HP ProBook 455 G9 review

For the past couple of years, it has been really easy to recommend a ProBook 400 laptop. It is so diverse, that it barely has any downsides. Considering its price tag, it may well be the best business notebook in terms of value.

It seems like we’re being a bit hasty in our predictions. Let’s first say that the externals have remained largely the same. And once again, the ProBook 455 features AMD hardware, while the 450 comes with Intel CPUs.

As you have probably figured out from the title, we had ourselves the one dressed in Team Red’s colors. The processors here are part of the refreshed Zen 3 architecture. Generally, they offer a slight bump in the clock speeds, but in our opinion, they are the same.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-probook-455-g9/

Contents


Specs Sheet

HP ProBook 455 G9 - Specs

  • BOE BOE09D8
  • Color accuracy  4.8  3.7
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 2000GB SSD
  • RAM
  • up to 64GB
  • OS
  • Windows 11 Home, No OS, Windows 11 Pro, Windows 10 Pro
  • Battery
  • 42.7Wh, 3-cell, 51Wh, 3-cell, 42.7Wh, 3-cell , 42.75Wh, 3-cell, 51.3Wh, 3-cell, 45Wh, 3-cell
  • Body material
  • Aluminum
  • Dimensions
  • 359.4 x 233.9 x 19.9 mm (14.15" x 9.21" x 0.78")
  • Weight
  • 1.74 kg (3.8 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort
  • HDMI
  • 2.0b
  • Ethernet LAN
  • 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.2
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5mm Combo Jack
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • optional
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • optional
  • Speakers
  • 2x Stereo Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • optional
  • Security Lock slot
  • Nano K-Lock

All HP ProBook 455 G9 configurations

#CommissionsEarned

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, we found a 65W USB Type-C charger, and the mandatory guide and manuals, placed inside a paper envelope.


Design and construction

As we said, the body of this device hasn’t changed from last year. This means that it still weighs 1.74 kilos, and has a profile of nearly 20mm. Furthermore, the entire device is made out of metal.

This makes it really sturdy with very little flex in either the lid or the base. Its design features smooth edges on the base and the lid, and pretty sharp cut-offs on the bottom. Thankfully, this makes it comfortable for your wrists.

Here, the lid can be opened with a single hand. Once you do that, you will see slim bezels, with the top one featuring an HD Web camera with a privacy shutter above it, and an optional IR face recognition scanner.

Lately, we feel like we’ve been saying that a laptop’s keyboard is good for typing quite often. However, the one on the ProBook 455 G9 is almost unmatched, except for some ThinkPads. It has a backlight, NumberPad, spill-resistance, long key travel, and very clicky and consistent feedback.

It also has its speakers above the keyboard, whereas the fingerprint reader is located below the right “Enter” key. Surrounded by the palm rest area is the touchpad. It offers really smooth gliding, very accurate tracking, and super responsive input.

Turn the laptop upside down, and you won’t be surprised to see only a ventilation grill. The hot air, respectively, exits the machine through a vent on the back.

Ports

On the left side of the laptop, there is a security lock slot, followed by a LAN port, and a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port. On the right, there is the power plug, a USB Type-C 3.2 (Gen. 2) port with DisplayPort 1.4, and Power Delivery capabilities. Then, there are two more USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports, an HDMI 2.0b connector, and an Audio jack.


Disassembly, upgrade options, and maintenance

It is pretty easy to take this notebook apart. Just undo the 5 Phillips-head screws, and pry the bottom panel with a plastic tool.

Our device came with a 51.3Wh battery pack. It lasts for 12 hours and 30 minutes of either Web browsing, or video playback. To take it out, you have to unplug the battery connector from the motherboard and undo 6 Phillips-head screws.

Memory-wise, you get two SODIMM slots for up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM in dual-channel mode. As for the storage, there is one M.2 PCIe x4 slot.

In terms of cooling, there are two heat pipes, which connect to a medium-sized heat sink. Then, a single fan blows the heat away from the device.


Display quality

HP ProBook 455 G9 has a Full HD IPS panel with a model number BOE BOE09D8. Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution is 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 142 ppi, and a pitch of 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at a distance equal to or greater than 60cm (24″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

Viewing angles are comfortable. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.

Also, a video with locked focus and exposure.

The measured maximum brightness of 252 nits in the middle of the screen and 242 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 11%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 7270K – colder than the sRGB standard of 6500K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work. The contrast ratio is good – 1240:1.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people on HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows HP ProBook 455 G9’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 52% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results in factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of the HP ProBook 455 G9 with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale, and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 16 ms.

After that, we test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “Gray-to-Gray” method from 50% White to 80% White and vice versa between 10% and 90% of the amplitude.


PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

HP ProBook 455 G9’s display doesn’t use PWM at any brightness level. This makes it comfortable and safe in this aspect.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Gloss level measurement

Glossy-coated displays are sometimes inconvenient in high ambient light conditions. We show the level of reflection on the screen for the respective laptop when the display is turned off and the measurement angle is 60° (in this case, the result is 50.1 GU).


Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP ProBook 455 G9 configurations with 15.6″ FHD IPS BOE BOE09D8.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

HP ProBook 455 G9’s speakers produce a sound of good quality. Its low, mid, and high tones are clear of deviations.


Drivers

All drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-probook-455-15.6-inch-g9-notebook-pc/2101000040

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. Here, the 51.3Wh battery pack lasts for 12 hours and 36 minutes of Web browsing, or 12 hours and 38 minutes of video playback.


CPU options

You can choose from three processors – Ryzen 3 5425U, Ryzen 5 5625U, or Ryzen 7 5825U.


GPU options

Respectively, the available graphics options are only the integrated solutions inside the processor you pick.


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS151 fps101 fps72 fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS144 fps92 fps50 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

AMD Ryzen 7 5825U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
HP ProBook 455 G92.59 GHz @ 64°C @ 27W2.48 GHz @ 75°C @ 25W1.84 GHz @ 65°C @ 15W
ASUS Zenbook 14 OLED (UM3402)3.09 GHz @ 79°C @ 44W2.82 GHz @ 90°C @ 35W2.73 GHz @ 86°C @ 30W

Once again, HP has been very lenient with the thermal profile of the ProBook series. In this case, we can see a large discrepancy in the results of the ZenBook 14 OLED (UM3402) and the ProBook 455 G9.

Comfort during full load

What should also be considered, however, is the fact that this laptop was really quiet even when an extreme load such as Prime95 is applied.


Verdict

For a we-don’t-know-what-year running, the ProBook 455 doesn’t disappoint. Basically, it is the best business companion you would ever need. But what makes it one of the best? Well, the short version is its diversity.

But let’s kid no one, you’re here for the long version. Ultimately, the laptop can be found with a fingerprint reader, and/or an IR face recognition scanner. On top of that, there is a privacy shutter on the Web camera that has an easily distinguishable red and white mark, which doesn’t let you guess if you are currently being seen by your FBI agent, or not.

Next comes the upgradeability – two SODIMM slots and one M.2 PCIe x4 slot, which means that you are all set for the foreseeable future. And not only that, but the battery pack will last you for quite a while. Our unit came equipped with a 51.3Wh package. It lasted us for more than 12 hours and 30 minutes of either Web browsing, or video playback, which is fantastic.

HP ProBook 455 G9’s IPS panel has a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, and a good contrast ratio. What is great about the display is that it doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment. However, what is not good is that it covers only 52% of the sRGB color gamut. This makes the display appear a bit dull.

Perhaps this is the laptop’s only downside. Ah yes, and the fact that it lacks an SD card reader. Quite a pity indeed. But on the bright side, your device will have a very good amount of performance. And thanks to the good cooling setup, and the lenient thermal mapping, the laptop remains quiet even when you make it do the hardest of work.

This alone is enough to make some people buy the ProBook 455 G9. However, there is one more thing – the keyboard. It is not only incredibly comfortable for typing, but it also offers spill resistance, a backlight, and a NumberPad section.

All in all, you can’t go wrong with the ProBook 455 G9. The only thing we are left wanting is AMD’s latest processors, equipped with RDNA2 graphics cards.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-probook-455-g9/

Pros

  • Great spill-resistant keyboard
  • Great battery life
  • Good performance
  • No PWM (BOE09D8)
  • Wide I/O and on-point upgradeability
  • Optional IR face recognition and fingerprint reader
  • Extremely quiet in every condition


Cons

  • No SD card reader
  • Covers only 52% of the sRGB color gamut (BOE09D8)

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George
George
1 year ago

Hi Alex! We have discovered at HP forums that ALL probook 4xx G9s can also support a 2nd SSD in the WWAN port (if of course not already used by a wwan modem). This 2nd SSD is a M.2 (2230) PCIe NVMe Gen-3.0 x4, NVMe 1.3. HP fits these laptops with a 128gb/256gb disk if requested, or you can fit one yourself (thus installing even greater capacity drives). For some reason, the manuals of the INTEL 4xx G9s correctly show how to install the 2nd drive, but the manuals of the AMD versions (445G9 and 455G9) incorrectly picture the 2nd… Read more »

Martin
Martin
1 year ago

Hello, thank you very much for the review. Please, can you check the settings of maximum available video memory for the GPU? I’m afraid that the 512MB from the screen “TechPowerUp GPU-Z” is the limitation, similarly as I saw at the higher model EliteBook 855 G8. I absolutely don’t understand HP’s decision to limitation of the video memory – don’t know if also for Intel versions, but AMD version has it, with no option settings in the BIOS. For example, LENOVO E15 AMD R5 5625U can allocate 4GB for GPU in the BIOS settings.

Mark
Mark
4 months ago
Reply to  Martin

Yes, this really is a big issue that should be called out on all reviews of HP Laptops. For some reason HP limits the allocation of DRAM for the iGPU to 512MB where the 5625U should be at least able to utilise 2GB. Other laptop brands allow the memory allocation to the GPU to be altered, just not HP. I run 3 1080p screens through the usb-c port but I run out of ram for the gpu quite often.

fred78
11 months ago

Il pc è ancora sul mercato? Su clicstore non dirisulta disponbile

Last edited 11 months ago by fred78
Andrea
Andrea
8 months ago

PCIe is only Gen3. Barcelo processors don’t support PCIe Gen4, nor Thunderbolt 4 USB C…