HP ProBook 450 G5

The HP ProBook 450 G5 combines the two things that make a laptop useful for mixed work: a full-size keyboard with a numeric keypad, and enough processing headroom to do more than type. The 8th generation Intel Core processors brought four cores to this size for the first time in the ProBook line, which shows up most when several applications are open at once. Intel UHD Graphics 620 is standard, and selected configurations added an NVIDIA GeForce 930MX with 2 GB of dedicated memory for photo editing, CAD viewing and light video work. Memory is DDR4 in two accessible slots, and most units take both a 2.5 inch drive and an M.2 NVMe SSD, which means you can keep a large mechanical drive for archives while running Windows from a fast SSD. A DVD writer was available too. The port set is one of the better ones in this class, with USB Type-C, two USB Type-A connectors, HDMI, VGA, Gigabit Ethernet, an SD card reader and a headset jack. HP fitted a spill-resistant keyboard, a TPM chip and BIOSphere firmware protection. For a small design studio or a household that needs one flexible laptop, this is a sound target.