It’s that time of year again when students are headed back to the classrooms and on the look-out for the newest tech out there. You’re going to see a lot of back to school reviews in print and video in the next few weeks, so of course, we’re going to ride that wave too, right? Check it out before you go to places that sell laptops to buy a new one.
HP has been putting out some really consistent laptops over the past few years. So, that makes this year’s Envy x360 2-in-1, something to take a look at. This is a 2-in-1, 15.6inch laptop, perfect for going back to school, but let’s see if it’s worth you picking up.
Specs:
15.6″
Full-HD IPS panel with touchscreen technology
Intel Core i5-8250U 8th generation CPU
Quad-core processor
8GB RAM
256 PCIe SSD
360º Flip and Fold, 2-in-1 design
Intel HD Graphics 620
Price $849.99
Sale price $749.99
With Student Discount $649.99
Build:
This laptop is made of all aluminum and it comes in at 4.4-pounds and 0.7-inches thick. This is a very thin and light laptop for school.
Internals:
To access the internal components you will have to peel the two rubber feet to expose the other Phillips screws. Here is the 3-cell 52wAh battery pack, a 256 PCIe SSD (read: 2785 MB/s, write 350 MB/s). You also have 8GB of RAM or you can upgrade to 12GB or 16GB. The wireless card and the fan is packed in there too.
Durability:
The aluminum on this laptop makes this laptop feel very strong and sturdy. There’s not much keyboard or display flex. Overall, the build quality is decent.
The HP Envy comes in a 13.3″ or 15.6″ IPS touchscreen panel. It’s Windows Ink ready. The color accuracy is average with a sRGB of 67% and Adobe RGB at 51%, and 220 nits of brightness. Since it’s a glossy screen finish it’s mega reflective, so watch out for those bright lights.
Inputs/Outputs:
The port selection is ok. It has the charging port, USB 3, power button, SD card reader, headset/microphone jack combo, and exhaust vents on the left side. On the right side, it has the volume rockers, fingerprint reader, USB C 3.1, USB 3 and full-size HDMI 2.0.
The natural silver default color looks great. There’s also an AMD version that comes in black.
The fingerprint reader id very precise and accurate. it’s located on the right side towards the top of the deck. For me, it’s fine where it is.
Usage:
It is a 2-in-2 laptop so there are multiple ways of using it. First, is the standard laptop-mode, then stand-mode where you can play touch-based games and watching movies, then the tent-mode that you can use for presentations, and then lastly there’s tablet-mode. The 15.6″ is really big to use in tablet-mode and the 13.3″ model is quite large too, but they are perfectly capable of being used in any and all of these positions.
Keyboard:
This keyboard is pretty solid. The tactile feedback does a nice job and the layout is pretty good. It is backlit, but only with one brightness setting.
Trackpad:
It’s a Synaptics powered buttonless trackpad. it has a very smooth finish and the multi-finger, multi-gesture responses were on-point.
Audio:
Bang & Olufsen speaker that sounds fantastic. It has crisp and loud sound levels.
The Kaby Lake refresh of the Core i5-8250U is a big step-up from the Core i5-7200U. This year you get four cores compared to two. the clock speeds are a little slower; however, the four cores give the system a big boost in the multi-core performance.
The fan is nice and quiet and efficient. On light-duty tasks, you can hardly hear it, and when it’s being pushed hard it’s still very respectable.
Battery:
The battery is running for 5 to 6.5-hours.
It’s a good overall laptop with decent battery life, a 1080p panel that’s adequate, a comfortable keyboard, a sturdy build, decent audio from Bang & Olufsen.
Great for school; great price-point.
