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HP G002AX / G009AX Laptop [Honest review, Benchmarks] [AMD Beema A8 6140, 4GB, 1TB, 2GB 8570m]
This Ganesh Festival, I was looking forward to a new Cheap laptop as I gave away my existing laptop (Acer 5560 AMD A6-3400M llano) to my sister. I was longing for a Full fledged AMD kaveri with dual graphics setup , however AMD is getting a bit long in the tooth due to repeated delays. Anyways the new tech comes late in India compared to the west. Understanding that I wont get AMD kaveri for atleast 6 months or more, I pounced upon a cheap little stop-gap laptop that gets the work done.
HP G002AX / G009AX are same but 009AX misses out the Windows 8.1.
Design and Looks-
HP is making some of the worst designs I've ever seen recently and this laptop is no exception.
>The power and HDD LEDs are off to side rather than upfront.
>There is no Basic LED indicator for Num Lock!!
>NO VGA PORT! This is unacceptable :(
After saving a few bucks on laptop I have to spend Rs.1100 on Adapters and cables. (HDMI converter)
>Whole laptop is made like single piece and Upgrading the HDD , RAM or even CMOS battery needs one to Rip out the Keyboard, Back cover, Top cover, then Motherboard and what not!! Yuk!
>Gloss Gloss Gloss! As if HP found a cheap stash of Gloss paint and they were simply spraying it everywhere they can. Gloss around the Touch pad means Fingerprints and Scratches galore!
>Only one Combo Headphone/Mic port. So those using old fashioned headsets will need to buy new ones.
Really HP?Why did you do this?
Now for some good things,
Laptop is slimmer than you'd expect. The Sparkling Black finish looks good (when its clean), Somewhat like a Granite top.
The Caps lock key has a small indicator built onto the key itself. My Samsung and Acer both missed these. There is a WIFI LED built onto the key as well. There is again a Yellow LED for Mute. A small LED near charging port is also present (yellow when charging, White when charged). Oh how I love these tiny lights!
There are a row of function keys with the Fn key combo and also include Media player controls and volume. These keys work directly without pressing FN by default. There is a Card reader upfront.
The touchpad is extra large and supports gestures which actually work.
Display-
Oh How bored I am with these 1336x768 screens! Even my Rs.16k cellphone now has FULL HD display with IPS quality. The Display is glossy and generic quality.
However keeping in Mind the low price and Low end graphics chips, Half HD display should be OK OK. There’s a 720p webcam (with indicator LED) and Mic above the display for those Skype calls.
Performance-
Performance is Snappy and boot-up is fast. Running multiple applications alongside poses no problems at all. I am running a dual screen configuration and I can surf and play on both screens no problem.
The RAM is only 3GB in reality which maybe limiting in the future. Worst part its, RAM is non-Upgradeable so you're stuck for a lifetime. There is only one RAM slot. However the GPU 8570M has its dedicated 2GB RAM so its atleast not eating away the Main RAM. However the Inbuilt Radeon R5 seems to be eating about 1GB of main ram. AMD is known to Heavily prefer Graphic rather than x86 performance, This psychology is shown in 3GB main RAM, 3GB Graphics RAM!!
The AMD A8 6410 Beema CPU performs closely to the A10 7300 ULV Which is a kaveri 19W part. Cheers! Compare here-
AMD A-Series A8-6410 Notebook Processor - NotebookCheck.net Tech
AMD Kaveri A10-7300 Notebook Processor - NotebookCheck.net Tech
Comparision with an intel i5 15w part yields strange results-
Intel Core i5 4200U Notebook Processor - NotebookCheck.net Tech
The Intel i5 is better in Geekbench and Cienebench. However intel badly looses on all 3d mark scores (like 4~5 times poor) And about 10 times poor in X264 marks.
The AMD Beema A8 6410 also manages to beat an Intel i5 35W CPU is most benchmarks-
Intel Core i5 2415M Notebook Processor - NotebookCheck.net Tech
Gaming-
The ATI 8570M is a well known Mid-range performer. It plays older games at full quality and new games at medium or High. The 8570m is based on modern 28nm GCN architecture just like R7 series.
The GPU comes with it own 2GB DDR3 memory clocked at 900Mhz and core clocked at 644Mhz (wrongy mentioned as 850MHZ GPU/1000Mhz MEM on internet) It comes with 256 Shaders (wrongly said 384 shaders on net) As the AMD shader cores are weaker than Nvidia, I would call them more like 90~120 Nvidia shaders. That Puts the performance more in Range of GT630( Desktop) or even 9800M GT (laptop)
In modern terms, the GPU is equal to R7 M260- (laptop DDR3 model)
AMD Radeon R7 M260 compare AMD Radeon HD 8570M GPU
NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT - NotebookCheck.net Tech
Most of the Modern games can be enjoyed at highest settings on 720p resolution-
Crysis 2
COD 4, COD MW2, COD MW3, COD black ops
Split second
battlefield bad company 2
Battlefield 3
Left 4 dead 1 & 2
Sniper ghost warrior
NEED for speed (All series)
Still decent for the Price and power consumption. One Strange thing, The inbuilt R5 GPU is also about 80% as good as dedicated 8570m (See Aquamark3 for detailed observation). This can be a good or bad thing depending on the way you look at it.
Unfortunately, the GPU cannot enable Dual graphics with the Stock BEEMA R5 128 Shaders as the GPU is a few generations older. Had the HP put in a compatible R5 Model, we could benefit increased framerate. That's like HP has a Old stock of outdated GPUs and they just want to get rid of them. But I'm not cringing due to low prices.
Aquamark score-
Crysis on 8570M, Highest settings.
Crysis on Onboad R5 (power saving)
This Ganesh Festival, I was looking forward to a new Cheap laptop as I gave away my existing laptop (Acer 5560 AMD A6-3400M llano) to my sister. I was longing for a Full fledged AMD kaveri with dual graphics setup , however AMD is getting a bit long in the tooth due to repeated delays. Anyways the new tech comes late in India compared to the west. Understanding that I wont get AMD kaveri for atleast 6 months or more, I pounced upon a cheap little stop-gap laptop that gets the work done.
HP G002AX / G009AX are same but 009AX misses out the Windows 8.1.
Design and Looks-
HP is making some of the worst designs I've ever seen recently and this laptop is no exception.
>The power and HDD LEDs are off to side rather than upfront.
>There is no Basic LED indicator for Num Lock!!
>NO VGA PORT! This is unacceptable :(
After saving a few bucks on laptop I have to spend Rs.1100 on Adapters and cables. (HDMI converter)
>Whole laptop is made like single piece and Upgrading the HDD , RAM or even CMOS battery needs one to Rip out the Keyboard, Back cover, Top cover, then Motherboard and what not!! Yuk!
>Gloss Gloss Gloss! As if HP found a cheap stash of Gloss paint and they were simply spraying it everywhere they can. Gloss around the Touch pad means Fingerprints and Scratches galore!
>Only one Combo Headphone/Mic port. So those using old fashioned headsets will need to buy new ones.
Really HP?Why did you do this?
Now for some good things,
Laptop is slimmer than you'd expect. The Sparkling Black finish looks good (when its clean), Somewhat like a Granite top.
The Caps lock key has a small indicator built onto the key itself. My Samsung and Acer both missed these. There is a WIFI LED built onto the key as well. There is again a Yellow LED for Mute. A small LED near charging port is also present (yellow when charging, White when charged). Oh how I love these tiny lights!
There are a row of function keys with the Fn key combo and also include Media player controls and volume. These keys work directly without pressing FN by default. There is a Card reader upfront.
The touchpad is extra large and supports gestures which actually work.
Display-
Oh How bored I am with these 1336x768 screens! Even my Rs.16k cellphone now has FULL HD display with IPS quality. The Display is glossy and generic quality.
However keeping in Mind the low price and Low end graphics chips, Half HD display should be OK OK. There’s a 720p webcam (with indicator LED) and Mic above the display for those Skype calls.
Performance-
Performance is Snappy and boot-up is fast. Running multiple applications alongside poses no problems at all. I am running a dual screen configuration and I can surf and play on both screens no problem.
The RAM is only 3GB in reality which maybe limiting in the future. Worst part its, RAM is non-Upgradeable so you're stuck for a lifetime. There is only one RAM slot. However the GPU 8570M has its dedicated 2GB RAM so its atleast not eating away the Main RAM. However the Inbuilt Radeon R5 seems to be eating about 1GB of main ram. AMD is known to Heavily prefer Graphic rather than x86 performance, This psychology is shown in 3GB main RAM, 3GB Graphics RAM!!
The AMD A8 6410 Beema CPU performs closely to the A10 7300 ULV Which is a kaveri 19W part. Cheers! Compare here-
AMD A-Series A8-6410 Notebook Processor - NotebookCheck.net Tech
AMD Kaveri A10-7300 Notebook Processor - NotebookCheck.net Tech
Comparision with an intel i5 15w part yields strange results-
Intel Core i5 4200U Notebook Processor - NotebookCheck.net Tech
The Intel i5 is better in Geekbench and Cienebench. However intel badly looses on all 3d mark scores (like 4~5 times poor) And about 10 times poor in X264 marks.
The AMD Beema A8 6410 also manages to beat an Intel i5 35W CPU is most benchmarks-
Intel Core i5 2415M Notebook Processor - NotebookCheck.net Tech
Gaming-
The ATI 8570M is a well known Mid-range performer. It plays older games at full quality and new games at medium or High. The 8570m is based on modern 28nm GCN architecture just like R7 series.
The GPU comes with it own 2GB DDR3 memory clocked at 900Mhz and core clocked at 644Mhz (wrongy mentioned as 850MHZ GPU/1000Mhz MEM on internet) It comes with 256 Shaders (wrongly said 384 shaders on net) As the AMD shader cores are weaker than Nvidia, I would call them more like 90~120 Nvidia shaders. That Puts the performance more in Range of GT630( Desktop) or even 9800M GT (laptop)
In modern terms, the GPU is equal to R7 M260- (laptop DDR3 model)
AMD Radeon R7 M260 compare AMD Radeon HD 8570M GPU
NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT - NotebookCheck.net Tech
Most of the Modern games can be enjoyed at highest settings on 720p resolution-
Crysis 2
COD 4, COD MW2, COD MW3, COD black ops
Split second
battlefield bad company 2
Battlefield 3
Left 4 dead 1 & 2
Sniper ghost warrior
NEED for speed (All series)
Still decent for the Price and power consumption. One Strange thing, The inbuilt R5 GPU is also about 80% as good as dedicated 8570m (See Aquamark3 for detailed observation). This can be a good or bad thing depending on the way you look at it.
Unfortunately, the GPU cannot enable Dual graphics with the Stock BEEMA R5 128 Shaders as the GPU is a few generations older. Had the HP put in a compatible R5 Model, we could benefit increased framerate. That's like HP has a Old stock of outdated GPUs and they just want to get rid of them. But I'm not cringing due to low prices.
Aquamark score-
Crysis on 8570M, Highest settings.
Crysis on Onboad R5 (power saving)
