HP 245 G8 Laptop Review

Specifications:

• Series-HP 245 G8
• Brand-HP
• Specific Uses For Product-Business
• Screen Size-35.81 Centimetres
• Operating System-Windows 10
• CPU Manufacturer-AMD
• Graphics Card Description-Dedicated
• Special Feature-Anti reflective
• Colour-Black
• Hard Disk Size-1 TB

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Introduction

HP is a robust brand when it comes to everyday performance. HP laptops are used even by enterprises to perform daily activities since they have time and again proved their ability to keep on functioning without fail.

We are reviewing the new Budget Friendly HP 245 G8 laptop, which may not have the bells and whistles akin to a gaming laptop or the performance specifications of an enterprise workhorse, but when it comes to daily dependability, there are a few laptops that could undertake the daily office tasks as good as this one.

Let us get a bit deeper to understand why we think this HP is a good bargain & Budget Friendly…

Design

The HP 245 G8 has a rubberised design, even though the body is made of plastic. It has been a good choice by HP since this design allows it to be handled a bit rough compared to a laptop with a smooth glossy finish. Hence, even if you are looking for a laptop for your kid’s online classes, this is one of the best options out there.

On the other hand, it looks and feels like any other HP laptop in this price range. The entire laptop has rubberised-looking plastic body panels, with an outer lid that has the HP logo in the middle. Once you open the lid, you are greeted by the familiar layout of the keyboard and the screen adorned by slimmer bezels on both sides.

Performance

The HP 245 G8 is good when it comes to performance in this price range. Although it might not be able to handle AI processing, the consumers looking forward to buying this laptop aren’t going to use it for heavy tasks. The AMD Ryzen 3 3300U CPU and the 1TB HDD in this laptop is adequate to run daily tasks such as reading and writing emails, working on word documents and spreadsheets, light image editing, etc. HP has combined this potent CPU with 4GB of DDR4 RAM, providing it with adequate memory to even handle the daily media consumption of a student. The integrated AMD Radeon Vega 8 GPU may not be able to run the latest games at 60 fps, but it is more than enough to handle the daily graphics-related tasks required of the laptop.

Display

HP has provided a decent 14” IPS LCD keeping in mind the laptop’s usage. It is neither a great display nor a bad one. However, it is perfect for its intended usage of a daily driver laptop with no additional gimmicks. While the resolution is limited to 1366 x 768 pixels, you will be happy with the overall screen layout since it is a 14-inch display and has an anti-reflective coating.

The HP 245 G8 also has good viewing angles due to the IPS technology used in its manufacture. Being a 2021 model, the narrow bezels at both sides of the screen provides a higher screen-to-body ratio, making the laptop as well as anything on the screen, excellent-looking on the bright display.

Audio

As expected from any laptop at this price range, the speakers of this HP 247 G8 laptop is not that good. However, this is not to say that it is bad; it is simply ‘lacking’, for lack of a better word. HP has provided the speakers simply to fulfil the requirement of a speaker in a laptop. The speakers do get loud and are crisp sounding until the 50-60 volume range. However, everything becomes a mess once the volume is cranked up to 100. A saving grace is the inclusion of the 3.5 mm headphone jack, which provides good quality audio from the laptop, in headphones and earphones.

Input

Speaking of input for the HP 245 G8, it has a comparatively good keyboard and trackpad. As with all HP products, the plastic and paint quality of the keycaps are really good for the price range and you can be sure that the laptop’s performance and specifications would get outdated before the paint of the keys come off. The keys of the keyboard also have good travel and hence, you will be able to type long word documents or those after-hours emails easily on this laptop.

Being a 2021 laptop also means that the trackpad is huge. HP has also provided dedicated right and left buttons at the bottom of the trackpad considering its usage. If it is used in offices, it can be operated by someone with limited trackpad handling experience. On the other hand, kids can easily use the trackpad buttons with one hand while using the other hand to move the mouse on the screen.

Battery

The battery inside the HP 247 G8 is a 150 Watt-hours Li-Ion battery with an advertised backup of 7 hours. However, as is the case with company-provided battery backup claims, the 7 hours can be achieved only in a controlled laboratory environment. While completing the daily tasks, the battery lasts for almost 4.5 hours with medium brightness though. The fact that the AMD Ryzen 3 is not a power-hungry CPU, as well as the 14” screen, could be the reasons for the higher battery backup provided by the laptop. Additionally, since the laptop cannot be used for resource-heavy tasks, it can provide good backup since the CPU and GPU is not under stress usually.

Connectivity

As for connectivity, HP 245 G8, has all the required ports. To the left of the laptop, you have  the security lock, 1 SuperSpeed USB Type C port, an SD card reader slot and two tiny LEDs to indicate power and hard disk activities. To the right side, the laptop features the power barrel plug’s port, an RJ-45 jack, an HDMI 1.4b port, 2 high-speed USB Type-A and a 3.5 mm headphone-mic combo jack. As for wireless connectivity, the laptop has Wi-Fi 802.11 ac and Bluetooth 5.0 to connect to all wireless peripherals.

Conclusion

The HP 245 G8 is an overall everyday laptop. It can easily perform the daily tasks thrown at it, such as media consumption, online video meetings, word and excel editing, etc. However, it is not meant to handle intensive tasks such as gaming, data mining, photo and video editing, etc. and hence, it would not be able to handle such a workload. If you are looking for a daily driver laptop that performs the daily tasks of the office or media consumption wonderfully, then you can opt for the HP 245 G8.