HP ProBook 455 G2 Laptop Review

So Ubuntu ay? Linux’s popular software has just become available on the brand new range of HP ProBooks from eBuyer. We got sent a HP ProBook 455 G2 to check out. Here’s what we thought.

In the box you get your laptop, a home charger, and a set of instructions. Very plain, but that’s expected from most modern laptops.

Design wise the Probook 455 G2 is sleek with a matte black finish. The inside is a brushed stainless steel finish although still made from plastic. The laptop is very light meaning carrying it around won’t be too much of a struggle unlike some of the bigger screened or gaming laptops. It features four USB ports, a HDMI and VGA port for external displays and an ethernet connection for hard wired internet connection. A wireless card is present for Wi-Fi which works relatively well for web browsing and web applications depending on your internet speed to the house.

Inside is a real powerhouse for a laptop giving you AMD A10-7300 APU 1.9GHz with Radeon R6 Graphics featuring 10 Compute Cores, 8GB DDR3 RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. The screen can hit a maximum resolution of 1366 x 768.

What makes this laptop stand out is the fact it’s running Linux’s Ubuntu operating system. This is new to the world of laptops and I was surprised with how finished the operating system was. The laptop was fast thanks to the basic operating system design backed up with a decent specification. Ubuntu is a basic operating system meaning it doesn’t require much to run it. This gives you a faster user experience when working on the laptop.

The operating system reminded me of Apple’s iOS. It looks clean and works very well. The software included in the Ubuntu package included a full office suite. Although this isn’t Microsoft Word, Excel or Powerpoint, Linus has included their own versions so you’re ready for work from the word go.

Software is also a strange one. They’ve done away with conventional CD install or downloaded software replacing them with apps. Ubuntu has its own app store where you can find different kinds of software. They’ve called it the Software Centre. It currently feels bare but I think that’s down to how new the operating system actually is. There are categories like games, office, sounds and themes where you can find your different app software to install.

Firefox is the default browser of choice on the Hp ProBook 455 G2 but you can download others such as Google Chrome. Browsing various websites I found that the pre-installed plugins such as Flash were out of date but was simple to correct. The laptop did everything for me. I simply went into the Software Centre and updated my pre-installed plugins.

The HP ProBook 455 G2 laptop oozes simplicity. For a dedicated work machine, the ProBook will suit you down to a tee. Unfortunately more performance hungry software such as photo or video editing suites and even games will not run efficiently. The laptop is available directly from eBuyer.