1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,080 This laptop, the HP Dragonfly Elite is my absolute favorite Windows machine and also 2 00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:14,640 is now dead. And in its place, we have this right here, the HP Elite Book X G1A. This looks 3 00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:20,160 like it's going to be a fantastic machine, but can it possibly compare to its older brother? 4 00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:24,320 I don't know. All right, let's see what we have in the box. 5 00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:31,920 Oh, wow, that's a big power brick. I was not expecting one to be this large. I'm surprised 6 00:00:31,920 --> 00:00:37,840 that we have a 100 watt charger here, because this is quite large and quite bulky for what is 7 00:00:37,840 --> 00:00:43,200 going to be a very thin machine. Oh yes, plug it in, turn it on. Do you think it's going to be pretty 8 00:00:43,200 --> 00:00:51,120 bell? Yes. It's actually, it just looks like a laptop. If I'm honest, this is one heck of a 9 00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:56,720 laptop looking laptop. I'm not going to tell you the price yet, but this right here looks like a 10 00:00:56,720 --> 00:01:04,400 machine that could be anywhere from $700 to quite a bit more. It does not feel like a cheap machine 11 00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:10,160 though. This is first of all very cold to the touch right now because it is all metal and it 12 00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:17,360 feels very solid. One finger open, no problem. And here we have our keyboard. First things that 13 00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:23,520 I'm noticing, right here we have a shutter for the webcam, which I absolutely love to see. That way 14 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:28,160 you can just know that when you're off hours time, you're not going to accidentally still be in a 15 00:01:28,160 --> 00:01:34,800 team's call or something. The chassis is made out of 80% recycled aluminum and it is hecking stiff. 16 00:01:35,280 --> 00:01:41,920 Push here. Wow. It's not very often that we're going to break out a MacBook for comparison, 17 00:01:41,920 --> 00:01:48,640 but man, it is close. The HP is not quite MacBook Pro stiff, but it's way stiffer than something 18 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:54,400 like a MacBook Air. The IO also looks very impressive. On the right, we have Thunderbolt 4 19 00:01:54,400 --> 00:02:01,760 USB-A. On the left, we have another Thunderbolt 4 USB-C and HDMI 2.1, so you aren't going to be 20 00:02:01,760 --> 00:02:07,040 having any issues plugging this into kind of whatever you want. I really love that they keep 21 00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:13,840 on including USB type A on these laptops because it is a lifesaver. The industry completely screwed 22 00:02:13,840 --> 00:02:19,360 up the whole transition type C. The weight of the Elite books feels a little bit heavier. That 23 00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:24,800 aluminum is not going to be as light as the magnesium that was on the Dragonfly, so it comes in at 24 00:02:24,800 --> 00:02:33,280 3.28 pounds. It's not too bad, but its predecessor is 2.8. That's not going to be back breaking 25 00:02:33,280 --> 00:02:41,040 difference, but it is a difference indeed. And the MacBook for a full comparison is 3.5. 26 00:02:41,040 --> 00:02:45,840 All right, let's turn it on. All right, let's have a look at this machine. Now, the first thing 27 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:51,680 I'm noticing is this desktop background looks really soft. Is it? Is that a problem with the 28 00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:56,880 display? Okay, this display does look pretty good. The background was most of the issue, 29 00:02:56,880 --> 00:03:00,800 but at the same time, this is not a display that is going to knock you out of the park. 30 00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:08,400 It's 1920 by 1200, so it's not going to be quite like a retina display or 4K on something like this, 31 00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:16,160 and you can notice the softness. Like I'm going to open notepad. And it's decent enough, I would say. 32 00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:22,320 You can kind of from back here have a pretty good time, but if you use your computer from like right 33 00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:27,200 here for whatever reason, you are going to be starting to notice that the resolution is not 34 00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:32,800 the highest. But the good news is, though, that you can get an OLED panel on this if you don't 35 00:03:32,800 --> 00:03:37,440 mind sacrificing a bunch of your battery life. And my eyes don't deceive me either. The lab 36 00:03:37,440 --> 00:03:44,320 test results for this display are a bit on the mediocre side. Now, it is quite bright. They 37 00:03:44,320 --> 00:03:52,160 advertised 400 nits, but we measured 465, which is an excellent showing. But everything else is 38 00:03:52,160 --> 00:03:59,440 not as good. There is a noticeable green tint on the display, and it only managed to cover 96% of 39 00:03:59,440 --> 00:04:07,440 sRGB at a time when most displays are getting close to 100 of DCI P3, which is way wider of a 40 00:04:07,440 --> 00:04:13,440 color gamut. So what you want to do on your laptop is do photo editing or video editing or 41 00:04:14,160 --> 00:04:19,200 watch content in a beautiful way. This is not going to be the laptop for you. But again, 42 00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:25,040 there is no LED option. Oh, and it also isn't a touchscreen. In fairness to HP, though, for the 43 00:04:25,040 --> 00:04:31,200 people that I think they're aiming this laptop at, this display is going to be very good. What it 44 00:04:31,200 --> 00:04:37,200 is fantastic at is having quite low eye strain. I am not seeing anything on here that's going to 45 00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:43,200 make you be fatigued after a while. And also it has a matte cover on it that is fantastic at 46 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:49,360 rejecting glare. Like we have a light above my head. And that's how much glare we're getting. We 47 00:04:49,360 --> 00:04:55,120 can look, there's a studio light. It's of course a bit diffused and stuff like that. Let's look at 48 00:04:55,120 --> 00:05:00,400 that on the MacBook. Yeah, there we go. You can really see that in our studio light. Yep, you're 49 00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:05,840 not seeing a thing on that display. This is aimed at being a business machine, though. The keyboard 50 00:05:05,840 --> 00:05:14,400 and trackpad have to be exceptional. So let's have a look. Oh, that's a really good keyboard. 51 00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:24,400 Okay, the Dragonfly is way better. It has a fantastic snap to it. Whereas we come over to 52 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:29,360 the Elite Book, you can hear that it's just way more dull. So we've got the 53 00:05:29,360 --> 00:05:33,120 compare to 54 00:05:37,040 --> 00:05:43,520 you can just hear the difference in the snap. So HP has kind of shot themselves in the foot here 55 00:05:43,520 --> 00:05:49,360 because this is by all regards an absolutely fantastic keyboard. I'm going to give it a very 56 00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:56,320 solid A because I think that is great. But it is following up the best laptop keyboard on the 57 00:05:56,320 --> 00:06:03,120 market, in my opinion. So you didn't get there, guys. What you can replace, though, is this 58 00:06:03,120 --> 00:06:08,560 trackpad down here, although I don't know why you would want to because it is great. It is glass 59 00:06:08,560 --> 00:06:13,680 topped. And although it is not force touch, which is a bit unfortunate, I can forgive it because 60 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:20,000 the click feel is fantastic. It is large. And I just like it. It feels really good. I'm also going 61 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:24,240 to give the trackpad an A. Although that said, I think at the price point of this machine, 62 00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:30,720 they could have got force touch in there. Although this does not have quite like gaming laptop power, 63 00:06:30,720 --> 00:06:35,280 it is quite a competent little machine. And here we have the AMD Ryzen AI9 64 00:06:36,240 --> 00:06:45,920 HX Pro 375 with Radeon 890M. That is quite a mouthful, but it does have 12 cores, 24 threads. 65 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:52,560 It is quite a fast little guy. We also have 32 gigabytes of 8000 megatransfer per second RAM, 66 00:06:52,640 --> 00:07:00,720 which is going to be quite rapid, but also not replaceable. A 1TB Kyoksia NVMe SSD, MediaTek 67 00:07:00,720 --> 00:07:06,720 Wi-Fi 7. I would much prefer if it was not MediaTek because they're not the most stable in my 68 00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:12,480 experience, but well, maybe we'll see if you can change it out later. And of course, the Radeon 69 00:07:12,480 --> 00:07:18,960 890M for the graphics. The graphics in this are quite good. And we tested it compared to Intel's 70 00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:26,800 Core Ultron 9 285H in the Lenovo IdeaPad. And it turns out that it's a wash between the two. 71 00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:32,960 In Cyberpunk, AMD gets quite a big league. In Rocket League, they are pretty much identical 72 00:07:32,960 --> 00:07:40,480 in performance. And in Dota 2, Intel absolutely sweeps it with plus 33% performance. So it's a 73 00:07:40,480 --> 00:07:44,560 toss-up of which one's going to be faster. Intel AMD, I don't know, depends on the game. 74 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:50,720 What is not going to be a wash, though, is the NPU. On the Intel side, they intentionally made the 75 00:07:50,720 --> 00:07:58,400 NPU smaller for a larger GPU in order to match AMD, whereas AMD just has a big NPU and a good GPU, 76 00:07:58,400 --> 00:08:04,400 because this right here has 55 tops of performance, meaning you can do all your co-pilot stuff if 77 00:08:04,400 --> 00:08:10,160 you actually like AI for whatever reason. I like to think of it as onboard machine learning hardware. 78 00:08:10,160 --> 00:08:16,160 Let's have a listen to CrabRave here. This does have Poly Studio speakers, but I suspect it's not 79 00:08:16,160 --> 00:08:19,840 going to be able to keep up with our MacBook, even though they're the same size and it looks 80 00:08:19,840 --> 00:08:27,920 like they dedicated very similar amounts of space to their speakers. Oh, sounds pretty good. 81 00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:34,000 It's clear and loud, although it does not have a whole lot of bass. Let's listen to the Mac. 82 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:36,960 Oh, that's way better. 83 00:08:40,240 --> 00:08:46,960 Wow. Yep, the HP sounds pretty good until you hear our MacBook. Wow, that's a, 84 00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:52,720 there's a lot more stage, there's a lot more bass. The highs still sound pretty clear. 85 00:08:54,000 --> 00:09:01,360 Yeah, they're pretty clearly loud. I would say that's a pretty good showing for HP, 86 00:09:01,360 --> 00:09:06,960 but it is not going to be tangling with the best in the market. One thing that is very nice about 87 00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:12,320 this HP compared to the Mac though, is that there's no stupid notch and there also is quite a nice 88 00:09:12,320 --> 00:09:19,040 little webcam. Up here we have a five megapixel webcam, which can record a 1440p and I cannot tell 89 00:09:19,040 --> 00:09:23,760 if the webcam is at fault, but I look green and sickly. I'm pretty sure that's a problem with 90 00:09:23,760 --> 00:09:29,440 our display and the fact that it has a bit of a green tint to it. That said though, this webcam 91 00:09:29,440 --> 00:09:35,440 is doing a fantastic job. It is exposing for my face fantastically. We can see a really bright 92 00:09:35,760 --> 00:09:41,200 light here, really dark stuff over here. It doesn't care. It is exposing for me. It looks nice and 93 00:09:41,200 --> 00:09:46,640 sharp. Can move around here. Is it going to figure it out? It did. Moving around even more, just 94 00:09:46,640 --> 00:09:52,640 directly into some studio lights. My face is still perfectly exposed. It's not having any issues 95 00:09:52,640 --> 00:09:56,720 and maybe the microphone's pretty good. You guys can be the judge of that. I didn't mention it before, 96 00:09:56,720 --> 00:10:02,800 but we did ask HP if the color space and the display accuracy are what they expected and they 97 00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:09,040 said it is within their specs. So you might get one that looks like this. Four Philips headscrews 98 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:16,720 later, all of which are captive. I love to see that and we are in. Now the repair ability itself 99 00:10:16,720 --> 00:10:22,880 is not the best, but HP does get a whole bunch of points for publishing on YouTube a full repair 100 00:10:22,880 --> 00:10:28,720 guide for this thing. So everything that can be repaired, you can repair or at least in theory 101 00:10:28,720 --> 00:10:34,560 you know how to do it. In here it looks like we can replace our SSD and that's about it. The 102 00:10:34,560 --> 00:10:41,200 Wi-Fi card sadly is soldered down. The RAM as we expected is underneath here somewhere soldered 103 00:10:41,200 --> 00:10:46,880 down. Can't replace that. The real reason why we're in here though is the battery. Despite this 104 00:10:46,880 --> 00:10:53,680 being quite a small laptop, HP has managed to put a 74.5 watt hour battery into this thing, 105 00:10:53,680 --> 00:11:00,080 which netted us a bit over 11 hours of battery life, which is very impressive for something with 106 00:11:00,080 --> 00:11:07,600 that powerful of a processor, although no GPU. We can also see the woofers right here and there's 107 00:11:07,600 --> 00:11:13,040 not a whole lot more that we can do in here. Now I've alluded to it before, but we need to talk 108 00:11:13,040 --> 00:11:20,880 about the price. What we have right here as spec is a $2,200 machine. Now it is built for businesses, 109 00:11:20,880 --> 00:11:25,120 so if you're buying a whole bunch of them, I'm sure HP will give you a bit of a deal. 110 00:11:25,120 --> 00:11:31,120 And also I think that these are the kind of laptops that go on sale quite a bit. But at $2,200, 111 00:11:31,120 --> 00:11:35,200 this is the sort of machine that I would recommend you have your employer buy for you, 112 00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:40,720 instead of maybe purchasing it for yourself. That said though, there's a lot to like with 113 00:11:40,720 --> 00:11:46,960 this laptop. Build quality is fantastic. Keyboard, trackpad, also fantastic. The IO is quite good. 114 00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:52,000 It's just the screen and the price are not quite where they need to be. 115 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:56,960 So do I think that the Elite Book is a good replacement for the Dragonfly? Honestly, 116 00:11:57,680 --> 00:12:04,160 I think so. The Dragonfly was also way too expensive, if we're honest. And although you are 117 00:12:04,160 --> 00:12:10,560 giving up the magnesium, this Elite Book is quite a good machine. And you do have to remember with 118 00:12:10,560 --> 00:12:16,480 these business laptops that you're also paying for things like dual BIOS, the support that comes 119 00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:23,520 with it in theory. And also me liking you for watching this video. So huge thanks for watching, 120 00:12:23,520 --> 00:12:28,080 hit like, get subscribed, and I hope you guys have a great old day. See you later.