HP G9 15.6", Celeron N4500, 16GB, 512GB SSD, Silver

The HP G9 pairs a 512GB NVMe SSD and 16GB RAM with a Celeron N4500 that ranks in the 1st percentile for CPU performance. That's one of the slowest processors we've ever tracked. Fine for basic office work, but anything more will feel like wading through molasses.

Let's be direct: the Celeron N4500 is the bottleneck here, and it's not close. This is a 1-core, 1.3GHz processor that ranks dead last in our CPU comparisons, the 1st percentile. That means 99% of laptops we've tested have a faster processor. For basic tasks like checking email or writing documents, it'll get there eventually. But open more than a few browser tabs and you'll feel it wheeze.

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics sit at the 14th percentile, which is also rough. You're not doing any photo editing or light gaming on this thing. The 16GB of RAM is actually the bright spot, landing at the 37th percentile, which is more than enough for the kind of work this CPU can actually handle. The 512GB NVMe SSD is average for the category and will at least make boot times and file transfers feel snappy compared to older spinning drives.

Stacked against the competition, the HP G9 is in a completely different league, and not in a good way. The Apple MacBook Pro M4 Max, Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10, ASUS ROG Zephyrus, and MSI Titan 18 HX are all high-end machines with processors that make the Celeron N4500 look like a calculator. But that's not really a fair fight. The more honest comparison is against other budget business laptops, and even there, the 1st percentile CPU ranking is a serious red flag. You can find Chromebooks and entry-level Windows laptops with dual-core or quad-core processors that will run circles around this thing for similar money. The 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD are nice, but they can't compensate for a processor that's slower than 99% of what's out there.

Pricing is tricky here because we only see one listing at 18,199 MXN in Mexico, and there's no USD price to compare against. What we can say is that the value proposition depends entirely on what you need. If you want a machine for light office work, web browsing, and email, the 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD give you more headroom than most budget laptops. But you're paying for a Windows 11 Pro license and decent storage wrapped around a processor that struggles with anything beyond the basics. The value score would be higher if the CPU weren't such a drag on everything else.

The HP G9 is a budget business laptop that looks fine on paper until you check what's actually under the hood. The headline numbers are a 512GB NVMe SSD and 16GB of DDR4 RAM, which sound respectable for a machine in this class. But the CPU is an Intel Celeron N4500, a 1-core chip that lands in the 1st percentile of our database. That's not a typo. One core. In 2025, that's rough.

Our scoring reflects the split personality here. Storage and screen both sit around the 52nd percentile, which is solidly average. Port selection is at 57th, so you get a decent spread of connectivity. But the CPU drags everything down. The overall best-for scores tell the story: 40.8 for compact use, 38.4 for business, and 35.6 for students. Gaming is a non-starter at 8.8 out of 100.

Skip this if you plan to do anything beyond the absolute basics. The 1st percentile CPU ranking means even moderate multitasking will test your patience. If you need to run spreadsheets with lots of formulas, do any photo or video editing, or keep more than a handful of browser tabs open, look elsewhere. The 14th percentile GPU also rules out any gaming or graphics work. And if you care about screen quality, the 250-nit, 45% NTSC panel will disappoint. This is a machine for people who need a cheap Windows 11 Pro laptop for light typing and email, and nothing more.

The HP G9 is a tough sell. The 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD are genuinely useful, and Windows 11 Pro plus Wi-Fi 6 give it some modern touches. But the Celeron N4500 is a dealbreaker for most people. At the 1st percentile for CPU performance, this laptop will frustrate you the moment you try to do anything beyond a single task at a time. If your workload is truly basic, like typing documents and checking email, it'll work. But for anything else, you're better off spending a bit more on a machine with at least a dual-core processor. The data doesn't lie, and the data says this thing is slow.