4530s Discontinued
I wrote a post a while back about how I transformed my HP 4530s into a Mac. It works well and I love it. I’ve also been pointing to the Amazon page for it, hoping that someone would temporarily lose their mind, order 10 of them, and flood me with referral fees. Snap! No such luck!
I’ve been watching the price of this waver all over the place, and now I see the price at a whopping $569.99! I paid $488.95 for mine, and had seen the price dip to about $450.
I can no longer recommend getting a new 4530s, and I have taken it off the sidebar for my blog. It’s discontinued, and it no longer makes sense to go this route.
Look At The HP 4540s Instead
Now, having turned my back on the idea of a new 4530s, it would be awfully mean of me to leave you hanging. I mean, how would that make me look? It’s so close to Christmas, too!
My advice is: go check out an HP 4540s. There are many of them (this was true of the 30 as well, with varying i3/i5/i7 processors). My hunch would be to zero in on one with an Ivy Bridge processor. This is a little tricky, and I see that one of the listings on Amazon is confused as to whether they are selling an i3 or i5 (big thing to make a mistake on, but a 3110M is an i3). I do point to a machine later in this post that I think would do well, but I don’t have personal experience with it! I’m just giving a heads up.
To understand the range of the 4540s, look at the HP 4540s Specs. The processor options are bit over the top (why so many?!):
- Intel® Core™ i7-3612QM (3.10/2.1 GHz, 6 MB L3 cache, 4 cores)
- Intel® Core™ i5-3360M (2.80 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache, 2 cores)
- Intel® Core™ i5-3320M (2.60 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache, 2 cores)
- Intel® Core™ i5-3210M (2.50 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache, 2 cores)
- Intel® Core™ i5-2450M (2.50 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache)
- Intel® Core™ i3-3110M (2.40 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache, 2 cores)
- Intel® Core™ i3-2370M (2.40 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache)
- Intel® Celeron® B840 (1.90 GHz, 2 MB L3 cache)
I did not bother to bold the Celeron, and I would shy away from getting one. Too weak. Stick with the Core i3/i5/i7 range for laptops.
The thing to note about processor numbering is: the ‘3’ denotes an Ivy Bridge processor, whereas a ‘2’ denotes the older Sandy Bridge.
I would go for an Ivy Bridge i3-3110M or better, because the graphics (HD4000, versus HD3000 for Sandy) are much improved. That would have me looking at this one – be aware that this is my guess, and you should do some independent research.
Here is a good review to start with: HP 4540s Review
And, of course, the folks at tonymacx86.com have been talking about this in the 4540s thread.
Hope this helps, and enjoy your Macs!