The HP Elitebook 745 G5 is a beautifully designed and powerful business laptop and professional notebook. It is powered by an AMD Ryzen processor which makes it a unique product as Ryzen CPU are almost rarely used on business laptops. It is also a smaller and much more affordable alternative to the HP Elitebook 755 G5 which comes with a bigger, brighter display and bigger storage configurations.
HP EliteBook 745 G5 Key Specs & Features
- Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Home
- 8th Generation AMD Ryzen™ PRO APU processor
- Integrated AMD Radeon™ Vega Graphics
- 32GB RAM
- 326 x 234 x 179 mm
- 14-inch diagonal FHD IPS eDP LED-backlit touch screen with Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3, 220 cd/m², 67% sRGB, 1080 x 1920
- upto 512GB, 128GB, 256GB Storage
- Black
The business notebook ecosystem is largely dominated by Intel CPUs but now, AMD is looking to break in with its Ryzen processors and the HP Elitebook 745 G5 is one of the earliest business laptops to sport such CPUs. It brings on board unruffled multitasking, impressive design and port selections, comfortable keyboard, security features and many other things you could possibly want on a top-of-the-line business notebook.
HP Elitebook 745 G5 Key Specifications
- Display: 14-inch Full HD IPS screen (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) with touchscreen / non-touch options.
- Operating system: Windows 10 Pro
- Processor: 2.2GHz (up to 3.8GHz) quad-core AMD Ryzen 7 2700U or AMD Ryzen 5 2600U
- Graphics: AMD Radeon RX Vega 10
- Memory: 4GB or 8GB DDR4
- Battery: 50Wh
- Connectivity and Sensors: 3 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB-C Gen1, 1 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x Kensington Lock, 1 x Docking Station Port, Fingerprint reader, 1 Smartcard reader.
- Price: from £835
Design
The HP Elitebook 745 G5 might not win the prize for the best-designed business notebook but its plain silvery metal body with a matte finish hands the notebook a premium and expensive appearance. The top lid and bottom chassis are both made from metal and held together by a rectangular hinge that holds the display firmly in place. The hinge doesn’t permit swivel or conversion to a tablet but only allows the lid to be pushed back to about 145%, which is just about enough for a business notebook.
The keyboard is nicely built with chiclet keys that are big enough for easy typing and also sports decent key travel. There’s also a rubber tracking/pointing stick in between the G, H, and B keys. The pointing stick is coloured black which makes it blend with the keys, unlike Lenovo’s rubber TrackPoint which has a signature red color. The Elitebook 745 G5’s TrackPoint is, however, a little too cutout into the surrounding keys and may cause a bit of inconvenience when tapping those keys.
It (the keyboard) is backlit for typing in dark rooms or environments. Interestingly, as a battery saving technique, the backlight is turned off automatically when the keyboard isn’t in use after a couple of minutes.
Ports and connectivity on the Elitebook 745 G5 is also good: three USB ports (two USB 3.0, one USB-C with Thunderbolt), one full-size HDMI port, Ethernet, SIM card slot, Smart card reader, a docking connector etc.
Display
The HP Elitebook 745 G5 comes with a 14-inch display with a Full HD (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) resolution. The screen is a bit dull as it comes with a brightness level of 220 CD/m² which will make it difficult to use in broad daylight or outdoors, under the effect of sunlight.
Users can also choose between a touchscreen or non-touch model of the display. The touchscreen model, of course, will require users to shell out extra cash.
Processor and Storage
Under the hood is an AMD Ryzen 7 2700U CPU with four cores that runs at a speed of 2.2GHz. It can, however, be supercharged to 3.8GHz when the processor runs in Max Boost mode. The Elitebook 745 G5 is also available in a cheaper variant with Ryzen 5 2600U CPU on board.
Per storage, users can configure this Elitebook to come with either 4GB or 8GB of RAM and likewise, 128GB or 256GB of built-in storage. Operating system out-of-the-box is the Windows 10 Pro.
Battery
On paper, HP states that the 3-cell battery with a capacity of 50Wh of the Elitebook 745 G5 can supply up to 11.5-hours of usage. In reality, that figure goes down to about 6-7 hours. The battery is bit of a let-down.
Price
There are different models and configurations that can be made to this notebook in terms if memory, storage, screen type, ports etc. The base model of the HP Elitebook 745 G5 according to HP starts at £835 (approx. US $1,083.66).
HP EliteBook 745 G5 Specs
Here are a few specs of the HP EliteBook 745 G5:
General Features
- OS: Windows 10 Pro, Windows 10 Home
- Processor: 8th Generation AMD Ryzen™ PRO APU processor
- GPU: Integrated AMD Radeon™ Vega Graphics
- Memory: 32GB RAM
- Colours: Black
- Dimension: 326 x 234 x 179 mm
- Weight: 1.48kg
Display & Keyboard
- Display:14-inch diagonal FHD IPS eDP LED-backlit touch screen with Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3, 220 cd/m², 67% sRGB, 1080 x 1920
- Keyboard: HP Premium Collaboration Keyboard spill resistant with drain, optional backlit
- Pointing Device: Clickpad with multi-touch gesture support, taps enabled as default
Storage
- Built-in Storage: upto 512GB, 128GB, 256GB
- Optical Storage: –
- Bundled Cloud Storage: –
Ports & Connectivity
- Webcam: Yes, HD IR webcam
- USB Ports: Yes USB 3.1
- HDMI: Yes, HDMI 2.0
- Thunderbolt Ports: –
- DisplayPort: –
- VGA: Yes
- Ethernet (RJ-45): Yes
- SD Slot: Yes
- Mic/Headphone: Yes
- WLAN: Yes, Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2×2) Wi-Fi
- Bluetooth: Yes Bluetooth 4.2
- NFC: –
- Docking Connector: Yes
- Mobile Broadband: –
Other Features
- integrated multi array microphone
- dual stereo speakers,
- Ambient light sensor
- Native Miracast support
- HP Smart 45 W External AC power adapter
- HP LAN Protection
- docking connector
- HD camera
- headphone/microphone combo
Battery
- Battery: HP Long Life 3-cell, 50 Wh Li-ion
- Use Time: up to 11 hours and 30 minutes
