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Greetings. I am tasked with upgrading my laptop and get to choose/recommend specs for the purchase. We are currently a Dell shop, and I have a Precision M4700.

Looking at new laptops, I see that Dell does not have touchscreen for their 17" laptops… I was disappointed. But since I have HP’s at home, I wanted to see if maybe I can get an HP instead. Our Canadian office loves HP and recommended the zBook. But after configuring a system online, I realized that it doesn’t appear to have touchscreen. Is that an option?

So, one machine I looked at last week was the Envy. I remember seeing a number of posts about people being happy with Envy, but I’m wondering about the differences between the two. Does anyone with either a zBook or Envy have anything to chime in? Experiences? Support?

@HP @Dell_Technologies

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I’m a big fan of their Elitebooks. Check out the Elitebook Revolve series Amazon.com

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Any reason you are not considering Surface Pro 3 ?

(I love mine)

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Just realized you need a 17" laptop. I just looked up the Envy series. They look very similar to the Elitebooks, so I’m confident that it’ll be a good match for you.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA7AB2K52580

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA3FA2537284

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The Elite line is fantastic. Depending on what you need. And I have a Pro X2 at home and absolutely love it.

But for work, I need the 17" touchscreen (especially to work from home or for meetings), a number pad on the keyboard, lots of USB ports/HDMI, SD card reader, optical drive, great battery life, SSD/HDD combo, webcam, 16GB memory, webcam/speakers/microphone, bluetooth/wireless, graphics card, docking station, I7 or latest AMD processor.

Things I do daily include programming (Visual Studio), running SQL Server, Office, vCenter (and multiple sessions to vm’s). I’m typically between 6-9GB of used memory on a regular basis.

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@Lego Man 3 - Surface doesn’t have enough ports. We have a few in house, and it wouldn’t do the trick.

@starg33ker - Thanks for checking. I think Envy had pretty much what I needed, though it was a lot less expensive than the Dell.

But I’m still curious about the differences between zBook and Envy. Does zBook just not have touch screen?

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The ZBooks are more enterprise-grade. Win 7 Pro pre-installed through 8.1 downgrade rights. They also have better hardware; SSD and HDD installed, fast i7s, and better battery (8 cell vs 4 cell). Like you said though, no touchscreen.

HP ZBook 17.3" Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit / Windows 8.1 Pro downgrade Mobile Workstation 17 G2 (K4K46UT#ABA) - Newegg.com  (FYI - pictured is a G1…not sure if this is really G1 or G2)

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Dell does have a 17" touch screen notebook, the Precision M6800

http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/precision-m6800-workstation/pd

@Dell_Technologies

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@smjain - Thanks. I forgot about that one. I have tried configuring a number of machines, and I had this one printed but did not show touchscreen. I also needed to figure out if it has built in speakers or not as well as a numberpad on the keyboard.

Edit: And the M6800 is a over a grand more than the HP with comparable specs.

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Not sure what your budget is, but you may be able to get a better price on the Dell if you go through a rep. When we ordered our M6500’s, they were spec’d out at almost $5k but I got them for $3400 through our rep.

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The Probooks are great computers and some come with touch screen. The catch is business have been downsizing on NB screen size and going with docking station with external monitors and keyboards. The 17" NB were considered too big and bulky to carry around. One option would be a 14 or 15" NB with external touch screen monitor. I just checked with one of my suppliers and there are over 20 HP NBs with touch screens just no big ones.

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@CarolB, thank you very much for your inquiry and thanks for the HP recommendations you have received. This is to confirm what @starg33ker has shared. Yes, although I work for HP, as I have reported elsewhere in Spiceworks, I am also a strong fan of HP’s Elitebooks. See details in the attachment. Yet the EliteBook does not have any models with a 17" screen. This notebook is designed for ease of mobility to paraphrase what one member has stated. Yes, some models of the Zbook do have the 17" inch screen; however, this series also does not have the touchscreen.

However, @starg33ker, has provided you with some consumer models that do have the 17" screen as well as the touchscreen. I see in your companion post that the Envy does fit your needs except you have some concerns about not having a business warranty. Warranties are tied to specific products and can’t be switched from one product series to another, especially from business class to consumer class. However, there is some good news. The Envy does carry onsite carepacks. Let me provide you with a link and details in your companion post.

Elite_Book_Recommendation-use.docx (16.6 KB)

@clabedz

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@Priscilla@HP - your first paragraph sums it up… One line is missing one component and another line with that component is missing a different component. But why can I get all the components I am looking for in the consumer line? I’m stumped.

Anyway, I’m going to re-post my answer from my companion post:

HP is “almost there”. Being a bottleneck, I personally cannot afford to be down for more than a day with a computer issue. That three days being unacceptable to our business, I don’t believe the Envy is going to do the trick for me. Which is really too bad. I love all my HP products at home, from printers to laptops, to tablets, etc, and was really interested in getting HP equipment here at work (besides printers).

What really surprises me is that there are better options for configuration ability with the consumer side than for the business side. It is a true disappointment that what I am looking for is not offered on the business side and therefore cannot get a business class warranty (why can’t you just sell me the warranty I want??? - Here, take my money!)

Thanks for the info, Priscilla@HP. I guess I’ll have to see what HP offers in 3 years when I’m up for a new pc. It’s too bad I couldn’t get an HP in the door this time around to tell everyone how awesome they are…

While getting HP in house may be an option for other users, we are making a major investment in computers right now. And I will probably be stuck with a Dell for another three years. I can barely pull the thing out of my laptop bag without two hands.

I’ll give the Elitebooks one more configure online and see what else I’d lose besides screen size. But because of the amount of work and type of work I do while mobile, having the larger screen was one of my “must haves”…

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Hey Carol, happy to see you’ve got some great feedback in this thread. Just wanted to point out the convenience of the docking station with the Elitebook that you wouldn’t get with a consumer product. You should check out this video that dives into details and compares the 700 series and 800 series. Best of luck with your search! If I can be of further assistance please let me know.

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Thanks, Melanie. I’ve reached out to Priscilla@HP to see if someone on the business side of HP can help me out. I tried to find a configurable option for the 700 series, but can’t seem to find the configuration screen for one of the Elitebooks with AMD. If you have any links to provide in the meantime, that would be fantastic!

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Carol, no problem! This link should help :slight_smile:

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Late, but dell does have a 17" with a touchscreen

http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-17-5758-laptop/pd?oc=dncwu2437b&model_id=inspiron-17-5758-laptop

$800.

According to the catalog I got, it also has NBD support (after remote diagnosis)

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Yes. After exhausting all my research ideas with HP, I am going to end up with a Dell boat anchor again. The HP zBook just doesn’t have the touch screen and the other stuff isn’t as powerful… The Dell M6800 has what I need, just a little bit more pricey. But it will have to do.

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Carol, thanks for your update. By now you have seen my response on your companion post and my ping. One question I may not have addressed is why do the consumer models meet your requirements except for the next business day onsite carepack and why not the business models. In my HP checkpoint meeting, your issues were discussed. It appears that if there was a great demand by business customers for a 17" LCD and the touchscreen feature they would be made available.

You may recall that at one time only the smaller screens were available on business notebooks. Now they can be purchased with both 11+ and 15+ LCDs. About a year ago, you may have also noticed in Spiceworks posts about HP business notebooks not having the HDMI port. Some of the responses said businesses didn’t need HDMI. Demand seems to have driven a change as I now see HDMI on some HP business models. Thanks very much for your constructive feedback, and I look forward to working with you at some point in the future.

@clabedz

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Hi Priscilla. I know you’ve gotten a few other messages from me today, but I wanted to try and answer the last few from this post. Basically, the 17" zBook had all the features and functionality I wanted minus the touchscreen. The consumer models had most of my major requirements, though I believe I would have lost a little bit in the processing side of things. I was willing to work with that to have everything else I needed. In an HP.

I am not familiar with the HP HDMI discussion. I’ve had my current laptop with an HDMI port from a different vendor for the last 3 years, and most of our other business machines have HDMI ports as well. I didn’t realize HDMI was not available that recently on HP business notebooks.

I’ll be looking at another machine for the home business side of things and will definitely see what’s available and what’s changed with HP later this year.

Thanks again for all the information and assistance!

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