When it comes to business laptops, not many have the “elegant and premium” appearance, like the EliteBook x360 1020 G2. The streamlined and sleek body will surely attract a lot of eyes. Though, the laptop lacks out on battery life but makes up for that by delivering great quality- a thing which isn’t found on most laptops.
Design
With the business minded professionals in mind, HP created what just exactly what they want. The lid is made from aluminum and boasts a reflective HP logo on it. At the first glance, you can easily consider this to be another of HP’s top of the line, premium Spectre laptop.
The full-HD display is embedded with a thick bezel on the top and bottom and the keyboard is surrounded with a silver deck, made out of aluminum. Just above the keyboard, you would find the speaker grills, which form an amazing pattern of diamonds.
As for the portability, the laptop just weighs 2.5 pounds; You can easily carry it around all day long. Not only this, but it is also just 0.5 thick (or rather thin), so should be easy to lift. In all, this makes the laptop have a really sleek appearance. When compared with other laptops in the industry, it is a clear winner against the Dell-Latitude 7389 2-in-1 and the Lenovo ThinkPad X270 with a weight of 3 pounds each and thickness of 0.8 inches and 0.7 inches respectively.
Ports
With all this portability, there is always a caveat. In this case, the laptop doesn’t house that many ports like other laptops do. Though there are 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports on the right side, one of them is needed to charge the laptop. Along with this is just an HDMI output. While on the left side, there is a headphone jack and a lock slot. Thus, you might be lacking out on a built-in SD card reader, and a couple of USB 3.0 ports at least.
Display
The 12.5-inch Display has a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080, which makes the EliteBook x360 1020 G2 a great laptop for watching videos. The recorded brightness stands at 335 nits on the light meter, where the average is 285 nits. This is substantially higher than other laptops since only the MacBook had a higher brightness at 340 nits.
Though, it makes up for that by offering a better sRGB gamut at 125 percent just ahead of MacBook’s 117 percent. This makes up for more vivid colors and details.
The laptop is also available with HP’s SureView Privacy Screen as well.
Keyboard and TouchPad
Though the keyboard doesn’t have that much of travel (just 1.2 mm), but combined with an actuation force of 80 g, it works well. This makes the keys punchy and provides a surprisingly smooth typing experience. Not only this but since the laptop is catered towards the business minded, there are dedicated buttons on the keyboard to suit their needs.
You can pick up calls, hang them, and even share screens in Skype just at the click of a button.
Furthermore, the TouchPad with dimensions 3.9 x 2.3 inches is just spacious enough for you to move your fingers comfortably. Even three and four finger gestures are easy to do and respond quickly. Not only this but you can also opt for an additional HP Active Pen which will cost you $60 extra. There is an extra button as well on the stylus, though it doesn’t work as an eraser. This is best suited for tablet use though.
Durability
The laptop can withstand drops, shocks, and dust as well since it has been MIL-STD-810G tested.
Security
When it comes to Data Security, the EliteBook x360 1020 G2 again comes out on top. With TPM, all your biometric data is encrypted, and the laptop also includes the Intel vPro technology for remote management. There is also a fingerprint sensor for quick login. On top of that, there is an infrared camera as well. This combined with the fingerprint sensor can offer great security.
If you want to know about your laptop’s security features, HP’s stock Client Security Application can help.
Audio
HP’s collaboration with Bang and Olufsen has proved yet again fruitful. The laptop’s speakers are top-class and provide a quite-enriching experience. Even though the default audio settings do the job really good, but you can always change the settings courtesy Bang & Olufsen’s presets. If we were you though, we would stick with the default.
Performance
When it comes to performance, the laptop is a working powerhouse for the business users. It is equipped with an Intel Core i5 7300U CPU. On top of that, there is a 256 GB of SSD storage as well as 8 GB of RAM. Therefore, feel free to use a number of applications on your laptop, as this one isn’t going to face any lags with these features. This has been proved on the Geekbench 4, as the laptop was awarded a score of 8,158 which is higher than many laptops out there.
Battery Life
Battery Life is one area where the laptops lack but lasts just long enough for a work day: 7 Hours and 59 minutes to be exact when the laptop was used continuously to search the Web on Wi-Fi. It might be below the industry average in this segment of 8 hours and 12 minutes but nevertheless does the job.
The one with the SureView privacy screen lasts even less, with just 4 hours and 26 minutes of usage. But then, it is totally up to your style. You aren’t surely going to surf every second on the Web on your laptop throughout your work day, right?
Webcam
For any business meetings over Skype or other video conferencing tools, we would advise you to get an external Webcam. This is because the laptop’s own 720p webcam takes blurry photos, which might be good for a skype session with your girlfriend or family, but for business meetings, it won’t be.
Heat
The good thing about the laptop is that it generally stays cool most of the time, so you won’t have a problem keeping it on your laps.
Price and Configurations
The least expensive EliteBook x360 1020 G2 can be bought for a price of $1,379 which houses an Intel Core i5-7200U processor, 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. Since 128GB sized SSD might not hold all your programs, we would advise the $1,724.86 which has an Intel Core i5-7300U CPU, a 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM.
If you want to get the model with the best available specs, then you would need to spend a whopping $2,049, for which you would get an Intel Core i7-7600U CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB PCIe SSD.
Our Verdict
Considering how catering the laptop is towards business professional, this laptop is an excellent buy.