Business laptops have a pretty standard list of ingredients that come together to give you what is expected to be a robust computing experience, one that’s reliable and ticks off the security management software requirements that your company’s IT folks may have. Amidst all this, you need to keep an eye on portability. Right time then, the HP ProBook 635 Aero makes its presence felt, tipping the scales at 0.99kg and makes this one of the lightest, if not the very lightest AMD powered business laptop. This also puts AMD’s Ryzen chips firmly in the business laptop space, something dominated by Intel all this while. The price tag is serious too, with pricess starting at Rs 1,00,075 and this puts it firmly in battle with the Lenovo ThinkPad T14 powered by AMD Ryzen processors and the Dell Latitude 15 7520 which runs an Intel Core i5 chip.
Conventionality With Modernity Is Perfect Mix: As it sits on a desk, the HP ProBook 635 Aero speaks out in conventional tones. A fairly conventional silver finish doesn’t really make any attempt to stand out in a crowd of laptops on a table in a conference room. Yet, beneath this sameness are a lot of interesting tweaks. For instance, the weight. Your colleague’s boring looking business laptop probably weighs a lot more at around 1.4kg, but your HP ProBook 635 Aero tips the scales at less than 1kg. In fact, it is deceptively light when picked up. Be careful. Build quality? That’s all magnesium and aluminium, so no compromises there either. HP has given this biometrics too, a fingerprint sensor that is a nice security feature to have—incidentally, it’s making a comeback on a lot of Windows 10 laptops. You’ll get a full gamut of ports too, including HDMI-out for connecting with external displays and projectors. The placement of power key is something you’ll need to get used to though. The Del key sits where your finger will intuitively go, but the power key is actually to the left of it.
Is AMD Ryzen Going To Worry Intel Core Chips? When you do press the power key, you’ll be arriving at the Windows 10 login screen in a matter of mere seconds. The version that I’m reviewing here is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 4700U chip with 16GB RAM and a fast 512GB SSD. There is also a variant that you can have with a AMD Ryzen 5 4500U processor with 8GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. Either spec, will be quite powerful, and delivers on seamless performance without ever exhibiting any heating around the palm-rest area. With two dozen Microsoft Edge tabs loaded, four Microsoft Word files as well as a fairly complex spreadsheet open, and a photo editing app getting stuff done in the meantime, the HP ProBook 635 Aero didn’t show any hesitation in opening Google Chrome and loading six more tabs that were set to start as soon as the browser is loaded. This test scenario pretty well illustrates that the ProBook 635 Aero is more than ready to handle the different workflow software and usage scenarios with ease.
Would My IT Boffins Be Happy? Business laptops get a whole bunch of utilities that are designed to do a whole lot of things. Protect your data, security solutions, protection against malware threats that acts as a second layer to an installed security suite and also some privacy solutions. On the HP ProBook 635 Aero, the business laptop definition is well and truly ticked off. On the Windows 10 app list, under the alphabet H, there’s (take a deep breath) all of this—HP Sure Sense Service, HP Sure Sense, HP Audio Control, HP Documentation, HP Hardware Diagnostics, HP Power Manager, HP Privacy Settings, HP Programmable Key, HP QuickDrop, HP Support Assistant, HP SureClick and HP WorkWell. Whew, that is a lot. Maybe these could have been consolidated within one app. Or at least some of these, thereby reducing the numbers that a user will have to go through. We’ve seen some of these utilities in other HP laptops as well, but one that really stands out is HP WorkWell. In the era where screen time has gone beyond controllable levels, it is important to focus on your health and well-being as well. The very first pitch that WorkWell makes is that it would like to provide you with analysis and feedback on your work activity and reminders on when breaks are needed. Sure, lets click on Yes here. You can always opt out of this later. The app then takes one week to make a profile of your work habits and would then prompt you for your own sake. The webcam gets a physical privacy shutter too.
This Display Has A Hidden Trick: The 13.3-inch screen size would be what you’d perhaps be looking for, if portability is at the top of your requirement list. It a Full HD resolution screen and as you’d expect in a business laptop, it’s a non-reflective matte display. This does fairly well in ticking off the crispness and readability aspects. The cool trick is the integrated privacy screen that you can enable or disable, and it is called HP Sure View. This most definitely wouldn’t show up as a separate app in the preloaded apps list on the laptop, and incidentally the HP Sure View app downloaded from the Microsoft Store also lists as incompatible. Actually, all you need to do is press the F2 key (or fn+F2) to enable or disable this privacy layer which will make your display very difficult peek in and read for someone sitting on one side. A good way to keep away the prying eyes if you are working in close proximity with a few other folks.
The Last Word: Solid Battles With Lenovo ThinkPad T14 And Dell Latitude 15 7520
The HP ProBook 635 Aero is a business laptop that is certainly bringing in a fresher performance perspective with the AMD Ryzen chips. In the real world, they may as little as make no difference for most workflow requirements. Yet, the AMD chips most certainly deserve all the attention, simply because they match up to the Intel counterparts and more often than not, these laptops also have a price advantage over the Intel powered ones. That may just make a world of difference for buyers. The HP ProBook 635 Aero delivers with the performance, robust battery life of around 11 hours on a single charge and feel well put together. There’s nothing that sets this apart from other business laptops, and continues the theme of understated designs. No doubt, you’d be considering a very capable alternative to some of the Lenovo ThinkPad and the Dell Latitude machines. The Lenovo ThinkPad T14 is priced upwards of Rs 1,14,000 while the Dell Latitude 15 7520 is priced upwards of around Rs 1,20,000.
Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here