Best Work from Home Laptops from HP India
Even before the recent pandemic, there has been a steady rise in the number of people working from home thanks to the increasing availability of fast and reliable Internet connections and affordable computers with the performance to handle work tasks.

Recent times have seen businesses needing to adapt working practices, with many companies moving away from rigid office-based working towards remote and hybrid working as employers realise these changes can bring business benefits. 

There has also been a sharp uprise in people becoming self-employed with technology, allowing them to take control of their careers and compete in the global freelancing marketplaces. Eliminating the daily commute to an office and working from the comfort of their home can make an enormous difference to the work-life balance.

Finding the ideal laptop to help you efficiently work from home (WFH) can be a challenge, with a vast range of options available to choose from. Whether you're a business owner, an employee working away from the office or a freelancer working on your own, you'll need a laptop that offers the performance and features you need to be productive. Here, we aim to find the best work-from-home laptops from the range of HP laptops in India.

Laptop requirements for WFH

Laptops are ideal for WFH thanks to their compact nature and rugged reliability, allowing their use in various environments. The useability features of a laptop can handle the different challenges you'll face when working from home rather than in an office environment.

The primary consideration for work-from-home laptops is the type of tasks you will be doing. Financial data processing, mathematical-based analysis, and machine learning techniques require high computational throughput. Conversely, digital media creation and video editing require high graphical processing performance. You should also consider if you will run different intensive applications simultaneously, which will need the latest multicore processors to handle multiple programs.

One of the main differences between using a laptop from home rather than the office is that you'll often spend much longer staring at the screen than interacting with other people in face-to-face meetings. You'll also typically use the laptop for personal activities such as home entertainment or keeping in touch with friends and family. Therefore choosing the correct display is one of the most critical decisions.

Another key difference is that offices typically have ergonomic desks, controlled lighting and low noise levels, which you're unlikely to have in the home environment, especially if other family members are around when you're trying to work.

The WFH laptop requirements you need to consider when choosing a laptop for working from home include:

  • What space is available for your laptop and any peripherals, such as a printer, which could limit the physical size?
  • Will the laptop need to be packed away at the end of the day if your working space will be required for other purposes, which may require a more rugged or lightweight device?
  • Can you control your home lighting, including direct sunlight, or will your laptop screen be exposed to reflections or light from lamps or the sun?
  • Will you need a good camera and audio to use the laptop for video calls or conferencing?
  • Can you keep noise levels down, or will you need technology to help block the sounds of others within the home or noise from outside?
  • Will you need a battery with an extended operating capacity that will allow you to work without access to mains electricity?
  • Will you need security protection applications to keep sensitive personal or business information safe if your laptop is stolen or damaged in an accident?
  • Will your work require you to keep copies of large data files on the laptop so you can work without Internet access to maintain links with cloud-based storage or corporate data stores?

Choosing the best WFH laptops

HP has developed a range of business and everyday laptops that deliver the performance of home working demands, whether you need computational processing power or outstanding graphical performance. 

We have provided a few recommendations for the best HP laptops for working from home in India to help you find your perfect computer based on different combinations of performance and features for typical WFH tasks.

The HP website provides an excellent resource to help you select the best option by allowing you to filter the different features and options and quickly search for the perfect model.

Use cases

Computational processing

Computational processing
If your work involves lots of computational processing across multiple applications, you'll want a powerful processor supported with plenty of superfast memory. The HP ZBook Firefly 16 G9 Mobile Workstation PC comes with the 12th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-1255U processor with 10 cores running 12 threads at speeds up to 4.7 GHz using Intel's Turbo Boost Technology. This processor boasts 12MB of inbuilt cache memory supported with 16GB of DDR5-4800 MHz RAM.

The HP ZBook Fury laptop has an impressive 1TB solid-state drive (SSD), efficiently supporting most typical offline data processing tasks. The SSD storage uses PCIe® NVMe™ technology, up to six times faster than traditional SATA SSD technology and more than twenty times faster than old-style hard disk drives. In addition, HP's suite of security applications is available to protect any critical and potentially commercially sensitive information. 

If you also need a large display to view business documents or study detailed spreadsheets, this laptop has an impressive 16-inch Wide Quad Ultra Extended Graphics Array (WQUXGA) technology screen. This display offers full ultra-high definition (UHD) to produce crystal clear pictures with flawless accuracy and sharp detail.

The powerful processing performance and productivity features make this one of the best laptops for working on computational workflows from home.

Graphical processing

Graphical processing
If you work in the creative media industry, you'll know that graphical processing power must be the focus of laptop choice. You'll need a laptop with the best processing performance to work efficiently and maximise throughput. The HP ZBook Studio 16 G9 Mobile Workstation PC delivers professional performance, from image manipulation to real-time rendering and data visualisation.

The integrated NVIDIA® RTX™ 3080Ti card with 16GB of dedicated onboard memory delivers an outstanding graphical processing capability. This card is one of NVIDIA's latest and most potent processor units designed to handle complex visual processing functions, providing the results of complex computations in near real-time to boost productivity.

Graphics-based tasks also require a display that will replicate images clearly and accurately. This 16-inch laptop features the latest WQUXGA technology with its 3840 x 2400 resolution. In addition, HP DreamColor technology delivers impressive colour replication with advanced anti-glare technology to make using the laptop more comfortable.

Other great homeworker features include HP's suite of security applications to protect your work, a spill-resistant full-size keyboard to cope with everyday incidents, and the standard limited warranty to provide peace of mind.

The exceptional processing power packed into this laptop does not compromise its portability. Its low 1.73 kg weight and slim case combine with an impressive 12-hour battery life. These features make this laptop ideal for working at home and carrying with you if you need to work on the move.

Like all HP's business laptops, this model features the latest connectivity technology, including support for the newest WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 standards to get the best possible data rates.

If your home working involves lots of digital graphics processing, this laptop ranks one of the best laptops for home working.

Compact but powerful performance

Compact but powerful performance
What if your work involves computational processing tasks and running multiple applications, but you need a small and highly portable laptop to suit your workspace? In that case, you'll want a powerful, lightweight, and compact laptop. The HP ProBook 440 14 G9 Notebook PC features Intel's 12th Generation Core i7 processor and 16GB of DDR4-3200 MHz RAM. This is the same processing heart as the HP ZBook Firefly 16 G9 Mobile Workstation PC we looked at above.

This laptop weighs just 1.39 kg and has a 32.19 x 21.39 cm footprint to fit into the smallest workspaces while being easy to move around when necessary. This laptop may be compact, but its 14-inch screen still offers Full High-Definition (FHD) with the standard anti-glare display, powered by the Intel Iris® Xe integrated graphics card to provide stunning visual performance.

This laptop also includes various features supporting collaborative work across a dispersed homeworking team. For example, the camera system delivers excellent image quality under challenging lighting while the audio system blocks background noises. This business laptop also comes with many pre-installed productivity, support and security applications, making set-up quick and simple. 

The powerful processing performance and productivity features in a compact and ultra-lightweight package make this one of the best compact laptops for working on intensive applications in a restricted home workspace.

General performance laptop

General performance laptop
If your work revolves around general business workflows that do not require intensive processing power and graphics-based workflows, then an all-around workhorse will fit your needs. HP offers a range of options across price points with the features you need. The HP 240 14 G9 Notebook PC has Intel's 12th Generation Core i5 processor, powerful enough to handle multiple business applications. 

This compact laptop has a 14-inch High-Definition screen (HD) with a 1366 x 768 resolution, perfect for viewing documents or typing tasks.

This laptop also comes with standard HP connectivity options, including wireless technology that ensure fast and reliable connections, even in dense wireless environments, using gigabit-speed WiFi 6. Two SuperSpeed USB Type-A connectors deliver a 5 Gbps signalling rate for wired connections.

The general-purpose laptop still features relatively powerful processing performance and comes in a compact, ultra-lightweight package for flexible working. The included features make this a tremendous laptop for low-intensity tasks where space may be limited.

Summary

Professional business users and casual workers looking for a new laptop for a home working role will need dependable performance and useability features. When selecting the best laptop, the best advice is to focus on what types of work you need to perform, whether processing big data sets or creating high-resolution images; you'll want a laptop that can handle your job quickly and efficiently.

If you are looking for the best homeworking laptop, HP has a model that will be perfect for your business's WFH laptop requirements.
 
About the Author: Stephen Mash is a contributing writer for HP Tech Takes. Stephen is a UK-based freelance technology writer with a background in cybersecurity and risk management.