HP Envy 16 review: inventive efficiency for much less

HP Envy 16

MSRP $1,150.00

“The HP Envy 16 is gorgeous, highly effective, and surprisingly reasonably priced laptop for content material creators.”

Professionals

• Wonderful general efficiency
• Spectacular 4K+ OLED show
• Stable and engaging construct
• Good keyboard and contact show
• Webcam is crisp and clear

Cons

• Touchpad is just too small
• Gaming efficiency is erratic

HP’s Envy line lands in a novel house. These are premium laptops by and thru, and sometimes have the efficiency to again that up for content material creators.

Nonetheless, they aren’t as costly as machines just like the MSI Creator Z16P or the 16-inch MacBook Professional. A living proof is the brand new HP Envy 16, the substitute for the Envy 15, a laptop that’s been on our listing of finest 15-inch laptops and finest video-editing laptops. Given its sturdy efficiency and strong construct high quality, the Envy 16 is an much more compelling entry than its predecessor.

HP Envy 16 specs

Quickest when it issues

Mark Coppock/Digital Tendencies

Efficiency is the secret with the Envy 16. The keyboard, show, and clear design could have been for nothing if the Envy 16 didn’t dwell as much as its promise of wonderful efficiency. Fortuitously, it does.

My loaded $2,600 review unit got here with the 45-watt 14-core/20-thread Core i9-12900H CPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, quick 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD (with two 1TB SSDs operating in RAID 0 as a good quicker possibility), and an RTX 3060 GPU.

On paper, the Envy 16 is a speedy mainstream laptop, particularly given a thicker chassis and an upgraded thermal design with twin followers and a liquid vapor chamber. Word that the $1,180 entry-level configuration consists of an Intel Arc A370M GPU quite than the RTX 3060, so select properly if GPU efficiency is necessary.

Apparently, in our benchmarks, the Envy 16 was a lot quicker at single-core duties than at multi-core duties. This prolonged to each Geekbench 5 and Cinebench R23, the place the Envy 16 led the pack in single-core outcomes whereas falling behind in multi-core. The HP Command Middle utility, used to change thermal profiles, had little affect. I’ve reported balanced and efficiency mode scores, however solely minor variations exist with the Envy 16.

Artistic functions are typically closely multi-threaded, that means creators gained’t profit as a lot from the Envy 16’s quick single-core efficiency. Our Handbrake check that encodes a 420MB video as H.265 is a major instance, with the Envy 16 being slower than all however the MacBook Professional 16. And that features laptops operating the lesser Core i7-12700H.

On the similar time, the Envy 16 carried out effectively within the PugetBench Premiere Professional benchmark, which runs a dwell model of Adobe Premiere Professional and makes copious use of each the CPU and the GPU. It was the quickest Home windows laptop in our comparability group in balanced mode. Whereas it fell behind laptops just like the Asus ZenBook Professional 16X and MSI Creator Z16P in efficiency mode, it was inside spitting distance of the rather more costly Apple MacBook Professional 16 with its Apple M1 Professional CPU.

Artificial benchmarks apart, the Envy 16 seems to be a robust performer within the sort of real-world functions that matter most to creators. It might additionally deal with essentially the most demanding productiveness workflows with ease.

With a quick CPU and an RTX 3060, it’s pure to play some video games on the Envy 16. I anticipated strong gaming efficiency given the excessive single-core efficiency, however the Env7 16 had combined outcomes. Its 3DMark Time Spy rating was sturdy for an RTX 3060, however that didn’t translate throughout all our gaming assessments.

Particularly, the Envy 16 was quick in Civilization VI and Murderer’s Creed Valhalla, however it fell behind in Cyberpunk 2077 and Fortnite. It’s in all probability most secure to imagine you could run fashionable titles at 1080p and excessive graphics after which be blissful whenever you discover video games that may run effectively at 1440p.

Giant and in cost

The Envy 16 focuses on efficiency and show measurement, not on the dimensions of its chassis. In truth, HP intentionally prolonged the chassis to permit room for higher airflow, and the migration to a 16:10 show provides some depth. In comparison with its competitors, although, it’s not overly massive — for instance, it’s barely smaller than the MSI Creator Z16P.

It’s fairly a bit bigger than the Dell XPS 15, however the Dell has a barely smaller show and tiny show bezels. At 0.78 inches thick and 5.12 kilos, the Envy 16 is thicker than the Creator Z16P and a bit lighter, and it’s thicker and heavier than the XPS 15. Total, it’s not big, however it’s nonetheless not a laptop you’ll need to haul round to the espresso store.

Some additional weight comes from the all-aluminum chassis, which is kind of sturdy and resists most bending, flexing, and twisting. Solely somewhat keyboard flex differentiates the Envy 16 from the perfect, such because the MacBook Professional 16 and the Dell XPS 15. Aesthetically, the Envy 16 is conservatively designed, with simply the correct angles in the correct place and no bling to distract from its minimalist beauty.

After all, the first enchantment of a 16-inch laptop is its massive show, which gives loads of room to work. HP provides two shows for the Envy 16 at 16-inches and 16:10. I reviewed the 4K+ OLED panel, which is sharp and gorgeous.

By each metric however brightness, the show is ideal for the creators HP is concentrating on. Despite the fact that the brightness is a bit low, the colours are huge and correct, and the distinction gives the everyday inky blacks we count on from the perfect OLED laptops. Productiveness customers and media customers will even love this show.

Quad audio system present great-sounding audio, with clear mids and highs and extra bass than regular. The one downside is quantity — the Envy 16 doesn’t get very loud. It’s nice sound for watching Netflix by your self, however if you wish to entertain a bunch, you then’ll need some Bluetooth audio system. Music sounds good, however once more the quantity will get in the best way. In the event you wish to crank your tunes, you’ll need a good pair of headphones. The Dell XPS 15 gives equally good audio that will get rather a lot louder.

The big chassis provides one other benefit, particularly a spacious keyboard with massive keycaps despite the fact that it’s flanked on both sides by a speaker grille. That’s additionally a results of HP excluding a numeric keypad, which most patrons seemingly gained’t miss. The keyboard change mechanism wasn’t fairly as exact as on the Spectre lineup, with loads of journey and a lightweight contact however not as snappy a bottoming motion. It’s a snug keyboard that’s only one step behind the perfect.

Mark Coppock/Digital Tendencies

The touchpad is disappointing in that it looks like there would have been room for a bigger model. It was dependable in supporting Home windows 11’s multitouch gestures and its click on was assured and quiet, however HP may have squeezed in a significantly bigger touchpad. The OLED show comes with multitouch help, and that was welcome.

Lastly, the Envy 16 helps all of the connectivity that most individuals want. I might have most well-liked to see a full-size SD card reader quite than microSD, and a few folks would profit from an Ethernet port. Besides, connectivity is a energy, due to Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 help.

The small touches

It might sound incorrect to name battery life an “incidental” side, however a machine meant to churn by demanding inventive and productiveness workflows is more likely to be plugged in more often than not. And no quick performer will final lengthy on a cost when the CPU and GPU are absolutely engaged.

Mark Coppock/Digital Tendencies

Even so, the Envy 16 did fairly effectively in our battery assessments. Its 83 watt-hour battery, which isn’t rather a lot for this class of machine, managed to maintain it operating for nearly 8.5 hours on our web-browsing check and practically 13 hours in our video check.

It fell behind within the PCMark 10 Purposes battery check at simply 7.5 hours, however these are first rate numbers for a quick laptop with a high-res OLED show.

You gained’t discover many 16-inch class laptops that final for much longer, though the Dell XPS 15 was stronger and the MacBook Professional 16 was in one other universe completely. However in the event you’re doing much less demanding work, you may get most of a time out of the Envy 16.

With such a big, high-res show, you’d count on the Envy 16 to be a superb machine for videoconferencing. And also you’d be proper, due to the 5MP webcam with Auto Body capabilities. The picture high quality was glorious throughout my testing.

There’s additionally an infrared camera for Home windows 11 Whats up passwordless login help and a bodily webcam shutter for privateness managed by a operate key. HP omitted any person presence detection performance that’s been displaying up on more moderen laptops, so there aren’t any automated sleep and wake capabilities.

Mark Coppock/Digital Tendencies

A strong addition to the 16-inch class

We appreciated the efficiency and construct high quality of the Envy 15, and the Envy 16 improves on each. Whereas it’s actually a premium laptop, it’s cheaper than rivals just like the MSI Creator Z16P and MacBook Professional 16 and quicker than equally priced laptops just like the Dell XPS 15.

In the event you’re on the lookout for a strong inventive workstation that gained’t break the financial institution, then the Envy 16 is a strong possibility.

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