HP EliteBook 745 G5 laptop - long-term review

Our first-hand consumer feedback after over a year with the HP EliteBook 745 G5 laptop

After we spent over an year of using and testing the HP EliteBook 745 G5 ultrabook, we decided it is time to make a full product review. 

To begin with, what exactly is the EliteBook 745 G5? This basically is a compact laptop with high-end components designed mostly for business users. The most controversial part of this computer is the mobile Ryzen processor. Still many critics believe that AMD is not manufacturing the optimal mobile processors for laptops and that they have some more work to do before catch up with the latest generations Intel Core processors. 

We also think that AMD and the Ryzen series are getting in the right direction if talking about mobile processors. For PC we are quite happy with the desktop versions of the Ryzen machines we are using.

HP EliteBook 745 G5 - basic specifications

I will just share some basics about this ultrabook and not go into detailed specifications. That is because we want to focus more on the end-user experience rather than rough specs.

HP EliteBook 745 G5 - product specs

Brand	HP
Model	EliteBook 745 G5
Processor	Ryzen 7 mobile
Storage	256GB SSD
RAM	8GB
Display	14-inch
Resolution	Full HD
Battery life	2-3 hours

This is the basic hardware we have in the EliteBook 745 G5 but now lets have a bit more detailed look.

Display

The Full HD display is nothing special on this laptop. Honestly, we expected a bit more in this price category, this is the premium laptop segment after all and one of the more expensive HP line-ups in their laptop fleet. While other competitors are going for quad HD and 4k we have a very basic screen, not very bright, especially outdoors. 

Also, I am not sure how efficient this display is, since the battery performance is also not so good.

Battery life

This is the part where the EliteBook 745 G5 really fails (or at least on our particular machine). Our laptop hardly made 2-3 hours of active use on battery. We consider this a poor performance in the business class laptop segment.

Speed and performance

These days most high-end laptops have fast 16GB RAM and 512GB nVme M2 SSD and we believe this should be the entry point in the segment. So, we think the hardware of our EliteBook 745 G5 is a bit outdated but newer versions that are in stores today have better specs so you can buy it a bit more pumped-up. 

In regards to the processing speed and performance we would say the EliteBook 745 G5 did OK but not great. It was almost impossible to run couple of apps and to edit some photos in Lightroom as the laptop often crashed (also probably because it is lacking memory). 

Nice to have Type-C connector but definitely missing the SD card reader

Multitasking doesn't seem to be the strongest feature of this laptop as we often found it in difficult situations with more than 3-4 office related jobs running simultaneously Of course if it is just one browser and MS Teams through VPN, you would have no issues whatsoever. 

Actually, I believe this is the main target audience for the EliteBook 745 G5 - business users who need reliable machine on the go and who are also not using heavy applications but mostly MS Office or Internet browser. 

HP EliteBook 745 G5 2020 product tour - video

Another thing that surprised me badly in the EliteBook 745 G5 was the lack of proper SD card slot. That is quite unusual, especially for a business class laptop. 

Keyboard and touchpad

Input devices work fine on the EliteBook 745 G5 but I can't call them premium. The feeling when typing or click on the mousepad is what I would expect in a mid-range laptop. 

HP EliteBook 745 G5 keyboard

After comparing the keyboard to the on of its big competitors Dell Latitude 5411 we liked Dell's feel and overall performance much better. 

Dell Latitude 5411 laptop reivew

Well, these are most of our thoughts and feedback about the HP EliteBook 745 G5 laptop. If you have any experience with this machine, we will be happy to hear from you in the comments below or in our Test and Review YouTube channel.