HP ZBook Firefly 14 G8, Core i5-1145G7, 16GB, 512GB SSD, Dark Gray

The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G8 is a lightweight 14-inch business laptop with excellent ports, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD, available around $450 USD. It's great for office work and portability, but the CPU is below average and gaming performance is weak. Buy it for the connectivity and price, not for raw power.

The Core i5-1145G7 is a 4-core, 8-thread chip with a 2.6GHz base clock. In our database, this CPU lands in the 22nd percentile for laptops, which is honest but not flattering. It's a capable chip for office work and web browsing, but it's not going to win any rendering contests. The 16GB of RAM sits at the 37th percentile, which is about average for this class of machine. You won't feel cramped, but you're not swimming in headroom either.

The Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics land at the 49th percentile. That's middle of the pack, and it means you can run older titles or indie games at low settings, but modern AAA games will struggle. The 512GB NVMe SSD is solid, hitting the 52nd percentile for storage. Boot times and app launches feel snappy, which is what you want from a daily driver. The 14-inch 1920x1080 IPS display sits at the 41st percentile for screens. It's fine for documents and spreadsheets, but it won't wow you with color accuracy or brightness.

The Apple MacBook Air M4 is the elephant in the room. It's faster, has a better screen, and better battery life, but it's also in a completely different price bracket. If you're on a budget, the Firefly 14 G8 is the pragmatic choice. The MSI Prestige PRE13EVOA2088 and ASUS Zenbook UX3405CA-U9321TB both offer newer CPUs and better displays, but again, you're paying for that privilege.

The Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 7 is probably the closest competitor in spirit. Both are business-focused 14-inch laptops with similar port selections. The ThinkPad tends to have better reliability scores in our database, which matters if this is your daily work machine. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition has a nicer screen and better build quality, but it's also more expensive and lacks the Ethernet port that makes the Firefly so practical for office environments.

At around $450 USD, the HP ZBook Firefly 14 G8 is an interesting value proposition. You're getting a business-class laptop with Thunderbolt, Ethernet, and Windows 11 Pro for less than many budget consumer laptops. But you're also getting a CPU that's in the 22nd percentile and a reliability score that's below average. If you need a cheap, portable work machine with great ports, this is a solid buy. If you need raw performance or long battery life, you'll want to look elsewhere. The Apple MacBook Air M4 and ASUS Zenbook UX3405CA-U9321TB both offer better performance, but they'll cost you significantly more.

The HP ZBook Firefly 14 G8 sits in that interesting middle ground between a consumer ultrabook and a full workstation. It's a 14-inch business laptop with an Intel Core i5-1145G7, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB NVMe SSD, running Windows 11 Pro. We found it listed around $450 USD, which puts it in budget territory for a machine that originally carried a workstation price tag. That's the kind of deal that makes you do a double take.

So is the HP ZBook Firefly 14 G8 good for business use? For everyday office work, email, spreadsheets, and video calls, yes. The 16GB of RAM handles multitasking without choking, and the 512GB SSD gives you enough room for documents and apps without constantly juggling storage. The integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics are fine for productivity and light photo editing, but this is not a gaming laptop, and it doesn't pretend to be.

At 1.35kg, it's genuinely portable. The port selection is a standout, with Thunderbolt, two USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, HDMI, and even Ethernet. That's rare in a laptop this thin, and it's a big reason this machine scores in the 85th percentile for ports and compactness in our database.

Skip this if you're a gamer, a video editor, or anyone who needs serious CPU or GPU performance. The Core i5-1145G7 is below average for the category, and the integrated graphics won't cut it for demanding workloads. If you care about screen quality for photo or video work, the 41st percentile display will disappoint. And if reliability is your top concern, the 33rd percentile score should push you toward a ThinkPad or MacBook Air instead. This is a machine for budget-conscious office workers who value ports over performance.

Should you buy the HP ZBook Firefly 14 G8? If you need a cheap, portable Windows 11 Pro laptop with excellent connectivity and you're mostly doing office work, yes. The port selection alone makes it a practical choice for business users who need to plug into projectors, ethernet, and multiple peripherals without dongles. At $450 USD, it's hard to argue with the value.

But if you need a laptop that will still feel fast in three years, or you care about screen quality, or you want to do any kind of gaming, this isn't it. The CPU is already showing its age, and the reliability scores give us pause. This is a machine for getting work done today, not for future-proofing.