HP Elite Dragonfly Hands-On: 1 kg Business Convertible with plenty of features
HP already announced its new business convertible a while ago. The highlight of the Elite Dragonfly is definitely the low weight, which can be shy of 1 kg for certain SKUs. It is still a full-fledged business convertible with all security features you know from the EliteBook series.
You might think the new Eilte Dragonfly is a successor for the EliteBook 1030 G4 at first, which has a very similar footprint, but a noticeably higher weight. However, this is not the case; the new Dragonfly is a dedicated product and the EliteBook x360 1030 will still be continued.
The lower weight is the result of a new chassis, which is made of a magnesium alloy instead of aluminum. The blue color on the other hand is a result of recycled plastics, which are used for the chassis. It looks very noble and reminds us of the consumer convertible HP Spectre 13. The overall quality impression did not suffer from the lower weight. It feels like a high-end product in your hands and the build quality was also great.
The Elite Dragonfly is on par with the familiar EliteBooks in terms of security, serviceability, warranty options, and longterm availability of parts. HP exclusively uses Intel's 8th Generation vPro processors (Whiskey Lake).
You can choose between three different glossy touchscreen options. The default panel is a 1-Watt 1080p screen with 400 Nits, which should be decent for your typical office tasks. Looking for more privacy? Then you can opt for the 1000 nits SureView panel. A high-resolution 4K-UHD screen is also available.
HP offers the Elite Dragonfly with two battery configurations; one 2-cell battery with 38 Wh and a 4-cell option with 56 Wh. Only the 2-cell SKU is lighter than 1 kg, while the 4-cell SKUs will be about 100 grams heavier. Still, the 2-cell battery might be able to provide decent runtimes in combination with the efficient 1W 1080p screen.
There are no shortcomings in terms of connectivity, either. In addition to 2x Thunderbolt 3, you even get a standard USB-A-port in combination with an HDMI output. The wireless module supports Wi-Fi 6 and LTE is optional.
It looks like we will be receiving our test sample of the Elite Dragonfly next week, which is also one of the first Project Athena models. We will check what that means for customers in our full review.