HP OfficeJet Pro 9022e
This 900g business laptop packs in all the featuresfeat a privacy-focused buyerbu could want: a great buy
“The IGZO panel is simply excellent. It covers 97% of the sRGB gamut out of a 100% volume, with an average Delta E of 0.46”
SCORE ★★★★★
PRICE £1,134 (£1,361 inc VAT) VAT from ballicom.co.uk
Dynabook announced this update to its X30L series way back in October 2020, meaning it’s probably the longest we’ve had to wait from press release to final product. Blame Brexit, blame Covid, blame the actor Christopher Timothy – what matters is that’s it here now, and whether it’s worth the wait.
On paper, the answer must be yes. Dynabook packs a 13.3in screen into a magnesium alloy chassis that weighs 906g, and don’t imagine it’s flimsy: it’s even backed by a “Reliability Guarantee” that means Dynabook will provide a repair and full refund if it fails within the one-year warranty. It packs in an 11th-generation Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, along with Windows 10 Pro, for a competitive £1,134 exc VAT. What, you may well ask, is the catch?
I found a couple during my tests, but let’s first focus on the many positives, starting with the screen. This version of the X30L includes a Sharp IGZO panel, and it’s simply excellent. It covers 97% of the sRGB gamut out of a 100% volume, with an average Delta E of 0.46 – which all means superb colour accuracy within the confines of sRGB.
It isn’t a wide gamut panel, covering g 71% of the DCI-P3 colour space, but few people will criticise its vibrancy thanks in part to a 1,579:1 contrast ratio. With a peak brightness of 425cd/m2, it can cope with all but the sunniest conditions. It also has a secret skill: press Fn + D and a privacy screen kicks in, making it harder for nosy neighbours on a train to see what you’re typing. It’s very effective. My next big positive is the sheer compactness of the design, and you don’t need to travel far to see what I mean: if you’re reading this review in a physical copy of PC Pro then the X30L almost directly matches it. The only difference is that it’s three times thicker at 17.9mm.
That thickness is almost certainly dictated by the height of the Gigabit Ethernet socket squeezed on the right side, where it’s kept company by a Kensington lock slot, USB-A 3.1 port, microSD card slot and a smart card reader. On the left you’ll find a 3.5mm jack, second USB-A port, HDMI output and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. With Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5, the only omission is support for mobile broadband – but other models of the X30L include this. Such a compact chassis means a smaller keyboard and touchpad than is ideal, but unless you have gigantic hands you should find it easy to hit all the keys without error. The cursor keys are half-height, as is the function key row, but there are no other obvious compromises. It’s not the most tactile keyboard, but
it’s quiet and includes backlighting. There’s also a trackpoint in the centre, along with two physical mouse keys above the tiny 100 x 57mm trackpad. This is where you’ll find the fingerprint reader, which works well despite its miniscule size. Most people will rely on the IR webcam anyway. To my relief, it’s a high-quality unit; far too many business laptops come with dross and that needs to change. To the criticisms. The first of which is this laptop’s bezels, with the bottom one being particularly noticeable. Second, this is isn’t as fast a laptop as a Core i7 might lead you to expect. It is responsive – a score of 154 in the PC Pro benchmarks indicates that – but it’s notable that the Core i5-powered Huawei MateBook D 15 on p49 scored higher in Geekbench 5’s multicore component (4,622 versus 4,482). I saw a similar pattern in our games tests, with the Huawei typically averaging 5fps higher. All this indicates that the Portégé’s compact dimensions limit its “power envelope”.
I also doubt that you’ll ever see Dynabook’s claimed 14 hours of battery life. In our video-rundown test, the X30L gave up after just under eight hours. For a more anecdotal example, in the course of an hour’s light use (connected over Wi-Fi with the panel at 170cd/ m2), it dropped by 15%. Luckily, the USB-C charger doesn’t take up much room in a bag. I would have liked ten hours or more battery life, but there are so many plus points to the Portégé X30L’s design that this isn’t the killer drawback it could be. Dynabook has made a superb and highly portable business laptop. Whether you’re buying for yourself or your business, I suspect you’ll love it.
SPECIFICATIONS
4-core 2.8GHz (4.7GHz burst) Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor Intel Iris Xe graphics 16GB DDR4 3,200MHz RAM 13.3in non-touch IPS display with privacy filter, 1,920 x 1,080 resolution 512GB M.2 PCIe SSD 2x2 Wi-Fi 6 Bluetooth 5.1 2 x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) 2 x USB-A 3.1 HDMI microSD slot
Gigabit Ethernet 720p IR webcam 53Wh battery Windows 10 Pro 306 x 210 x 17.9mm (WDH) 906g 1yr C&R warranty