The manufacturer HP wants to convince even the most demanding business users with the EliteBook model range. The HP EliteBook 845 G9 review shows that the portable 14-inch ultrabook lives up to this claim in all aspects. Premium in equipment, workmanship and security features. We reveal where the strengths and weaknesses of the notebook lie.
Technical data
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 6950HS (8 cores, 16 threads, 3.3 – 4.9 GHz) |
| Graphics performance | AMD Radeon 680M |
| Display | 14.0″; IPS; 1920 x 1200 pixels; 60 Hz; SureView |
| Storage | 1 GB SSD (M.2-2280 NVMe PCIe 4.0 x4) installed |
| Memory | 32 GB LPDDR5 RAM (expandable) |
| Keyboard | Backlit Chiclet Keyboard; |
| Operating System | Windows 11 Pro |
| Connectivity | Intel Wi-Fi 6E; Bluetooth 5.2 |
| Battery | Li-polymer; 51 watt hours |
| Dimensions (W x H x D) | 316 x 224 x 19.4 mm |
| Weight | 1.470 kg (without power supply) |
| Price | € 1,609.00 * |
HP EliteBook 845 G9 review: design and build
- High-quality, minimalist design
- Pleasantly grippy feel
That a really high-quality premium ultrabook awaits us in the HP EliteBook 845 G9 review becomes clear within the first few minutes with the laptop. The silver, anodized aluminum case looks both sleek and classy.
The lid is emblazoned with the manufacturer’s modern logo in a shiny silver. There is a wide air outlet at the bottom, as well as the installed speakers on the left and right edge, which the manufacturer Bang & Olufsen has contributed. Two wide, dark gray rubber feet ensure a secure grip even on slippery surfaces.
The underside of the chassis can also be quickly removed via a total of five screws if desired – but more about the maintenance options later. The design looks almost puristic and does without any unnecessary frills. I also like the rounded edges and the non-slip surface, which makes for a pleasant feel.
There is also almost nothing to criticize about the build quality in my eyes. The matte surface, which is very resistant to fingerprints, is very praiseworthy. Hinge, display and keyboard hardly yield even under pressure – we have rarely seen that better.
Features and ports of the HP EliteBook
- Modern CPU; 32 GB RAM
- Fast Wi-Fi 6E module + SIM card slot
- Strong speakers; very good webcam
The HP EliteBook 845 G9’s equipment also absolutely lives up to the premium claim. For example, our model relies on AMD’s Ryzen 9 PRO 6950HS processor, which has eight cores, 16 threads and clock rates between 3.30 GHz and 4.90 GHz under the hood.
The otherwise almost identical HP EliteBook 845 G9 relies on Intel Core CPUs, if you prefer. However, with a TDP of 35 watts, the AMD model should be more energy-efficient, at least in theory, enable longer battery runtimes, and offer better graphics performance with the integrated AMD Radeon 680M graphics unit. More about that later.
In addition, our test model comes with a whopping 32 GB of DDR5-4800 RAM, which can even be expanded up to 64 GB via a second slot. The EliteBook stores data on a 1 TB PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe SSD.
The ultrabook communicates wirelessly via fast Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E and connects wirelessly to other devices via Bluetooth 5.2. The notebook also has room for SIM cards on the right, but they can only use the LTE standard. Unfortunately, 5G is not offered.
The equipment is rounded off by two high-quality stereo speakers that offer a really convincing sound (in relation to other notebook speakers, of course), a dual-array microphone and an integrated 5-megapixel webcam including a hardware shutter.
It has an exceptionally high resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels and offers very good image quality. The webcam is supplemented by a second infrared camera that enables logging in via Windows Hello. Alternatively, there is also a fingerprint sensor to the right of the trackpad.
Connections of the HP EliteBook: Two Thunderbolt 4
On the connectivity side, the HP EliteBook 845 G9 is well equipped for a compact and slim ultrabook. On the left side, you have one HDMI 2.0, one USB Type-A and two USB Type-C with Thunderbolt 4 (including PowerDelivery and DisplayPort Alt mode) at your disposal.
On the right side you’ll find the SIM card slot, a Kensington lock port, once USB Type-A, also with 5 Gbit/s and a combined 3.5 mm audio port. On the other hand, it is a pity that HP has omitted a card reader in any form. That would have been practical especially for multi-media use.
Keyboard and trackpad in the EliteBook 845 G9
- Excellent keyboard with a pleasant feel
- Comparatively large and very good trackpad
On the other hand, there is nothing to complain about the keyboard and trackpad of the HP EliteBook 845 G9, which are definitely among the best models we have seen on notebooks so far. The pleasant, quite firm feedback of the keys, which provides a very good feeling when typing, is especially positive. In connection with the pleasant key drop and very good release point, the keyboard is also suitable for long texts.
Furthermore, a pleasant, white backlighting of the keys is offered, which can be regulated in two levels. The trackpad also stands out positively, with a pleasantly silky surface and excellent gliding properties, as well as a quiet, muffled trigger sound. In addition, it is comparatively large at 8 cm x 12 cm (height x width) and thus also implements gestures very well.
By comparison, the Acer Aspire Vero AV14 (our review), which is also a 14-inch notebook, only measures 6.5 x 10.5 cm for the touchpad.
The display: WUXGA IPS panel with light and shadow
- High peak brightness; strong color space coverage
- Only 60 Hz
- Weak viewing angle stability
We were not completely convinced by the display in the HP EliteBook 845 G9 test. The manufacturer relies on a WUXGA resolution of 1,920 x 1,200 pixels in 16:10 format.
The matte display prevents reflections and achieves a very good brightness of (theoretically) 1000 cd/m², which cannot be fully realized, though. On the other hand, the color space coverage is also impressive.
On the other hand, the viewing angle stability does not turn out completely convincing, because the readability already drops significantly from an oblique angle. The sweet spot in which the display is ideally legible is surprisingly small. And not only in “SureView” mode, which you can activate at the push of a button.
Here, a privacy filter is added, where nothing at all can be seen on the display from the same angle. Nice, but hardly usable in normally bright environments, as it also reduces the general brightness.
Practical test and safety
- Very good working speed
- Strong security features
- Quickly very loud under load
Despite these limitations in display readability, the HP EliteBook 845 G9 cuts a decidedly good figure in the practical test. The installed AMD processor scores with an excellent work speed, which is more than sufficient for even demanding image and video editing in combination with the fast SSD.
However, it is even more fun to type on this keyboard and to work with it. And I think that’s the first time I can say that about a notebook keyboard. The cooling also does a good job of keeping the ultrabook in a comfortable or bearable range even under load – it can get warm on the lap under constant load, but by no means unusually hot.
The fact that the fan has to work hard is also noticeable in the noise level. Although it is almost whisper-quiet with around 30 dB(A) in idle mode, the fans reach up to 46 dB(A) in benchmark tests, at least for a short time. That is still not as loud as a gaming notebook, but it is unpleasantly noticeable. In my eyes, this disqualifies the notebook directly for open-plan offices.
Particularly interesting for business users is that HP pays more attention to the security aspects here.
With HP Wolf Security, the manufacturer supplies its own security suite, which is supposed to protect against malware or hacker attacks, for example, and is supposed to constantly develop further thanks to AI Deep Learning. Many settings can be made in a tidy interface and individual aspects of the monitoring can be adjusted in detail.
Benchmark: Productivity, System, SSD and Gaming
I also put the HP EliteBook 845 G9 through its paces in various benchmark tests. I determined the SSD’s speed with the AS SSD benchmark, while PCMark 10 and Cinebench R23 measured productivity and system performance. I also consulted various gaming tests and the 3DMark benchmark.
PCMark 10 simulates different workflows when running the benchmark, which include word processing, web browsing, and spreadsheets. Cinebench, on the other hand, measures the speed of the CPU cores individually, as well as in multi-core mode.
SSD benchmark
- Fleet PCIe 4.0 SSD
The installed SN810 1TB SSD from Western Digital, which is specified via M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 x4, sets an excellent pace. The capacity of 1 TB (of which about 780 GB are available) is sufficient for most users.
Although the model does not quite reach the speeds of the Samsung SSD from the ASUS Zenbook Pro 14 Duo (our review), it still scores with very good read and write speeds, although it slightly loses out in the access time comparison. However, you won’t notice anything of that in practice, after all we are in the second decimal place in the millisecond range here.
Cinebench R23 and PCMark
- Excellent system performance
- Fast and efficient CPU
The installed AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 6950HS CPU also puts in a very good performance in the benchmark test, which works energy-efficiently in the 6 nm process and comes up with a TDP of 45 watts. The total of eight processing cores usually run with a clock rate of 3.6 GHz, but briefly jump up to 3.85 GHz under load. The benchmark test result is more than respectable.
With 11,960 points in the multi-core test of Cinebench R23, the CPU ranks (depending on the model) only slightly behind Intel’s Core i7-12700H, which has 14 cores and 20 threads (compared to 8/16 in the case of the AMD chip). Intel’s 11th Core generation also consistently outperforms the AMD CPU.
A result that is also confirmed in the single-core test. In the end, a good 1,546 points are achieved, which puts the CPU on about the same level as the Core i5-1250P.
The results in the PCMark 10 benchmark also look excellent, in which the EliteBook with AMD CPU can sometimes pass the Core i7-12700H. The Intel counterpart is ahead in the essential tests thanks to additional cores, but AMD sometimes clearly overtakes in the productivity and digital content creation performance.
This already shows that the integrated Radeon graphics unit could tip the scales – depending on the application field. Of course, the 32 GB of working memory also prove to be useful. But how does it look in games?
| Benchmark | Result |
| Cinebench R23 Multi Core | 11,960 points |
| Cinebench R23 Single Core | 1,546 points |
| PCMark 10 Total | 6,070 points |
| PCMark 10 Essentials | 9,603 points |
| PCMark 10 Productivity | 8,375 points |
| PCMark 10 Digital Content Creation | 7,550 points |
Graphics Performance: 3DMark and Gaming Tests
- Only conditionally suitable for gaming
In fact, this assumption is then not really confirmed in the graphics tests. The AMD Radeon 680M iGPU performs quite well in the synthetic 3DMark tests as well as in various games – but it cannot replace a real, dedicated graphics chip. Even in direct comparison to the Intel iGPU, the AMD counterpart sometimes clearly loses out, even in the CPU-heavy Final Fantasy XV benchmark.
Thus, the HP EliteBook is only conditionally suitable for gaming. The performance is, of course depending on the game, sufficient for a smooth performance in low to medium details. But not much more than that.
| Benchmark | Result |
| Fire Strike Total | 3,759 points |
| Time Spy Total | 1,689 points |
| Night Raid Total | 17,190 points |
| Final Fantasy XV (High Quality) | 1,439 points |
How about the battery life?
- Over 9 hours of battery life at low load
- At high brightness and load, runtime reduces to under 2h
The comparatively small 51 Wh battery is naturally reflected in the battery runtime in combination with the bright display. Nevertheless, the strong energy efficiency of the AMD CPU proves itself here, as the ZenBook 14 Pro Duo’s significantly larger proportioned battery of 76 Wh is noticeably superior. Especially since the processor does not reduce the performance even in battery mode.
In the end, a good, but not outstanding 9 hours and 24 minutes jump out in our idle battery test. However, the tide turns during video rendering with maximum brightness. It already ends after about 90 minutes – so the runtime is only partly sufficient for a full-length blockbuster.
HP EliteBook 845 G9 review: Conclusion
In HP’s EliteBook 845 G9 review, the chic premium ultrabook primarily scores with its excellent build quality and the excellent keyboard including trackpad, which are simply fun to type and work with.
The equipment around the CPU, fast SSD and 32 GB DDR5 RAM are also appealing. In addition, there are very good speakers and an excellent webcam for a notebook, while the SIM card slot is a real added value.
On the other hand, it is a pity that an SD card reader has been omitted and that the fan gets quite loud under load. I was not completely convinced by the display, which is pleasantly bright and offers strong colors, but the viewing angle is too small. I also do not see a real added value in the SureView function.
If this does not bother you, you will get an absolutely high-quality, fast and future-proof notebook with the HP EliteBook 845 G9, on which you can also type longer texts.
HP EliteBook 845 G9
Design & workmanship
Display
Features
Performance
Battery
Value for money
88/100
Powerful and high-quality premium ultrabook that attracts attention especially with its excellent keyboard, a good display and modern ports. However, it gets quite loud under load and the viewing angle stability is below average.
No replies yet
Neue Antworten laden...
Gehört zum Inventar
Beteilige dich an der Diskussion in der Basic Tutorials Community →