For many, the term “thin client” invokes images of bare-bones endpoint devices best suited for environments like law firms, financial service providers, and school systems. Legacy thin clients have a reputation of being secure and easy to manage, but not having the hardware chops to support demanding productivity apps or modern unified communications platforms. Now, HP is challenging those old ideas of what a thin client can be with their new line of HP Elite Mobile Thin Clients powered by AMD Ryzen 5000 series processors.

To see how an HP Elite Mobile Thin Client might stack up against a repurposed traditional business laptop doing the same work, we conducted performance testing, battery life measurements, and unified communications end-user experience comparisons on two systems: an HP Elite mt645 G7 Mobile Thin Client powered by an AMD Ryzen 5 5625U, and a Dell Latitude 3420 powered by an Intel Core i5-1135G7. In our tests, the HP Elite mt645 G7 delivered system performance and battery life that matched or exceeded that of the Dell Latitude 3420. Plus, in Microsoft Teams and Zoom tests, the HP system provided unified communications experiences that were comparable to those of the Dell system in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7, VMware Horizon 8, and Windows 365 Cloud PC VDI environments.

For organizations that have considered thin clients in the past due to traditional strengths like security and manageability, but decided against them because of concerns about processing power or a lack of quality communications support, HP’s new line of Elite Mobile Thin Clients may be an excellent solution.

To dig into the details of our thin client system comparison tests, check out the report below.