HP ENVY 13” Thin Laptop w/ Fingerprint Reader, 4K Touchscreen, Intel Core i7-8565U, NVIDIA GeForce MX250 Graphics, 16GB SDRAM, 512GB SSD, Windows 10 Home (13-aq0044nr, Natural Silver)

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Small, lightweight pretty looking and powerful with lots of speed.

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I am a proud computer geek, working in IT for the past, well, let’s just say more than a few years. I do love this computer. The feel and look is impressive from the start. HP even ships it in a very nice box. I have several other HP computers and they came in plain cardboard. The box this one comes in makes it look like a present. Okay, trivial, I know, but a nice touch. The computer is an Intel Core i7, so you know it is going to be fast and powerful. I won’t go into all the other specs, you can see them yourself on the description. The keyboard feels great. The screen is very clear and beautiful with terrific resolution and vibrant colors. The sound, with the Bang & Olufsen speakers, is excellent for a laptop. Oh, my gosh, I love logging in with my fingerprint. This computer obviously has the business traveler in mind. The body is metal, not plastic, and the screen is Corning Gorilla glass. You can see and feel the difference. It should be much more sturdy than a typical cheap laptop. I should mention it has a touchscreen. Now, keep in mind that the metal and glass weigh more than plastic. This 13” computer is heavier than my 15-inch HP. It also does run warm. However, the lid, when opened, lifts the bottom of the laptop off of a desk just a bit, which should help. I can hear the fan, as well, which some people may find annoying. I dont, as I always have music or TV running. Setup was incredibly fast and easy, with Cortana guiding the way. I already had a Microsoft account including Office 365, so I just had to sign in to connect. I had everything up and running in no time.

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This laptop seems to be HPs attempt at directly competing with the 13 inch MacBook Pro. It certainly looks like one. Its very light; under 3 pounds. It has a powerful four-core Intel processor (Please note that the description of this product says it has a dual core processor. Thats not correct mine has a four core.). The screen is great. It has adequate brightness to use in daylight. The colors are vivid and accurate. The touchscreen is every bit as good as any I have ever tried. I have to admit that I usually forget the touchscreen is present; Im so used to doing everything on a keyboard. However, when I realize I can use my finger, the results are great. This laptop has 16 GB of memory. Thats more than enough to run Photoshop and edit large images. Ive also run Premier Pro with no problems at all. The combination of the powerful processor and fast, plentiful memory makes this machine perfect for a power user like me. This laptop could easily replace my desktop computer in terms of processing, memory and disk size. My unit has 512 GB of SSD. Considering that most of my data lives in the cloud, Im never going to run out of disk space. The touchpad is the one weak spot in this nearly-perfect laptop. I find it not nearly as responsive as my Macs. Its very fussy about where you press it to get a left click or a right-click. The Mac works with just a tap with one finger for left click and two for a right-click. That doesnt happen with the HP. I use a Microsoft mobile mouse to compensate. That brings me to one really great feature of Windows 10. If you go to the Control Panel and then the mouse screen, youll find that there is an option to disconnect the touchpad when the mouse is present. This is an amazingly important feature. In the past, Ive disabled the touchscreen to prevent accidental mouse activity while typing. Then, on occasion I had a problem at startup and needed to use the touchscreen. Of course it didnt work. Now, if I connect my mouse (Bluetooth), the touchpad is disabled. If I want to do something quickly in the car, and there is no mouse, the touchpad works. The keyboard is generously sized and the keys have a nice solid feel. I have one little quibble: in bright light I find it difficult to read the white markings on the silver keys. In a normally lit room the keys are backlit and very easy to read. Ive used HP laptops in the past. I think the keyboard in this laptop is a real step forward for them. Priced similarly to the MacBook Pro, I expected a great deal from this laptop. From the perspective of processing power and useful features, this HP competes favorably. If anything, the screen is better. Colors are accurately rendered, brightness is more than adequate, and the touch functionality is a great bonus. Battery life is excellent. I dont have the standard test suite to verify the manufacturers claim of about eight hours of working on a charge. I can say that I had absolutely no problem getting through the day without needing to recharge. Of course, battery life is dependent on how you are using the laptop. For example, when I worked with it in my car I had to crank up screen brightness which of course, eats up battery. Even so, I never ran out of power. Wi-Fi operation is flawless. The built-in camera and microphone provide excellent quality for videoconferencing and other AV needs. I like that there is a physical switch to turn off the internal camera. That certainly improved my comfort using the device in my hotel room. If HP could fix their quirky touchpad, this could be a true MacBook killer. Even with the less-than-perfect touchpad, its a joy working with this computer.

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These are probably the last words that come to mind when thinking of a laptop, but this Ultrabook earns its name and then some in every way, because anyone who sees you using this will be BESIDE themselves, and I mean SICK, with Envy. This thang is FIYAH!!!!!!!!!! Lets start with the unboxing: it arrives in a sleek, black box with a beautiful photo of the laptop on its cover, and when you open it, you are awed by the pristine, silver gleaming contraption inside. When you pick it up and gently unwrap it from its plastic film, you are wowed by how both light and elegant it is in your hands; how something so small can contain your life, and then you cant wait to start filling it up with it. You open the lid and lift the mesh cover protecting the keys; you notice the setup leaflet and take out the power cord, plug her in and turn her on. From there, Cortana takes over, guiding you through the setup! By voice command! Very Jason Bourne. You set up your fingerprint log in, sign in to your accounts and then once everything is registered, off into the wild wild web you go. The first thing youll notice is how FAST this baby is, the gentle whir of the machine as she takes you off to the farthest reaches of the world if you check out the 4K resolution by looking at the Planet Earth series. Its enough to bring tears to your eyes. Youll be mesmerized by the rhythmic clicking of the keys as you go to your favorite websites and download/install your must-have apps and programs; you will find yourself looking down at the keyboard and smiling as if youve been enchanted by a new lover, and you HAVE! I had been looking for a new computer because Ive got this ollllld slooooooooow, 4GB RAM dinosaur of an 15" laptop that I bought used in a dire emergency because I accidentally cracked the screen on my Toshiba. The "Gorilla glass" on this is so beautiful that I dont even want to TOUCH it, even though the touch screen is flawless, like you are on a tablet. The keyboard is perfectly sized and responsive; there is just so much here for me to continue to explore but I am damn near breathless as I write this review because it is simply that exceptional, stunning. I have had some graphic design programs that I wanted to use but was waiting until I got something new so it would have the capacity to rock out, and I cant wait to get started. Where this HAS been incredible for me is Traktor and music programs. No more worrying about lag and staticky mixing because of system overload. This has all the memory and SSD space that you will need, and its ports will more than accommodate any other gadgets you need to connect to it. The sound is exemplary, with the Bang & Olufsen speakers. This is the Ultrabook that every entrepreneur or very lucky student should have; it is the answer and perhaps even a juggernaut to the Macbook. Ive certainly learned that just one POWERFUL Ultrabook is WORTH the investment rather than having to replace a tired ass notebook every few years. I prefer large screens so 13 inches has never appealed to me, but this right here has ROCKED. MY. WORLD. I dont wanna go anywhere without it, not even the shower. LOL You have just got to see for yourself.

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When the newer, thinner Macs came out I joked that Apple had created the new iMan. He has only one orifice which is also his only sensory organ, but man is he SKINNY! Ive finally bitten the bullet and gotten the HP equivalent. I have to say Im very, very happy. The machine is solidly built with a metal case that gives it a little more weight and a lot more ruggedness. The keyboard and touchpad are adequate, but with a docking station or hub that isnt a concern. My current setup is two monitors (one of them 4K), keyboard, mouse, printer, ethernet, and a USB device charging through the charging port. It performed flawlessly. Screen resolution is fantastic. The touchscreen mode works seamlessly, although it would be nice if the screen could fold back or rotate so it could be used more like a tablet. Oh, well, thats a very minor quibble. Sound quality is much higher than youd expect for laptop speakers. The fingerprint sensor took a while to calibrate but works very well. I was able to get it to recognize my fingerprint, switched to my wifes and switched back. All that is what you would expect. I needed to do a couple things which put the machine through its paces - running through Atlassians Here Be Dragons which has several services running simultaneously along with a database server and Tomcat. Thats a bit of a load for most machines. The Envy handled it all with aplomb and without grinding to a halt, something which I have had happen with other laptops. Afterwards I played an FPS game and did some JAVA development with IntelliJ and TeamCity which can be pretty heavyweight. Again, no problems. Im very, very happy with this machine. Its an excellent replacement for my old laptop. And boy, is it skinny.

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To start with, I think thin-and-light laptops are not for everyone. If your laptop rarely leaves your house, then dont get a thin-and-light. Its not worth the compromises and the additional cost. On the other hand, if you travel a lot, a good lightweight laptop is often a good choice. The first thing to like about this laptop is the CPU: the i7-8565U is a four-core, 8 thread design with a base 1.8 GHz base clock, a turbo clock of 4.6 GHz (!), and an 8 MB on-die cache. All that with a 15-watt typical power dissipation. This is a "Whiskey Lake" class CPU which means includes mitigations for a lot of the latest security vulnerabilities such as Meltdown. This is a great choice - you have a lot of headroom in this CPU to take on whatever you are going to throw at it (outside of high-end 3D gaming). Speakin of gaming, while this does come with a NVIDIA GeForce MX250 GPU, dont plan on getting too crazy with the 3D gaming. You can, in theory, play some of the newest games at lower settings, but to get any decent frame rates you will need to mostly stick to games that came out in 2016 or earlier. Now thats a very general statement and not true in all cases, but if gaming is important to you, this may not be your laptop. On the other hand, is a lot more graphics than you typically get out of a thin-and-light laptop, so from my perspective, its nice that I can do any gaming at all. If there is one mantra I have for buying a laptop is you MUST get a solid state HDD. Magnetic drives just cant handle the abuse laptops take. This comes with a very nice 512 GB SSD, and its an M.2 drive which means its crazy fast. The 16 GB DDR4-2400 SDRAM is fast, though a little power hungry. The CPU supports LPDDR3-2133 and I think that would have made more sense with just a small performance hit. The screen is fantastic. The resolution is almost overkill for a screen this size, but Ill take it. I also like that its Corning Gorilla Glass. This is much stronger than traditional glass screens - and we can thank the popularity of this glass in smartphones for bringing the price down low enough to use on laptops. My main con for this laptop is a lack of an ethernet or HDMI port. Thin-and-light laptops are usually too thin for these ports. That means you need to get a USB 3.1 Type C adapter for any extra ports you need. You can either get a dedicated HDMI or ethernet adapter or get a multi-adapter. If you are traveling for business get all the above, you never know when you are going to need them and they take over very little space in your bag. Overall this is a well-rounded laptop thats great for anyone who needs performance and mobility. The build quality is excellent, and the HP Envy line has a good reliability record (far better than their Pavillion line). If mobility isnt important, then there are better choices, but for a student or business traveler, this is a great choice for a reasonable price.

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Ive long been one of those "do we really need touchscreens on everything" people. In fact, I reviewed the 27" HP Envy All-in-One desktop many years ago and lamented the limited touchscreen functionality. Touchscreen on phones and tablets work well if the software offers lots of different touchscreen functions, but this HP seems to limit the screen to single-digit usage, even while the touchpad allows for 1-4 finger gestures that can be assigned by the user. On the one hand, thats sad and limiting and on the other Im not sure how much I miss it. Being able to zoom, rotate, flip, resize, and such when editing photos would be cool. SCREEN I wasnt sure if a 4k 13inch screen was really necessary but its magical: crisp and bright! (Dont read this the wrong way; I just still have questions about whether 4k density in such a small screen means much. After using this machine, I think it DOES make a difference! I could see a difference between this machine and a 1080p 13" screen. The touch response of the screen is fine -- but its limited to pretty much single digit use. The touchPAD on the laptop can handle all sorts of 1-4 finger gestures. Somehow this is not translated to the screen. STORAGE Its 2019, so SSD storage is standard on this machine. You will appreciate this when youre installing new software and if you work with photos and videos. Video games dont always benefit from SSD storage (except in cases where long load or save times are an issue; but even then, no guarantees in my experience with various systems). WIndows loads up and restats FAST because of the SSD. Its glorious if you remember the days even 10, 15, or 25 years ago when you could reboot and go to get a snack. Windows has definitely improved, but the SSD drive makes a huge difference. If you end up with a USB3 back up device plugged into this, doing a full-drive backup will not take all night like in the old days. Transfer speed is great and makes backing things up less of a "Ill do it some other time" feeling. KEYBOARD Laptops or "portable computers" as they are legally called, tend to have underwhelming keypads. The HP is not awful but its not the kind of machine I would want to type on for hours at a time. I would have to get used to the wide, flat, square keys. Though they are backlit, which is nice, and they respond well. Ive used plenty that are bad. This machine is just "eh". Note that I spend much of my computer time on a desktop with a mechanical keyboard because I type A LOT. For short documents, the keyboard is fine. But expect fatigue if you are trying to type reports, essays, articles, or a novel. The keyboard does include plenty of useful functions though: airplane mode, volume, media controls and even the Home/PgUp/PgDn/End buttons that couldve been cut from the design. I find that the less than pleasing tactile nature of the keys is made up for by the plethora of functions that are still included. TOUCHPAD The touchpad is accurate and offers plenty of gestures, which can be reprogrammed for personal use. PORTS 2 USB ports -- one on each side of the machine -- are offered. Theres also a USB-C and SD card slot. The USB3 ports are modified so that they have a slight hinge -- I guess to keep the sleek lines of the laptop. Basically you have to use the USB connector to open the port slightly so that you can insert it. This sounds way more annoying than it is, but it was my first exposure to such a mechanical feature. SOUND The HP Envy sports a Bang & Olufsen sound system. I will say that the speakers are good and theres an equalizer accessible via pre-installed software. As with all things sound related, you will have to fuss with Windows to ensure that the B&O equalizer is the one running the show. The speakers are good and will let you hear things well even outside, so enjoy a movie in the park, if you wish! GRAPHICS CARD The Envy has integrated graphics in the Intel chip as well as a NVIDIA GEFORCE card. I installed a couple of games that I knew would require some effort from the graphics and wasnt super impressed. Cities:Skylines stuttered at the top graphics options; even when I used the NVIDIA optimized selections, the game didnt run fast, though the stuttering did go away with some tinkering. Like most machines, everyones mileage will vary because of the type of game, but I didnt see anything here that was surprising. Its still better than an MacBook graphics card when it comes to gaming, but I think this machine -- with its SSD and 16GB of Ram -- is meant for multitasking not necessarily gaming. So get some work done! DESIGN HP has designed a pretty, silver, metallic, thin, lightweight machine. I would say that the chiclet keys probably wont stop crumbs and liquids very well and the speaker grill likely will need a nice brushing now and again. A cool thing is that theres a built in foot that ensures the base of the computer isnt flat on the desk surface, allowing for air to circulate. This didnt stop the fans from running, but with a i7 chip, getting rid of heat is always helpful. OVERALL I received this unit for free to review. I have 2 Windows PC desktops, one I built myself, the other is an HP Envy from years ago that is still running well. Ive also used Mac portables extensively, so when I used this machine it was hard to judge it in a vaccuum. There are plenty of things I like about it and if I were replacing an older laptop, the price and functionality wouldnt cause me to hesitate. I dont think I could get a cheaper laptop thats brand new with this much RAM and an SSD and a beautiful screen. The touchscreen aspect I could do without, but for MS Office or similar document creation, this machine works great and would likely hold up for a few years if treated right (ie, protect against malware and dont drop it!)

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This is a incredible laptop and one of the most advanced that I have ever owned. Taking it out of the box I admit to being a bit intimidated. I even asked my wife if she would like to have it. I just didn’t know if I was smart enough to use it. My wife insisted that I keep it and she felt confident I could figure it out. The setup was actually pretty easy. I love how light weight the entire thing is. Honestly, I think I would have been happier with the bigger screen. I have old eyes. I like to play videos, watch movies, and download music. I was surprised at how fast it downloaded what I wanted. With my fat fingers, in using the keyboard I sometimes hit some of the other keys, but that would probably happen on any keyboard. It took awhile for me to get use to the touchscreen, but I love it and it makes it much easier to navigate. I tried using my other computer last night and I kept getting frustrated with the mouse and I kept trying to touch the screen. I can’t imagine not having a touchscreen now. Love it. For me, the fingerprint reader works for the most part, but I have had problems on occasion, but just used my pin. The battery life has been pretty good, but I know that can change quickly and if it does I will update my review. All in all I love the laptop, including the sleek look of it. Would definitely recommend.

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This laptop is loaded, making it a legitimate machine for any business purpose and can even handle gaming graphics shockingly well. With a dedicated video card, 512GB SSD, and 16 Gigs of RAM this machine is LOADED for the price you pay. Unbelievable value for $1200. Out of the box set-up was simple, clean, and easy. The lap-top is visually pleasing and has backlit keys. The key-board is crisp and easy to type on. Great thin design will swivel door USB-A allows an ultra-thin profile but still has 2 USB-A ports. The screen is ultra-high resolution and the touchscreen works smoothly and without error. This lap-top blows away my wifes, surface-pro in every way. Other than heat production (no real cooling system), this can pass as a legit gaming grade laptop. I am very impressed with this machine. The only nit I have is that when it is open, the screen swivels on hinge, putting the back-edge of it down. This back edge has corners that protrude slightly to lift the base of the machine off the table (probably a design feature to increase airflow for cooling). Unfortunately, these edges dig into your legs (if you are using it as a LAPtop) and it quickly becomes uncomfortable.

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I have been searching for a new laptop to replace my 9 year old macbook, unhappy with the cheap quality of both apple and PC products lately. Apples keyboards scared me off from buying another one, and most PC laptops today are junk. This laptop is in an entirely different category. For the price I wasnt expecting a full metal body with one of the best, backlit keyboards I have ever used on a laptop. The fingerprint scanner is an added bonus to login, and the touch screen works amazingly well. The included i7 and SSD are extremely fast, and the display looks incredible. The contrast ratio and blacks really make the display pop. Its a pleasure to stream movies on it. Even working on adobe, editing videos, playing music in the background, and keeping Internet application open didnt slow it down. The only con in my opinion is that the laptop stays a little warm. The screen keeps the laptop up off the ground to help cool it off, but its a very minor complaint. It includes a powercord, 2 usb inputs, an SD input, a usb c input, and a headphone jack. Set up took about 10 minutes.

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