Review Update HP EliteBook 850 G1-H5G44ET Notebook

Thanks to its anti-reflective display surface, the EliteBook is also well suited for outdoor environments and you can even use the panel under direct sunlight without any significant restrictions. The viewing angles, on the other hand, as typical for a TN panel, are not very good: Especially vertical shifts quickly result in color deviations and reduced contrast, so you should not leave the sweet spot if possible. The situation should be much better with the already mentioned configuration with the WVA/IPS panel.

Around 100 Euros (~$138) separates the Core i7-4600U from the popular mainstream Core i5-4200U. In return, you get a couple of hundred MHz more (2.1-3.3 GHz instead of 1.6-2.6 GHz), a bigger L3 cache (4 MB vs. 3 MB) as well as additional features like vPro or VT-d. However, both dual-cores use the same Haswell chip with a TDP of 15 Watts, which is produced in 22 nm. 

The integrated HD Graphics 4400 of our review unit is supported by a dedicated Radeon HD 8750M. AMD’s Enduro technology only activates the Radeon GPU when an application has higher demands in terms of graphics performance – this works (contrary to earlier reviews) pretty well by now and helps to reduce the power consumption and therefore improve the battery runtimes.

A second 4 GB DDR3L-1600 memory module increases the memory capacity of the EliteBook to 8 GB, and the RAM works in the faster dual-channel configuration. The 500 GB hard drive of the less expensive configurations has been replaced by a 180 GB SSD.

While the slightly bigger L3 cache of the Core i7-4600U usually only results in minimal performance improvements, we can see a noticeable performance advantage due to the higher clock compared to the i5-4200U. The single thread test of Cinebench R11.5 determines an advantage of more than 26 percent, which is not only perceptible in synthetic benchmarks. The CPU was able to maintain the maximum clock of 3.3 GHz during the test. Load for both cores only shows an advantage of 17 percent – the low TDP has a bigger impact on the Core i7 compared to the Core i5, which means that the 4600U has to reduce its clock from 2.9 to 2.6 GHz after around 30 seconds. 

Overall, the 850 G1 almost offers the performance of the significantly less frugal predecessor 8570p (Core i7-3520M, TDP of 37 Watts), but it does not stand a chance against quad-core rivals like the ThinkPad T540p (Core i7-4700MQ, TDP of 47 Watts). Here we can clearly see the different orientations of the two devices: Contrary to Lenovo, HP focused on the mobility in particular, which results in a thinner and lighter EliteBook, but the performance is also much lower in return. 

Battery power only shows the base clock of the Core i7-4600U (2.1 GHz) at first, because the manufacturer only activates the Turbo Boost when the power adaptor is attached. Depending on the application, this can result in a performance drop of up to 35 percent, but this behavior can fortunately be changed with the corresponding BIOS setting "Enable Turbo Boost on DC".

It is not surprising that HP equips the EliteBook 850 G1 with the Intel SSD Pro 1500. We already know this drive from the 820 G1 and 840 G1: High power efficiency, high reliability (at least according to the manufacturer) and special features like the hardware-based AES encryption. The drive is therefore a sensible choice for expensive business notebooks – only the storage capacity could have been bigger than the available 180 GB (115 GB can be used).

There is, however, no criticism in regard to the performance: The combination of a SandForce controller (SF-2281) and Intel’s own 20 nm MLC flash modules convinces us with very high transfer rates. Both the results for sequential reading and writing as well as the 4K/4K64 tests are at the top of the charts.

The 8750M does leave a mixed impression in the CAD benchmark SPECviewperf 11. The average result of all tests is barely superior to the integrated Intel GPU – this means the Radeon is not suited for complex constructions. The FirePro M4100, which has the identical specs, has a comfortable advantage of around 150 percent because of the OpenGL drivers alone. Those professional GPUs are, however, usually only available in workstations like HP's ZBook-series.

Before we talk about the gaming performance of the Radeon HD 8750M, we have to mention a couple of smaller and bigger (driver) problems that we noticed during our review. Applications crashed on multiple occasions directly after the launch (PCMark 8) when the AMD GPU was active; the system even froze in some cases and only a hard reset was possible (F1 2013, Company of Heroes 2).

While this could probably be solved by a new GPU driver, there is another issue that might have a much bigger impact: The GPU clock starts to fluctuate after a couple of minutes during gaming – we even determined drops to 300/150 MHz (core/memory clock) for short periods. The result: Heavy micro stutters that can result in an unplayable experience in some cases, even if the average frame rate is above 30 fps. 

This did not have an impact on our comparatively short benchmark sequences, which means the following benchmark results represent the performance of the 8750M. We can once again see that the DDR3 and GDDR5 versions of this graphics card are on a similar level and comparable to a GeForce GT 740M from Nvidia. However, this only applies to AC operation; the performance is reduced by around 50 percent on battery power (clock limited to 400/300 MHz).

Compared to our previous test, case temperatures are also noticeably higher. We can measure more than 30 °C (86 °F) at some spots during idle, but this is primarily a result of the barely rotating fan – the temperatures are definitely not inconvenient or worrying. A bigger problem is the results under load: 45 °C (113 °F) in the center of the keyboard is just tolerable. However, we want to mention that these temperatures are only reached in a few extreme scenarios. 

Our one-hour stress test with Prime95 and FurMark results in temperatures of around 80 °C (176 °F) for the processor and the graphics card. While the CPU is able to maintain a clock of 2.4 GHz, we can see even bigger fluctuations of the GPU clock than in our gaming benchmarks. It is interesting that the throttling does not seem to be influenced by the core temperature – this is probably a deliberate design decision to limit the power consumption.

One step forward, two steps back: It might be irritating at first that the top version of the 850 G1-series is actually one percentage point behind the base configuration in our ratings – but the reason is simple when you have a closer look. 

But let’s start with the positive aspects: The fast SSD in particular improves the performance of the EliteBook, not only in the synthetic system benchmarks, but also (and especially) in practice. Twice the amount of memory (8 GB) is also sufficient for excessive multi-tasking. The powerful processor is usually sufficient as well, even though the performance is still slightly behind the predecessor with a standard voltage CPU.

We were eager to see the impact of the Radeon HD 8750M, which is supposed to improve the 3D performance of the 850 G1. This would have worked, but the observed clock fluctuations prevent it. We still hope that HP solves the problem with an upcoming BIOS update – but this would certainly increase the temperature and noise development in return.

So what is the recommendation for potential buyers? The EliteBook is still an excellent device in terms of build quality and input devices as well as mobility, and there are not many comparable 15-inch rivals. As a result, possible alternatives include the comparatively inexpensive base configuration, which can be upgraded with an SSD and other components.