[Video Review] HP EliteBook 830 G9 – HP makes the impossible



HP EliteBook 830 G9 in-depth review

HP's EliteBook series offers one of the most premium notebooks from the brand. Regardless if you are looking for a small or large business device, you will find it with this nametag.And if the price is not too offputting for you, then, you are in the right place. Today, we have a tiny performer, which is called the HP EliteBook 830 G9. It comes with a 13.3-inch display, featuring a 16:10 aspect ratio. The more vertical space should give you more room for productivity apps and tasks.Ultimately, the performance expectations are really high. The laptop is supplied with Intel's 12th Gen C[...]

Pros

  • No PWM (AUO AUO4B98)
  • Smaller and rigid chassis
  • Premium build quality
  • Great keyboard and touchpad
  • IR face recognition + fingerprint reader
  • Thunderbolt 4 connector, MicroSD card reader
  • Covers 100% of sRGB and has accurate color representation with our Gaming and Web design profile (AUO AUO4B98)

Cons

  • Soldered RAM
  • No SD card slot

HP EliteBook 830 G9 - Specs

  • AUO AUO4B98
  • Color accuracy  4.9  1.5
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 2000GB SSD
  • RAM
  • up to 16GB
  • OS
  • Windows 11 Pro, Windows 10 Pro, No OS, Windows 11 Home
  • Battery
  • 51Wh, 3-cell, 38Wh, 3-cell, 51.3Wh
  • Body material
  • Aluminum
  • Dimensions
  • 300 x 215 x 19.3 mm (11.81" x 8.46" x 0.76")
  • Weight
  • 1.27 kg (2.8 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-C
  • 4.0, Thunderbolt 4, Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • HDMI
  • 2.0
  • Card reader
  • Nano Sim
  • Ethernet LAN
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.2
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5mm Combo Jack
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • optional
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • optional
  • Microphone
  • Dual Array Microphones
  • Speakers
  • 2x Stereo Speakers
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot
  • Nano K-Lock

[Intro]

The HP EliteBook 830 G9 is in a sense… Elite. Its premium nature and heavy price tag make the potential consumer base small, but if you’re looking for the best 13-inch office machine, there’s nowhere you’d rather be but here.

[Design]

The EliteBook comes with a fully aluminum chassis that brings supreme flex resistance. It measures 1.27 kg and 19.3 mm in terms of weight and thickness, respectively. While the latter might seem a bit much, the edges of the laptop are curved, so it appears much thinner. In fact, the weight has been distributed so well that the laptop feels very portable.

[Input devices]

The lid also opens up with one hand, showcasing the thin bezels that surround the Full HD display, which you’ll hear more about in a minute. The top one houses a bunch of sensors, including a Full HD webcam and an IR sensor, which makes Windows Hello login possible. There’s a privacy shutter, however, it’s not manual, like we usually prefer.

Moving down to the base, we have an islanded keyboard with long key travel and clicky feedback. It also has a backlight and is spill-resistant, which further adds to the experience. The touchpad and fingerprint reader are separated, with the former getting a glass cover. Glass is undoubtedly really smooth, and while the clicking mechanism is uniform, it gets harder and harder to press the higher along the pad that you go.

[Ports]

Next are the sides, where we have to look at the ports. The left side keeps an HDMI 2.0 connector, one USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port that’s Always On, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and an optional SmartCard reader. Then, on the right, we have an optional SIM card tray, one more USB Type-A port, and a 3.5 mm audio jack.

[Display]

The Full HD display is actually a Full HD+ display, with a taller 16:10 aspect ratio. Its viewing angles are excellent, and with a peak brightness of 473 nits, you can clearly see it even in direct sunlight. The contrast ratio is very high, at 1760:1, so black colors appear really deep. If you plan on editing images or color grading, you can sleep tight, as the EliteBook 830 G9 shows 100% sRGB coverage. Paired with our Design and Gaming profile, you get a dE value of 1.5, which makes sure colors are accurate, punchy, and vibrant.

We’ll leave links to all of our profiles in the description.

[Sound]

While there’s no space for speaker grills on the base, the Bang & Olufsen setup on the bottom produces very good audio with no deviations across the entire frequency range.

[Battery]

As the laptop uses Alder Lake U-series processors, we expect them to go easy on the 51.3 Wh battery pack. In the battery test, the EliteBook with a Core i7-1255U lasts for 13 hours and 20 minutes of web browsing and 10 hours and 45 minutes of video playback, which makes a whole day of unplugged use possible.

[Performance]

As for the performance of the Core i7-1255U, it packs a wallop, with a very decent score inside Cinebench R23 and Photoshop. It’s not the highest we’ve seen, however, keep in mind the small stature of the laptop.

[Cooling]

With a smaller device, you need a more compact cooling solution. Here we see one heat pipe and one fan, which keep the chip cool and stable under full load. The CPU jumps to 46W in the first few seconds, which is amazing, followed by 36W in the next 20 seconds. In long loads, like video rendering, the Core i7 runs at 22W, which is admirable, considering the 15W base TDP.

The comfort of the laptop is astonishing, with the keyboard reaching a hotspot of just 34.4°C, while the single fan can’t make a lot of noise even if it wants to.

[Teardown and upgradeability]

Our only gripe with small laptops is the lack of expandable memory, as all 16GB of DDR5 memory is soldered onto the motherboard. For storage, there’s one M.2 slot for Gen 4 SSDs.

We’ve got a detailed teardown video, which shows how to take apart the laptop, both for upgradeability, but also in case you want to take out the battery of cooing for maintenance, repasting, etc. You can check it out down below.

[Verdict]

The HP EliteBook 830 G9 is in a league of its own when it comes to providing a good-looking computing platform with all the bells and whistles that you might need. Its lack of an SD card reader is more than well compensated, while the missing upgradeability is present across most of the 13-inch market, so it’s not like we have many better options.

For more information about the EliteBook 830 G9, check out the written review on our website.

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