HP's EliteBook x360 is a stealth business hybrid

One of the dirty secrets of the laptop biz is that you might be better off buying the so called business laptop than a more eye catching consumer one. You're usually gonna find better construction, less bloatware and even a few of those classic ports of connections that get left out of flashier models. HP's Elite Book X360 is a great example of a crossover laptop that's a good choice for the coffee shop as well as the cubicle farm. It's got biz friendly extras like full size USB ports and a fingerprint reader. And there's even a remote management app that let's you monitor and lock the system from your phone. Now this isn't the thinnest or lightest. There's a ton of competition for that right now including HP's own Spectre line and Dell's XPS line. But it's pretty compact and even a hair lighter than the 13 inch Macbook Pro. Like a lot of hybrids it comes with a stylus. But also like a lot of them, I never know what to actually do with the stylus when I'm not using it because there's not slot built in to the body for it. hp's clever answers do include a little elastic loop on a plastic card. It slides right into the smart card reader which is a legacy security feature that basically no one at least in the US uses anymore. But the biggest win here is battery life. Despite turning in some great performance numbers thanks to an Intel Core i7 CPU, the elite book X360 managed to run for more than 11 hours Which makes it one of our top five battery life laptops for the past year.