HP ProBook 445 G7: A darker display in exchange for better battery life

In our practical WLAN test, we set the brightness of each laptop screen to a measured value of 150 cd/m². With this brightness setting, the ProBook 445 G7 achieves a battery life of almost nine hours; this long battery life could be a huge, everyday benefit for people who, for example, work in an office and need to carry their laptop around with them all day.

Users who would like to use their laptop outdoors, however, need to use a much higher brightness value because the brighter ambient light has to be overcome by the screen's brightness. The HP laptop can meet this need while plugged in. The IPS panel installed in our test device was able to achieve an average of 270 cd/m², which significantly exceeds even the manufacturer's own specification of 220 cd/m².

If you are looking to work outdoors, though, you are going to be disappointed. The brightness while in battery mode can only reach a maximum of 168 cd/m². This brightness value is only slightly higher than the 150 cd/m² that we think is sufficient for office environments. When running on battery, the Vari Bright function of the AMD Radeon settings takes effect. To increase battery life, the Vari Bright function automatically reduces the contrast and brightness of the screen, which is not ideal in every situation. Users must therefore deal with changing their system settings around when they move to a new environment in order to achieve optimal results.

Our detailed test report shows why the HP ProBook 445 G7 could still be a good choice when using our test configuration, though.

NotebookCheck's test report on the HP ProBook 445 G7