HP EliteBook 1040 G4 Review

Introduction, Design, & Features

Why has Lenovo began providing ThinkPad industry notebooks in silver in addition to matte black? Maybe to fend off festival from HP EliteBooks, which had silver first. Certainly the EliteBook 1040 G4 is a industry pc that may compete with anything else in the marketplace—it is a skinny and light-weight 14-inch type with robust quad-core efficiency, just right battery existence, and an exceptionally sunny 1080p contact display screen.

It's value noting that the G4 achieves its mixture of quad-core energy and strong battery existence in spite of the usage of a 45-watt, seventh-generation Intel Core i7-7820HQ processor, no longer one of the crucial extra battery-friendly, 15-watt, U-series quads in Intel's eighth-generation lineup, as observed in the newest Dell XPS 13 and Lenovo Yoga 920. It's additionally value noting that, if you wish to have quad-core muscle in a similar ThinkPad, you will have to decide no longer for the in a similar way narrow ThinkPad T470s however for the T470p, which considerably outweighs the HP (4 kilos as opposed to 3.3, despite the fact that the Lenovo additionally gives devoted graphics whilst the G4 makes do with built-in graphics).

Economy is not one of the crucial EliteBook's strengths. Prices get started at $1,379 for a Core i5 dual-core type with 8GB of reminiscence and a skimpy 128GB solid-state pressure. Stepping as much as $1,749 will get you a 256GB SSD and a Core i5 with Intel's vPro manageability options and americathe guaranty from one to a few years.

Our take a look at config, with the vPro Core i7-7820HQ, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB PCIe solid-state pressure, and the contact display screen, lists for $2,099. Options come with a 4K (3,840x2,160) show or HP's SureView 1080p privateness display screen, which makes your view considerably worse however makes it unattainable for the individual subsequent to you to thieve corporate data by way of stealing a look.

Design

The 1040 G4 measures zero.63 by way of 13 by way of 9.2 inches, making it simple to slide right into a briefcase or bag. It's handsomely clad in matte silver aluminum, with a stylized HP brand targeted within the lid; the perimeters and a entrance strip are glossy, reflective chrome and the EliteBook identify is etched into the again edge. We favored the area of interest carved out of the entrance for putting a fingertip to open the lid. Like its ThinkPad opponents, the G4 is not only a horny face; it is handed MIL-STD 810G assessments for surviving surprise, vibration, excessive temperatures, and different environmental hazards.

Lifting the lid finds a shiny 1,920x1,080-pixel show surrounded by way of rather narrow aspect bezels and thick most sensible and backside bezels; the highest bezel holds a Webcam and the ground any other HP brand. There's a speaker grille above the keyboard, at the side of an influence button and Bang & Olufsen branding, and a fingerprint reader within the palm leisure underneath it. A skinny chrome strip surrounds the contact pad.

On the pc's left aspect, you'll be able to discover a USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A port and headphone jack, at the side of a cable lock slot and cooling vents…

The proper edge holds any other USB 3.1 port, an HDMI port, and two USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports, both of that may be used with the provided 90-watt AC adapter. Alas, there's no SD card slot, despite the fact that there is a SIM card slot for fashions supplied with not obligatory WWAN cell broadband. As you would be expecting, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are same old.

The fingerprint reader and face-recognition Webcam give customers two tactics to log in by means of Windows Hello as an alternative of typing passwords. The Webcam captures well-lit, properly detailed selfies and movies.

Features

Except for being vulnerable to reflections (a not unusual downside for glass-topped contact displays), the HP's complete HD show is top quality, with vast viewing angles and vibrant, saturated colours. The display screen's solution is a great have compatibility for its 14-inch measurement—the machine arrived with Windows' zoom set to 150 p.c, however we dialed it right down to 125 p.c and not using a squinting wanted.

Details are sharp and 1080p movies glance nice. There's plentiful distinction and a lot of brightness—nearly an excessive amount of on the most sensible couple of backlight settings, so (uncharacteristically for us) we became it down a complete 4 notches for on a regular basis paintings. The contact display screen slightly wobbles when swiped or tapped; it answered briefly and correctly to our palms.

The keyboard deck is freed from flex, despite the fact that you sort with a heavy hand. The backlit, tiled keys mix ok commute with a company typing really feel—lovers of mechanical desktop keyboards will really feel extra at house than they do on maximum comfortable, plasticky pc arrays. HP wins issues for offering devoted Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys and particular conferencing keys for muting the microphone and striking and disconnecting Skype calls.

We subtract issues—or relatively, 1/2 a celebrity from our general ranking—as a result of HP's insistence on arranging the cursor arrow keys in a clumsy row, with half-sized up and down arrows sandwiched between full-sized left and proper arrows, relatively than the correct inverted T. Pressing the down arrow feels particularly clumsy. At least the sizable contact pad works easily, with simply the correct quantity of drive for a click on.

The EliteBook's Bang & Olufsen audio system do not produce booming bass, however their sound is definitely above reasonable, even remarkable for a skinny pc—there is simply sufficient quantity to fill a convention room, and tools sounded each crisp and wealthy.

HP rather a lot the machine with a squadron of utilities (we counted 26 in Windows' record of apps and contours), starting from Sure Start, which protects towards BIOS hacking, to Sure Click, which targets to protect towards malicious Web websites. A beta Bluetooth app referred to as HP TelephoneWise allows you to obtain and generate calls and texts at the laptop along with your Android or unlocked iPhone smartphone on your pocket.

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