Elitebook x G1a Panel

[TzortzisG]

Unfortunately the only way to avoid situations like these, a sort of preventive medicine if you will, is to carefully read reviews from trusted sites before going through with the purchase. I often talk about this here, I buy stuff after reading the Austrians at Notebookcheck and the Laptopmedia (Bulgaria) reviews. It's surprising that even the review I found the photos I uploaded above talks about this display like it's....the greatest thing since sliced bread. To say that the (few) reviewers dropped the ball on this one would be the euphemism of the decade. The problem is that this is NOT a situation that concerns a defective product, the display seems to be within its specs, just that these specs leave a lot to be desired. The Yugo Zastava (christosdgs might be familiar with it) was not a defective product, but to be fair it was not marketed as a Ferrari Purosangue. How is it possible that the few people that actually tested this configuration missed this...?

[christosdgs]

Yes, I know the Yugo Zastava.

The truth is, it was never advertised as anything more than what it was.

In the case of this particular laptop, however, it was marketed as a top-tier business machine.

And when you see descriptions like the ones below on the very sites that sell it... you expect nothing less than premium quality.

The HP EliteBook X G1a promises an impressive experience with its 14" OLED display, supporting a resolution of 2880x1800, delivering vibrant colors and stunning image clarity.

As for the YouTubers who reviewed it—there’s not much to say.

I already mentioned earlier: one of them actually told me to go get my eyes checked.

Well, if anyone needs their vision checked, it's the person who failed to notice the quality of that display—not me.

But let’s be honest—his eyesight is probably just fine.

He simply chose not to mention the issue, likely to avoid stepping on HP’s toes.

What’s truly disappointing is this:

When a professional purchases a high-end, premium-priced machine, 

unboxes it, powers it on, and immediately sees that it doesn’t live up to what it claims to be and

that it clearly won’t support the level of work it was supposedly built for at that point, HP should accept a return.

The device is brand new. Only the packaging was opened.

Instead, we’re left posting on forums, explaining that we’ve been trying for 15–20 days to return the laptop, that HP refuses to acknowledge the subpar display quality and that we’re being forced to turn to lawyers just to seek refunds and compensation.

That’s not customer service. That’s a failure of accountability.

[Alex_Pap]

Hey Christosdgs, I bought the same laptop from the same marketplace just a couple of days ago, and the screen is really bad. 

I have a Lenovo laptop from a few years ago, and its display looks sharper and cleaner than this one.

I talked to the store, and they told me to send it back for inspection but they said it’s going to take around 15 days just to check it, so I’m going through that process now.

Did you have any luck with HP support?

[piwino]

Hello there. I have the same model as you and i can tell you i have the very same issues with colored random pixels on dark background. The issue was getting worse within a couple of month after my purchase. My screen also black out randomly, with some sort of intermittent flashes.. its totally unusable. I contacted hp support and they made me send my elite book to their repair center. Now its stuck in Poland because there Is no spare part available for repair. 

Today another elite book x g1a in our company showed the very same screen artifacts after 1 month of purchase..

I think HP should acknowledge they are selling defective units... These OLED panels are having way too many problems.

[Keebo3]

That's terrible to hear, sorry you're also experiencing this. If it does get worse as a rule, I'm wondering if it's maybe just something like a really bad ribbon cable connection that can get looser... Can we try to re-connect the display without voiding warranty? From what I've seen the laptop looks relatively easy to open.
I was really hoping this is just completely software-level terrible firmware, since I'm more or less used to that with laptop companies (getting new models always felt like beta testing), and that it'd get better over time. But HP hasn't provided new BIOS in over a month anyway so it's hard to tell if anything is getting better.

Out of curiosity, can you check if your units also report the wrong GPU (880M instead of 890M) if you have the HX 370/375 version?

[piwino]

Maybe you are right, its just a bad ribbon cable connection. But my laptop has been stuck in their repair centre for over 10 days beacause of a "missing spare part". 

I had the B68YWET#ABZ model, AMD Ryzen™ AI - 9 HX 375, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 2.8K (2880 x 1800), OLED, AMD Radeon™ 890M.

I  didnt have a chance to check if it had a wrong GPU listed in the Windows specs and i cant check right now because it sits in Poland in HP repair center... 😞

[christosdgs]

Hi Alex,

I wanted to give you a quick update on the situation with the laptop.

Initially, I received an email stating that the device would be returned to me because no issue had been found. However, shortly afterward, I received a brand-new replacement laptop along with an official report from HP, which confirmed that the original unit was faulty — specifically, the screen had visible gridlines.

At this point, I’ve completely lost confidence in HP products. I haven’t even opened the box, and I’ve already listed the laptop for sale on a marketplace.

[TLCUwqxK]

@ Piwino

Did the OLED screen issue ever get fixed, please?

I was thinking of buying this model but just came across this thread.