HP probook 445R G6 3500U laptop review

[GDRRiley]

My version: R5 3500U, 16gb ram, 250gb intel 730, 500gb XPG600, 45Wh battery.

The screen is a 1080P 250nit panel, there is a 1080p 200 or 400 as well. There is also the joke 762p panels available. It is a 720P webcam, option for IR.

I've got the optional backlit keyboard and fingerprint reader along with the stronger 65W charger.

I'm running windows 10 education with a few key from my school.

 

 

I ordered mine for 650$ with no windows 10 (they stopped shipping dos configs), 8GB of ram and a HDD. I spent 100$ to upgrade it to the current config. (extra 8gb of ram and both SSDs).

Hp has 1 ready to go config that looks good with a 3500u, 8gb ram 250gb SSD,1080p screen. My 2 complaints are 45W charger and the lower brightness screen but at 680$ if you can find it in stock is a good deal.

 

The is a light colored metal. I have noticed a few issues with dirt becoming a little stuck. The keyboard deck has almost zero flex. The keyboard is good to better. It is a full keyboard with no weird shaped keys. There are however no media keys. It also has page up/down which is surprising in a 14 inch form factor. In addition, it has an option to switch half of the keyboard over to a numpad. The track pad is decent sized with good tracking and clicking feel.The screen has limited flex with an easy 1 finger open.

 

And to round off the physical aspect the ports. On the left side is a SD card reader a USB 2 and a Kingston lock. On the right side a microphone/headphone jack 2 USB 3.0 type A, HDMI, Gig Ethernet, USB 3.1 type C that can power the laptop or have Display Port. Finally the standard power jack, supporting a 45 or 65 watt charger.

 

Battery life is good despite having 2 drives and 2 ram stick. 5-6 hours should happen mattering on what you are doing. This is based on my daily using it with 8-12 Firefox tabs and maybe word or excel.

 

The laptop is very easy to get into, just remove 6 screws and then pry up near the display hinge with a pry tool. Inside you get access to two sodim slots, a m.2 slot supporting PCIE or sata drives, a standard 2.5 in bay. And your battery.

 

 

Performance is

Cinebench R20 gave us a score of 1311. The CPU was boosting over base constantly.

 

 

Battlefield 4 1080P all low but medium texture and terrain SP tashmar

avg 37

1% 31

.1% 28.9

Battlefield 2 Bad company 2 1080P All high

avg 66.9

1% 45.5

.1% 36

 

 

2 BIOS complaints

limited to max 2gb of VRAM

Stuck at 2666 ram. I'd love 3000

 

2021 update.
I moved off of windows to linux due to display driver issues around December 2020. this has likely been fixed but after 2-3 months of issues I moved to Ubuntu which runs great. 

 

Edited May 21, 2021 by GDRRiley
2021 revision