HP EliteBook 1040 G4 Intel® Core™ i7-7500U Notebook 35.6 cm (14") Full HD 1920 x 1080, Dual-Core 2.70 GHz, Dual-Core 2.70 GHz, Intel HD Graphics 620 Full HD, 16 GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512 GB SSD Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

HP EliteBook 1040 G4 Intel® Core™ i7-7500U Notebook 35.6 cm (14") Full HD 1920 x 1080, Dual-Core 2.70 GHz, Dual-Core 2.70 GHz, Intel HD Graphics 620 Full HD, 16 GB DDR4-SDRAM, 512 GB SSD Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

HP's 14-inch HP EliteBook 1040 G4 is a solid business notebook that's as good for play as it is for work. That's because the HP EliteBook 1040 G4 bright, vibrant display offers great picture quality, and its Bang & Olufsen-tuned speakers produce solid sound. The high-powered, quad-core model offers a ton of speed, while the dual-core (Intel U-Series) model lasts over 10 hours on a charge from its excellent audio to its vibrant display, there's a lot to love about this laptop. However, some competitors offer a better typing experience and even longer endurance. 

HP EliteBook 1040 G4 display

The HP EliteBook 1040 G4 14-inch display offers crisp, vivid images. As I watched the teaser trailer for Avengers: Infinity War, I admired how it nailed the difficult-to-display purple of Thanos' body, his gold armor and the blue glow from Black Panther's spear. The 1920 x 1080-pixel panel is also crisp enough to show the intricate glowing patterns that emanated from Doctor Strange's hands.

According to our colorimeter, the two EliteBook 1040 models we tested produced an average of 113 percent of the sRGB color gamut. That beats the 101-percent average for thin-and-light notebooks and trounces Lenovo's ThinkPad 25 and T470p (69 to 77 percent) , but it's less than the 144 percent we saw from the Dell Latitude 7380.

The two HP EliteBook 1040 G4 models we tested emitted 278 and 292 nits (for the 7820HQ and 7500U models, respectively) of brightness. Those marks soar above what we recorded for the Latitude 7380 (267 nits), the ThinkPad 25 (221 nits) and the ThinkPad T470p (229 nits), as well as the 253-nit category average. That's bright enough for a solid range of viewing angles, as I saw Doctor Strange's red cape stay strong at 30 degrees to the left and right. The touch-screen display on the HP EliteBook 1040 G4 offers speedy input recognition, doing a fantastic job of keeping up as I rapidly doodled in Paint. The screen's right and left sides correctly registered Windows 10's gestures for navigating windows and opening side menus.

HP EliteBook 1040 G4 security and Durability

The HP EliteBook 1040 G4 has several ways to keep your data secure. In addition to HP's optional Sure View privacy screens, which can help prevent someone from stealing intellectual property from you by peeping at your screen, the HP EliteBook 1040 G4 packs HP's Sure Start technology, which automatically repairs your laptop's BIOS (the root-level infrastructure of your system) in case of attack. In contrast to these EliteBook keyboards, the Lenovo ThinkPad 25, ThinkPad T470p and the Dell Latitude 7380 pack amazingly comfortable keyboards with stronger feedback and deeper travel. The T470p, for example, has a deep, 2.3 millimeters of travel and requires 74 grams of actuation force. HP says that its keyboard offers less snappy feedback than competitors in order to produce less typing noise, which may appeal to some users.

The 4.3 x 2.5 touchpads on the HP EliteBook 1040 G4 tracked my input accurately as I navigated the desktop. The HP EliteBook 1040 G4 also correctly registered the navigational gestures in Windows 10 and web-page scrolling in Chrome. The two ThinkPad also provide a TrackPoint nub that lets you navigate around the desktop, without lifting your hands off of the home row.

HP EliteBook 1040 G4 audio

The strong sound produced by the HP EliteBook 1040 G4 is yet another example of HP's partnership with the audiophiles of Bang & Olufsen, whose branding sits next to the gridded speaker above the keyboard. When listening to St. Vincent's "Los Ageless" on the EliteBook, I noted clear vocals, accurate synths and sturdy bass. Neither the Dell Latitude 7380, the ThinkPad T470p nor the Lenovo ThinkPad 25 offers sound quality that comes close.

The included Bang & Olufsen Audio app includes three audio options; the default Music setting is best. The Movies option distorts vocals, and the Voice setting drops out nearly all of the bass.

HP EliteBook 1040 G4 performance

Though both HP EliteBook 1040 G4 configurations we tested had 1080p screens, 16GB of RAM and 512GB solid-state drives, one was powered by a dual-core Core i7-7500U CPU while the other had a more powerful, quad-core Core i7-7820HQ processor. Both offer great multitasking, but the quad-core processor delivered much stronger overall performance. When testing both machines, I saw no lag or delay as I scrolled down pages and moved between tabs after splitting each screen between a 1080p streaming YouTube video and a dozen Chrome tabs (including Giphy, Slack, Gmail and Google Docs).

HP EliteBook 1040 G4 battery Life

The HP EliteBook 1040 G4 offers decent to great longevity, depending on the model. Intel's HQ model uses a power-hungry 45-watt CPU, and the U model uses a 15-watt CPU. The more efficient U model of the EliteBook lasted 10 hours and 35 seconds on the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi. The HQ model lasted a more modest 8:07.

The 8:37 category average falls between those two times, and the Dell Latitude 7380 made it even longer (10:46). The Lenovo ThinkPad 25 lasted a short 6:52 with its three-cell battery but 13:14 with its six-cell battery (an optional $139 upgrade). The ThinkPad 25 is a special edition of the T470; when we tested a regular T470 with a non-touch display and 6-cell battery, its time was a remarkable 17 hours and 25 minutes. Lenovo's ThinkPad T470p, which has an HQ series processor to gulp down power, lasted an above-average 8 hours and 50 minutes. That beats the runtime from the HQ version of the Elitebook 1040 G4 by more than a half hour.

HP EliteBook 1040 G4 webcam

The 0.9-megapixel webcam in the HP EliteBook 1040 G4 is serviceable, and that's about it. Yes, I can recognize myself in the selfies I shot in the office. But the edges of my clear glasses are blurred out, and a chromatic particle filter seems to be applied to the image; you can see flecks of all the colors of the rainbow on the white ceiling tiles above me and the beige wall behind me.