The announcements at Hewlett Packard continue, almost daily, with the well-known American hardware brand that has taken the opportunity, this time, to announce several new laptops of the Envy and Specter series, with a flood of convertibles.
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After having deployed on the hardware chessboard the new proposals in terms of Chromebooks, workstations, and gaming notebooks, the American brand HP has made a new announcement, which fielded two Specter x360 convertible laptops, and a poker of Envy laptops (some 2- in-1), in all cases with improvements on the hardware side, thanks to Intel and AMD, but also under the aegis of Windows 11 software.
The first new terminal of this review, the Specter x360 13.5 (from $ 1,249.99), is designed for hybrid work environments where performance, autonomy, and flexibility are required: technically: made with a very light and slim chassis (29, 8 x 22 x 1.7 cm for 1.36 kg), with the use of recycled plastics and aluminum, adopts a 13.5-inch touch-sensitive display, with various visual options starting at 1920 × 1280 pixels with 1,000 nits and arrive at a dimmer (500 nits) but more defined 3000 × 2000 pixel OLED with 100% DCI-P3 coverage. In any case there is always a TrueVision 5 megapixel webcam with infrared.
In the machine body, the Specter x360 13.5 hides 12th generation Intel U series processors, up to the Core i7, with Iris Xe integrated graphics, designed to support up to 32 GB LPDDR4x 4266 RAM and up to 2 TB SSD storage with interface PCIe 4.0. Among the ports, there are the audio jack combo, the SD memory card reader, a fast USB Type-A in data transfer (Super Speed 10Gbps) and a pair of USB Type-C with Display Port 1.4 and above all Thunderbolt 4. On the connectivity side, nothing to complain about the presence of Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6E. The autonomy, estimated at 19 hours of video playing, closes the general picture of the product, thanks to an energy reserve of 66 WHr.
In the larger HP Specter x360 16 ($ 1,649.99), a 16-inch screen is attached to the 360 ° rotating hinge, with options ranging from a 100% sRGB 3K + IPS and Gorilla Glass NBT protection to a 3840 × 2400 pixel (QHD +) OLED with 100% DCI-P3, and HDR500 certification. The performance, supervised by Windows 11 Pro or Home, goes up as the energy-saving U series is replaced here by Intel 12th gen processors of the H and P series: the dedicated graphics are always from the Intel school, with an Arc A370M GPU, while there are no differences with the small model in terms of memories, since the RAM, DDR4, stops at a maximum of 32 GB and the SSD storage, PCIe 4.0, at 2 TB maximum. As a consequence of this, and considering the always demanding wireless connectivity (BT 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6E), the battery – to preserve the 19 hours of autonomy offered – rises to 83 WHr, with fast charge (50% is recovered in half an hour via fast charge). The array of specifications does not lack a classy audio, branded Bang & Olufsen, and even the Thunderbolt 4 interface.
There are also convertibles among the new Envys. We start with the Envy x360 13.3 model (from $ 899.99) which, as the name suggests, features a 13.3-inch display, with options between a 2.8k OLED with 100% DCI-P3 and HDR500 or an IPS QHD + with 100% sRGB and 400 nits of brightness, always paired with a 5 mpx True Vision webcam with dual microphone array and Bang & Olufsen stereo speaker. In this case, the camera body, in the Space Blue / Natural Silver colors, although very compact (29.8 x 21.48 x 1.6 cm for 1.37 kg), benefits from an additional Super Speed USB port and paired with LPDDR4x RAM (4266 MHz) and PCIe 4.0 SSD storage (respectively max 16 GB + 1 TB), 12th gen Intel processors, i7-1250U or i5-1230U which, combined with integrated Iris Xe GPUs, as part of the U series, with 15W of TDP, allow the 66.5 WHr battery to exceed 20 hours of autonomy.
In the HP Envy x360 15.6 (1.85 cm thick by 1.81 kg, in Nightfall Black), the interfaces for expansion are linked to the chipmaker, with Intel (12th gen), which provides the chips of the series U and P (from $ 899.99) and AMD (from $ 849.99) which promises the latest Ryzen 5 or 7 mobile APUs. The 51 WHr battery, according to use, promises 10 to 15 hours of autonomy while, in terms of display, the panel with touchscreen support, from 15.6 inches, provides two IPS options (QHD + from 120 Hz or FullHD) as an alternative to the OLED FullHD HDR500.
Staying in the Envy family, but moving on to traditional notebooks, we come across the different twins Envy 16 (from $ 1,399.99) / Envy 17.3 (from $ 1,099.99). The first (35.7 x 25.1 x 1.98 cm with Nvidia, for 2.3 / 2.39 kg) declines the 16-inch visual panel with optional touch between an IPS with 120 Hz refresh rate for gamers (especially if combined to the GeForce RTX 3060 GPU), resolute in QHD +, with the sRGB covered at 100%, and a UHD + OLED, with 100% DCI-P3 and DisplayHDR500 certification (therefore with max 500 cd / m 2 peak), plus energy saving, particularly when coupled with the dedicated GPU option of the Intel Arc A370M. Entering precisely in the processing section, the Intel Alder Lake chips go up to a Core i9-12900H, while the RAM (DDR5 4800 MHz) reaches the maximum in 16-32 GB and storage in 2 TB of SSD (PCIe 4.0) configured in Raid 0.
Differentiated in multimedia interfaces from its cousin Specter X360 16 for an HDMI 2.1, in this terminal the battery, from 83 WHr, promises up to 16 hours of video playback which drop to 9 in mixed use.
The big piece, even dimensionally, of the new Envy clamshell is undoubtedly the HP Envy 17.3 which, in 2 cm thick for 2.5 kg of weight, incorporates the Intel 12th gen processors of the 28W P series by TDP, paired with dedicated graphics (GeForce RTX 2050), a maximum 32 GB RAM vs the 512 GB or the terabyte available for solid state storage. The visual area for the 17.3 ”IPS display faces the choice of whether to adopt a FullHD panel with touch support (300 nits) or a 4K with DCI-P3 (400 nits). Also here is the HDMI 2.1, with the similarities relating to the ports of the 16 “version that also lead to an SD reader, the combo jack, three USB Type-A (one with charging, all Super Speed 10Gbps) and two USB Type-C (with Thunderbolt 4 and Display Port 1.4). The 13 hours of autonomy, even using the very recent Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6E connectivity, should then arrive thanks to the battery sized at 55 WHr.