HP Elitebook Folio 1040 G1 Review

The HP EliteBook 1040 has great looks and features a dark grey aluminium finish with HP logo sculpted in center. A large clickless pressure sensitive trackpad sits below the keypad and there is finger print reader to the right. At just 1.50kg Elitebook feels comfortable in hand and also when you are roaming with it in office or travelling. According to HP, the EliteBook Folio 1040 G1 is 16.1 percent thinner and 7.3 percent lighter than the previous EliteBook. The backlit chiclet style keyboard is comfortable to use and is spill resistant. It has a host of connectivity options, including LAN port, Bluetooth, USB 3.0 port and HP docking port. The Elitebook incorporates Dual core Intel Core i7-4650U processor, Intel HD Graphics 5000, 8 GB DDR3 RAM and 256 GB SSD.

Performance - The Elitebook sports bright and crisp 1920*1080p resolution display which is better than Dell 7440 but not as sharp as Lenovo's X1 featuring 2560*1440p resolution. The 14" Full HD UWVA panel is anti-glare so you can carry around with your work, movies without having to worry about screen reflections. All icons and text look bright and sharp and easy to read. The Elitebook Folio relies on a pressure sensitive trackpad called ForcePad which doesn't have physical click buttons to interact with Windows 7 and 8.1. The ForcePad also recognizes the degree of pressure you apply to it for registering various inputs. Applying pressure to an icon for simple "click and drag" gestures was a breeze. Typing on the chiclet style keyboard was comfortable and it has good palm rest support. Scrolling over web pages is fairly simple, just apply pressure gently and then scroll with your finger. The EliteBook Folio 1040 performed well in our benchmark tests due to its Intel i7 processor, 8GB RAM and Intel HD 5000 graphics. It scored 2484 in PC Mark 8 home accelerated, 2442 in PC Mark 8 Creative and 24382 in 3D Mark Ice Storm. The ASUS Zenbook UX302 scored 31645, Sony VaioFlip 13 scored 37513 in 3D Mark Ice Storm both scoring better than HP Folio 1040 under same configuration and price range. In PC Mark 8 HP Folio scored higher than Sony Vaio Flip 13. In our battery mark test, the Elitebook battery lasted about 8 hrs 21 minutes giving you almost full day productivity. The HP Elitebook Folio 1040 is beefed up with security features like finger print scanner, Sure Start technology that differentiates them with their consumer oriented laptops. Also given the thin form factor the Eliebook did not produce any heat during long hours of video playback. Audio coming out of Elitebook is loud and clear with no amount of distortion at higher volumes. The Elitebook is equipped with all connectivity options but no Ethernet and VGA port. In all HP Elitebook Folio 1040 is reliable workhorse for business executives, entrepreneurs, mid-level engineers and for anyone who merits a powerful system.