HP ProBook 440 G6 review – budget device for the workaholics

Another year has passed and yet another ProBook generation appears on the computer market. HP’s new ProBook 440 G6 looks like a breed between the ProBook 440 G5 and the more premium EliteBook 840 G5. This indeed can result in an overall better product than last year’s model.

ProBook 440 G6 features a choice of Intel’s latest Whiskey Lake ULV chips and provides you with the option of dedicated GPU in the form of GeForce MX130. We are clearly noticing a trend in the ProBooks to use the older spec GPUs. Last year ProBook 440 G5 was equipped with the GeForce 930MX and now the MX130 feels a little yesterday on the brink of MX230’s official reveal. Nevertheless, we don’t expect any major difference between them so baffling about it would be pointless. Either way, the classier ProBook 440 G6 is still made with business in mind and its neutral look is surely going to attract more than it is going to push you away from it.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-probook-440-g6/

Contents


Specs Sheet

HP ProBook 440 G6 tableau des caractéristiques techniques

Acer
Not available
Afficher
14.0”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), IPS
HDD/SSD
256GB SSD
Fente M.2
1x 2280 M.2 NVMe slot Voir photo
RAM
8GB DDR4
Dimensions
324 x 238 x 18 mm (12.76" x 9.37" x 0.71")
Poids
1.60 kg (3.5 lbs)
Matériau du corps
Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum
Ports et connectivité
  • 1x USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), DisplayPort, HDMI
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • HDMI 1.4b
  • Lecteur de cartes SD, SDHC, SDXC
  • Ethernet LAN Gigabit Ethernet
  • Wi-Fi 802.11ac (2x2)
  • Bluetooth
  • Prise audio 3.5mm audio jack
Caractéristiques
  • Lecteur d'empreintes digitales
  • Caméra Web HD 720p
  • Microphone Single digital microphone
  • HP Premium Spill-resistant Keyboard

What’s in the box?

Inside the not so fancy cardboard box, we found the notebook itself, protected by some foam and a plastic bag. In another dedicated compartment, you can find the tiny 45W charger.


Design and construction

HP ProBook 440 G6’s body feels like it can take some beating. It is made of aluminum (for the lid and the base) and plastic – around the screen and the bottom plate. Although it shares some similarities with the fifth generation of the product on the outside, ProBook 440 G6 has a more elegant finish to the base, which is now flat and comprises of a single metal piece. It measures at 18 mm and weighs 1.6 kg.

Moving to the screen department we see slim side bezels and pretty large top and bottom ones. They are home to the camera assembly plus the microphone array and the HP logo, respectively. Moreover, HP offers optional IR face recognition. If it is the same system, found on the EliteBook 1050 G1 you should expect blazing fast unlock times even during night time. However, we can’t be 100% sure of that since the model we tested wasn’t equipped with one.

Next, we have the keyboard, which is pretty much taken from the older unit. It has a super pleasant textured coating, although, the typing experience is held back by shallow key travel and the same weird arrow keys. It also lacks a backlight, which is petty, since we’ve seen cheaper devices feature one – Ideapad 330s (14″) for example.

Further to the bottom, there is a relatively large for a Windows 14-incher touchpad. It is a humble plastic device with the keys embedded beneath the touch surface. It feels responsive, although we’ve seen better. Finally, there is a fingerprint reader…

This year, the bottom plate resembles a single plastic panel, meaning there are no service lids, whatsoever. Lately, we see manufacturers ditching the service lids as they make laptops easier to pop open with tools you can find in the nearest utility store.

HP ProBook 440 G6 / HP ProBook 440 G5

WidthLengthHeightWeight
HP ProBook 440 G6324 mm (12.76″)238 mm (9.36″)18 mm (0.71″)1.60 kg (3.53 lbs)
Acer Swift 3 (SF314-56G)323 mm (12.72″)228 mm (8.98″)17.8 mm (0.70″) (-1%)1.50 kg (3.3 lbs) (-6%)
Lenovo IdeaPad 330s (14″)323 mm (12.72″)235 mm (9.25″)19 mm (0.75″) (+5%)1.67 kg (3.7 lbs) (+4%)

Ports

HP ProBook 440 G6 its hot air coming out of the left side of the device. Also there you can find a USB Type-A 2.0 port and SD card reader. The majority of the stuff, however, is located on the other side. There you can find a barrel plug connector, USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 1) port with no Thunderbolt sadly, RJ-45 Ethernet connector, an HDMI port, two USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports and a combo audio jack.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

One of the main advantages of the ProBook 400 series of the last generation was its ease of upgrades. Perhaps HP wanted to join the trend, or they just found out that it is not going to hurt if you allow users access to the entire internal side of the device. Nonetheless, gone is the service panel. However, a new implementation of ease of access can be found here – just seven screws separate you from HP ProBook 440 G6’s internals.

You remove them, carefully unpry the bottom lid and you’re there you might think. That’s not quite the case here. Well, yes practically this is everything you need to do. However, you should be careful with one thing – as the two middle screws stay attached to the bottom plate after you unscrew them, you’re most probably going to have a hard time lifting the plate from the body. This is because these two screws actually hold the battery in place as well. In our case, one of the screws was stuck inside the plastic bracket of the battery and we needed to twist and turn the plate a couple of times and help it out by securing the battery with a finger (… yes it is necessary).

After we’ve removed the bloody bottom panel we have a clear view of every component inside this machine.

The first thing that has our interest is the cooling solution. Here we have a fairly long heat pipe which ends in one of the largest heatsinks in a device of this type. This is certainly a good decision from HP since it provides more surface area for the heat to dissipate.

Next, there are the two RAM DIMMs, which are hidden beneath a protective foil. They support up to 32 GB of DDR4 memory. Just beneath them – on the bottom left corner you can see both of the storage ports. There are an M.2 NVMe enabled connector and a SATA port, which is professionally secured from bobbing around with the help of sticky tape.

Lastly, we have a 45Wh battery unit. It definitely looks smaller than we’d expect, especially next to the empty SATA slot. However, let’s not judge the book by its cover and wait for the battery tests, before we draw any conclusions.


Display quality

HP ProBook 440 G6 sports a Full HD IPS screen, model number LG LGD05F1. Its diagonal is 14″ (35.56 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 157 ppi, their pitch – 0.161 x 0.161 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 56 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

Viewing angles are excellent. We have provided images at 45 degrees to evaluate quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 258 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 245 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 8% in the bottom right corner, which is considered as inappropriate. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6670K (average) – just a little colder than the 6500K optimum for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 6560K.
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 76% Brightness (White level = 139 cd/m2, Black level = 0.12 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 acceptable – 1160:1.

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 in 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 440 G6’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers only 53% 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 ProBook 440 G6 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 = 28 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 ProBook 440 G6 doesn’t use PWM at any brightness level. This makes it comfortable and safe for use in this aspect for extended periods of time.

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.

Conclusions

HP ProBook 440 G6 is equipped with a budget 1080p IPS display. The main downside of that is the limited color coverage – 53% of sRGB. On the bright side, however, it has comfortable viewing angles, high contrast ratio, adequate default settings and more importantly – doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness.

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 440 G6 configurations with 14.0″ LG LGD05F1 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS.

*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.

En plus de recevoir des profils efficaces et favorables à la santé, en achetant les produits de LaptopMedia, vous soutenez également le développement de nos laboratoires, où nous testons les appareils afin de produire les examens les plus objectifs possibles.

Travail de bureau

Le travail de bureau devrait être utilisé principalement par les utilisateurs qui passent le plus de temps à regarder des morceaux de texte, des tableaux ou simplement à surfer. Ce profil vise à offrir une meilleure distinction et une meilleure clarté en conservant une courbe gamma plate (2,20), une température de couleur native et des couleurs perceptuellement précises.

Conception et jeux

Ce profil est destiné aux designers qui travaillent avec les couleurs de manière professionnelle, et pour les jeux et les films également. Design and Gaming pousse les panneaux d'affichage à leurs limites, les rendant aussi précis que possible dans la norme sRGB IEC61966-2-1 pour le Web et la TVHD, au point blanc D65.

Santé-Guard

Santé-Guard élimine le modulation de largeur d'impulsion nocive (PWM) et réduit le lumière bleue négative qui affecte nos yeux et notre corps. Comme il est adapté à chaque panneau, il parvient à maintenir la précision perceptive des couleurs. Santé-Guard simule le papier, ce qui réduit considérablement la pression sur les yeux.

Obtenez les 3 profils avec 33% de réduction


Sound

HP ProBook 440 G6 produces good quality clear sound with its user-facing speakers. Low, mid and high tones are free of any significant noise.


Drivers

Everything you need – from drivers to utilities can be found on HP’s official web page: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-probook-440-g6-notebook-pc/23200928

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. HP ProBook has a relatively humble 45Wh battery inside. However, it was able to last a very long time on a single charge.

Honestly, we weren’t expecting that, but we got 9 hours and a half of web browsing, just an hour less when playing videos. Even the gaming times were not bad – 2 hours and 34 minutes away from the plug.

Afin de simuler des conditions réelles, nous avons utilisé notre propre script de navigation automatique sur plus de 70 sites web.


CPU options

HP ProBook 440 G6 comes with the whole range of Whiskey Lake ULV CPUs – Intel Core i3-8145U with two cores / four threads or the two quad-core / eight-thread Core i5-8265U and Core i7-8565U.


GPU options

GPU-wise your only option for dedicated GPU is the GeForce MX130, which is essentially the 940MX from the previous 28nm Maxwell generation of graphics cards. If you don’t really need a discrete GPU you can still settle for the integrated UHD Graphics 620.


Gaming tests

If you’d like to do some minor gaming we definitely prefer the MX130 version of this laptop, as the UHD 620 won’t be sufficient for anything tougher than DOTA2 on low settings.

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS36 fps22 fps– fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS57 fps28 fps– fps

GTA-V-benchmarks

Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5)HD 768p, Normal (Check settings)HD 768p, High (Check settings)HD 768p, Very High (Check settings)
Average FPS28 fps– 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 temperature (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i5-8265U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
HP ProBook 440 G62.55 GHz (B+59%)@ 59°C2.56 GHz (B+60%)@ 67°C2.09 GHz (B+31%)@ 67°C
Acer Swift 3 (SF314-56G)2.67 GHz (B+67%)@ 93°C2.16 GHz (B+35%)@ 86°C1.66 GHz (B+4%)@ 71°C

As a typical everyday business laptop, the ProBook 440 G6 has a stable temperature and frequency results. Both at the beginning and at the end the clock speeds were at a reasonable level – 2.55 GHz in the first two segments and 2.09 GHz in the last. As you can see from the larger picture it performs well better than the 14-inch Acer Swift 3 which shares the same target group. Not only that but the temperature, in the beginning, was just 59C and never exceeded 67C. We haven’t seen a Core i5 to achieve temperature like this since the older dual-core solutions. One of the main contributors to the good results in this test would be the cooling itself – with a very large heat spreader. In fact, it is larger even than those found on some of the gaming laptops on the market.

Gaming comfort

The good thermal efficiency has its fruits gloom on the outside as well as the highest temperature on the surface we measured was just above 40C. In addition to that, the palm rest area remained cool, while the laptop itself remained almost unnoticeably quiet by keeping fan speeds low.


Verdict

Since the beginning of the year, there have been some very good laptops to hit our labs. There has been the Acer Swift 3 (SF314-56), ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 a TravelMate on a diet and now we have the ProBook 440 G6. Some of these devices even fall in the same market. Since a business notebook would have some strict features which may come at the expense of others, without sacrificing the overall value of the product – it’s a very tight group to be in. This not only makes it difficult to shine, but it makes it harder for us to decide which one is better.

However, when we run it through our super fine sieve, we come with a pretty clear vision of the device. In this case, the ProBook 440 G6 looks magnificent – the closest it comes to being an EliteBook. Despite the good looks, we are not really happy with the keyboard – it is relatively shallow and doesn’t a backlight.

Basically, this is everything we have to complain about. We should note that the IPS panel on the ProBook 440 G6 is a budget one – covering just 53% of sRGB. Thankfully, though, it doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment which is quite important given that the device is meant for long work times.

Speaking of that, it is capable of driving you for the whole work-day with around 9 hours and a half of web browsing time and 8 hours and a half of watching videos. Impressive for a 45Wh battery pack. Nevertheless, Acer Swift 3 (SF314-56) is able to get two hours more with a slightly bigger battery. If your work day is longer than 8 hours, you might feel more comfortable with the Acer device instead.

Here comes ProBook 440 G6’s biggest advantage over its competition in the 14-inch business notebook market. It features what we’d call “full upgradability” for a laptop – two RAM DIMMs, supporting 32 GB of DDR4 memory, as well as a SATA connector and M.2 NVMe slot. On the contrary, it maxes out at GeForce MX130, while the Swift 3 (SF314-56) can go up to MX150.

So the bottom line here would be – if you would like to do some adequate low-end gaming or you work more than 10 hours away from a charger you’d probably drift away from the ProBook 440 G6. However, if you are a 9 to 5 person and care mostly about work – this is the laptop for you!

Pros

  • Adequately priced
  • Doesn’t use PWM to adjust screen brightness (LG LGD05F1)
  • Great battery life
  • Nice build quality
  • Wide upgradability with easy access
  • Optional IR recognition


Cons

  • Shallow keyboard
  • Covers only 53% of sRGB (LG LGD05F1)
  • Keyboard lacks backlight

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-probook-440-g6/

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Jeni Salamat
Jeni Salamat
4 années il y a un an

hi,

I believe that the system that you have tested is configured with M.2 SSD. and if I wanted to add a 2.5in drive do I still need a bracket? based on the picture it looks like you only have the bay and the sata connector but not the actual bracket. can you verify?