Hp Probook 440`s - Feedback please

[maxrebo]

Hi,

We're in the market for a lot of staff laptops. Due to the current situation they need these yesterday!. I'm trying to avoid rushing in to the wrong purchase the best I can so please could people feedback on the HP Probook 440s? I've read on here that people haven't had the best experience with this model?

 

Thanks

[DJ-1701]

I believe @mavhc has used the 440 G4's so his experience might help here.

 

I was just complaining about the ProBook 450 G5 today with regard to just opening it up, but the parts look a nightmare to replace on that model. I have had issues with other HP models of late, 3 devices with 'battery' faults that seem to be mainly mainboard issues. So not keen on HP myself at the moment.

[ABirch_BGS]

Hi,

 

I have recently returned to Edtech after a few years in the engineering industry. Last year we moved to the HP ProBook series (G6 i think) for our staff. They were fairly robust and with a good build quality. The business had previously used Toshiba and the HP Probooks were certainly a step up in terms of speed and reliability as well as being cheaper. Most ataff were happy with the 430s if they had an external screen to connect to.

 

Hope this helps.

[mavhc]

Got about 20 of them, had them about 2 years, seem fine, 1 broke when child threw it, 1 came back with some keys not working, took 5 mins to swap those 2 kbs.

[localzuk]

My experience of any HP kit these days is repairs are a PITA if you want to do it yourself. If repair-ability is important to you, consider VeryPC ThinBooks.

[VeryPC]

Hey @maxrebo

 

We can help you with this! Thanks for the recommendation @localzuk! Always great to see a fellow EduGeeker recommend all things VeryPC! I'll get our very own Colin to drop you a PM about our Thinbook's or about our Tier 1 offerings. Whether it's HP, Dell or Lenovo, we're able to help and we can custom brand them too!

 

Keep an eye on your inbox!

 

- Ryan

[chazzy2501]

got some 440 G7 look nice, very fast and light. I upgraded one with a HDD as it has a spare sata space (cable and space for drive). The one I opened had a single 8gb DDR4 2666 module and a spare DDR4 slot next to it. They are tricky to get into (lot of clips) unlike the old ones. The battery is replaceable (after you open it up), ram is upgradeable as are both storage options. (included a NVMe 256gb) in my i5 models. Full size ethernet and HDMI on the laptop which is great. Using with USBC G5 docks for picture and power over a single cable.

 

Can't speak to reliability as they only just gone into service.

 

Edit: Clarification

Edited September 7, 2020 by chazzy2501

[jemal]

we got hp probook x360 440 laptops for all our teachers last year (the are convertible into tablet mode and have touch screen and stylus). We had a very good price for them and taking that into account they've done well. Due to the x360 convertible style, the hinges are failing on some, the USB-C ports are failing on some, and there's bit of a phantom touchscreen issue on some where the mouse cursor keeps moving to the corner of the screen. The HP engineers who come out to fix these (we got 3yr warranty which we're glad of now) have said the cases on the x360 style laptops aren't that great to quickly repair issues compared to normal style probook laptops. Those issues aside if you plan contingency for issues like that, I would be happy using one myself. We have HP USB-C docks in all the classrooms too with USB-C power delivery.

[mavhc]

The 450 G7 takes 3 mins to open by using a plastic pry tool around the edge, after removing 7 screws, from there you can replace 2.5", msata, ram and battery easily. Keyboard is stupidly welding to the palm rest so it the worst to replace.

[mavhc]

450 G7 kb is £101.52

[HTCPCP]

Over the last few years, I feel that quality has severely deteriorated on the probook range (probably to try and push business into elitebooks and the premium they charge for those). It's a real shame, as going back a few years ago, the Probooks were really popular among users however the ones we picked up last year were particularly bad - especially the 2 Probook 430s. In all honesty, because of the problems caused by them, HP have been dropped to emergency purchase only having been one of the companies we would go to for tenders. The issues we have noticed/warranty repairs have been:

1 x battery - fully charged lasted 2 hours under light use (in meetings where you are just looking at PDF documents) - eventually and reluctantly repaired under warranty and now lasts 4-5 hours for the same user. Engineer noted that the battery was dud, and he'd seen a fair few

1 x keyboard - replaced under warranty - some keys not working from start

2 x Audio issues (driver linked) - Driver not up to date on HP site - found off site.

2 x overheating - Cooling solution is far from decent where users are reporting devices are getting overly hot, fans are quite noisy, and have noticed the HP fans are picked up more on the inbuilt mic than rivals.

Both users have also moaned about the trackpads - having come from previous generation models

flex - these devices flex quite badly, especially for a device that is being marketed as an entry business grade, I am not expecting these to last the full refresh cycle, but hopefully enough to bring them back into line with our main one would be good...

[chazzy2501]

Sorry to hijack the thread but what is the dell equivalent to the i5 440 g7? and how much and is it still good?

[mavhc]

My Dell Vostros were worse, cases cracked, tpm chips died, kb soldered to palm rest, had Dell out about 10 times

[HTCPCP]

Sorry to hijack the thread but what is the dell equivalent to the i5 440 g7? and how much and is it still good?

Probably a vostro of sorts, or 33XX series latitude. Vostro's are a lot better than they used to be (very low starting base), but have very limited ports. We have 1 Vostro out of around 500 daily use laptops and it's held up quite well so far (not edu, but in a homeless shelter). Latitude 3000 series, limited ports, slightly heavier but more rugged, often previous gen processors (unless they've released new models recently, its 8th gen mobile processors?). If it's going to be going into bags etc, the edu model is quite good.

 

As for pricing, speak to your account manager (or reseller if you go that way), as it varies with how many you order, what warranties you want, and other discounts.

Edited September 14, 2020 by HTCPCP

[mavhc]

The old thick vostros, with DVD drives were quite made, the Vostro 5468s were the worse laptops ever