HP Compaq nc8000 - Complete Review And Impressions - Page 4

Hi again everyone,

Some benchmarks of my nc8000!

PCMark04: 3305

3DMark03:
2646 with default settings
3127 with moderate overclocking (410/240)
3330 with severe overclocking (440/255)

I believe this is an excellent performance for a 9600 rig. The 440/255 setting runs fine with no artifacts, but the fan is running at max speed and the computer gets rather hot.

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Some update on the computer by itself. I have used it heavily for a month now, so here's my outcome:

What's good:

- The keyboard. After a month of usage, it is a joy to use. The only small downside is that the computer is rather thick, so you need to find a comfortable typing position or your wrists won't be comfortable.
- The performance. The computer is fast enough for me; games, multimedia, video encoding, it can do everything.
- All-in-one box. Two hard disks and a DVD+RW, now that's a pleasant setup.
- Sturdiness. Though there are a few extremely cheap details (the clips of the grey plastic "hubcap" around the trackpad are already broken), the laptop seems solid. Time will tell.

So-so:

- The screen. The SXGA+ is still a little small to me. With the dpi enlarged, it isn't much of an issue, but it's annoying that you can't change the dpi without having to restart the computer. Makes it hard to preview what other people will see on their regular 72dpi screen. Plus, it comes with the resolution interpolation problem (see below) and very average DVD playback. The screen by itself is good; I find the colors to be a little "cold". The contrast, as expected, is rather poor - any CRT beats this screen when it comes to displaying dark pictures. Perhaps my next laptop will be one with a special coating, because the contrast hasn't improved at all from my previous LCD, and that's regrettable. The screen exhibits some leakage on the right. It's wide-angle... for horizontal viewing, but vertical's less good (better than a regular XGA, though).

What's not good:

- Noise. I mean, the fan is on almost all the time, except that it pulsates cold air. This is highly annoying, considering this indicates the computer doesn't need to be cooled.
- Screen resolution issue. When I want to display 640x480 or 800x600, the nc8000 doesn't seem to "interpolate" pixels at all in order to smooth display. This means I'm stuck with something that looks exactly like viewing a picture zoomed 200%. There is absolutely NO interpolation or smoothing whatsoever. HP's support has been, well, completely useless with this issue.
- DVD playback. DVD playback is pathetic in terms of quality; I think this has something to do with the issue above (overlay content doesn't interpolate when enlarged or shrinked).
- USB ports. Only two USB ports! I mean, come on! What was HP thinking?

All in all, my gripes related to this laptop are not really major ones, but it has extremely annoying problems nonetheless. It looks like once again, QA is sleeping on their job.

In short, I am rather satisfied -- mainly because this computer has no competitor that I know of, so I was kind of forced to take the nc8000 to match my requirements as close as possible.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments!

- Robin

The problem is that the LCD doesn't interpolate; it simply enlarges.

Yes, I have tried this but content is tiny with a SXGA+ screen.

The problem with my screen is that it DOESN'T make this interpolation, smoothing and blurring resolutions that are not native. If my LCD did that, I'd be plenty happy with it. The problem is that it just doesn't. This is not your typical LCD resolution problem, and not expected behaviour either.

I had two requirements: three-spindle and 128Mb graphic card. Acer didn't have this, so it went off my list.

Yea, I have a DVD+RW only, but I don't find it to be a major problem since in my opinion, DVDs are becoming proprietary. A DVD-RW won't always read in a "DVD-RW compatible" drive; it's a pain in the neck, too.

This is not much of a problem for me, as I said in the original post. I wish some company would come up with a machine like the Chrom@. This was a superb machine. When I come to think of it, I should have bought it.

I'll rephrase that: for a three-spindle design and a 128Mb video card, it was the only choice. The major point is that the nc8000 had the XGA screen, which was my first choice, but I don't know why, I finally decided to go for SXGA+. It was a semi-mistake.

3-spindle is dying, but by releasing a business-only three-spindle design, hp proves that it is very useful, but as a feature it simply doesn't sell for most people. All they want is design to earn their bragging rights.

It is VERY noticeable on games. I'm going to give you a very precise example so that you have an idea.

Let's take an old game I still play and love, Grim Fandango. It runs at 640x480. Here's how it looks:
http://img24.exs.cx/img24/5854/grim640.png

Now, this is how it looks on my screen:
http://img24.exs.cx/img24/4452/grim1400.png

How did I get this picture? I enlarged the first picture to 1400x1050 with PSP enlargement method set to "Pixel Resize". And what I get is exactly what I see on my screen, which is why my guess is that for some reason, my screen doesn't interpolate at all.

If you can, could you please let me know how it looks on your SXGA+ when the first pic is viewed on fullscreen with a 640x480 resolution?

I'm in Europe. So there's about zero chance to find someone who owns a nc8000, let alone XGA.

The problem with swapping SXGA+ and XGA is that so far no retailer wants to do it for me. I'm a little worried I'll bust my brand-new computer if I do it myself.

Thanks for checking out! That's amazing. Do you mean it looks enlarged and pixellized, like the second pic?

That is downright amazing. On my old XGA, the game looked perfect - well, at least for a LCD screen. It was "smoothed" by an interpolation mechanism in order to look less jagged. Same goes with absolutely all LCD screens I worked with, including a huge Apple Cinema. How come it doesn't occur with a SXGA+?

I'm not sure this is "normal" behaviour at all. I have heard that on UXGA screens, 800x600 looked perfect. However, when I come to think of it, if there's no interpolation at all, 800x600 would look horrible because it would just be an image enlarged 2x. So there has to be some interpolation of some sort.

There's something mysterious here I do not understand.

They did release it, but it's so hard to get one even I had to give up and get one from the USA (especially because I wanted the 128Mb card - gotta love that one - and it isn't available in Europe).

Not quite -- I can get a new panel shipped directly from Compaq here in Europe, but no reseller wants to take the risk to modify the screen. I'd have to do it all by myself. I have zero experience when it comes to swapping screens, and the job is made harder because my Wi-Fi antennas are fixed in the LCD plastic case. I'm scared I'll screw up something badly.

Considering I have to pay 19.6% customs tax on all items coming from the USA, even UK is cheap by comparison

Actually, I'm compromising, it's all I do I guess nothing beats my old laptop that had no flaws at all whatsoever.

Well, I'm trying to determine what is causing this problem. It's rather mysterious. I do not know if the ATI card is the cause here, but it could well be.

Oh, I got used to the resolution, except it seems to come with a couple of problems:

- Since I'm a web designer, I need to know how my clients will view a website. And since I pushed up the dpi to be able to read the screen comfortably, it's a major problem because the only real solution is to lower the dpi... And that requires a restart!
- Gaming indeed. Lower resolutions seem to look better on XGA, and most modern games look perfect with 1024x768. So, basically XGA allows you to run games in native resolution - a very pleasant advantage.
- The screen is a little tiring. XGA is really more relaxing. After all, desktop LCDs are XGA for 15" ones and SXGA for 17" or even 19" ones. This means that XGA is really the ideal resolution for 15"...
- This stupid resolution interpolation stuff.


Well, it isn't only gaming - for website previews or otherwise websites layout, or even using or designing Windows programs (can't enlarge fonts), XGA is better, no doubt. Plus, I'm space-challenged so it's a definite no-no for an external LCD screen.

The added screen estate is nice, though. When will a laptop maker come up with swappable screens? Apple came up with such a prototype a few years ago, but the project was discontinued.

I did. Their advice: "use your screen at native resolution only".

I second that!

Small update: HP Support "confirmed" what a few members told me here. That is to say, the nc8000 SXGA+ screen has no interpolation at all, but it is industry standard for SXGA+ screens.

Now, I'd like someone to explain me how they dare to sell an allegedly high-quality screen if it can't downgrade decently.

Seems like more and more people stick to the same version, so I guess this a "specificity" of SXGA+ LCD screens. I'm half happy about this, though: my computer is not defective, but to me it clearly is, and this means I have no chance whatsoever of getting this screen fixed.

Never see me getting anything bigger than XGA for a long, long time!

Your thinking is interesting marzenta, but I guess it's not a definite answer to the "interpolation" problem. And, yes, I unfortunately have to agree about the CRT part.

My old 1024x768 screen (XGA) scaled very nicely. 640x480 is bearable, and actually rather smooth - the interpolation obviously blurs the image a little, but it's not as poor as my nc8000's SXGA+ that simply has no interpolation at all. So it is possible to have a fair interpolation even if resolutions do not "match".

While we're at it, let's update the thread a little! Basically I am satisfied with my computer, but a few flaws are ruining this otherwise fine laptop:

- The fan. After over 7 months of usage, I am not getting used to this #^\@& fan that turns on at a very noticeable level and that triggers after around 15 minutes and then just never shuts down. The processor runs around 43-50°C, but the fan just never turns off. What the hell HP has been thinking when designing the fan system?
I also use the computer at 600MHz most of the time in order to keep the fan at the lowest possible noise level (which already isn't low) - if I use it at 1.7GHz, the fan keeps throttling - up, and down, then up, then down, then it stucks "up" making more noise than an old vacuum cleaner. Argh! You'll go insane in just a few minutes, trust me. So you have to lower the processor's speed to have a lower fan noise.
The fan issue has got to be the biggest problem of this laptop yet. It's so pleasant to use when this fan is off, so why did they have to put this oh-so-annoying fan? The guy who chose the trigger levels ought to be court-martialed. Oh, and, HP support said it was normal.

- The touchpad. Anything related to the touchpad sucks. The small plastic bevel around it (fixations broke after just a few days of usage) is starting to decolorize. Worse, the touchpad itself is starting to be flimsy - when tapping the touchpad, you can distinctly feel that there is a flex on the bottom left part. Could live with it, frankly, but it makes an unpleasant clicking noise and makes you slowly go insane when combined with that fan noise. AAAAGH!

- The screen. It's bright, if not a little cold, but it has annoying problems. First, the "interpolation" problem that some forumers said to be a general SXGA+ problem. Then, when the screen is shut down when you close the lid, it takes the screen a few seconds to "lit" again, and when it does, Windows noticeably refreshes the screen and it lags the computer for a few seconds. Strange issue - even stranger because the problem doesn't occur when playing games. I've given up trying to fix it.
- DVD playback is less than average. I've given up trying to fix it as well.

In short, the laptop has a few design issues (fan, screen, DVD) - HP should test their computers before releasing them, especially when they are releasing business notebooks. It is possible that the screen issues are in fact tied to the graphic card and not to the screen itself - the ATI 9600 has notoriously crappy drivers.

Without those minor and not-so-minor annoyances, I'd be rather happy with the computer because it's overall sturdy, and the 3-spindle design is just something I can't do without.

However, I am already looking for a replacement because of that annoying fan problem. If anyone knows of a laptop that has about the same features (128Megs graphic card, three-spindle design, sturdiness), but that has the fan turned off when the processor is idle, please let me know!

I did not specifically try to install a Hitachi 7K60, but the nc8000's internal drive is very easy to swap. All you need is the adequate screwdriver.