The stylus clings to the left edge of the chassis via magnets, as it's too rotund to fit in an on-device housing. HP provided its Active Pen stylus with my review unit, but it's an optional extra rather than a bundled item. I'd like a key to disable it and a light to let me know it's off, but in use there was nothing to fault. The large trackpad with its integrated buttons was responsive and worked well. More irritating was the relatively small Delete key, which I missed with annoying regularity throughout the review process. I accidentally hit right of the double-width Enter key a few times, finding PgDn instead before acclimatising, but that learning curve was short. To the right of the keyboard is a column containing full-size Home, PgUp, PgDn and End keys, with the right arrow key at the bottom of this column and a Fn-key-size Delete key at the top. As usual with EliteBooks, there are buttons for answering and ending video calls on the Fn key row. The two-level backlight is toggled with a Fn key. The keys give a light 'thunk' when pressed, and are less irritating in a noisy room than more 'clicky' keyboards. The keyboard has a responsive and bouncy action. The HP Active Pen, which is not included in the price, attaches magnetically to the side of the laptop. The backlit keyboard has a responsive action, although we found it hard to get used to the small Delete key in the top right corner. All of the preconfigured models with the Sure View Privacy Screen use a 700cd/m² panel. Indeed, it was impossible for me to work at the default 40 percent brightness setting when working on battery power, and even working at 75 percent was a challenge. My review unit came with the 400cd/m² panel, and it really wasn't bright enough for use at anything below 100 percent. The one preconfigured variant with a 4K panel has a 500cd/m² screen, while the remainder are either 400- or 700cd/m² panels.
Toggle it on via a Fn key and anyone sitting to your side on a train, plane or in a café will have considerable difficulty reading your screen. The latter was integrated into my review unit, and is a clever system that reduces the panel's viewing angles.
A 4K (3,840 x 2,160) panel is also available, as is the HP Sure View Privacy Screen. The matte-finish IPS display in my review unit was a 1,920-by-1,080-pixel touch panel.
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