wait a couple of weeks.... just to test this point...

Great great machine!!
Greetings,

Chris

[Cutie]

Hi everybody,

HP sells this laptop in France for € 1,449.- for students only. (http://bd.educnet.education.fr/mipe/recherche.php?id=32)

The nw8240 is also sold at € 2.099.- but too expensive for me...

My about the 8220 are those :
- Altough 8220 and 8240 are part of the same serie, it seems that the chassis is not the same. Magnesium for 8240 and composite for 8220. What's the difference ? Is it a bad thing for robustness ?
- How many time does the battery last during different uses ? (DivX, work only, or games) => answered after reading the thread
- What's the reference of the 60 GB disk ? That's the one sold in France.
- Is the memory in two 256 MB, or 1*512 MB ?
- The model sold in France has a resolution of 1200 x 800 (WXGA) : poor resolution for such a screen. Do you think it'll be uncomfortable ?
- Is the graphic card interchangeable ?
- Is it a Sonoma ? =>answered after reading the thread

Thanks !
With regards,
Florian

[Tommi]

I've read some nx8220 users complaining things about the build quality that I have not seen on nw8240. HP's pages, indeed, would hint that nx8220 is not built of the same material as nw8240, just like you said.

60 GB disk is 5400 or 7200 rpm (most likely the lower one).

Memory is most likely 2x256 MB in that model (I guess it is PG801ET).

WXGA is still rather comfortable resolution, but WSXGA+ is much better for Photoshopping and other tasks that require a lot of space. At least it's higher than XGA.

The graphics card is not interchangeable. (There's nothing that would indicate that it would be.)

[Cutie]

Tommi,

Thank you for your answer.

The chassis feedbacks you've heard from 8220 users seem to confirm hypothesis I've made before.
Anyway, the overall build quality seems to be very good, based on feedbacks I've read here, and on french forums.

For the memory, your initial post said 1*512, but your edit confirm that it's 2*256, as french users confirmed it. But, how did you guess it ?!

For the model, the exact as shown on HP website (http://h41149.www4.hp.com/article?p=...PG802ETEDU_Top) is BPG802ETEDU (EDU=education).

For the resolution, yeah, it's still a good resolution, but what a pity to implement this screen when you see 8240 one

For the graphic card, I thought that it'll be cheaper to conceive a single PCI Express mobo and to build several models (8220 and 8240) based upon the same, and change the GPU... Anyway, we have to wait for someone to open the baby

Thank you !

With regards,
Florian