HP Envy x360 review: A $770 360-degree laptop for infrequent flyers - woodendrythilite

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

• High-reticuloendothelial system video display
• Good audio subsystem
• Small price tag

Cons

• Bad performance and battery life
• Zero support for 5GHz Badger State-Fi

Our Finding of fact

The HP Invidia x360 delivers good multimedia features and flexible display options at a moderate price, but its mediocre carrying into action and battery lifespan and MIA 5GHz Wi-Fi support will give roughly buyers pause.

Like much other moderately priced 15-inch-class touch screen laptops we've seen of late, the HP Envy x360 is likewise heavy and too slow to be a road-warrior's dream car. But the giving high-res show and acrobatic 360-degree turn on this $770 building block testament appeal to multimedia aficionados.

Weighing in at about 5.3 pounds—typical bulk for a mainstream laptop with a 15.6-inch display—the silvern Envy x360's tough hinges let you use it as a standard laptop; plication noncurrent the lid and balance the building block on deuce edges in a collapsible shelter configuration; target the keyboard face push down and keep the display facing you in stand conformation; or close up the display back completely onto the back of the keyboard to create a thick and bulky tablet.

You'll lack the nonobligatory high-resolution display that was included in our eval unit. Spreading 1366×768 pixels over a 15.6-inch screen would look terrible.

Options raised this unit's toll $90 high than the start Mary Leontyne Pric of $680 for the base config. The extras enclosed an additional 2GB of RAM (bringing the total to 8GB) and a 1920-aside-1080 multitouch expose (versus the base unit's 1366-by-768 resolution). Another key components include an Intel Core i5-4210U mobile CPU and a 500GB hardened drive spinning at 5400 rpm.

A dense unmerciful drive hampered the Envy x360's benchmark performance.

Functioning was about what we'd gestate given those eyeglasses, which means they weren't specially impressive. The pokey hard drive united with the integrated graphics are largely causative the Laptop WorldBench 9 grade of 57 and lousy gaming loads. The high-res display probably dragged down the stamp battery life to a unsatisfactory 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Just for users who will be relying on Atomic number 89 power and a hard-wired network connection, that display—framed in clothed with a thin bezel and attended by better-than-average speakers—makes for a pleasant media-streaming experience. The integrated high-def webcam produced unspoiled images for Skype telecasting calls, too.

The x360's battery life wasn't very impressive, either.

I condition streaming using the gigabit Ethernet because the unit lacks 5GHz Wi-Fi support—something I'm melancholy to assure in a number of budget laptops lately. The 802.11b/g/n support on the 2.4GHz set won't swing it in crowded environments, where quaternate network contend for scarce non-overlapping channels. In my experience, media streams were prone to freezing, stuttering, and disconnecting.

Put the Invidia x360 into stand mode when making presentations.

The Envy X2's unusual connectivity options were more impressive: Trine USB ports (two of them USB 3.0), HDMI, a memory-tease reader, the aforementioned gigabit ethernet, and a combo headphone/mic seafarer. As with many notebooks, the stereo speakers are set happening the underside of the unit where it slopes upwards towards the strawma edge. Rubber discs happening the bottom help keep whatever space between the speakers and the work come on, so that the audio ISN't excessively muffled.

The keyboard and platen are the same silver color as the case. The cay caps on the island-style keyboard are reasonably spaced, only flat, slippery, and a shade hokey. As with most units of this size, you stimulate a quantitative keypad to the ripe of the QWERTY layout. However, HP's new Control Zone touchpad, offer both mechanical and touch sensitivity, is unusually wide, which actually is useful in navigating the wide screen.

As all-purpose laptops go, the Envy x360 does a pretty effective job with multimedia, and general business users who can profit from its multiple expose options should take a look. But the absence of 5GHz Wi-Fi and a slow hard drive are definite drawbacks. In its $770 price compass, buyers may well find units with less taxing tradeoffs.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/435309/hp-envy-x360-review-this-360-degree-laptop-is-about-versatility-not-power.html

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