HP EliteBook 1040 G4 - Review 2022
Starting Configuration Price
- Pros
Total HD impact screen gets very bright. Comfortable keyboard has built-in Skype for Business controls. Core i7 delivers good computing performance. Long battery life.
- Cons
Included software is glitchy. Pricey equally configured.
- Bottom Line
The HP EliteBook 1040 G4 packs a lot of power, just information technology's costly compared with other ultraportable business organization laptops.
More than than $2,000 is a lot to spend on a not-workstation business laptop, just HP makes a case for doing just that with its new EliteBook 1040 G4 (starts at $1,379; $2,099 equally tested), a xiv-inch ultraportable with remote management and security features that will appeal to IT departments. It's got serious ability, as well, with an Intel Core i7, 16GB of RAM, and a full Hard disk affect screen. The EliteBook 1040 costs a lot less than our top choice for mobile workstations, the HP ZBook fifteen G4, just is also much more expensive than our Editors' Choice business ultraportable, the Lenovo ThinkPad T470. Information technology's not actually a substitute for either one, though, which makes this ultra-premium configuration of the EliteBook 1040 a bit of an odd duck. Information technology's still a very capable machine, merely not a must-have for about businesses.
Sleek Ultraportable
HP has refreshed the EliteBook line'southward styling to more closely resemble its Spectre consumer ultrabooks and two-in-1s. Although it'south nowhere near as gorgeously sleek as the snow-white Spectre 13, the fourteen-inch EliteBook 1040 shares a similar speaker grille placed above the keyboard, hiding some of the arrangement's vi Bang & Olufsen speakers. That's a sizeable complement, up from the 2 speakers in the EliteBook 1040 G3, and it includes ii discrete amplifiers that help the organisation achieve a maximum of 80 decibels, according to HP. That's groovy for videoconferencing, and while the speakers did not manage to pump audio into every corner of our kitchen-sized audio testing room, their output was at least very well-rounded, delivering a pleasing range of highs and lows during the trailer for Star Wars: The Terminal Jedi.
The EliteBook 1040 G4 weighs iii.37 pounds, certainly non out of the ordinary for a 14-incher, but a couple of ounces heavier than the ubiquitous thirteen-inch ultraportables that come in around three pounds. Information technology measures 0.63 by 12.95 past 9.17 inches (HWD), which is sparse enough that yous can fit it in a briefcase or handbag—no demand to bring a haversack or a defended laptop instance on your next trip. The dimensions remain nearly unchanged from concluding twelvemonth's model.
Maybe the best attribute of the laptop's styling, especially for corporate types who want to cadet the boring black trend that the ThinkPad popularized, is that the entire EliteBook 1040 is covered in a matte silver finish, with a new stylized HP logo etched into the display lid and the EliteBook moniker on the back edge. The whole thing looks sturdy, sleek, and, well, elite, at least compared with the stodginess of the blackness plastic on the ThinkPad T470. It's even sleeker-looking than the more than rounded chassis of the previous EliteBook 1040 G3.
Despite its athwart lines, the bottom of the chassis all the same tapers slightly from back to front and is removable, although the components are unfortunately non easy for IT departments to upgrade or replace (the memory is soldered in place, for example). What's more, configuration options aren't very numerous: You tin can choose from 8GB or 16GB of RAM and 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of SSD storage. The bottom likewise contains a fan exhaust outlet, 2 more downward-firing speaker grilles, and four generously sized safety feet to keep the laptop from sliding around on your desk.
The total HD (1,920 by one,080) touch screen on our review unit is gorgeous. The only downside is a glossy finish that reflects glare from ambient lighting. Colors are bright and can be seen from virtually whatever angle thank you to In-Plane Switching technology. At 700 nits, it's also i of the brightest laptop screens we've seen. It'due south about—just not quite—vivid enough to be used comfortably in direct sunlight. Beware, though, that HP offers a total of viii different screen options, each of which will have an effect on battery life. Going with a non-impact model will ameliorate it slightly, while opting for a 4K brandish or 1 with a built-in privacy filter will dethrone information technology. Choose wisely based on your needs: Unless you frequently use your laptop while flight in bus and edit 4K video, you probably don't demand the 4K version or the privacy filter.
Adequate Ports
One thing well-nigh business organization users need, however, is a robust port selection, and the Elitebook 1040 does non disappoint. The left edge features a slot for connecting to an external lock, a USB 3.1 port, and a headphone jack. On the correct side are an HDMI port (crucial for connecting to an external display during a presentation), a 2d USB iii.1 port, and two USB-C ports. I USB-C port even supports Thunderbolt iii for speedy connections to external difficult drives, and either one tin can charge the laptop using the included USB-C power adapter. The move to USB-C charging is new on the 1040 G4; The G3 has a dedicated power jack.
The keyboard and touchpad on the EliteBook 1040 G4 are wonderfully comfy and precise, which is not e'er the case on HP laptops (the HP Spectre thirteen's touchpad, for instance, is woeful). We particularly similar that the island-style keyboard has extremely sturdy backlit keys and virtually no flex, even when your fingers strike forcefully. At that place are also dedicated buttons for muting the microphone and starting and ending Skype calls, which could come handy if your workplace is devoted to video conferencing. Our favorite laptop keyboard remains the i on the ThinkPad T470, but this one is a close second. Likewise, the touchpad is generously sized and quite responsive even without customizing sensitivity settings. It doesn't come close to the luxurious, humongous pad on the xv-inch MacBook Pro, but it's one of the better Windows touchpads out there.
Other niceties that business concern users volition appreciate include a face-recognition-capable webcam and a fingerprint reader, both of which can be used to log into Windows, assuming your IT department's security standards allow it. The webcam'southward traditional placement above the display means HP isn't able to reduce the size of the bezel to microscopic proportions, which is all the rage in laptop pattern these days, but it also means that the photographic camera is positioned to easily capture your face during video conferences. Some Dell laptops, including the XPS xiii, take their webcams at the bottom left of the brandish, which ways they mainly get a view of your knuckles. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth come up standard, and the EliteBook 1040 G4 can likewise be ordered with an LTE modem for greater untethered capability.
Since this laptop is designed to appeal to IT departments, it includes support options and remote management features they've come up to expect, including Intel's vPro applied science. HP also throws in its own software, similar a Sure Click utility that is supposed to limit damage when an employee visits a malware-laden website There's also a still-in-beta PhoneWise tool, which lets yous utilize the EliteBook to accept calls and read and respond to text messages via a Bluetooth connectedness to your smartphone. Unfortunately, many of these features were glitchy in our testing, especially PhoneWise, which attempted and failed to automatically unlock an iPhone so it could read the texts and take the calls. Coupled with recent revelations of serious security flaws in HP software, we wish that the company would just evangelize laptops without additional tools or utilities.
Groovy for Business, Not And then Good at Games
Information technology's a flake odd that HP decided to outfit the EliteBook 1040 G4 with 7th-generation Intel CPUs, since eighth-generation ones are now available and speedily appearing in new desktops and laptops. The company continually and often quietly tinkers with its production lineup, however, and then eighth-generation models could prove up soon. In the meantime, an Intel Cadre i7-7820HQ processor running at two.91 GHz powers our review unit, and while it may non be the latest and greatest, it's far from pokey, especially coupled with 16GB of memory and a 512GB SSD.
The outcome is a very respectable score of 3,554 on the proprietary PCMark 8 criterion, which measures video conferencing, spider web browsing, and other common business organisation tasks. That's better than other similarly priced business machines, including the Dell Latitude 7380 (3,189) and last year's EliteBook 1040 G3 (three,204). The EliteBook 1040 G4 is as adept at specialized tasks like video encoding and image editing. It posted class-leading results on our Handbrake encoding test (1 minute, 3 seconds), and our Photoshop simulation (2:59). Those scores are fifty-fifty slightly better than the MacBook Pro (ane:06 on Handbrake and two:59 on Photoshop), which has the same processor and is the gilded standard in portable multimedia-editing machines.
It'due south somewhat disappointing that loftier-end business organisation ultraportables rely on graphics chips that are integrated within the CPU, rather than the discrete graphics that you'll discover on similarly priced gaming laptops. The EliteBook 1040 G4 is no different, which means graphics-intensive gaming is by and large out of the question. The one exception is if you are willing to play the latest AAA titles at medium quality settings, which could event in frame rates around 30 frames per 2nd, as we saw on our Sky and Valley gaming simulations. Ultimately, a business laptop will rarely be used for gaming anyhow, and then the graphics capabilities aren't much of a concern.
Run into How We Test Laptops
Battery life is vastly improved from the EliteBook 1040 G3, which eked out a very short 6 hours and 55 minutes on our battery-rundown examination, which involves continuously playing a local video file at 50 percent screen brightness. Despite its very brilliant display, the EliteBook 1040 G4 manages more than five additional hours of bombardment life compared with its predecessor, for a total of 12:35 on our test. Well-nigh of its competitors can manage in backlog of ten hours, so this is a sorely needed improvement, although it'south all the same lagging behind the MacBook Pro (xv:09) and the swappable bombardment organisation in the ThinkPad T470 (17:39).
More Affordable Alternatives
The HP EliteBook 1040 G4 we tested is a very capable business ultraportable, with sleek styling, a powerful processor, an first-class display, and long battery life. Unfortunately, all of those capabilities come at a high price, which makes it uncompetitive with mainstream business organisation laptops similar the Lenovo ThinkPad T470. The upshot is that most large businesses will want to spend a lot less for a T470 or equivalent. Meanwhile, businesses with mission-critical apps that need workstation features like EEC retention should probably spend a chip more for something like the HP ZBook 15 G4, our Editors' Selection for best mobile workstation.
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