After the buy in April 2025: My review of HP ProBook 640 G8
This review is not affiliated with HP nor any other brand and hasn’t any commercial goals. It was entirely written by me (Hippolyte), without any use of generative AI or translator
I bought this laptop refurbished on Backmarket. After lot of time enjoying this device, I decided to write this review that also introduces a new part of my personal website: my blog. I hope it will interest you and maybe help you choose an eventual next computer 😉.
Specifications
- CPU: Intel Core I5 1135G7 11th. gen, 4 core 8 threads
- GPU: integrated Intel Iris XE
- RAM: 1x 16 GB DDR4 (non-soldered), two slots, up to 64 GB
- SSD: 256 GB M.2 NVME, blazingly fast!
- Network card: Intel AX201, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2
The laptop was sold with lots of others 11th. gen Intel CPUs(some I3s,I5s and I7s).
Screen
The borders of the screen are ultra, ultra-thin: 3 millimeters on the sides, 9 millimeters on top and bottom, which, added to its huge resolution (1920×1080) and big 14” size with 16:9 aspect ratio, creates an ultra-immersive experience. Moreover, the screen is anti-glare.
Design and look
The first things we see after buying this laptop are the design and the look, and the minimum I can say is that the laptop is perfect in this category. The frame is in light gray brushed aluminum, which in one hand looks really elegant and premium, and on the other hand is pleasant to touch. The touchpad has hidden physical keys, is pretty big (11,5/6,5 cm), and has shiny chrome on the borders. It’s another time a really elegant piece of hardware.
The speakers are on top of the keyboard and excellently integrated in the design.
The holes for under the laptop are not those ugly holes only here for cooling we see on lots of laptops. No, those fan holes are a real piece of art and bring the premium elegant look of the computer forward in the tiniest details.
The rubber feet are long, gray, and prism shaped. It integrates them good in the overall design and makes them very stylish.
It has a single hinge (single hinges are beautiful and amazing) which hides other fan holes and has PROBOOK written on the back(the same wordmark is present on the left side of the touchpad).
By the way, the hinge is very practical: you can put an A4 paper in it.
Talking from the hinge, another practical aspect is that it can be opened to 180°.
To conclude, the laptop looks clean, professional, elegant, premium, expensive, modern and beautiful.
User freedom, free software and privacy
Let’s begin with good news: this PC is a classical x86_64, an architecture that works really great under Linux.
All the components are working good. The network card, an Intel AX201 is ultra widely used in laptops and has this way good compatibility on Linux.
By the way, there's an integrated switch to hide the webcam, which is a good thing because US intelligence agencies can access the camera of fast all the information devices(Edward Snowden revelated it).
Those are the bad news: The firmware on the PC like the BIOS is completely closed-source, which implies that you can’t completely trust your device because there’s creepy code and obscure components included in it that you can’t really remove or modify. In my opinion, the Intel Management is the supreme example of this: it’s a chip that has complete access and control over the computer, even over the network! It works even when the device is turned off and runs signed code. Furthermore, the IME is very hard to disable. If you want to know more about it, do some research on the internet (I reccommend you this great article from the FSF).
Fingerprint reader
I don’t know what to say about the compatibility of my fingerprint reader on Linux: on my laptop, it’s not recognized at all by lsusb and fprintd can’t enroll even with libfprint-tod, I updated my BIOS as well as my firmware with fwupd, but it hasn't changed my situation. I've done lots of research about my fingerprint reader, and one day, I found this Reddit post, where two people with the same laptop are saying that it works and is officially supported by fprintd.
Repairability, robustness and upgradability
In this category, the ProBook 640 G8 is excellent: when I searched for a new laptop, I discovered that most of recent models had soldered RAM(thanks Apple for launching the trend in 2012) . Unlike lot of devices these days that are impossible to fix, this laptop is really, really repairable. I haven’t found any repairability score for this specific model, but if I would give one myself, it would be 9 or 10: the RAM, SSD, battery, network card are easily accessible and there’s an official HP document that explains how to repair the device. To open the laptop, you just have to unscrew 5 generic screws (they stay attached to the bottom cover when unscrewed, what makes them very hard to lose) and unclip the bottom cover.
Furthermore, no major component excluding the CPU are soldered. The RAM can be upgraded up to 64 GB and has two slots. All those points makes it an excellent choice for the future. I decided to keep this laptop 10 years, and I know it’s feasible. Keep in mind that there’s only one SSD slot.
The chassis can be cosmetically damaged by little things. So, if you have to carry the laptop, always do it with thick bubble wrap.
Battery
The battery has a pretty long autonomy and charges very, very fast, even if I’ve disabled fast charge in the BIOS (because fast charge makes the battery hot and destroys it), The battery charges from 40 to 80% in exactly 40 minutes (I always charge my PC from 40 to 80%, and, with this behaviour, the battery health is exactly the same as the one when I bought it).
You also have some options in the BIOS that lets you manage your battery in a good way.
Something called Battery Health Manager lets you choose between 3 options: Maximize battery health management, that slows down the charge and wastes enrgy beyond 80%, Let HP manage my battery health, the option by default that has a classic behavior, and Minimize battery health management that lets the battery charge until the maximum. I use the Maximize battery health management option, and I can say it’s ultra efficient.
Unlike lot of devices these days that have enormous battery capacities, the ProBook 640 G8 is powered by a 45Wh battery, form which you can't expect more than 2-3 hours of autonomy at 80%.
Little precision: most of the time, battery is not new in refurbished devices, but has an excellent capacity between 70-80%. Mine has a capacity around 77%.
Keyboard
The official keyboard is really pleasant to use with high quality soft plastic for the keys and has two levels of backlight.
Ports
On one side, you have a Kensington lock, an Ethernet, an USB port and a smart card reader.
On the other side, there’s two ports that can charge your computer: the classic round charging port used on HP laptops since around 2016 and a modern USB-C that can also do basically everything. Near those ports, you have two USB ports, one HDMI port, an AUX output and a SIM card reader(to use a SIM card, you have to buy an Intel module that cost around 50€ and plug in into the PC). In my opinion, there all I need terms of ports, excluding an SD card reader. The missing SD card reader is my only deception in terms of ports. To replace my SD cards, I bought a Sandisk ultra fit USB key (see photo) that costed me 13,99€.
Dimensions
This ProBook is 1,3 kg light, 1,7 cm thin on the back and 8 mm thin on the front, which is I think excellent for a 14 inches device with a so huge repairability. It has a length of 32,1 cm, a width of 21,2 cm, and a diagonal of 38,1 cm.
Price
You pay the excellence of this laptop the high price: 1400€. But this is the price it had when sold new in 2021. It was massively used by companies, and companies change their computers very often, which makes it available refurbished at cheap prices for its quality: around 250€ in 2025-26(for instance, I’ve bought mine 241,48€ on Backmarket).
License
This article, as well as the photos included in it © 2026 by Hippolyte are licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
I took all the photos of this article with my Galaxy A50