- So HP has been making some of my
favorite business laptops around,
and specifically the EliteBook x360 1030 G3,
which is a mouthful,
is one of the top in the class,
and today I'll tell you why.
Stay tuned.
(soft electronic music)
Alright before we get into the specs
of this specific device,
I just want to talk about the EliteBook series.
So, the EliteBook are the premium laptops
that HP has been selling for a few years,
and there is actually a few different classes of them.
This is part of the 1000 series,
which is definitely the high end, versus the 800 series,
which is more like a Dell latitude 7000.
And so the EliteBooks all come in different sizes,
and what I really like about them
is that they're very much the same laptop
across different sizes and features.
So they all kinda look the same,
they all feel the same,
just depending on what size you want.
This one here is a 13.3 inch,
which if you follow laptops,
the Ultrabook size is.
Let's take a look here at the chassis and design.
So overall this is a really small laptop.
It's 10% smaller than last year's 1030 model.
It just looks really nice.
It's a CNC Aluminum chassis single body.
Really nice solid build, not a lot of flex either.
I like coming around to the back here,
you can see the new angular cut design
that they're doing here,
along with the EliteBook printed on the back.
Nice and minimalist and just clean look to it as well.
Turn to the left-hand side,
you can see the ports here,
USB Type-A 3.1, headphone jack,
and the angular power button.
Don't forget this does transform into a tablet,
so you want the power button always accessible.
You also have a little slot here,
which is not accessible on this device
but that is if you get the option with the 4G LTE modem,
which you can do as well.
I kinda wish this one actually had it
'cause I would use it all the time,
but that's where that sim card would go.
Turn it to the right hand side,
you do get a full HDMI port,
which I still appreciate having,
you also get a Nano lock here for security reasons.
And check this out, two Type-C ports,
and those are both Thunderbolt three,
which is really nice.
So you can use this for charging as well.
In fact, if you charge this for 30 minutes,
your gonna get 7 hours of battery life,
that's what HP is claiming.
That's because this has a really big battery in it,
and is really power efficient.
You also have the volume rocker over here as well.
And finally you get a little tiny LED there
to let you know it's charging,
and it actually does kind of a breathing thing
which is kinda cool.
Now the top of the device
you do get that cool HP shiny logo in.
It looks like a speck here, which at first,
I thought was something wrong with the chassis,
but its actually a little tiny microphone hole.
That's because this is built for a collaboration
in a working office environment.
So, that microphone is used for noise canceling,
it's pretty cool.
So, it phases out and listens to the outside world,
versus the inside part.
Really nice option to have,
and you also get that nice antenna line there,
that's for your LTE modem and, or Wifi,
They make sure you get a really good connection here,
I've had no issues with it,
but that's what that line is for.
Alright turn to the display 13.3 inch,
this is a full HD model, goes up to 400 nits.
It's actually a little bit below that,
but still not too bad now.
There's another option here,
HP actually gives you plenty of options for displays.
This one is glossy, they do make an anti-glare version.
They also have one with Sure View,
that's where you can hit the button and it masks the screen,
so onlookers can't see what you're reading or writing about,
which is a nice option.
That can also go up to 700 nits of brightness,
and you can also get a 4K display.
So, if you're really into having high resolution,
without, you know, you would take a hit on battery life,
but if you want 4K you can get that as well,
which is pretty cool.
Turn to the bezels now,
so HP's done a lot of changes here,
and you'll see this in there new Spectre line too as well.
The bezels are now 50 percent smaller
than last year's model,
this is part of the reduction in footprint of the device.
So, the side bezels are extremely thin.
They're not quite as thin on top and bottom,
but this is one thing I do like what they're doing is
that they're more balanced.
So, the one's on top here are kind of thin,
and they match the ones on the bottom.
If you look at HP's old design,
you should have a really large chin down here
and a thinner bezel on top.
Now it's a little bit more evenly matched.
This bottom chin has also reduced around 30 percent.
So, it's gonna be a nice reduction overall in size.
But there are no trade offs here for the camera.
In fact, you still get a web camera on top it,
and Window's Hello with infrared on top,
but I should mention that web camera
is now upgraded to a full HD model.
So, HP's been making a big deal about this,
obviously companies are using this for conference calls,
so you should have a really good web camera on there,
so it went from 720 to 1080.
Having said that, it's still an okay camera.
I think that still the best web camera's
gonna be found on surface devices but,
it's nice to see an increase in resolution.
Turn to the main deck here,
you get HP's really good collaboration keyboard.
So this has dedicated keys for hanging up
and answering phone calls using Skype Business,
as well as Calendar and more.
It's one of my favorite keyboards around,
the EliteBook series always does good keyboards,
in my opinion,
just really nice force return on these curves.
It just feels really nice to type on,
it's very sharp and sprightly.
Just really nice design.
You also get a really good track pad here,
so if you've heard me ramble against the HP Spectre laptops,
it used Synaptics drivers,
while the EliteBook line, they use Precision drivers,
and this is a really good track pad.
It's glass, it's smooth, it just feels really nice.
I like the size of it.
This is just a really excellent trackpad.
Now besides that Windows Hello, IR camera,
you do get a dedicated fingerprint reader as well,
you can use both, either or neither.
That's a change from last year,
also were the fingerprint reader used to be on the side,
so they've moving them now to they're top deck,
which allows them to offer more security,
with a system on chip, version there as well.
So, really nice fingerprint reader, no complaints there.
Now I really wanna focus a bit on the speakers.
So, this is another cool change here,
the speakers are now top firing on the deck here,
flanking the keyboard, really nice design.
You'll see this design now,
HP's using on a few of their laptops,
it actually goes back to the 1950's,
based off the original HP building, so I was told.
Which is really kinda cool.
But really nice pattern design here,
these are really good speakers.
So, these are two speakers here,
but there are two on the bottom as well,
for when use in tablet mode.
So, you get quad speakers,
this is one of the best sounding 13 inch laptops I've used,
at least for PC's, is really good.
It actually blows away anything by Lenovo,
definitely blows away anything by Dell as well.
You can actually feel it resonate in the chassis,
and if you're really big on audio,
well, this is gonna be your laptop.
I'm really impressed with how much focus
they've actually put on sound.
It is Bang and Olufsen still,
but quad speakers in a 13 inch laptop,
and the amount of sound you can get out of this
is just super awesome, so good job HP.
And seeing as this device turns into a tablet
or different modes, well you need a pen with it too.
So, HP sells this separately, if you don't want it,
but this is their brand new Type-C pen.
So, it has a little slot here
and you can use it to recharge with the Type-C charger,
which is kinda cool,
so you don't have a dedicated battery in this.
And that's pretty neat,
except I do find that the battery dies on this pretty often.
Luckily, it's easy to charge and charges quickly,
but it's not necessarily as good
as having a dedicated battery with it.
But there are some cool things with it,
it's a Wacom AES pen, it works very well with it.
Feels nice to use, you do get a button on top as well,
so this does pair with Bluetooth,
and you can assign that to different programs,
and it feels really nice, it's very light,
and there's also now a strong magnet in it,
so it actually attaches to the side of the device,
it's a really strong magnet, like...
(pen springing)
That won't come off so, really clever design here,
but you probably won't lose this pen,
but if you do, well it will tell you, you've lost your pen.
'Cause it actually knows when the pen
is not present with the laptop anymore.
So, kind of a neat feature to have.
Now one of the great things about HP EliteBooks
is the amount of security stuff you get with it,
and even as a consumer I find this stuff really fascinating.
So, you get HP's Sure Run, HP's Sure Recover,
you got their bio-security,
you get a bunch of stuff here
that's gonna be just really impressive
for protecting the device.
For instance if your BIOS gets hacked it can restore itself,
which is really nice.
It can also do things so,
the first time you turn on the device,
even after a restart, it's gonna require a fingerprint,
even before it boots past the BIOS,
so you can't get anyone hacking your BIOS,
in the lower level, of the system.
Forget about the OS.
And that's really impressive, it's totally optional,
you can also do things like,
it won't allow you to put in a thumbdrive,
it won't read it automatically,
you'll need to a password authentication
before you allow access to that thumbdrive,
again so people can't sneak on stuff onto your device.
Really amazing amount of security here,
maybe someday I'll go deeper into it,
but if you're really into security
and protecting your device,
I think HP's are still one of the best out there.
Let's talk a little bit about power and performance now,
no surprises here,
this one is configured with a Core i7-8650U processor.
You can also get a Core i5,
you do get vPro and all that good stuff.
You can get up to 16 gigs of RAM,
but it is configurable yourself,
so you can pull of this bottom.
There are some models that have the RAM
soldered onto the board,
but for the most part you should be able to access the RAM
on some of other versions of this device.
For storage you can get various models,
including 256, 512, 1 terabyte.
It ranges from the Sata, which is a little bit cheaper,
to PCIe, depending if you want more speed.
For the battery you're talking a 56 watt hour battery,
which is actually pretty good size,
and they've done some really amazing work here
with battery optimization.
So, HP's promising 18 hours,
which you know is probably sending off alarms,
no one gets 18 hours,
but I'm getting actually well past 10 hours on this,
which for a Core i7, with this power on this device,
I'm actually pretty happy with that,
that's actually very good.
I feel like it lasts all day,
and actually had to struggle to kill it.
So very good battery life,
HP's been doing some really good optimization here.
In terms of the actual size of the device,
it's 2.76 pounds, 1.24 kilograms so it's very light.
It's similar to a surface laptop,
but it transforms into a full tablet,
and you get that pen support built in as well.
So this makes it a much more universal device,
and that's kind of what I really like
about the HP EliteBook x360 here,
is I don't feel like I'm making any compromises.
As someone who uses laptops a lot,
this does everything I kinda want it to do.
It turns into a tablet, has a really good pen,
it gets amazing battery life, nice keyboard,
really good track pad.
The audio is some of the best I've heard on the market.
And it's just a really good and reliable device.
You also get a ton of security.
We hate or we love about the deck
it's a little bit short for my palms
and I feel like they hang off a little bit,
and that metal edge is a little sharp on my palms,
but overall not a huge complaint,
just something I've noticed,
and you know, I had to pick out some small things here.
But overall, the build quality is really good,
it's 810g, specified for military testing,
so that means for drop test,
and dust and all that kind of stuff, it's pretty resilient.
It's an expensive laptop though, it starts around $1,800,
it is a business class laptop,
so it's gonna go up from there,
but you can get things like 4G LTE in there,
which is a really nice choice to have.
Overall, if you're a consumer
looking for a really good business laptop
I feel like the EliteBook here
is one of your best choices you can get,
and if you're a business,
well, I think it's definitely worth checking out.
It's a very versatile laptop, it feels great, it looks nice.
Overall though I gotta give HP
a huge thumbs up here for this laptop.
It's one of my favorites,
and I'm not even a real business user of course,
but it just has so much cool stuff in it,
it's hard to turn down.
Alright so there's a quick look
at a HP EliteBook x360 1030 G3.
If you like this video, leave me a comment below,
and if you have any questions about this device,
let me know as well.
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Thanks for watching, take care everyone.