HP EliteBook 14" 840 G8 2021, Core i7-1165G7, 16GB, 512GB SSD, Silver

The HP EliteBook 840 G8 is a refurbished 14-inch business laptop with 16GB RAM, a 512GB SSD, and Windows 11 Pro. It's a solid budget pick for office work and multitasking at CAD 515, but the dim display and weak integrated graphics hold it back. Don't buy it for gaming or media consumption.

The Core i7-1165G7 is an 11th-gen Intel chip with 4 cores and a 2.8GHz base clock that boosts up to 4.7GHz. In our database, this CPU sits at the 25th percentile for laptops, which means it's on the weaker side compared to current-gen silicon. For everyday office work, email, web browsing, and light photo editing, it's perfectly serviceable. But it's not going to impress anyone doing heavy video editing or running VMs.

The Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics land at the 14th percentile, which tells you everything you need to know about gaming. This is not a gaming laptop. You can run older titles and indie games at low settings, but anything modern will chug. The 16GB of RAM is the saving grace here, giving you enough headroom to keep dozens of browser tabs open alongside Slack and Office without the system grinding to a halt. Storage is a 512GB SSD, which is adequate but not generous. Port selection is actually a strong point at the 79th percentile, with Thunderbolt, dual USB-C, dual USB-A, and HDMI 2.0b giving you plenty of connectivity options.

Stacked against the Apple MacBook Air M4, the EliteBook 840 G8 gets absolutely smoked in performance, battery life, and display quality. The M4 Air is in a different league, but it also costs significantly more. If you're cross-shopping these two, the only reason to pick the HP is budget or a hard requirement for Windows. The ASUS Zenbook UX3405CA is another strong alternative, offering a much better OLED display and newer internals, though again at a higher price point.

The Lenovo Legion 5i 83F00008US is a completely different animal, a gaming laptop with a discrete GPU that will run circles around the EliteBook in any graphics workload. But it's heavier, pricier, and overkill if you just need something for email and spreadsheets. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition is closer in spirit to the EliteBook, with a premium build and better screen, but you'll pay a premium for it. For pure business value at a low price, the EliteBook holds its own, but it's not winning any performance awards against these competitors.

At CAD 515 for a refurbished unit, the EliteBook 840 G8 is a decent deal if you need a Windows 11 Pro machine for office work and don't want to spend twice as much on something new. The 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD mean you won't feel cramped right away. But value depends on what you're comparing it to. A new budget laptop with a Ryzen 5 or 12th-gen Intel chip will often outperform this machine in CPU tasks, though you'll likely pay more. If you can live with the dim screen and modest battery life, the price is hard to argue with for a business-focused laptop with Thunderbolt support.

The HP EliteBook 840 G8 is a refurbished 14-inch business laptop that lands in that sweet spot for people who need a dependable Windows machine without dropping MacBook money. You're looking at an Intel Core i7-1165G7, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, a 512GB SSD, and Windows 11 Pro. The listing we pulled from Newegg has it at CAD 515, which is pretty reasonable for a machine with this spec sheet, assuming you're cool with refurbished gear.

This is a business laptop through and through. HP built the EliteBook line for IT departments and road warriors, so you get things like a backlit keyboard, Thunderbolt support, and a touchscreen. The 14-inch IPS panel runs at 1920 x 1080, which is fine for spreadsheets and documents. But the display itself is a 250-nit panel with 45% NTSC color coverage, so don't expect it to make movies pop the way the marketing copy suggests.

If you're searching for a cheap business laptop that can handle multitasking and office work, this one checks a lot of boxes. But there are some real trade-offs here, especially if you care about gaming, screen quality, or raw CPU performance compared to newer machines.

Skip the EliteBook 840 G8 if you want to play games, edit video, or do any GPU-heavy work. The integrated Iris Xe graphics are simply not up to the task. Creative professionals who need accurate colors should also look elsewhere, since the 45% NTSC panel will make photo and video editing frustrating. If you're often away from an outlet, the 53Wh battery paired with an older Intel chip won't give you all-day endurance. In those cases, consider a newer ultrabook like the ASUS Zenbook or a MacBook Air M4, or a gaming laptop like the Lenovo Legion 5i if graphics matter.

Should you buy the HP EliteBook 840 G8? If you need a cheap, capable business laptop for office work, web browsing, and multitasking, and you're okay with a refurbished unit, this is a solid pick. The 16GB of RAM and Windows 11 Pro make it a practical workhorse, and the port selection is genuinely useful. The CAD 515 price tag is the main draw here.

But if you care about screen quality, battery life, or any kind of gaming, look elsewhere. The 250-nit display is dim, the CPU is aging, and the integrated graphics are a non-starter for modern titles. This is a machine for getting work done, not for entertainment. Know what you're getting into and you'll probably be happy with it.