HP's EliteBook 845 is one of the best business laptops, but the cooling performance is still a weak point
HP did not change a lot for the 11th generation of its 14-inch business laptop EliteBook 845. The known advantages - sophisticated chassis, excellent keyboard, plenty of ports, extensive support options - make it a great choice for the office. Thanks to matte as well as bright screens and optional LTE modems, it is also a capable companion on the go. The regular 1080p screen with 400 nits brightness offers decent image quality and is very power efficient. The optional WQHD screen with 500 nits and 120 Hz provides better image quality, but the battery runtime takes a hit. There is no PWM flickering, so we think this is overall a better screen for productive tasks compared to OLED options on some rivals like the Lenovo ThinkPad models. HP also offers a SureView panel with a brightness of 800 nits, but we cannot recommend this option since the integrated privacy filter severely affects the image quality in general.
The EliteBook 845 uses AMD processors, but they are still from the Ryzen 8000-series (Zen4). The advantage is that HP can use expandable RAM, while the newer Zen5 chips like the Ryzen AI 9 HX370 are still limited to soldered RAM for now. The performance of the Zen4 chips is still good, so this is not a huge issue, but you should make sure you select the right processor. Our review unit was equipped with the Ryzen 7 Pro 8840HS, which offers high multi-core performance thanks to power limits of 51/41 Watts, but it is a challenge for the cooling solution. There is only one fan, which turns on quickly and is very audible under higher workloads. A U-series processor like the Ryzen 7 8840U has lower multi-core performance due to lower Power Limits (30/25 Watts), but it is still more than sufficient for the majority of office tasks. The big advantage is the lower stress for the cooling unit and it is a much quieter device overall. If you do not need the additional multi-core performance, you should definitely select a U-series chip.
Please see our comprehensive review of the HP EliteBook 845 G11 for more information including benchmarks and measurement results.
