As we concluded with the last EliteBook laptop we tested, we can say that HP is walking in the right direction. The design is now a bit edgier, hinting at a more aggressive approach for the business series. This is actually something we really like since the notebooks are not that boring anymore.
One thing we were a bit disappointed by was the choice of CPUs. HP remained true to the 14nm pseudo innovation from Intel, with the Comet Lake-U series of processors. However, we are expecting the next generation to come with the Tiger Lake lineup, as it really brings a lot of computational and graphics performance to the table. Or at least we hope, HP will do that.
Nevertheless, this business outfit is not going to be exposed to extreme workload scenarios. Instead, its prowess is the mobility it offers, thanks to its optional LTE card, Wi-Fi 6 support, and supreme security, both on hardware and software level (due to the vPro CPUs, and HP’s security firmware, respectively).
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-elitebook-830-g7/
Contents
Specs Sheet
HP EliteBook 830 G7 - Specs
All HP EliteBook 830 G7 configurations
What’s in the box?
Inside the package, we got some paper manuals and a 45W barrel plug power adapter.
Design and construction
This laptop is made out of a combination of aluminum and plastic, and the end result is a very lightweight, easily portable machine. It stops the scales at 1.25 kg, and its profile stands at 17.9mm thick. This, combined with the sturdy chassis, makes the laptop a very good catch for dynamic businesspeople.
Impressively, the lid opens easily with a single hand, and the entire movement is very smooth. Here, HP uses an anti-glare coating, so you can use the laptop without worrying about reflections. Also, it has relatively thin bezels, and the top one houses the camera, its privacy shutter, as well as some sensors, including an IR face recognition system.
Now, let’s take a look at the base. It holds a spill-resistant, optionally backlit keyboard. It has a decent key travel with clicky feedback, making it one of the good keyboards on the market when it comes to the typing experience. Beneath it, you’ll see the relatively large touchpad for a Windows device, which has a super smooth glass surface, good tracking, and an NFC coil beneath it. Moreover, you will find a fingerprint reader on the right of the palm-rest area.
Despite the fact that HP has put its Power button in very close proximity to the Delete and Backspace keys, they have disabled the single touch sleep mode, which means unintentional clicks won’t shut down your computer.
Also, you can see the speakers grills, which are flanking the keyboard. They are branded and tuned by Bang & Olufsen.
This means that if you look at the bottom panel, you will only see the ventilation grill, while the heat is dissipated through the back, with a small portion going through the lid and the base, and most of it being blown away from the back.
Ports
On the left side, there is a security slot, two USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports, an audio jack, and an optional Smart Card reader. Then, on the right, you will see the barrel-style power plug, an HDMI 1.4 connector, and two Thunderbolt 3 connectors, either of which can be used for charging. Additionally, you get an optional SIM card tray.
Disassembly, upgrade options, and maintenance
This is an incredibly easy laptop to disassemble. Just undo 5 captive Phillips-head screws, and pop the bottom panel with a plastic pry tool.
Here, the cooling solution consists of a single heat pipe, and an average-sized fan. Interestingly, the CPU has a metal bracket covering it, so it will dissipate some residual heat, not being caught by the heat pipe.
What we see next is that this notebook is an upgradeability champion. Despite its small size, HP was still able to fit two RAM SODIMM slots, which are located beneath a metal shroud. To access them, just remove the shroud by pulling the tab on the right. The total amount of memory it supports is 64GB of DDR4 in dual-channel. Additionally, there is one M.2 PCIe x4 slot for storage, also covered by a metal shroud.
And for battery, you get a 53Wh unit.
Display quality
HP EliteBook 830 G7 is equipped with a Full HD IPS panel, Innolux CMN13A9. Its diagonal is 13.3-inch (33.78 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080p. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 166 ppi, their pitch – 0.153 х 0.153 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 53 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).
Viewing angles are excellent on this screen. We offer images at different angles to evaluate the quality.
The maximum measured brightness is 458 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 418 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 19% in the bottom left corner, which is unacceptable. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6600K – slightly colder than the 6500K standard temperature for sRGB.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 70% Brightness (White level = 144 cd/m2, Black level = 0.08 cd/m2).
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 (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is excellent – 1860:1.
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 EliteBook 830 G7’s color gamut coverage.
Its display covers 94% 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 at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.
Below you can compare the scores of HP EliteBook 830 G7 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 (which are pretty good), 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 = 38 ms.
Health impact – PWM / Blue Light
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 EliteBook 830 G7’s display uses PWM to adjust its brightness until 110 nits. Thankfully, the flickerings have a high frequency and are not harmful 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.
Conclusion
HP EliteBook 830 G7’s IPS panel has comfortable viewing angles, high maximum brightness, a very good contrast ratio, and a backlight that doesn’t use PWM above 110 nits (and below that the frequency is very high). Moreover, it covers 94% of the sRGB color gamut. Combine this with its color accuracy when our Gaming and Web design profile is applied, and you get a notebook, that can be used for the professional work of designers, architects, and e-commerce retailers. However, there is one caveat – the uniformity of the luminance across the area of the screen. If you are a perfectionist, the 19% deviation in the bottom left corner won’t suit you very well.
Buy our profiles
Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP EliteBook 830 G7 configurations with 13.3″ Innolux CMN13A9 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS panel.
*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.
Sound
HP EliteBook 830 G7’s Bang & Olufsen speakers sound reasonably well. They are firing towards the user, but the low, mid, and high tones have some deviations from clarity.
Drivers
All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be downloaded from here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-elitebook-830-g7-notebook-pc/31971702
Battery
Now, we conduct the battery tests with 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. This device’s 53Wh battery lasts for 21 hours and 7 minutes of Web browsing and 16 hours and 40 minutes of video playback.
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.
CPU options
This notebook can be purchased with one of the following processors: Core i5-10210U, Core i5-10310U, Core i7-10510U, Core i7-10610U, Core i7-10710U, and the Core i7-10810U.
Results are from the Cinebench 20 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
HP EliteBook 830 G7 CPU variants
Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the HP EliteBook 830 G7 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which HP EliteBook 830 G7 model is the best bang for your buck.
Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.
Results are from the Cinebench 20 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
GPU options
On the downside, the only graphics option is the integrated Intel UHD Graphics that comes with all of the aforementioned processors.
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
| DOTA 2 | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings) | HD 1080p, High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average fps | 66 fps | 33 fps | – 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.
| Intel Core i7-10510U (15W TDP) | 0:02 – 0:10 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP EliteBook 830 G7 | 3.37 GHz (B+87%) @ 99°C | 2.21 GHz (B+23%) @ 81°C | 2.23 GHz (B+24%) @ 79°C |
| Huawei MateBook X Pro (2020) | 3.21 GHz (B+78%) @ 76°C | 1.92 GHz (B+7%) @ 57°C | 1.96 GHz (B+9%) @ 57°C |
| HP EliteBook 850 G7 | 3.21 GHz (B+78%) @ 76°C | 1.92 GHz (B+7%) @ 57°C | 1.96 GHz (B+9%) @ 57°C |
| HP Envy 13 (13-ba0000) | 3.30 GHz (B+83%) @ 83°C | 1.87 GHz (B+4%) @ 60°C | 1.72 GHz @ 65°C |
| Fujitsu LifeBook U7410 | 3.05 GHz (B+69%) @ 86°C | 2.65 GHz (B+47%) @ 96°C | 1.94 GHz (B+8%) @ 79°C |
| ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 UX463 | 3.50 GHz (B+94%) @ 92°C | 2.97 GHz (B+65%) @ 95°C | 2.31 GHz (B+28%) @ 73°C |
| Dell XPS 13 7390 | 3.62 GHz (B+101%) @ 89°C | 3.16 GHz (B+76%) @ 99°C | 2.70 GHz (B+50%) @ 85°C |
This Elitebook is definitely not coping well with the competition of XPS 13 7390 for example. Its temperatures are a tad lower, but so are the frequencies – which are good 500 MHz down at the end.
Comfort during full load
And the temperature outside under extreme workload goes a bit over 40C, which is not ideal. At least, the noise is in check.
Verdict
In short, the EliteBook 830 G7 is a 13-inch business ultrabook that delivers. It has great upgradeability, with up to 64GB of DDR4 dual-channel memory support and a single M.2 PCIe x4 slot. It also packs two Thunderbolt 3 connectors, as well as a couple of USB Type-A ports, an optional Smart Card Reader, and optional LTE support.
Also, you have the option of two-factor biometric authentication, thanks to the fingerprint reader, and an IR face recognition camera. And on top of that, HP provides a hardware privacy shutter on the camera, as well.
HP EliteBook 830 G7’s IPS panel (Innolux CMN13A9) has comfortable viewing angles, high maximum brightness, a very good contrast ratio, and a backlight that doesn’t use PWM above 110 nits (and below that the frequency is very high). Moreover, it covers 94% of the sRGB color gamut. Combine this with its color accuracy when our Gaming and Web design profile is applied, and you get a notebook, that can be used for the professional work of designers, architects, and e-commerce retailers. However, there is one caveat – the uniformity of the luminance across the area of the screen. If you are a perfectionist, the 19% deviation in the bottom left corner won’t suit you very well.
Indeed, it is not a powerhouse, as we saw on the Dell Latitude 13 7310, but what is impressive about the EliteBook 830 G7 is the battery life. And by impressive we mean…really impressive – it came second in our Top Laptops by Battery Life chart by a mile. We got around 21 hours and 7 minutes of Web browsing and 16 hours and 40 minutes of video playback. So, if you take an entire workday of 8 hours, and put a couple of hours of Netflix after work. And do that for two days straight, you should have some juice left for the third day. Let that sink in. This makes it a part of a very small group of devices that can achieve this. Of course, if your workload includes heavier tasks, it will drain faster, but come on – two days with low loads is bonkers in the laptop world.
Honestly, despite its lack of pure performance, it is easy to recommend this machine. It feels premium, works premium, its battery will outlast some people’s relationships on a single charge, and you have the option to significantly increase your memory down the line.
Pros
- A small and classy outfit
- Outstanding battery life
- PCIe x4 support + 64GB of DDR4 memory in dual-channel
- Two Thunderbolt 3 connectors, Wi-Fi 6, and optional LTE support
- 94% of sRGB coverage and great color accuracy with our Gaming and Web design profile (Innolux CMN13A9)
- Doesn’t use aggressive PWM for brightness adjustment (Innolux CMN13A9)
- Spill-resistant keyboard
- IR face recognition and fingerprint reader
Cons
- Average performance
- High deviation in luminance in the bottom left corner (Innolux CMN13A9)
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-elitebook-830-g7/