In our recent review of the HP EliteBook X G1i 14, we walked away impressed by its long battery life and premium build despite the somewhat confusing naming convention. Nevertheless, the display or panel could probably benefit from some quality control improvements.
The image to the right shows our 14-inch EliteBook X G1i 14 test unit set to the maximum brightness level on a fully black screen. Backlight bleeding or clouding is present on all four corners which is unsurprising for an IPS panel. The more surprising part, however, is the intensity of the clouding given that the EliteBook is a higher-end model. IPS panels on some competing business laptops like the 14-inch Dynabook Z40L-N exhibit significantly less clouding and even some cheaper laptops like the Dell 14 Plus 2-in-1 suffer from comparatively less clouding as shown by our images below.
The clouding isn’t a deal breaker by any means as it’s essentially unnoticeable when web browsing or running most office applications. if you do a lot of multimedia playback or image editing, however, clouding should ideally be at a minimum or it may become distracting.
Of course, models with OLED options like the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 don’t exhibit any backlight bleeding at all should users want to circumvent the issue entirely.
After graduating with a B.S. in environmental hydrodynamics from the University of California, I studied reactor physics to become licensed by the U.S. NRC to operate nuclear reactors. There’s a striking level of appreciation you gain for everyday consumer electronics after working with modern nuclear reactivity systems astonishingly powered by computers from the 80s. When I’m not managing day-to-day activities and US review articles on Notebookcheck, you can catch me following the eSports scene and the latest gaming news.