Buy this laptop NOW! - HP Envy 14
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2021-05-05
·
2,221 words · ~11 min read
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- We recently looked over the HP Spectre 14 and I was like,
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wow, they finally did it, they made their flagship line
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better than the one that's below it. It's kind of weird,
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HP, somehow, their Envy lineup has long been a better option than their Spectre lineup,
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despite of being lower in the order. But now, HP hasn't just shot their foot.
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They've taken a shotgun and just like, (sputters) blown off their whole leg with this thing right here.
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Like, jeez. The Envy 14 is freaking sweet.
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I'm talking like it's about the same size as that Spectre,
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it's about the same... It's cheaper, and it's got a dedicated GPU.
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It's freaking wicked. It's almost definitely the laptop
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that I'm going to tell people to just buy whenever they ask me.
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But let's actually get into it.
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We don't get one of those sleeves that HP sometimes gives you.
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Not that I'm really complaining. This is like, it's not a budget option,
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but it's like a budget option. This thing, I believe, is $1,250, thereabouts.
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So, I kinda know where we're coming from. We get a power brick which is, let's see, 135 watts.
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And the laptop itself. (upbeat music)
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It's a good-looking laptop in my opinion. So, the Spectre, I personally find,
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can be a bit on the polarizing side, whereas I think everyone can agree that this is just...
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It looks like a laptop and you can't complain. Maybe you want it to be a bit more ostentatious,
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but if you do, like, I don't know what you're doing.
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This looks great. The chassis on this is all aluminum.
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Now, unlike the Specter lineup, all of the bits in here would be CNC machined.
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So, that would be like solid block of aluminum, big old robot comes in,
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and gets rid of all of that. Whereas this right here is stamped. So, you got like a flat piece of aluminum,
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big old hydraulic press. And that's how this is all formed.
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It isn't quite as good. You don't have the same rigidity
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as you would from a CNC part. You can probably see here, she's...
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If you really press on it, it's not the same.
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Especially like this kind of squishy part right here. I'm not going to complain about the build quality.
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Like, I actually think it's fantastic. This stamped aluminum feels 90% as good
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as the stuff that's CNC machined, but it's just so much cheaper to do.
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I think it makes a whole lot of sense. You also get a rather generous trackpad.
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Right down here, a bunch of keys. And for IO, in this side you get microSD.
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I do wish that this was a full-size SD card reader but at the same time it's small, like, whatever.
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USB type A. Power input is right there. It's a barrel connector,
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you don't get charging over type C. So, that's another thing that you just have to live with.
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But, I don't know. I think it's fine.
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Over here, you get headphone, microphone combo, USB A, full-size HDMI and Thunderbolt 4.
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So, you can... That's like everything that you need,
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plus a little bit of extra sauce. Really for something in this size,
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I think it's a great choice now. Now, I can't wait to power it up.
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According to David, it doesn't quite come across on camera
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because it's a real reflective boy, but this screen is just so excellent.
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Like, it also has a Delta E of less than two.
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So, you can, you know, just chuck your photo straight into it
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and not worry about it coming out like all purply or something afterwards.
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And, oh, it's 16 by 10. Fantastic.
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There's all this space down here, is actually getting used.
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One thing that you don't get is Windows Hello facial recognition. You are giving that up compared to like
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a similarly equipped notebook that would be the same price.
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You do have a fingerprint reader right down here, which works pretty well in my experience.
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Although, the thing that's really excellent about this, is that it has a 1650 Ti.
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So, you can come in here, oh, the only game that I have downloaded is Stardew Valley
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but, (man laughs) sure, you can play that for sure.
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Definitely. So, this is the sort of thing that you would really struggle to do
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on anything without a GPU, whereas it's totally fine on this.
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So, we've got, you know, they get all 3D model.
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This one is just a simple heat sink that I set up for a flow sim.
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But as you can see, like you can just come around here,
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move the model around, just as much as you want. And it's totally fine.
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Does it. Now, this is obviously nowhere near
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as powerful as something like an XPS 15. Like, this thing has four cores,
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this guy has eight. This one's also $1,500 more expensive.
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So, yeah, you get what you pay for. Now, that does bring us to the biggest problem
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of the Envy 14, and kind of what keeps it
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from being an absolute 10 out of 10, the processor.
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So, what we're getting here is the Intel i5-1135G7.
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You can get an i7 if you feel like it. But you're getting four cores, eight threads with that.
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It's a pretty excellent little processor if, you know, AMD didn't exist,
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but unfortunately they do. So, I'm going to just download Cinebench real quick,
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and we're going to see how it does. But I can guarantee you, compared to the same laptop
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with an AMD processor, this thing gets absolutely destroyed.
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This trackpad is just awesome. It's pretty big.
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It's not massive. Like, they did use this space up here for speakers
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instead of bringing the keyboard up that tiny bit more
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so they could have the proper MacBook size trackpad,
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but you know, it still is a pretty good one. One problem that I have been having
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with the trackpad though, is that it does sometimes pick up my palm.
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I don't think it's so much a problem with the trackpad as the keyboard.
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So, if you look here, the home row is kind of like to the left
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because they add these keys over on the right here.
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It's not a big deal, you'll get used to it. But at the same time,
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I would like for these keys to just go away and be integrated into the top.
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If you look here on the XPS 15, just like Backspace, Enter, Shift,
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Tab, Caps Locks, all of that, they're just way more generous,
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easier to hit them, and then you just get more function keys up at the top.
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Do I care if there's a dedicated button to turn on and off the webcam,
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or enter HP's control center or disable the mic?
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Maybe not. I feel like a lot of those could be done
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either like HP has done in the past, on the side,
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or just through software and I would be happy. Because I think it would just be so much more comfortable
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if my hands were right here, then my right hand avoids the trackpad,
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you don't have to worry about hitting here and so on. As for the keyboard itself,
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it's freaking awesome. I don't know how exactly they did it,
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but it has like such a satisfying little snap to it.
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On Linus Tech Tips, I recently reviewed the Flow X13,
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so that had the Ryzen 9 5980HS,
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which is a 30-watt chip, same as this one, basically.
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That one also had a 1650. Now, that came out with a score in Cinebench of 4,803.
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This right here is not going to be anywhere close to that, it's going to get absolutely destroyed.
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Yeah, I don't even know what to say besides Intel is just getting dunked on right now in mobile.
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That's kind of why an AMD processor would be perfect for this, because you'd have more power
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than this XPS 15 right here in a much smaller form factor.
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Using an Intel processor, you just can't pull that off right now.
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In all of my time using this, I didn't once hear the fans ramp.
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And even now that they are, it's not very loud.
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You can probably barely hear it right now. 2084.
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So, compared to 4,800 for the equivalent AMD processor,
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well, I guess in fairness, that's kind of a step up.
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You might be able to get an i7 in this that's slightly better,
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but at the same time, from other reviews that I've read,
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the i5 in this is more powerful than most of Intel's i7s that are four cores.
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So like, good job, HP, but at the same time, wrong chip.
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Which I guess kind of brings us along to, what is your situation?
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If your laptop just died, get this thing right here.
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That's, I don't know. In my mind, this is like the easiest laptop to recommend
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that's came through for quite some time, simply because awesome screen,
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awesome keyboard, great trackpad, quite a bit of power.
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But maybe AMD is better, but maybe you don't get AMD for a year
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because supply issues. (electronic dance music)
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This could be a drop of disappointment. I can feel it. (electronic dance music)
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Oh, wow. That's better than I thought it would be, honestly.
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Damn! Good on you, HP. That has a lot more balls than I was expecting.
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Anyway, let's open it up and see what's inside.
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Wow. It actually only was four screws.
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Oh, you can like see the stamping lines in here. That's fun. Let's see where the tool came right down,
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pressed in to all of these little grooves. So, first of all, the battery is not a square,
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it's more of like,
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yeah, Tetris. I was gonna say it's kind of like a dick, but Tetris.
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I was expecting for there to be non-soldered RAM in here
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that you could replace, but it appears instead HP has just given you
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a whole bunch of cooling. So, we have these, you know, fancy fans here that have lots of fins.
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We also have two massive heat pipes given, you know,
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how big this thing is. I'm guessing our RAM chips are
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under this little copper heat spreader right here, but you're definitely not getting at them.
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The good news is that there is a replaceable M.2. So, you can upgrade the storage,
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no upgrade in the RAM. Definitely go for 16, at least that,
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if you're buying one of these. For the battery,
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it's 63.3 watt-hours. Though in my experience,
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how much battery life you get out of this thing is very dependent on what you're doing.
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So, if you're using, you know, the dedicated GPU,
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she's done. If you crank that screen up to 400 nits
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and just like watch Netflix, you're also not getting a whole lot.
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So, in my experience, full power screen just doing office stuff,
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you get like six hours maybe.
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But you just turn that brightness down and it's like 10.
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I'm very glad that HP made this laptop because it allows me to recommend a laptop
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to basically everyone, and not feel like a total (beep)
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because I'm like, oh yeah, I really liked this XPS 15, it's $3,000.
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Instead I can just be like, okay, you get this thing right here, it's like 1300 bucks.
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That's not cheap, but you're getting a whole bunch of laptop
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for that amount of money. Yeah, dedicated GPU and CPU is fine,
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but an awesome screen, awesome trackpad, great keyboard. You know, not much you can complain about
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with this thing. That's about it.
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If you guys wanna watch something else, I don't know, maybe go watch the Flow X13 video
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that we've done on Linus Tech Tips. It really shows you why HP should make one of these
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with an AMD processor. Have a good day, bye.