ISSUE 379|COMPUTERSHOPPER|SEPTEMBER (^201985)
ULTRAPORTABLES
IT’SBECOMINGINCREASINGLYdifficult
to find atruly great laptop under £1,000;
most manufacturersseem to focus their
energy on their most luxuriousultraportable,
businessor gamingsystems, leaving the
mid-rangemarketrelativelystarvedfor
must-have notebooks.
This is one of the reasonswhy the Envy 13
so surprisedus. Simply lookingat it, we’d have
peggedit at costingfour figures;£999 at the
least. Instead, this stylish, slimlinelaptop is
an intensely tempting£799 –only afew
notes more than the Lenovo Yoga 530.
MODERNWAY
This isn’t aflipping convertible,merely a
traditionalclamshell,but much of what
makes it so immediately interestingstems
from the design. Cast in aluminium,the Envy
13 looks stylish withoutthe ostentatiousgold
flashes of HP’s Spectrerange.And, while its
bezel isn’t as slim as the Dell XPS 13’s, it still
has an edge-to-edge look, with the Gorilla
Glass displaystretching from side to side
and from toptobottom.
This is atouchscreen,too, but don’t get
tooexcited: it’s anice-to-have rather than a
vital inclusion,becausethe screen doesn’t
fold back to createatablet. In fact, the
screen is the main sign of cost-cutting:sRGB
gamut coverage of 76.5% is reasonable,and
certainlybetter than that of the Yoga 530,
but an average delta-Eof 3.29 means that
it’s not colour-accurateenough forserious
media editing.This figure also varies quite
drasticallydependingon specificcolours;
we measuredadelta-E of 13.3 forreds,
which is downrightterrible.
Nor is it the brightest screen.With apeak
brightnessof 278cd/m^2 ,weoftenfound
ourselveshitting the ‘brightnessup’button
in the hope of abit more punch. Still, in
combinationwith its 1,119:1 contrastratio,
watching Netflix proved apleasure:
HP rightly makes afuss of the four
Bang &Olufsen-tuned speakers,which
sound surprisinglyrich.
One neat touch is that the rear of
keyboardrises by afew millimetresas
you open the screen,makingtyping
more comfortable.The keyboarditself
is unfussy,with spaces betweenthe
surprisinglylarge keys. We would
have preferred the Enter keytobe
double-height,but that’s our sole
criticism:there’s no annoying
functiondoubling,the power
keysits separately so can’t
be hit accidentally,and the keys
HPEnvy13
★★★★★
£799•From http://www.currys.co.uk
VERDICT
It’snotwithoutitsflaws,butthestylishand
powerfulEnvy13isfantasticvalue
themselveshave apleasantfeel. It’s easy to
type awayonthe Envy 13 forhours.
This isn’t acertifiedMicrosoftPrecision
touchpad,which is ashame becauseit
misses out on some Windows10 gestures.
However,itstill includesthe basics, such
as resting three fingers and swipingup to
reveal Windows’Timelinefeature,and it
respondsaccurately.
FINGER BOBS
Some maynot like HP’s positioningof the
fingerprintreader,which sits on the right of
the chassisnext to one of the two USB3.1
ports. We soon got used to this, however,
and applaudthe suppliedports. There’s no
dedicated video output,but aUSB Type-C
port means you can connectascreen directly
or via an adaptor; HP includesan HDMI one in
the box. We would have liked the more flexible
Thunderbolt3rather than standardType-C
connectivity,but this is one omissionthat’s
forgivable consideringthe price.
There’s also amicroSD slot and a3.5mm
headphonejack, but even with the two
full-sizeUSB ports, you maywish to consider
apermanentUSB Type-C dockingstation for
use at adesk. This can then add Ethernet
ports and extra USB ports, with some also
providing power charging.
The Envy 13 will just about survivea
workingdayonasingle charge.Itlasted for
7h 10m in our video test, which is areasonable
result more than an impressiveone; perhaps
the best thing about it is that the Yoga 530
ran out much sooner.Fortunately,itcan
charge back up to 50% within 45 minutes.
The other good news is that the Envy 13
is so slim and light you can chuck it in abag
and forget it’s there.Itweighs avery
manageable1.2kg, and with awidth of
307mmand height of 14.9mm,it deserves
the ultraportablemoniker.
Despitethat slim chassis,HP includesa
respectablespecification.The Core i5-8250U
is agreat mid-rangechip,and althoughyou
only get 8GB of RAM in this spec, it powered
to acreditableoverall score of 76 in our 4K
benchmarks.There is some fannoise when it’s
pushed,but in generaluse we didn’t notice it.
There’s even some gamingcapability,with
aGeForce MX 150 inside.It’s not the fastest
chip,but it hit an average of 39fps in Metro:
Last Light Redux at native resolution,
althoughthis requireddroppingthe quality
to Mediumand switching off all effects.
It even proved capableof VR using a
WindowsMixed Reality headset.The Steam
VR environmentis beyond it, however.
JEALOUS MUCH
There are also other,higher-spec versionsof
the new Envy 13. You’d be pardonedforeyeing
up these as well, especiallythe ah0003na
model, which includes16GB of RAM, a512GB
SSD and aCore i7-8550Ufor£1,099.
However,the ah0001nawe tested is the
real bargainof the range.True,the screen
isn’t the best, and there are afew other
minor bugbears,but for£799 you’re
getting asleek laptop that can take
on £1,300-plusflagshipdevices
on performance,while deliveringa
range of connectivityoptionsand
dedicated graphicscapability.Even with its
flaws, that’s Best Buy material.
c. jardin
(C. Jardin)
#1