Tech Advisor – October 2019

58 TECH ADVISOR • OCTOBER 2019

BUYING GUIDE

The 2019 Envy 13 is better all-round for movies,

YouTube streaming and gaming as a result too. This is

one of the best-performing Windows laptop screens

we’ve ever seen at sub-£900. It’s a touchscreen too,

although the limited sub-135-degree rotation of the

hinge means this is anything but a hybrid.

Performance

The 2019 Envy 13 uses Intel’s latest CPUs, ones a ‘half

generation’ on from those used before. HP sent us the

high-end Core i7 version. It has a Core i7-8565U, 16GB

RAM and a 512GB SSD. We would not recommend this

version to all that many people as the entry-level model

is likely to be sufficient.

Here’s a summary of the models on offer:

• Corei5-8265U,8GBRAM,256GBSSD,MX250


• Corei7-8565U,8GBRAM,512GBSSD,MX250


• Core i7-8565U, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, MX250

Both Core i5 and Core i7 models have four cores,

and are capable of just about any productivity job you

push their way. We’d be happy to edit video on the

Envy 13, and have edited photos with this laptop.

Want to hear something amusing? To spec up the

MacBook Pro 13 to roughly the same level as this

higher-end Envy 13, you have to pay over £2,000.

It scores 3838 in PC Mark 10. This is only slightly

better than the 3759 of the Core i5 version we

reviewed last year. PC Mark is designed to be a fairly

contextualized test, emulating apps you might use

dayto day.