HP Envy X360 2-in-1 Laptop 13 Review

Does HPs latest convertible have enough business perks to close the deal?

ULTRAPORTABLE LAPTOP

The HP Envy x360 13 2-in-1 is a little late to the 12th Gen party, launching a good four months after market leaders like the Dell XPS 13 – but HP has used this extra time well, tweaking this 2-in-1 into a product that consumers will love. The top-spec version of this 13.3-inch touchscreen convertible utilises a 2880 by 1800 pixel OLED panel that looks exceptionally rich. That panel also features a 120Hz refresh rate, which enhances the responsiveness of the touchscreen when drawing or writing with a stylus, and the full DCI-P3 colour capabilities make it a solid option for creatives. Read our HP Envy X360 2-in-1 Laptop 13 Review.

When it comes to appearances, the HP Envy x360 13 looks like a classic business 2-in-1. It’s got a boxy profile with rounded edges and a clean silver metallic case. The classic 2-in-1 hinge design is simple and allows full 360-degree rotation, which makes the accompanying rechargeable USB-C stylus comfortable to use.

The RRP for this top spec unit is $, which gets you the OLED display, an Intel Core i7-1250P CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB PCIe SSD, but we did see this device on sale for just $ on HP’s local site at the time of writing. If your budget can’t stretch to this there’s also an i5 version with 16GB of RAM and a 16-by-10 1920 x 1200 pixel IPS display for $; or a Ryzen 5 model with 8GB RAM, a FHD IPS display and a 256GB PCIe SSD for $ ($ on sale).

The top spec Envy x360 13 2-in-1 is definitely the pick of the bunch here offering a standout screen without adding too much to the price tag. The Envy x360 is able to do this by using an Intel Core i7-1250P CPU which is a bit cheaper since it only has two performance cores – unlike the i7-1260P which has four or the i7-1280P which has six. This puts it up to 16 and 19 percent behind the 1260P in CPU and GPU benchmarks respectively and closer to 30 percent behind the 1280P on both. For the average worker this isn’t a big deal seeing as the new processor is still significantly faster than any comparable 11th Gen Intel processors, so it’s more than capable of editing photos, running a stack of browser tabs and smashing office applications. That performance cut does, however, mean it isn’t ideal for gaming, but if you like the look of this device you’re more likely to prefer doing a tax return with a bag of plainly salted crisps than waste valuable time on a frivolous videogame.

W11 Home; 13.3-inch OLED display at 2880 x 1800 pixels, 100% DCI-P3 colour, HDR 500; Intel Core i7-1250P CPU; Intel Iris Graphics; 16GB RAM; 512GB PCIe SSD; 69Wh battery (8h33min 1080p movie playback); 29.8×21.5×1.6cm; 1.34kg.

	HP Envy X360 2-in-1 Laptop 13	Dell XPS 13 Plus
PCMark 10 – Overall (score)	4,879	5,125
Geekbench 5 – Multi-core (score)	7,192	8,594
Cinebench R23 – CPU (multi-threaded)	7,667	8,161
3DMark – Time Spy (score)	1,475	1,853
Battery life – 1080p video playback (h:min)	8h33min	6h6min
Peak CPU temperature (°C)	96	100
CrystalDiskMark Read(MB/s)	6,817	7,082
CrystalDiskMark Write (MB/s)	4,467	5,095

The Envy x360 13 does come with Windows 11 Home and we couldn’t see an option to swap that out for W11 Pro, but you can add two or three year on-site device servicing for $ and $ for anyone concerned about it failing as a primary work device.

Whoever designed the laptop didn’t account for the extra thickness of an Organic LED lighting array over a full touchscreen panel, since the screen protrudes a good few millimetres above the metal clamshell casing. It didn’t create any immediate concerns, but we do worry a little about longevity and resistance since the screen is less protected than your average device. There was also no fingerprint reader – an odd omission on such a business focussed device – but there is at least Windows Hello facial recognition for speedy sign-ins. The Gen 4 PCIe SSD used offers 6,800 and 4,400MB/s respective read and write speeds and battery life just ticks over the eight hour mark for both work and 1080p movie playback.

Joel Burgess

Verdict