HP Envy x360: The First Ryzen Mobile Laptop Tested!
HP Envy x360: The First Ryzen Mobile Laptop Tested!
2018-01-05
hey guys and welcome back to hardware
unboxed laptop fans and AMD fans and
rising fans and I guess HP fans as well
all got excited about the new envy x-360
that launched late last year it's a good
reason to because this beast is the
first laptop to hit the market with an
AMD rise and apu inside this is the very
laptop I use for our first rise in
mobile benchmark video you probably saw
a couple of weeks ago pitting it against
Intel's 8th gen cabe you like refresh
CPUs now while of course rice and mobile
is super interesting the envy x-360 is
worth talking about in its own right
especially as a be enthused it's or
really anyone looking for decent laptop
graphics might be interested in buying
one of these systems it's also available
in an Intel version but Rison really is
the star of the show here so we'll be
ignoring the Intel model for most of
this review so the envy x-360 is HP's
mid-tier 15-inch convertible laptop
which sits below the spectre x360 that's
available in 15 and 13 inch sizes as
it's a convertible it has a 360 degree
hinge that allows you to use it in a
various modes like a tablet a tent a
stand or just a standard laptop it's
sometimes handy to have convertible
functionality though at this size using
the system as a tablet is a bit
difficult so you'll probably stick to
the laptop mode I guess for the most
part the display is a typical 15.6 inch
1080p IPS LCD touchscreen and there's a
standard range of configurable hardware
at gig up to 16 gig of ddr4 ram 256 gig
through to one terabyte SSDs plus one
terabyte hard drives and a rather small
55.8 watt hour battery more on that
later and the processor in the AMD model
at least is arisin 520 500 you without
additional discrete graphics if you opt
in the Intel variant you'll have the
choice between a Core i5
8250 U or Core i7 8550 you
either with or without discreet nvidia
geforce MX 150 graphics this is a
typical hardware combination for 15-inch
laptops and will continue to be the main
competitor for rising mobile with its
powerful integrated graphics in this
form factor and a quick note on price
the base Intel model is currently
available for $700
while the rise of mobile very--it cost
750 dollars if you're after the Intel +
MX 150 combo that'll set you back 800 us
for otherwise equivalent hardware which
makes rising mobile that little bit
cheaper
while the envy x-360 isn't a top-tier
laptop price-wise the build quality is
really nice in many ways it rivals the
specter which is HP's super slim 13-inch
notebook which I really liked back when
I reviewed it a while back HP has used a
combination of metal on most surfaces
with a subtle brown tinge along with the
glossy glass protecting the display and
gray toned keyboard and track that when
paired with minimalist branding like the
new HP logo or I reckon looks fantastic
and some subtle Envy text this laptop
looks great and it also feels quite
sturdy despite the size and weight of
the display assembly the 360 hinge is
strong and allows fluid movement I love
deliciously slim bezels on laptops but
HP hasn't quite nailed it on the envy
x-360 like they did with this Spectre
x-360 it feels like there's a bit of
wasted space see although I guess HP has
to offer a few sweet bonuses those that
fork out more cash for that Spectre
x-360 one thing HP does fit in the
bezels is a windows hello camera for
quick facial recognition which is a
quick aside seems to be getting it
quicker each time I use it an even more
accurate on each new device which is
always nice to see so let's talk ports
the most boring but one of the most
crucial aspects to a laptop the envy
x-360 does reasonably well here two USB
3.1 genuine type-a ports on each side
along with a USB 3.1 gen2 on type C port
this isn't a Thunderbolt 3 Porter's rise
of mobile doesn't support Thunderbolt
not that it matters too much I guess is
the Intel variant of this laptop also
doesn't include Thunderbolt 3 other
ports include a 3.5 mm headphone jack
full-sized HDMI 2.0 B an SD card slot
and disappointingly I guess of
proprietary charging port it would have
been neat if you charged over USB C but
it can't the Envy x-360 does include
Bang & Olufsen speakers like many other
HP laptops banging olsen are known for
making a high-end speaker system so it
always strikes me as a bit strange that
they put their brand on crappy laptop
speakers like this seriously these
speakers are no good and they sound even
worse if that's possible when you
disable the Bang & Olufsen experience of
software setting but on a completely
different note the keyboard on this
laptop is very similar to the spectres
keyboard in other words it's excellent
with a solid clicky response rarely seen
on slim ultra portable keyboards travel
distance is great it's a 15-inch laptop
so you also get a numpad and the layout
is generally good my only real complaint
here are the half-height arrow keys
surprisingly though the trackpad on this
laptop isn't that good I'd probably say
it's below average for this class
previous HP laptops I've used to have
included a decent trackpad hence the
surprise here though I wouldn't say it's
unusable or anything moving on to the
display and it really isn't good news
for HP here the specter line uses high
quality panels but it's clear there with
the envy x-360 the display is one area
where cuts have been made for starters
there's nothing inherently wrong about
the tech used here I've seen plenty of
15.6 inch 1080p IPS LCD s that perform
well this panel has good viewing angles
and a decent enough resolution so I
guess that's something unfortunately
though brightness is very weak with a
peak output of just 217 nits well below
standard for this sort of laptop
contrast is good at 1500 to one but
that's not worth much when the display
itself can't get that bright as for
color performance the envy x-360 does a
reasonable job in greyscale with a
respectable color temperature just below
what is accurate and okay they're not
terrible Delta a values however the
display can only output 67
of the sRGB spectrum which is very poor
and leads to muted under saturated
colors hitting a hundred percent srgb is
standard these days and all but the
cheapest of panels and without this
feature there is no way any creator or
really anyone that likes a good display
would consider using it you might have
guessed already but the lack of proper
srgb reproduction leads to terrible
delta-e averages in saturation and color
checker tests and unfortunately as the
issues are largely down to the srgb
coverage it's not something that can be
addressed through calibration as I've
covered the performance of the risin 5
2500 you extensively in a separate video
I'm not going to go into detail about
the performance of this laptop if you're
interested in a ton of benchmarks this
apu in this very laptop check out my
review of the risin 5 2500 you or check
my previous coverage of intel's 8th gen
cpus if you're thinking of picking up
and intel variant what i will give you
guys here is a brief highlights package
of how the envy x-360 with its risin 5
2500 you performs when looking at cpu
workloads the risin 5 2500 you is behind
intel's 8th gen kb lake refresh cpus but
only marginally in some cases typical
results either core i7 85 50 you pull
ahead by 10 to 25% that this margin is
slimmed when comparing the risin 5 apu
to a Core i5 and if you're coming from
literally any other older 15 watt CPU
generation you'll see gains of more than
50% which is particularly handy for
intensive tasks like video editing on
the GPU side if you're comparing the
risin 5 2500 you to a straight 8th gen
CPU with integrated graphics it's a big
win for risin the Vega a GPU is more
than twice as fast as the UHD 620
graphics in the eye 78550 you in GPU
heavy workloads like gaming which in
some situations allows games to become
playable where an Intel systems they are
not if you introduce an NVIDIA GeForce
MX 150 into the mix which is available
in some envy x-360 models it's a bit of
a different playing field the apex 150
is faster than Vega 8 in the range of 30
to 60 percent judging on most data I've
seen so considering
only cost an extra $50 or so to upgrade
to this discrete GPU that will be well
worth it for most people like many other
laptops on the market the envy x-360
makes use of Samsung's pm9 61 for its
solid-state storage the PM 961 is a PCIe
nvme SSD equivalent to the 960 pro so
it's decently fast good for well over 1
gigabyte sequential reads and writes on
with respectable random performance
surprisingly this isn't one of the
area's HP skim done maybe they should
have gone with a slightly slower and
cheaper SSD and use the leftover cash to
improve the display battery life is one
of the more interesting aspects the envy
x-360 as it's the first time i've been
able to examine how the Rison v 2500 u
performs in this regard of course you
know comparing laptops to other laptops
isn't an apples to apples comparison and
it can be quite hard to uncover just how
a CPU or APU itself can affect that tree
life but I've tried to dig into the data
I have so far the main thing to note
here is the envy x-360 actually has
quite a small battery for a 15-inch
laptop at just 55 point 8 watt hours
typically we see at least 70 watt hours
in a machine of this size if not up to
the 100 watt hour range but around 56
watt hours is more like what we see in
13-inch notebooks so this already puts
the envy x-360 at a disadvantage up
against its competitors it therefore
shouldn't come as a surprise that the
battery life produced by this laptop
isn't fantastic in fact it's quite poor
and from reading other reviews it seems
like this is the case whether you
purchased the Rison mobile model or the
intel model if the battery was more in
line with the display size something
around 75 watt hours for example battery
life would be acceptable and in line
with other decent enough laptops I've
reviewed the HP Envy x-360 ends up as a
laptop that does a couple of things
really well while letting you down big
time in a few other areas while we are
looking at a cheaper and lower tier
product than HP's flagship Spectre line
I feel a more balanced approach we've
led to a better final product here where
the envy x-360 succeeds
now it's undoubtedly in its May
hardware most configuration options
leave you with either a risin 5 2500 you
or an 8th gen core CPU paired with MX
150 graphics you'll be getting plenty of
CPU and GPU horsepower here with the
Intel Nvidia combination giving you the
best bang for your buck considering the
discrete GPU is more powerful than aimed
ease integrated Vega
8 GPU in a rice and mobile and only cost
slightly more for that configuration the
design is also great from both a visual
and construction standpoint with nice
bonuses such as a Windows hello camera
but the real deal breakers here are the
display and battery life the display
isn't capable of full srgb coverage so
it looks dull and undersaturated
plus it lacks top-end brightness and the
battery capacity is simply too small for
a 15-inch laptop falling more in the
13-inch category which leads to poor
battery life when you know you can move
up to that larger display and by the
time you configure the envy x-360 to
something worth using the $700 base
model doesn't include SSD storage for
example you'll find yourself spending
around a thousand US dollars which
simply isn't worth it the competing
Lenovo yoga 720 starts at 950 dollars
and for that price you get a much faster
CPU and GPU along with basics like an
SSD and a suitably large battery it mans
up as a bit of a shame that the first
rise in mobile laptop isn't actually
that good but I hope we have a few more
options to look at as the year
progresses
maybe Acer will send over their Swift 3
with Rison inside maybe please I guess
if you listening a so hit me up and I'll
happily take a swift three off your
hands but apart from that I'll catch you
next time
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