HP EliteBook: A friend to the User | Hacker News Reader

HP EliteBook: A friend to the User

ifixit.org

56 pointssohkamyung73 comments

This kind of repairability has been a general feature of "enterprise" friendly laptops like ThinkPads and Elitebooks for a while.

I've had an Elitebook 840 for 4 years now, great laptop, very solid, still working well. The repairability is handy for me in two ways.

1) If I want to upgrade/replace the storage I can do that easily, so I was able to upgrade to a 512GB SSD without any problems.

2) As the laptop gets older and the battery inevitably starts to wear down, I can just buy a replacement battery.

All this means a much longer lifespan for my laptop, which is good for me as I like it as an overall device.

Repairability is a good thing. That being said, the 5 year old macbook pro I replaced had way better battery life than the then-new HP 840 G3 I am now using day to day.

Two models I'd like to add to this as examples that this is actually possible with all form factors:

First the The HP Elite X2, a Surface Pro-class tablet. Quite analogous to the EliteBook - sadly the RAM is soldered (IIRC one of their first actually still had a SODIMM slot):

https://ifixit.org/blog/8135/hats-off-to-hps-repairable-tabl...

https://ifixit.org/blog/9309/hp-elite-x2-1012-g2/

And second, the Fujitsu Lifebook U93x. smaller and lighter than most Business-Ultrabooks - almost MacBook 12 size/weight, but still KabyLake U, >10h battery and everything socketed+lots of ports (including USB-A, HDMI, even full size Ethernet!):

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Fujitsu-LifeBook-U937-Core-i5-...

> The HP Elite X2, a Surface Pro-class tablet

This tablet is absolutely fascinating; it turns the "cost of repairability" of a pro-tablet into a material measurement : 100g on 700g (14%).

I wonder, all things being equal (which of course, it's not realistic), what's the impact on the attractiveness to the general (not HN) public. It would be significant even it if would conquer a "solid nieche".

To make an interesting comparison, a 12.3" Elite X2 weighs as a 15" Surface Book 2 (though the latter has a different form factor, while stil being in the pro-tablet category).

(~700g is the standard weight of a "pro-tablet": 12.x inches, without (cover) keyboard)

Indeed, this is something I've wondered myself, since in my experience even 100g does make a big difference in a tablet. But I've come to the conclusion - it's hard to really pinpoint the "cost of repairability".

Taking the numbers:

    IPad Pro 12,9: 692g
    Surface Book 2 13: 719g
    Surface Pro 2017: 770g
    Elite X2 1012 G2: 800g
    Surface Book 2 15: 817g

Of course, the IPad pro shines, and apple certainly are famous for "shaving off every possible gram" - but it's just so different a platform, esp. thermals, that it's hard to make conclusions towards "cost of repairability". The Surface Book 2 tablet modules are light for their size, but I'd say this is primarily bought due to a significantly smaller battery compared to the SP and the Elite (23Wh vs 46/47Wh) - batteries are heavy.

The only devices here realistically comparable IMO would be the Surface Pro and the Elite X2.

But IMO the more interesting device I've posted for this kind of comparison (even though I wouldn't consider +/-100g that critical here as I would with tablets) is the Fujitsu U937, because it's one of the lightest x86 notebooks overall on the market, while still offering competitive specs in all metrics (CPU, RAM, ports, battery size, display size, etc.) and still being easy to repair/upgrade. (Too bad that keyboard and touchpad are rather mediocre :( )

Does anyone know what the story is for running Linux on EliteBooks?

For context, I'm in the market for a slightly older laptop for my daughter. Something that I could maybe pick up on ebay (in the UK) and upgrade some components would be ideal. Would prefer one I can put Linux on.

The Chromebook route turned into a pain when I tried it so I'd like a machine I have some control over.

Thinkpads might be a good option. Linux support is fairly good, especially the older models and the T-Series does have some models with upgradable RAM and battery. (Not the slim T4x0s)

I did have a look at Thinkpads but was somewhat overwhelmed by the number of models. Will have a look at the T series to see what's around. Thanks for the tip.

The W series are workstations. Solid, fast, heavy, expensive.

I think the workstations start with "P" these days. Good machines.

I’m somewhat in love with the older x2x0 as well, rock solid machines that can take a beating, small and lightweight, good Linux support as well.

Got a T450s with upgraded ram to 20GB, 4gb soldered + 16 added by myself. Got two batteries. Internal one can't be changed but the back battery is surely detachable / replaceable with a larger one.

right, I have a T460s and the extra back battery doesn't exist for that model any more.

Which model? In my experience with the Elitebook/Zbook workstations Linux runs fine, but always with minor problems (top panel buttons not working, issues with shutdown [does not actually shutdown, have to press power button], TurboBoost being disabled until reboot, varies by distro)... HP really don't seem to care about Linux, either.

So that sounds like a little bit of a "no" for linux on these machines!

I use Debian testing on a EliteBook 850G2. I disabled the ATI/AMD gpu since I don't need its computing power, so I don't have any notes on GPU part, but with on board intel graphics, everything is very very smooth. Only non-functional item is the fingerprint reader. I get ~7hrs of battery life with normal system administration / development workflow on a KDE desktop. System runs very cool, and fan seldom kicks in if you push the computer hard.

I've just remembered: I've used the laptop with a Dell U2411 monitor via DisplayPort, a Dell E2211H monitor via DP -> HDMI adapter and HDMI/DVI cable, both without any issues (incl. hot-plug).

I can answer any specific questions if you wish.

I'm running Ubuntu 17.10 on an EliteBook 800 G3. It works great until you try normal things with the docking station, the video drivers freak out. It's kind of random, but always happens when connecting it to the docking station.

Generally, enterprise class laptops have reasonable Linux support, though it may take a few months for a new model to get sorted out and then there may be corner cases around weird hardware.

Some enterprise class laptops are available with Linux though not always through the website (about 18 months ago, I was required to phone call about a Thinkpad). Sometimes, Linux comes with a discount proportional to the Windows license (Dell was doing this at least as recently as last year).

Historically, Thinkpads are "the Linux laptop." The community of Linux on Thinkpads is very strong. https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki

I ran Fedora on a ProBook 4320s (Intel GPU) in 2011-2015, no problems. The only inconvenience was the WiFi/BT adapter (Ralink, I think), which had out-of-tree drivers; I had to rebuild the interface after kernel updates. But a year or so later they added a driver in the kernel.

I don't see the Dell XPS 15 9560 on their site but I was pleasantly surprised when I dismantled mine the other day (to re-do the thermal compound, which I can highly recommend btw).

It looks very similar to the HP inside and everything seems to be upgradeable / swappable - M2 SSD, MiniPCIE wifi / bluetooth module, proper socketed RAM, battery, fans etc. etc.

I was genuinely surprised considering it's a fairly sleek and compact machine for the spec.

That said, I didn't take apart the screen so I can't speak for the webcam or LCD panel.

HP is not jumping to my mind at all when I am thinking about user friendly companies. Are they changing their image?

HP's EliteBooks and ZBooks (and Z-series workstations) have always been incredibly solid computers that are trivial to repair and and upgrade. However for some unfathomable reason HP has always insisted on primarily marketing its low end consumer line of laptops, which tend to be complete dog shit.

I'd say that's common though. A lot of pc makers have widely different quality standards for their consumer and business lines.

I'm curious what their latest behaviour is after they were caught installing spyware on their PCs. That is a bigger reason to not buy a brand than anything else in my mind, unless I only care about the hardware because I'm going to wipe it and install Ubuntu.

Yes, but just like with Lenovo, you need to differentiate between their consumer and their business line. Did they install the spyware on business computers as well? With Lenovo the case was only with non-Thinkpads.

Companies like HP and Lenovo offer onsite repair services for their business models. This forces them to make the parts easily accessible and replaceable.

I think the issue is that their image (same with Lenovo) is heavily tainted by their cheapo consumer stuff.

It's "user friendly" in the companies/business sense.

These are business laptops, which means they're expected to be repairable over the amortisement lifecycle (3~5 years) and it's expected that most servicing can be performed by tech support and should not require a service call. Company purchasing a fleet of hundreds of laptops can just purchase a bunch of replacement parts alongside and keep it humming for years through user misuse and tear & wear.

On the flip side, the % of space taken up by the battery is tiny compared to macbooks.

One could argue that of all the components in a laptop, the battery wearing down is what most people will face, so having custom components + a larger battery might be better than having modular components.

Or just make the battery replaceable.

That's how all business line laptops are - Latitudes, ThinkPads, Elitebooks. That's how they've been for decades.

Unfortunately Levono has ditched this approach with the x280.

Not even remotely true: the keyboard is again a simple replace, unlike the in the X240-X270 line. Yes, the RAM is soldered, but that's all.

Another counterexample to the "Apple make the best hardware" meme that is so often repeated. I find the whole concept of a disposable 1000+ dollar machine with a glued-in battery rather abhorrent.

The glued-in battery makes fixing it at home harder, but comes with significant weight and space savings. It’s a trade off, like so many things and many people (including me) are willing to accept it. Apple is not the only manufacturer to do this, my Thinkpad has a non-user-serviceable battery as well. It’s not like the battery cannot be replaced, and I’m willing to have my machine serviced at an authorized repair shop when the battery needs changing. In exchange I get a lighter and slimmer laptop that I lug around every day. The cost for a battery change on a MacBook is just slightly higher than the battery for the older models.

This may not be a trade off you’re willing to make, but it does not make the machine disposable.

My Thinkpad Carbon X1 has a user-replaceable battery and is practically the same weight and size as a MacBook Air. So it is certainly not a compromise I agree with. The "disposable" label was a bit harsh, but there are other compromises in the MacBook Pro, for example the SSD, which is more prone to failure than other components, is soldered on to the logic board.

We may have a different notion of "user-replaceable". I'd only consider a battery that can be swapped without opening up the laptop user-replaceable. Soldering the components to the board is the same kind of trade-off: It saves weight, space and increases battery lifetime. You also compare the relatively new X1 with an outdated (though still sold) Macbook that was designed and built at a time when no laptop even got close to the size, weight and battery life of a MacBook Air, especially the 11" version. There were other laptops just as small, but they'd compromise on battery life, others that had the same battery life, but weighted more. Granted, it's certainly an extreme compromise, but I know more than a handful of people that would never trade their 11" Air for anything else. You can, btw., have the SSD changed, it's not soldered to the board for Airs. It's just an uncommon form factor that few vendors sell. See https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook-air/macbook-air-f... for example

On the X1 Carbon, you will have to remove some screws, but Lenovo provide a guide to the process: https://support.lenovo.com/gb/en/solutions/pd103715

I believe the latest X1 Carbon weighs significantly less than a MacBook Pro.

You’d be surprised: 1.39kg for the carbon, 1.37kg for the MacBook (13”) The latest Pro models are comparable to the Airs in weight.

I don't agree with the "disposable tablet" thing from the article.

I'm typing this on a 2012 MacBook Air, which I've been using as a freelance dev as a primary machine on client sites since that year. It's used for full stack development and Docker builds that get deployed to AWS.

It hasn't worn out, or become noticeably slower (I remember the days of registry bloat on previous Windows machines). I did get the glued-in battery replaced once during that time, which cost me £100 at a nearby Apple store.

I had previously avoided Apple kit for years because of the whole "planned obsolescence, so it's rented not bought" thing, but in hindsight I don't think it was really an issue.

My refurbished Zbook had problems with the screen (it looked like). I called HP, engineer came to my flat few hours later, replaced the screen for a new one. He tested it and realized that it's still flickering, so he replaced the GPU. Things worked well, so he left. All of this took ~ 45 minutes.

Ah, and it happened in CEE, not in the USA, so it's even more surprising.

What kind of special warranty did you get for them to do that for you?

Next business day onsite. It's a normal option for business laptops.

I'm glad companies are finally coming back to this. Looks very similar to my Inspiron I bought a few years ago. Once you open up the back plate everything is laid nicely in front of you ready to service. I changed my RAM/HDD/Wifi NIC in a matter of minutes. In case you're wondering the model is Dell Inspiron 15-7537 from 2013.

I'm glad companies are finally coming back to this.

HP has pretty much always had this in their 'enterprise' line of laptops.

I had a 2010 Inspiron, it was much worse back then. I remember that it overheated and I wanted to open it to remove dust and apply fresh thermal paste... I literally had to remove every single piece of it, they were all spread all over my room :D

That's strange, I have 2009 Inspiron (1545 iirc), where this is easy. There's a bunch of Youtube videos for that.

Isn't that because their primary target audience is Enterprises? All enterprise computers specially the most sold of them all- thinkpads are amazingly easy to repair

I really dislike labeling repairability as user-friendliness.

I never ever bought a device with intentions of repairing it, I always hope that I will never have to repair it and just use it.

Yes, it is nice to be able to repair it but if it fails, next time I'm buying a laptop I will avoid it and stick with the brand that did not fail and sits in my drawer because it's too slow by modern standards.

Repairability is probably useful for enterprises but enterprises are not users despite that sometimes they can be described as such(they are customers).

But it's not just repairing, it's being able to upgrade.

I have a 6 year-old Lenovo and it's still performing amazingly. Since buying it I have upgraded the HDD twice (to an SSD and then to a slightly larger and faster SSD), upgraded the RAM once and even upgraded the screen (to a higher resolution IPS display that was backwards compatible).

If I had bought an un-upgradable laptop I'd probably already have had to buy a new one (no matter how well it is built).

Upgradeability, in most cases, is just a cost-saving feature.

In some industrial settings, upgradability can be crucial indeed. For example, where cutting-edge performance is needed you might want to be able to upgrade the CPU of your workstation when a new version is released but this is hardly the case for Laptops except for some extreme cases like laptops used at the ISS.

Upgrading isn't just about saving money. It's also a more environmentally responsible thing to do. People are "upgrading" to new iPhones just because their glued-in battery is end-of-life.

iPhone batteries are easy to replace by a shop or by the user. iFixit(the article source) sells batteries and screwdrivers to do it.

Your claim doesn’t seem to have grounds.

People have only recently found out that Apple have been slowing down the iPhones in software to lessen the load on older batteries. I also disagree that changing the battery is "easy", I suspect some people may not even realise it is an option.

Well, Apple just recently slowed down the phones with poor battery conditions.

As for the easiness of battery replacement, you can check out iFixit as they literally rate devices on that metric.

Here is the rating for the iPhone 6s: https://www.ifixit.com/Device/iPhone_6s

As for the uninformed public, that’s not really a future of the iPhone :) The public is misinformed about many things. For example, up until now, you were among those people.

None of your ifixit links disprove my claim that "People are upgrading to new iPhones because their glued-in battery is end-of-life".

> The public is misinformed about many things.

No, this is different. There is a conflict of interest here, it is not in Apples interest to promote battery replacement.

> For example, up until now, you were among those people.

Please try to debate with politeness and good manners.

I didn’t mean to be rude, i just think that you’re not well informed about the repairability of the iPhones.

Oh and you’re the one who needs to prove your claim. We can’t assume that claims on the internet are true until proven otherwise.

I provided the links to inform you about the repair options and the difficulty of those.

I think it is well known and proven that people upgrade every two years when the contract expires. My claim is only that the built-in battery contributes to this, you are free to disagree, but it is difficult to prove either way. Your ifixit links certainly do not prove battery replacement is easy. Specialist tools are involved, this is how iFixit makes its money.

Upgrading and repairing is cost-saving in absolute terms by using less resources.

Yup. It's also surprisingly hard to find a decent new laptop these days.

About a week ago I started at a new company, and was asked to find a laptop that I wanted. The cheapest one with a 1TB SSD was ~$2000, and the cheapest one that would be decent out of the box was a $1300 Dell.

Instead I ended up getting a $600 gaming laptoo with a decent CPU, and installed the RAM and SSD myself for $450, ending up with a far better laptop that was still hundreds cheaper than that Dell.

Try doing that with a Mac.

I can certainly see doing that if it's your own money. But if I start a new job and the first thing they do is make me cobble together a laptop of spare parts so that they can save a few hundred bucks, then I'm sending out my resume later that afternoon.

They didn't ask me to cobble something together, they asked me to find a good laptop below $1500.

I don't know. In my experience if a company won't buy me the laptop I need on day 1, it's a good sign I'm going to be spending the rest of my time there having to fight every time I need a new screen, or hard drive or mouse or just about anything else.

The only gaming laptops I’ve seen that weren’t vastly inferior to both every Mac currently sold and also the EliteBook line from the OP in terms of battery life and portability costs between 3.5-5 times what you said you paid. Mind sharing what make and model you got? Thanks.

Many developer laptops probably live on a desk most of the time, so these two things are easy to sacrifice for many.

MSI GV62 7RD-2030NE.

The battery time seems to be ~3-4 hours, which is more than fine when it's connected to an outlet 99.9% of the time. I prioritize decent screen size and a comfortable keyboard far higher than "portability".

How about upgrading your components to extend the life of your hardware? Or reducing the cost of recycling.

Laptops (and electronic devices) are generally an ecological disaster.

It may not be you who repairs it. It may be a local shop. That its repairable is friendly to users.

One of the problems I have with my iphone is its getting old and the battery is rubbish and its slowing down. And I can do nothing about it except splash out on a new iphone.

I love Repairability:

-Then the device stays 100% under my control (don't have to wipe it before sending it to technician etc.)

-I know I am repairing it. (You won't get it back with the notice it is fixed, but then nothing changed)

-Tinkering is fun

-Faster to get it repaired if you can get the part.

Tinkering with laptops is fun until you have better things to thinker with if that laptop was working in first place.

This logic does not make sense. Do you never repair anything in your home? Do you always just only buy a home if everything will always work 100%?

The typical life of a Li-Ion battery is about 2/3 years or less if cycled often enough. This is at least one component that should be user replaceable. Most of us cannot justify or even afford buying a new machine every 2/3 years.

Batteries are deplating resources and I agree that they should be replaceable.

The thing is, it should be design priority as many techies would root for. Apple’s approach is perfectly fine in that regard as batteries are replaceable but you need tools.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com