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In the past, most business laptops have been boring black slabs, designed to get the job done. But that was then. Today, there’s the HP EliteBook 1040 G11 (starts at $1,849; $2,099 as tested), a stunning productivity partner built for the modern hybrid office. It’s lightweight and durable, with a comfortable, spill-proof keyboard. Its Core Ultra 7 CPU with Intel’s vPro IT management tech can tackle office tasks with ease, and with nearly 14 hours of battery life, it’s ready to pull some overtime.
The 14-inch display will surprise you with its vividness, while the quad speaker setup punches way above its weight class. As the Microsoft Copilot key suggests, there’s a neural processing unit (NPU) aboard ready to handle your AI-based tasks. And when you’re done working, you can rest assured that your sensitive data is safe thanks to the host of security features HP has baked in. We could wish for a few more ports and $200 or $300 off the price, but its features and performance make the EliteBook 1040 G11 a model corporate laptop deserving of an Editors’ Choice award.
Configurations & Design: Spoiled for Choice
HP rarely leaves shoppers wanting for choice; there are no fewer than nine EliteBook 1040 G11 configurations currently available on HP.com. The $1,849 base model combines Intel’s Core Ultra 5 125H processor with 16GB of LPDDR5x memory, a 512GB NVMe solid-state drive, and a 14-inch, 1,920-by-1,200-pixel anti-glare, non-touch screen backed by Intel Arc integrated graphics. Our $2,099 review unit steps up to a Core Ultra 7 165H chip, while a $2,299 model doubles up on the RAM and storage.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The 1040 G11 is a pale, lightweight beauty that will look good in any office. The Glacial Silver matte metal lid is accentuated by a big HP emblem whose glossy finish catches every flash of light. And while the EliteBook might look delicate at 0.41 by 12.4 by 8.7 inches—it qualifies as an ultraportable at a seriously light 2.57 pounds—it’s anything but. The notebook has passed 19 MIL-STD 810H tests ensuring it can withstand drops, shock, vibration, and extreme temperatures and humidity. Even the laptop’s finish has a measure of durability as it’s fingerprint-resistant.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
You get more of that silvery finish on the palm rest and keyboard deck. HP says the touchpad is 16% larger than the one on last year’s model, with plenty of room to comfortably fit your palms and wrists. The dark-gray, full-size keyboard is backlit and sits between a slim pair of speaker grilles. The hinge almost extends across the length of the deck holding everything in place. A small HP logo is centered below the shiny black screen bezels, which are a bit thick for my taste, particularly at the top.
The notebook’s undercarriage is a blasé affair consisting of a long gray raised rubber foot in the back and a pair located in the front. A large vent occupies the middle of the panel with two front-firing speaker grilles along the bottom lip. The bottom panel is held in place by four gleaming gray screws.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The G11 could use a few more ports. I know it’s a hard ask with such a slim profile, but with this lineup, you’ll probably want to pick up a desktop dock. On the right, you have USB-C and USB-A ports with a nanoSIM slot and a security lock slot. Take a look at the left side of the laptop, and you’ll see a pair of USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a headset jack.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
Features: The Fort Knox of Business Laptops
Although I love the searing, vivid hues of a nice, glossy OLED panel, matte screens have their own allure, namely the absence of glare. While matte panels aren’t known for their vibrancy, the EliteBook’s 1,920-by-1,200 display did a fantastic job with color. Watching the trailer for The Plus One, the pink orchids of a lei looked resplendent, with details sharp enough to see the delicate baby hairs framing the side of singer/actor Ashanti’s face.
The 5-megapixel webcam captures stills and video at 2,560-by-1,440 resolution, and in both cases, the results look great. The integrated shooter accurately captured the myriad of colors in my hair. It’s one of the best webcams I’ve used this year. And when you’re done snapping selfies or conducting video calls, you can slide a security shutter into place as an added layer of protection from Peeping Toms.
HP outfitted the G11 with a pair of top- and bottom-firing speakers with four smart amplifiers. Paired with Poly Studio, the seemingly teeny speakers are surprisingly powerful, having no problem filling my medium-size living room. I took a few video meetings and clearly heard everyone on the call. When I streamed music from Spotify, I found synthesized instrumentals got a little distorted at full volume, while the low end on some tracks was practically nonexistent despite the 11 EQ presets available in the HP Audio Control software.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The EliteBook’s island-style keyboard has bright backlighting and large keycaps (6% larger, according to HP, than its predecessor’s). I really enjoyed the clickiness of the keyboard as I typed this review and managed to surpass my usual 70 words per minute in the Monkeytype test, achieving 78wpm. In case you spill some coffee, there’s no need to panic since the keyboard is spill-proof; just wipe it off and get back to work. The glass touchpad, also larger than the G10’s, proved agile and responsive, performing Windows 11 gestures in near-instantaneous fashion.
There’s a lot of HP-branded software on this thing. For starters, there’s MyHP, a utility in which you can create custom shortcuts, manage the system’s power settings, access a deep well of videoconferencing tools, and check battery health, among other things. HP Easy Clean temporarily disables the keyboard, touch screen (if applicable), and touchpad so you can give the interior a good wipe-down. HP Support System is there to help troubleshoot any problems that may arise, while HP Privacy Settings lets you decide what info you will and won’t share with the manufacturer.
Since the EliteBook is a business laptop, it has some special security features baked in. Besides Intel vPro allowing for remote management and protection, HP Sure Click protects against browser-based malware with micro virtual machines to keep any bad actors sequestered away. HP Wolf Security is a small suite of apps designed to keep your laptop safe from cyber attacks using AI to constantly monitor, access, and isolate threats. And in case your system does fall prey to malware, you can restore the OS to a state before infection.
The 1040 G11 also has a fingerprint reader hiding in the power button, and you can set up facial login via Windows Hello.
Testing the HP EliteBook 1040 G11: A Capable Workhorse
Not many business laptops have completed our new benchmark regimen (we rolled out a slate of mostly new tests in September), but we compared the HP to similarly outfitted 13- and 14-inch competitors in order to rate its performance. The EliteBook has an Intel Core Ultra 7 165H “Meteor Lake” processor with 16 cores and 22 threads, plus integrated graphics and an onboard NPU for AI applications. The H-series chip is designed to handle more taxing jobs such as video and photo editing as well as word processing and spreadsheet jockeying.
Productivity & Creation Tests
We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.
Three more benchmarks stress the CPU, using all available cores and threads to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench 2024 uses the company’s Redshift engine to render a complex image. We run the multi-core CPU benchmark that works across all of a processor’s cores and threads—the more powerful the chip, the higher the score—and its single-core variant. Similarly, Geekbench 6.3 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Our last CPU stress test is the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.8, which converts a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution; lower times are better.
Next, we run one cross-platform content creation benchmark on all systems: Adobe Photoshop 2024 using the 1.2.20 version of Puget Systems’ PugetBench for Creators. It’s an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The EliteBook delivered impressive results in both the productivity and storage portions of the PCMark 10 benchmark, and its Core Ultra 7 CPU outran the older and lower-wattage Core i7 chips in the Lenovo and Dell. It also gave a solid performance in our Photoshop test.
Graphics Tests
We test the graphics inside all laptops and desktops with four cross-platform gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark: Steel Nomad (and its Light variant) and Wild Life (and its Extreme variant). These laptops’ lack of ray-tracing GPUs excluded them from 3DMark’s Solar Bay benchmark.
The Steel Nomad tests use the DirectX 12, Vulkan, or Metal graphics APIs, depending on the processor in play. The primary test is built for high-end gaming systems and runs at 4K resolution, while the Light version runs at 1440p with less detail. Wild Life and Wild Life Extreme are less demanding than Steel Nomad, though the two run at 1440p and 4K resolution, respectively. This test aims to compare midrange Windows and macOS systems.
Business laptops with integrated graphics always fall well behind the discrete GPUs of gaming laptops, and this batch was no exception. The EliteBook put up serviceable numbers and will be perfectly fine for streaming video and conference calls, but it’s not intended for hardcore gaming or workstation-style CAD or 3D rendering.
Battery & Display Tests
We test each laptop and tablet’s battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen’s color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
When we ran the battery test, the EliteBook G11 lasted 13 hours and 43 minutes, which is more than enough to get you through a workday and put in some overtime. However, the time is a little shorter than what we typically see from a business laptop. The G11’s matte panel brightness was almost on a par with HP’s claim of 400 nits; as for its color reproduction capabilities, it achieved 98% of the sRGB color gamut, just short of the 100% that HP claims.
Verdict: A Wonderfully Worthy Contender
Power, efficiency, sleekness, and plenty of security measures—these are the hallmarks of the HP EliteBook 1040 G11. Designed for mobile professionals or anyone looking for an ultraportable laptop that goes hard on security, the G11 has something for everyone. Its slim, lightweight chassis is equal parts elegant and durable; its Intel CPU is more than capable of handling heavy-duty productivity tasks; and the anti-glare display and quad speaker system are sprinkles on an already stacked cake serving up unexpected levels of vibrancy and volume.
It’s no secret that Lenovo’s legendary ThinkPad X1 Carbon is our favorite business notebook, but the HP’s exemplary construction and feature set, plus the deep protection of Wolf Security, make it a very viable alternative. Both are on the pricey side, but their feature sets and specs, snappy keyboards, and not-just-Thunderbolt arrays of ports (though we’re always greedy for even more ports) make them brilliant choices for demanding mobile professionals.
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The Bottom Line
HP’s formidable Wolf Security is icing on a thin and light cake, as the EliteBook 1040 G11 challenges Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Carbon for the enterprise laptop crown.
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About Sherri L. Smith
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