HP Elitebook 1040 G4

Weighing 3.2 pounds (3.35 pounds on HQ processor model) and measuring 13 x 9.2 x 0.6 inches, the EliteBook 1040 G4 is lighter and thinner than Lenovo’s mainstream 14-inch ThinkPads, the ThinkPad 25 (3.6 pounds, 0.8 inches thick), which is a version of its popular ThinkPad T470 laptop (3.48 – 3.88 pounds), and the quad-core ThinkPad T470p (3.6 – 4 pounds, 0.94 inches thick. The 13-inch Dell Latitude 7380 (2.8 pounds, 0.6 inches thick) is obviously lighter.

The EliteBook splits its dual Type-A USB 3 ports between its left and right sides, and both of its power-drawing USB Type-C (3.1) ports are on the right side, next to its HDMI 1.4 port. The left side also has a laptop lock slot and a headphone jack.

 

Display

The EliteBook 1040’s 14-inch display offers crisp, vivid images. As I watched the teaser trailer for Avengers: Infinity War, I admired how it nailed the difficult-to-display purple of Thanos’ body, his gold armor and the blue glow from Black Panther’s spear. The 1920 x 1080-pixel panel is also crisp enough to show the intricate glowing patterns that emanated from Doctor Strange’s hands.

According to our colorimeter, the two EliteBook 1040 models we tested produced an average of 113 percent of the sRGB color gamut. That beats the 101-percent average for thin-and-light notebooks and trounces Lenovo’s ThinkPad 25 and T470p (69 to 77 percent) , but it’s less than the 144 percent we saw from the Dell Latitude 7380.

The two EliteBook 1040 models we tested emitted 278 and 292 nits (for the 7820HQ and 7500U models, respectively) of brightness. Those marks soar above what we recorded for the Latitude 7380 (267 nits), the ThinkPad 25 (221 nits) and the ThinkPad T470p (229 nits), as well as the 253-nit category average. That’s bright enough for a solid range of viewing angles, as I saw Doctor Strange’s red cape stay strong at 30 degrees to the left and right.

The touchscreen display on the EliteBook offers speedy input recognition, doing a fantastic job of keeping up as I rapidly doodled in Paint. The screen’s right and left sides correctly registered Windows 10’s gestures for navigating windows and opening side menus.

Security and Durability

The EliteBook 1040 G4 has several ways to keep your data secure. In addition to HP’s optional Sure View privacy screens, which can help prevent someone from stealing intellectual property from you by peeping at your screen, the EliteBook 1040 packs HP’s Sure Start technology, which automatically repairs your laptop’s BIOS (the root-level infrastructure of your system) in case of attack.

While every EliteBook 1040 G4 features an IR webcam for Windows Hello-protected logins, only certain models (those with Intel’s Core i5-7300U, Core i7-7600U and Core i7-7820HQ CPUs) include Intel’s vPro security technology for remote management by IT professionals. A fingerprint reader comes standard, and a smart card reader is optional.

HP promises that this EliteBook is durable. To ensure this, the notebook passed MIL-SPEC-810G testing — the rigors that U.S. military gear must pass — which HP says will keep it safe from “drops and minor spills.”

Keyboard and Touchpad

The EliteBook’s keyboard delivered a mixed typing experience. Testing out the EliteBook 1040’s keyboard on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, I hit a rate of 73 words per minute, a small drop from my 80-wpm average. The keys felt OK, with 1.4 millimetres of travel and 68 grams of required actuation force. (We look for around 1.5 mm and at least 60 grams.)

In contrast to these EliteBook keyboards, the Lenovo ThinkPad 25, ThinkPad T470p and the Dell Latitude 7380 pack amazingly comfortable keyboards with stronger feedback and deeper travel. The T470p, for example, has a deep, 2.3 millimeters of travel and requires 74 grams of actuation force. HP says that its keyboard offers less snappy feedback than competitors in order to produce less typing noise, which may appeal to some users.

The 4.3 x 2.5 touchpads on the EliteBooks tracked my input accurately as I navigated the desktop. It also correctly registered the navigational gestures in Windows 10 and web-page scrolling in Chrome.The two ThinkPads also provide a TrackPoint nub that lets you navigate around the desktop, without lifting your hands off of the home row.

Audio

The strong sound produced by the EliteBook 1040 G4 is yet another example of HP’s partnership with the audiophiles of Bang & Olufsen, whose branding sits next to the gridded speaker above the keyboard. When listening to St. Vincent’s “Los Ageless” on the EliteBook, I noted clear vocals, accurate synths and sturdy bass. Neither the Dell Latitude 7380, the ThinkPad T470p nor the Lenovo ThinkPad 25 offers sound quality that comes close.

The included Bang & Olufsen Audio app includes three audio options; the default Music setting is best. The Movies option distorts vocals, and the Voice setting drops out nearly all of the bass.

Performance

Though both EliteBook 1040 G4 configurations we tested had 1080p screens, 16GB of RAM and 512GB solid-state drives, one was powered by a dual-core Core i7-7500U CPU while the other had a more powerful, quad-core Core i7-7820HQ processor. Both offer great multitasking, but the quad-core processor delivered much stronger overall performance.

When testing both machines, I saw no lag or delay as I scrolled down pages and moved between tabs after splitting each screen between a 1080p streaming YouTube video and a dozen Chrome tabs (including Giphy, Slack, Gmail and Google Docs).

The performance gap between these two HP machines widened on the Geekbench 4 general performance test. The 7820HQ-enabled model hit a higher 13,463, beating the 8,360 from the 7500U-powered unit. This means the U model is closer to the 8,493 thin-and-light-notebook average and the 8,355 from the Dell Latitude 7380 (Core i7-7600U CPU with vPro technology, 8GB of RAM). Both scores are higher than the 7,766 from the Lenovo ThinkPad 25 (Intel Core i7-7500U, 16GB of RAM). The ThinkPad T470p (Core i5-7440HQ), which also has a quad-core Intel HQ series CPU, scored 12,378.

The 512GB PCIe NVMe TLC SSDs in the EliteBook 1040 G4 are fast, but the 7500U-powered model had an edge with its 282.7 MBps copy speed, outpacing its 231-MBps counterpart in the 7820HQ-enabled model. Both rates exceed the 218.8-MBps category average and the 196 MBps from the ThinkPad 25 (512GB NVMe M.2 PCI-e SSD) but fall below the 299 MBps from both the Latitude 7380 (256GB SSD) and ThinkPad T470p (256GB SSD).

On our OpenOffice macro test — which matches 20,000 names and addresses — the EliteBook 1040 notebooks posted a pair of close times (3:41 for 7820HQ, 3:36 for 7500U). Those marks are shorter than the 4:21 category average, close to the 3:36 from the ThinkPad 25 and longer than the 3:14 from the Latitude 7380 and 3:22 from the ThinkPad T470p.

Battery Life

The EliteBook 1040 G4 offers decent to great longevity, depending on the model. Intel’s HQ model uses a power-hungry 45-watt CPU, and the U model uses a 15-watt CPU. The more efficient U model of the EliteBook lasted 10 hours and 35 seconds on the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi. The HQ model lasted a more modest 8:07.