The EliteBook 840 Aero G8 boasts a sleek all-silver aluminum design with a central HP logo, giving it a professional appearance. It's an ultraportable laptop, measuring 12.7 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches, slightly larger than some competitors but weighing the same at 2.5 pounds. Inside, the silver interior continues the clean aesthetic, with a black keyboard featuring white lettering. 

The 14-inch display features thin bezels, housing the webcam with a physical privacy shutter, ambient light sensor, and dual microphones on the top bezel. The bottom sports a solid silver color with a vent for cooling and rubber bumpers to prevent sliding.

HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8: Security

One of the main reasons for this laptop's high price is its reliability and built-in security features. The EliteBook 840 Aero G8 includes software like HP Wolf Security for Business, which offers top-notch protection against cyber-attacks. It also has features like a fingerprint scanner and a Windows Hello-compatible webcam for extra security. You can further enhance security with options like NFC, a SmartCard reader, and a self-encrypting SSD.

Additionally, the laptop comes with a built-in Bluetooth Tile tracker, which helps you locate the laptop if it’s lost or stolen, providing security against both cyber and physical threats. This is also handy if you tend to misplace things.

HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8: Ports

The EliteBook 840 Aero G8 has an A/C jack, an HDMI port, two USB-C ports, and a SIM card slot. On the left side, you’ll find two USB-A ports and a headphone jack. There's also a SmartCard reader for easy login and access to your work files.

HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8: Display

The 14-inch FHD display reaches 480 nits, better than average, but struggles in daylight. Text is clear with good contrast, but the 60Hz refresh rate falls short. Colors in videos like "Matrix 4" are vibrant, and the Aero G8 covers 74.5% of the DCI-P3 color gamut.

HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8: Keyboard and Touchpad

The HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8 has a comfortable keyboard, especially once you get used to the spacing caused by the pointing stick in the middle. 

The keys are made of smooth matte black plastic, providing a nice feel without being too "clicky." It has separate home, page up, page down, and end buttons instead of combining them with other keys. The backlighting has two brightness levels, both subtle enough not to be distracting.

The touchpad, while the rest of the laptop surface has a slight texture, is very smooth and responsive, making it easy to navigate. It also includes two separate mouse buttons above the touchpad, though you can still tap and click directly on the touchpad itself.

HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8: Audio

The HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8 features front-facing speakers by Bang and Olufsen, offering rich and clear sound. Sound effects in action scenes are distinct, making it easy to follow the action. The speakers are likely optimized for video and voice calls, as demonstrated during a call with clear audio, although the microphone may sound a bit quiet.

HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8: Performance

Equipped with a 3.0-GHz 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1185G7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD, the HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8 breezes through most tasks. It can easily handle multitasking capabilities. You may open up to 50 Google Chrome tabs, including videos, alongside Microsoft Word, which load swiftly without any slowdowns in Google Docs or Twitter scrolling.

On benchmark tests, the Aero G8 scored 4,693 on Geekbench 5.4, slightly below the premium laptop average of 4,751 and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon's score of 5,365. Video editing isn't its forte; it took 17 minutes and 19 seconds to convert a 4K video to 1080p, slower than the category average of 14:49 and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon's 13:23.

In the File Transfer test, the Aero G8 achieved a transfer rate of 542.0 megabytes per second, slower than the category average of 681.2MBps but faster than the Dell Latitude's 192.1MBps and the ThinkPad X1 Carbon's 523.9MBps.

HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8: Graphics

While this laptop is designed for office work, you might want to play some games occasionally. It can run Sid Meier’s Civilization VI at 21 frames per second, which is just okay. It's slightly better than the Latitude 7320’s 20 fps, but not as good as the ThinkPad X1 Carbon’s 35 fps or the 30-fps average for premium laptops. With its integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics, it's suitable for light photo editing in a pinch.

HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8: Battery Life

For a business laptop, the battery life is somewhat disappointing. It lasts 9 hours and 40 minutes of continuous web browsing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits, which is decent. However, compared to similar laptops like the Latitude 7320 (12 hours and 1 minute) and the ThinkPad X1 Gen 9 (15 hours and 39 minutes), the EliteBook 840 Aero G8 falls short. Even the average for this category is longer at 10 hours and 22 minutes.

HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8: Webcam

The 720p webcam is quite common in many laptops nowadays. It has colors that aren't very vibrant and the contrast isn't very strong, so the picture quality is grainy and not something you'd want to print out or frame. However, it works fine for video calls, which is its main purpose. The physical shutter is a good feature for privacy during calls or extra protection in case you forget your camera is on. If you're looking for excellent image and video quality, you might want to explore other options on our best webcams page.

HP EliteBook 840 Aero G8: Software and Warranty

HP laptops come with numerous pre-installed programs, totaling 14 on the start menu, including security and documentation apps. Some of these could potentially be combined. Additionally, there's a myHP app with product details but also includes ads. Besides HP programs, the EliteBook 840 Aero G8 includes standard Windows 10 Home apps and the Microsoft Office Suite, which can be selected during setup. There's also an Adobe Free Trials app for their Creative Cloud apps. The default warranty is one year, with an option to upgrade to three years by paying extra. 

Final Thoughts