HP EliteOne 800 G5 review: An all-in-one business workhorse

As anyone who has struggled with a laptop while working from home will agree, there are obvious advantages to an all-in-one PC. The screen is much larger and easier on the eye; a separate keyboard and mouse mean typing and navigation are both more accurate and less tiring; and you’re also far more likely to have a superior webcam and speakers due to space no longer being at a premium.

HP EliteOne 800 G5 review: Peripherals

The HP EliteOne 800 G5 delivers on this latter feature with a pop-up webcam that is indeed far better than that of an average laptop. Don’t expect extraordinary detail, but video captured at its default 1080p setting looks crisp while offering natural colours. My only criticism is that you’ll need to move closer to the screen than feels natural to fit fully into the frame, as its wide angle isn’t best suited to solo videoconferencing. Also forget about using the camera to capture images, with detail sacrificed at the altar of compression.

The built-in microphones are more than good enough for calls, and while the speakers are heavy on treble I found them excellent for listening to music – equivalent to a sub-£50 Bluetooth speaker. Bass comes through more clearly than on most laptops too.

I was more disappointed by the keyboard and mouse. It’s convenient that they’re wireless (RF, rather than Bluetooth), but when you’re paying more than £1,000 for a business PC to give to your staff you should expect better quality than the “HP Wireless Business Slim”. I’ve seen more action in a monastery. The mouse, while lacking shortcut buttons, feels much better in the hand and has the advantage of being suitable for both left and right-handers.

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HP EliteOne 800 G5 review: Display

The final notable plus point of an all-in-one versus a laptop is the screen, and here you have a vista stretching over 23.8in. Again, you might think you deserve more than 1,920 x 1,080 pixels when paying this much, but you can still work side by side on documents; text simply looks fuzzier than it would with, say, a 1440p display. I suspect the supplied 1080p panel won’t be a big issue for most people. Many of the HP EliteOne G5 models on sale include a touchscreen, but the PC on test here (part code: 7AB90ET) uses a non-touch panel.

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This shouldn’t be a problem, but for reasons best known to HP, only the touchscreen models of the EliteOne 800 G5 feature Windows Hello infrared webcams and Wi-Fi 6. HP quotes identical specifications for both the touch and non-touch displays, including a peak brightness of 250cd/m2. That’s not great, but it seems that HP is being cautious here: the panel I tested hit 380cd/m2. It also performed well in our technical tests, covering 90% of the sRGB gamut with a contrast ratio of 1,156:1 and an average Delta E of 1.29.

Delta E is a measure of colour accuracy, and anything less than two is a fine result – but note that its maximum of 3.25 is enough to push this all-in-one into dodgy territory for anyone who does creative work where colours matter. Surprisingly, you have the option to pivot the screen 90°, and note that its height is adjustable: its bottom-most position is roughly a centimetre from the base, but it stretches up 100mm to cater for varying heights and desk setups. HP uses ninth-gen Core processors in the EliteOne, with the model on test featuring a Core i5 chip with six cores.

HP EliteOne 800 G5 review: Performance

You can buy eight-core Core i7 versions, but even with 8GB of RAM this PC rattles through office tasks. An overall score of 154 in our benchmarks is strong for a business system, even if it – along with a Geekbench multicore score of 4,579 – pales in comparison with similarly priced desktop PC. There’s little flexibility for after-hours gaming, as emphasised by a 12fps rate in F1 2020, but the high-quality panel and speakers ensure that films look and sound great.

This version of the EliteOne only includes a 256GB SSD, but at least there’s a DVD writer built into the left-hand side for archiving and backups. You can also hook up external drives, with the fast USB-C 3.2 port on the panel’s underside of particular note. USB-A ports abound too, while a wired Gigabit Ethernet port complements the Wi-Fi.

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HP EliteOne 800 G5 review: Verdict

So where does this leave the EliteOne 800 G5? It’s certainly no bargain, as you can buy the PC Specialist Aurora Mini for £417 excl VAT and then a far superior 27in screen to go with it.

However, a dedicated business all-in-one PC such as the EliteOne 800 is easier for businesses to manage – note the presence of a TPM 2 module and HP’s “self-healing” BIOS – and it’s backed by a three-year warranty that covers parts, labour and on-site repair.

If your priorities are ease of mind, ease of deployment and ease of use then the HP EliteOne 800 G5 is a solid choice. Anyone who has been crouched over a laptop for the past nine months will be delighted by the improvement to their working day.