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日本[Video Review] HP EliteBook 640 G9 – HP pulles off something special with this one!
HP EliteBook 640 G9 in-depth review
What is HP trying to do with the EliteBook 640 G9? Well, it aims at corporations, that make huge orders of identical equipment. Since standardisation is something really important with big companies, all laptops should be secure, and reliable.Yet, once the more laptops an organization buys, the more money it saves, if it gets its employees a machine that is cheaper. So, the EliteBook 640 G9 should offer more value than the affordable ProBook 440 G9 but will be more friendly on the budget than the EliteBook 840 G9.Interestingly, HP used to call this model the ProBook 640 Gx. Apparently[...]
Pros
- Good battery life
- PCIe x4 Gen 4 support + 64GB of DDR4 memory in dual-channel
- One Thunderbolt 4 connector, Wi-Fi 6, and optional LTE support
- 95% of sRGB coverage and great color accuracy with our Gaming and Web design profile (CMN141D)
- No PWM (CMN141D)
- Spill-resistant keyboard
- IR face recognition and fingerprint reader
- Decent cooling
Cons
- No SD card reader
- Visually it's just a ProBook 640 G8 copy
HP EliteBook 640 G9 - Specs
- HDD/SSD
- up to 4000GB SSD
- M.2 Slot
- 1x 2280 PCIe NVMe 4.0 x4 See photo
- RAM
- up to 64GB
- OS
- Windows 10 Pro, Windows 11 Pro, Windows 11 Home
- Battery
- 51Wh, 3-cell, 42.75Wh, 3-cell, 51.3Wh, 3-cell, 42.75Wh, 3-cell , 42.7Wh, 3-cell
- Body material
- Aluminum
- Dimensions
- 321.81 x 213.86 x 19.9 mm (12.67" x 8.42" x 0.78")
- Weight
- 1.37 kg (3 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
- 4.0, Thunderbolt 4, Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort
- HDMI
- 2.0b
- Card reader
- Ethernet LAN
- 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
- Wi-Fi
- 802.11ax
- Bluetooth
- 5.2
- Audio jack
- 3.5mm Combo Jack
- SIM card slot
- Features
- Fingerprint reader
- optional
- Web camera
- HD with Temporal Noise Reduction
- Backlit keyboard
- optional
- Microphone
- Dual Array Microphones
- Speakers
- Dual Stereo Speakers
- Optical drive
- Security Lock slot
All HP EliteBook 640 G9 configurations
The HP EliteBook 640 G9 is a very interesting device that might turn out to be better than its more expensive EliteBook 840 G9 relative. It comes with a very similar build quality and hardware selection while being offered at a lower price. Get comfy because there’s a great surprise regarding the performance of this model!
[Intro]
The laptop uses aluminum for a large part of its construction, as both the lid, base, and bottom panel are made from this material. The only area where you see plastic is the long strip on the top of the lid, where the antennas are mounted. This means that the laptop is kept light, weighing 1.37 kg. In terms of durability, the lid does show some flex, while the base is very rigid. The former opens with one hand, which shows off the keyboard.
[Input devices]
The keyboard deck is reinforced on the base, so there’s 0 flex even with harsh typing. The board is spill-resistant and has a backlight while managing to squeeze out as much key travel as possible from the 19.9 mm profile. Sadly, the touchpad isn’t as great, as the surface is a bit rough to work with. On the other hand, it’s still responsive.
[Ports]
For a device with these dimensions, we’re very satisfied with the I/O. On the left, we have a LAN port and a 5-gigabit full-sized USB port, which works even when the laptop is off, and a SmartCard reader that’s optional. The right side is more populated, with a Thunderbolt 4 port, two more full-sized USB ports, an HDMI port, an audio jack, and a SIM card slot.
[Display]
The more affordable EliteBook 640 uses a conventional 16:9 display, but the panel itself is still fantastic for all types of work. It gets very bright, up to 429 nits while the contrast ratio is high as well. More importantly, it shows 95% sRGB coverage, so if you’re a web designer or do graphics for online advertising, the display is right up your alley. In terms of accuracy, our Design and Gaming profile puts the dE value at 0.9, which is ideal, as the human eye can’t see a difference below a dE value of 1.0.
We’ll have links to the Design and Gaming profile along with the rest of the profiles that we offer.
[Battery]
The 51.3Wh battery pack that’s inside the device lasts for 13 hours and 20 minutes of Web browsing and 10 hours and 18 minutes of video playback. These scores are achieved with the Core i5-1235U.
[Performance]
As for performance, the EliteBook 640 G9 is only 5% less powerful in the 3D Rendering benchmark when compared to the EliteBook 840 G9 with the same CPU. It’s also around 0.6 seconds slower in Photoshop.
[Cooling]
The Core i5 is kept cool using one heat pipe and one fan. It reaches much higher clock speeds and wattage than the same CPU inside the 840 G9, while not overheating. Well, here’s the surprise! It turned out that the 640 G9 is faster in both short and long loads, while the 840 G9 is faster just in the specific time frame of the benchmarks. Of course, we should note that the 840 G9 is kept very cool by its cooling system, but we’d still choose the 640 G9.
Moreover, the laptop is very comfortable under full load, as the fan doesn’t generate a lot of noise, while the base remains cool.
[Teardown and upgradeability]
Also, the upgradeability is fantastic, as the laptop offers two SODIMM slots for up to 64GB of DDR4 memory and a single M.2 slot for Gen 4 SSDs.
We’ll link our teardown video in the upper right corner, which shows how to get inside the Elitebook 640 G9 for upgrades and cleaning.
[Verdict]
The EliteBook 640 G9 is very similar to the more expensive EliteBook 840 G9, with great build quality, keyboard, and upgradeability. While it lacks the extra pixels that the 16:10 aspect ratio offers, you’d be more than fine with the FHD panel that’s available. All in all, you get a good-performing notebook with good connectivity and features for a reduced price, which is all you can ask for.
If you want more info about the EliteBook 640 G9, we have a whole detailed review on our website, which we’ll have linked down below.
