Traditionally, the Envy line has been HP’s midrange option; it’s a rung above the budget Pavilion, but a rung below the flagship Spectre. This model, which starts at $699, really blurs the latter line. It’s easily the best máy tính xách tay under $1,000 that you can buy right now. Not only does the 2020 Envy x360 look as nice và perform as well as last year’s Spectre x360 (which starts at $1,099), but using it also feels quite similar lớn using HP’s $1,500 Elite Dragonfly, one of the best business notebooks on the market.

A big part of that is its processor. The new Envy can come with a few different AMD Ryzen 4000 chips. My $799 đánh giá unit has the Ryzen 5-4500U, along with 8GB of RAM & a 256GB SSD. (It’s also equipped with Wi-Fi 6 và Bluetooth 5.0.)

The six-core 4500U is intended lớn compete with Intel’s U-series bộ vi xử lý core i5, but its performance is comparable to lớn that of an i7. It flies. Throughout my everyday browsing và streaming, as well as my fairly heavy load of office work that includes around a dozen apps và Chrome tabs with occasional downloads, Zoom calls, editing photos, và copying files, everything was smooth with no sign of slowdown.


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It’s not just the Envy’s cpu that stands out; it’s the combination of the chip and the chassis. AMD processors have mostly been fodder for budget và midrange laptops for the past few years. It’s been uncommon lớn find an AMD chip in a premium option (in the vein of Lenovo’s Thinkpad Carbon, the HP Spectre, or Acer’s Swift 5). That’s what’s so exciting about this laptop: It pairs the Ryzen 4500U with a high-end thiết kế that looks and feels premium.

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This is the nicest-looking Envy I’ve ever seen. Next khổng lồ last year’s model, this one has a sleeker và chicer vibe. A big part of that is the display: the 2020 Envy has an 88 percent screen-to-body ratio, compared lớn 79 percent on last year’s model. Twenty-four percent has been shaved off the top bezel’s size, & while HP hasn’t fully eliminated its bottom bezel (as Dell virtually did with the most recent XPS 13), it has sliced off over 13mm. The result is that HP has been able khổng lồ cram a 13-inch display into a much more compact footprint: the chassis is over 17mm shorter.

The displays on HP’s midrange laptops have knocked it out of the park in the last few years, và this Envy is no exception. The 13.3-inch 1080p display doesn’t have the contrast that you’ll see on higher-end laptops like the Spectre, but it’s certainly better than I’d expect from an $800 device.

HP sells 300-nit, 400-nit, & 1000-nit options, which all have 1080p resolution. You may want the brightest configuration if you plan on doing work outdoors, but the 400-nit version, which I tested, is just fine for indoor use. Colors are excellent, details are crisp, & I never had problems with glare, despite the panel’s glossy texture. The screen also supports HP’s MPP2.0 pen, though there’s no place on the máy tính xách tay itself to store it when not in use. One thing lớn note: it is a 16:9 screen, so you won’t have as much vertical space for website browsing and document work as you would with a 16:10 machine like the Dell XPS 13 or a 3:2 máy tính like the Surface Book 3. It’s perhaps the one demerit I can make against this display.

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The Envy isn’t the lightest 13-inch laptop around at 2.9 pounds — I wouldn’t have wanted khổng lồ carry it around with one hand or use it as a tablet for long periods of time — but the plus side is that it’s quite well-built & sturdy. There’s almost no flex in the screen or deck, và the whole aluminum chassis feels polished and professional. Holding it feels more lượt thích holding the Dragonfly than many midrange competitors. To nitpick, the hinge is a bit loose; occasionally, when I was trying lớn use the Envy with the screen tilted far back, it would inadvertently slip into tablet mode. This is far from a deal-breaking problem, of course.

The company has added a few hotkeys to lớn the keyboard. There are kill switches for the microphone & webcam. F1 brings up Windows 10 online support, F4 toggles the keyboard’s backlighting, and F12 conjures the HP Command Center where you can adjust the Envy’s thermal profile (more on that later). There’s a learning curve here — I unintentionally bricked the mic a couple times — but each key has an LED indicator to help track what’s on and off.

The keys themselves are both firm & quiet, with a smooth và comfortable texture. It’s an excellent keyboard. At the risk of sounding lượt thích a broken record, typing on it feels lượt thích typing on the Dragonfly.

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For ports, there’s a microSD slot, two USB-A, and a USB-C (no Thunderbolt 3, sadly). High-end laptops this thin often eliminate USB-A ports, but HP has managed to squeeze them in with trapdoor hinges that cover the bottom half. I like this selection because plenty of people still own older peripherals that use USB-A. In a perfect world, given the lack of Thunderbolt, HDMI would be on my wishlist.

The Envy comes with stereo speakers and a Bang và Olufsen audio control center. There, you can swap between presets for Music, Movie, và Voice, as well as equalizer settings for different tunes. The speakers sounded good (as máy tính xách tay speakers go), and I didn’t mind watching videos or playing Spotify without anything external plugged in. The Voice profile even helped mitigate some background noise during Zoom calls.

As mentioned earlier, the Envy was often warm but never noticeably hot during my daily office work. Only during gaming was it uncomfortable to lớn the touch. In HP’s Command Center, you can change the Thermal Profile. There’s HP’s Recommended preset, Comfort (to keep things cool), và Quiet (to keep the fans down). I mostly used HP’s Recommended setting for my daily tasks, & while I could usually hear a bit of a dull whine if I listened for it, the fans weren’t audible from a few feet away. (They’re quite loud on Performance, of course, which you’ll want to use for the best gaming results.)


Agree lớn Continue: HP Envy x360 (2020)

Every smart device now requires you to lớn agree to a series of terms & conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to lớn read & analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have khổng lồ hit “agree” to lớn use devices when we đánh giá them, since these are agreements most people don’t read & definitely can’t negotiate.

To start using the HP Envy x360 you’ll need to lớn agree lớn the following:

A request for your regionA request for your keyboard layoutLicense agreements for Windows, HP, and McAfeePIN

You can also say yes or no lớn the following:

Wi-FiMicrosoft account (can be bypassed if you stay offline)Windows Hello fingerprint recognitionPrivacy settings (speech recognition, location, Find My Device, sharing diagnostic data, inking & typing, tailored experience, advertising ID)Activity historySync an android phoneOneDrive backupOffice 365CortanaProvide tương tác information to HPAllow HP to use information about your system to lớn provide customer support, improve HP products and services, và send personalized offers and news

That’s six mandatory agreements và 19 optional agreements lớn use the Envy x360.


Battery life is also good. With brightness around 200 nits, & with power and fans on HP’s recommended profile, I averaged about eight hours on a charge. That should get you through a workday & is longer than we got with the latest Spectre x360. (Of course, mileage will vary with more demanding tasks.)

Finally, bloatware is sometimes a concern on sub-$1,000 laptops. The device does come with some preinstalled, including McAfee, ExpressVPN, and Candy Crush, which you may want to dump to miễn phí up storage. But refreshingly, I didn’t encounter intrusive pop-ups or any other annoying stuff.

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review of budget & midrange laptops are often a question of what you’re trading off for that lower price point. I’ve pointed out some places where the Envy doesn’t quite measure up lớn the best laptops on the market (the dimmer screen, the wobblier hinge, the aspect ratio, the video editing troubles), but the only reason we’re even having that discussion is that this máy vi tính feels like it’s competing with the top of the line. Between the Envy x360 & other $800 laptops, there’s no contest. This is aiming at the big leagues; this is a Spectre.

The thesis of this đánh giá is that I have almost no complaints. This is a superb computer, & it’s frankly bizarre that it’s only $800. Don’t buy last year’s Spectre. Buy this.

Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge


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