- Even with the knowledge of how good
the Zen 2 was on the desktop,
I was shocked at how well AMD's Ryzen 4000 series
mobile series performed.
Asus' Zephyrus G14 shredded its Intel competitors
in both performance and battery life,
while also being considerably cheaper.
Now it looks like HP hopes to recreate that success
with the Envy x360.
And, spoiler alert,
they did.
This thing sips power, yet it has six cores
and is $800 for a configuration
that we can actually recommend.
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Our config of the HP Envy x360 sports a Ryzen 5 4500U,
a 7-nanometer, 6-core, 6-thread processor
that boosts up to 4 gigahertz.
The last 6-core Ultrabook we looked at
was the Dell XPS 13, a beast of a machine,
except that it costs a casual 1,800 U.S. dollars,
which is why we will not be comparing the Envy x360 to it.
Instead, we'll be testing it against the HP Spectre x360
with an Intel Core i5-1035G4,
a 4-core, 8-thread CPU on Intel's newish 10-nanometer node
that you would hope would give the Ryzen 5
a run for its money, especially since it's in a machine
that costs (clears throat) $250 more.
But that maximum boost speed of 3.7 gigahertz
isn't a good first sign.
A much worse sign is the performance tests we ran.
In multicore loads, the Ryzen 5 4500U
is set to shred the i5 with a 45% higher score in Cinebench.
Like, I knew it was gonna win, just not by that much.
And remember, guys, this isn't even
the top-spec 8-core model.
Even more surprisingly, though, the 4500U
managed to dominate the single-threaded test as well,
thanks to that higher boost clock.
Now, although I don't expect anyone
to be doing much hardcore gaming
on either of these machines, the Ryzen 5 4500U
was also 20% faster in 3DMark Time Spy,
and I'm never gonna complain about a bit more GPU muscle.
Thermals, unfortunately,
didn't redeem the Core i5 version either.
It immediately shot up to 100 degrees and stayed there,
managing clocks of only around 2.3 gigahertz,
something we might have accepted
if Intel was the only option in town because,
I mean, in fairness, that is at least faster
than the 1.5-gigahertz base clock.
Thing is, Intel isn't the only option anymore,
and our Ryzen 5 config avoided thermal throttling,
albeit barely, at 91 degrees,
while keeping all six of its cores
at a whopping 3.3 gigahertz.
Look how thin it is, guys! 3.3 gigahertz!
It's worth noting that you'll have to
enable performance mode to get these kind of speeds,
but they're truly remarkable.
Remember that Dell XPS 13 with a 6-core i7
that I mentioned at the start of this video?
Yeah.
In performance mode, this Ryzen machine
is faster than that too.
The thing is, performance matters a lot less
than longevity in a thin-and-light
than it does in a gaming laptop,
and HP already has some of the best
battery life in the biz with their Intel Core i5 model,
managing nearly 13 hours on a single charge.
That is gonna be hard to...
And the AMD Envy x360 made it almost 14 hours.
That's the kinda battery life that not only
gets you through the day, but maybe even the weekend.
Like, you could just leave the power brick at work,
without worrying that your lttstore.com browsing session
is gonna get cut short.
- This is my whole weekend.
- But that raises the question: Is this the kinda machine
that you'd wanna take home with you anyway?
One of AMD's big problems, for years now,
has been not getting their CPUs into the premium designs,
and this is no exception.
The Envy line does sit below
the Spectre line in HP's lineups.
So has HP given their Envy x360 enough love?
Or should you just save up a bit longer
for a Spectre x360 or an XPS 13?
Actually, I am pleased to report
that HP has committed no such crime against AMD here.
The Envy x360 has a premium look about it,
from the super small bezels
to the metallic accents on the hinges.
The chassis stiffness might not quite hold up
to top-tier laptops that are constructed out of carbon fiber
or a solid milled piece of aluminum,
but it's leagues better than a budget-focused machine
like Lenovo Flex 14.
So I think it's fair to say that HP
really nailed the balance here.
The only thing build quality-wise that annoyed me
was the screen, which wobbles a bit more than I'd like.
But bearing in mind that, of course,
I've got that tablet-convertible trade-off, I can accept it.
And the I/O is really good.
The Envy x360 has two USB Type-A's
with the little hingey pull-down bit.
Oh, it turns out you can put a Type-A in a superthin laptop.
How nice!
It's got a Type C with charging,
and it's got an SD card reader.
I do wish that, instead of the barrel power connector
on the right side, we got another USB Type-C port
with charging, but presumably,
that would've brought up the price,
and I think they found a great balance here.
One place HP fortunately didn't cheap out is the display.
With 300 nits of brightness and excellent colors,
I think anyone short of a professional photo editor
is gonna be pretty happy with it.
My only complaint here is the 16x9 aspect ratio.
These days, many of HP's competitors
are making the jump to 16x10 or even 3x2,
and this is even in the lower price ranges,
with the Acer Swift 3 leading the way.
Get subscribed, by the way, so you don't miss our video
on that little number.
Staying with 16x9 while chasing small bezels
has to be HP's most obvious error
with both the Envy and Spectre x360s,
because it means that some folks
are actually gonna struggle to use the devices comfortably.
- There's just no way for me to type comfortably on this.
My hands are just simply too big to rest on the palmrest,
making it, unfortunately, just a straight-up no-go for me.
And it's going to be a no-go for 68% of males,
and half of females as well.
I also constantly use my right thumb on the trackpad
while writing in Word documents,
and the fact that keyboard and the trackpad
aren't centered on each other means
that I'm only using a small portion of a trackpad
that's already very undersized by today's standards.
To be clear, the switches are good,
but maybe try it out at a Best Buy or Costco first
to make sure that the ergonomics work for you.
- If you are able to get comfortable, though,
you'll have an excellent time typing on the Envy x360.
I personally didn't have an issue with my tiny hands,
and the switches offer plenty of travel
while delivering a satisfying snap when you press them.
Key consistency and stabilization
was also uncharacteristically good
for a laptop in this price band,
so I don't think you're gonna have trouble
getting up to full speed.
As for the trackpad, it's less of a highlight.
The tracking is still pretty good
despite the lack of a glass top,
but the small size keeps it from being exceptional,
or even very good.
You will be able to get used to it,
but I'd personally be much happier
with a bigger bottom bezel, or better yet,
a taller screen and a larger trackpad.
Now, to be clear, there are a number of areas
where the Spectre x360 is superior to the Envy.
Windows Hello facial recognition is a real-nice-to-have,
although the fingerprint reader on the Envy
is still quite snappy for logging in.
And the Spectre also comes with a pen included,
with the option for LTE, which could easily sway
someone who is constantly on the go.
But then again, if you're gonna be on the go,
with how much better the core performance
and battery life are here, I feel like until HP
puts an AMD processor into a Spectre notebook
they have unintentionally killed
their flagship lineup right here.
For the vast majority of people, the HP Envy x360
is gonna check all of the important boxes for an ultrabook.
It's super powerful, especially for the price,
it feels excellent in the hand,
and aside from the screen aspect ratio,
I just have no real complaints about it.
I can't even remember the last time
that an ultrabook came through the studio here
that was under $1,200 and managed to get a full-blown,
no-caveats recommendation from me.
But this one certainly does, and I hope
that as more companies take AMD's mobile chips seriously,
we're gonna see more excellent performers at great prices,
like this one.
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If you guys enjoyed this video
and you just can't get enough AMD domination,
check out our full review of the Asus Zephyrus G14.
It really is a lesson on how to build
a compact high-performance gaming notebook.
Put AMD in it. Ah, ha-ha, got 'em.