HP Envy 15 as133cl Notebook Review

In terms of size and weight, the new Envy 15 chassis is 5 mm thinner than the outgoing Envy 15 design and is about 200 g lighter as well. In fact, the new design is thinner than most competitors save for the pricier XPS 15 9560 that is significantly smaller, lighter, and more powerful than our HP in review. The new Spectre 15 x360 and its super-narrow bezels is HP's direct answer to the Dell InfinityEdge design, but mainstream users on a budget should still be content with the overall compact dimensions of the Envy system.

Keyboard

The typing experience on the Envy 15 feels similar to the Spectre 15 x360. Unlike its more expensive sibling, however, the Envy carries a dedicated NumPad that both students and office workers will likely appreciate. Feedback from the keys could have been more firm to make up for the shallow travel. When compared to the AccuType keyboard on newer Lenovo systems, for example, the keys on the HP feel spongier and lighter.

The dark gray lettering contrasts rather poorly against the gray keys unlike on most other notebooks where black keys and white lettering are much more common. The white backlight becomes more of a necessity if working under dimly lit environments as a result.

Touchpad

The wide integrated clickpad (~12 x 6.5 cm) is slightly shorter than on the older Spectre 15 x360. Fortunately, it retains its smooth gliding characteristics and accurate cursor control with no cursor jumping or dead zones.

The clickpad falters in its integrated mouse keys as travel is very shallow and feedback is much too soft. Clicking repeatedly in quick succession is difficult because of how poor the tactile feedback is. The auditory feedback is quiet and unsatisfactory as well, so users may find it easier to simply tap on the clickpad or the touchscreen itself for inputting mouse clicks.

Color space is approximately 41 percent and 64 percent of the sRGB and AdobeRGB standards, respectively. This is similar to the displays of the HP 15, HP Pavilion 15t, and Lenovo Ideapad 310 even though these three make use of TN panels instead. IPS panels on certain Ultrabooks and pricier alternatives can offer deeper and more accurate colors to appeal to graphics artists such as on the new Dell XPS 15 9560.

The i7-7500U is a common processor of choice on newer Ultrabooks and it performs where we expect it to be on the Envy 15 at about 8 to 10 percent ahead of the outgoing i7-6500U according to CineBench benchmarks. The raw CPU performance benefits have been very incremental and steady between each successive Core generation despite the jumps to smaller fabrication methods over the years. When compared to the much older Haswell i5-4200U, for example, users can expect a performance jump of about 50 percent for both single- and multi-threaded loads. Proper HQ-class quad-core processors of previous generations can easily outperform the latest ULV Kaby Lake CPU especially in multi-threaded workloads.

See our dedicated CPU page on the Core i7-7500U for more technical information and benchmark comparisons.

PCMark 8 ranks our Envy 15 in the same ballpark as other systems with ULV Skylake or Kaby Lake CPUs like the Zenbook UX310UQ or the Acer TravelMate P249. Subjectively, system performance is fast when navigating through the OS, but launching applications is somewhat slow and limited by the mechanical drive. The drive can frequently be heard operating and seeking when opening programs. Otherwise, we experienced no other software or hardware issues on our test unit.

Raw graphics performance from the integrated HD Graphics 620 is about 20 percent faster than the HD Graphics 520 in the i5-6200U and 10 percent faster than the HD Graphics 620 in the i5-7200U according to 3DMark 11. While a slight improvement from Intel's older HD Graphics GPUs, the HD Graphics 620 still falls behind Nvidia's weakest discrete GPUs. The entry-level GeForce 920M, for example, outperforms our HP by almost 20 percent according to 3DMark Fire Strike.

Performance in games continues to be extremely limited. Undemanding titles like DOTA 2 or League of Legends should run well on native 1080p and low settings while more strenuous titles like Rise of the Tomb Raider can be unplayable even on the lowest of settings and resolutions.

See our dedicated GPU page on the HD Graphics 620 for more technical information and benchmark comparisons.

We stress the notebook with intensive benchmarks to test for any potential throttling or stability issues. When under Prime95 load to stress the CPU, the Envy 15 is able to maintain a core clock rate of 3.4 GHz against a base clock rate of 2.7 GHz and a maximum Turbo Boost potential of 3.5 GHz. This is impressive for an ULV U-class CPU, but the drawback here is a high core temperature of 83 C. Similarly, running FurMark will result in a steady GPU clock rate of 1000 MHz and a slightly cooler core temperature of 77 C.

Running both Prime95 and FurMark simultaneously will heavily throttle the CPU down to 1.5 GHz while the GPU remains in the healthier 900 to 950 MHz range. The drop in performance is considerable enough that both fan noise and power consumption will actually fall to lower levels, which is the complete opposite of what we expect from a system when under extremely demanding processing loads.

Fortunately, users are unlikely to run into major throttling issues when under gaming loads. Unigine Valley stress, for example, sees both the CPU and integrated GPU maintaining high Turbo Boost clock rates at a reasonable core temperature of 72 C. In comparison, the smaller 13.3-inch XPS 13 9360 with the same i7-7500U CPU will run a little warmer at 76 C when under the same Unigine Valley stress conditions.

Surface temperatures when idling are flat across the board on both sides of the notebook with no discernible hot spots. When under extreme processing loads, we can measure surfaces as warm as 39 C on the bottom rear of the notebook and 35 C on the top surface above the first row of keyboard keys as shown by the thermographs below. Both hot spots are thankfully away from the palm rests and keyboard, so the notebook will never become uncomfortable to use no matter the onscreen load.

It's worth noting that due to the aforementioned throttling when under Prime95+FurMark load, the Envy 15 will actually run slightly warmer when subjected to Prime95 stress only. Surface temperatures are still warmer on average compared to the Ideapad 310 but significantly cooler than the AMD-powered Acer Aspire E5 553G.

Sound quality from the B&O dual speakers is much more balanced compared to the smaller and thinner Spectre 13 according to our pink noise measurements. Sounds are represented much more evenly on the Envy 15 across a wider range of frequencies, though bass is still rather poor as shown by the sharp drop off at the 200 Hz mark. Maximum volume is sufficiently loud to fill a small conference room and will reverberate the chassis just slightly. We can notice no static or audible vibrations when at high volume settings.