HP EliteBook Folio 9470m Ultrabook Review: Ultrabooks in Enterprise
by Dustin Sklavos on March 29, 2013 12:01 AM ESTSystem Performance
At this point in Ivy Bridge's life, performance is a fairly known quantity. I'm kind of curious to tease out the differences between the newer (and very similar) Intel Core i5-3337U with the older i5-3427U, and thankfully I can do exactly that. HP's EliteBook Folio 9470m should be ever so slightly faster than the Dell XPS 13 due to its higher turbo clock, but we'll see how that works out.
As a general rule, the 9470m's i5-3427U is ever-so-slightly faster than the XPS 13's i5-3337U. It's consistent (excepting the Cinebench single-threaded performance), but it's there. That said, it's still pretty negligible, and again I would find it difficult to recommend upgrading to an i7.
Interestingly but unsurprisingly, the Folio's missing second memory channel (due to only one of the DIMM slots being populated) has a consistent effect on the HD 4000 IGP's performance, taking about 10% of its performance off of the table. For enterprise users, the HD 4000's performance shouldn't be a big deal, but if you're interested in getting a little extra zazz out of it, install a second DIMM.
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juampavalverde - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
The thing is: a 1300 usd ultrabook with that screen? go home hp. People, please, refuse to buy this, refuse to review it, sent this company back to the design board, this cant posible, c'mon, a thinkpad t60 from something like 8 years ago had a 1400x1050 display on 14" and this "premium enterprise laptop" just hd and 1600x900 as an option... goddamitmeacupla - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
It's also kinda big and heavy to be a proper "ultra"book.At first, I thought the photo was badly done, but I guess that's how crappy the screen really is on this thing.
Did HP throw in the towel? They seem to not care that the competition, like asus, dell, MS offering some pretty damn good ultrabooks and convertibles for $900~1300?
StrangerGuy - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
$1300 for a crappy 768p TN and a measly 1 year warranty.And Intel wonders why their darling isn't selling. Besides do people even want to pay premium prices for premium PCs to begin with? The ASP of ~$400 suggests not.
Silma - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
PC manufacturers cry themselves to sleep over low demand and tight margins and market shares lost to tablet but after years of crisis they are still incapable of assembling a decent PC, still thinking that choosing super bad parts such as panels of outdated TN technology with ultra low resolution crappy colors and brightness is just the right thing to put in an overpriced "enterprise" super premium priced notebook.No Wonder customers are loosing faith.
StrangerGuy - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
I wouldn't put all the blame on the OEMs, the whole industry is to blame for its own undoing. They thought they were innovating with oh-so-many Core whatever SKUs when in reality they are only selling Internet and Excel appliances that people only bought because there was no alternative.Then smartphones and tablets happened.
DanNeely - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
Your typical enterprise notebook is docked and using external displays 95% of the time; while still annoying when unlocked this is less of a problem than with a similar consumer model.On the price front, the docking port itself probably has at least $100 of soak the businessmen surcharge.
cknobman - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
This laptop is a f_cking joke and disgrace. And Intel wonders why people are not jumping on the "ultrabook" bandwagon.Only thing ultra about this laptop is ultra"sh!tty".
Stephen Owen - Tuesday, September 17, 2013 - link
I disagree. Put a 1080p (or higher) IPS display on this thing and it would be a dream.Well, it IS exceptionally loud. I've got one next to my mammoth Latitude e6510. I literally can't hear my typing over the scream of its turbines. I think the laptop is about to begin hovering, in fact.
bhima - Friday, March 29, 2013 - link
Agreed. I paid under $1000 for basically the same spec'd Samsung Series 9 (smaller hard drive, only 128gb) and it has a fantastic 1600x900 screen that is quite bright and the light is well distributed with good viewing angles plus its thinner than a razor's edge.tomrocksalot - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
Ah yes I was in the same situation... and I bought the 9470m... second hand admittedly and upgraded it.My HP has the following benefits over a series 9 (which I was otherwise going to buy)
8GB ram, 256 SSD, 1600x900 display, 1TB hdd, loads of ports and other features the series 9 does not have. Screen is larger at 14",( is it a pro is it a con???)
If I bought a series 9 I would be lugging around an external HDD and dongles which kills the whole size difference IMHO.