HP Envy x360 15m-bq121dx

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Reviews for the HP Envy x360 15m-bq121dx

60% HP Envy x360 15t Review
Source: Laptop Mag Archive.org version
The HP Envy x360 is a big-screen notebook that's best for those looking for solid audio and a sexy design. Unfortunately, it's held back by its dim, uninspiring screen, loose hinges and short battery life. For a laptop with better battery endurance, a brighter display and faster performance, check out the Yoga 720, though you'll spend more for the $999 model we tested. But if you want a huge screen that doubles as a tablet at a better price, the Envy x360 is worth considering.
Single Review, online available, Long, Date: 12/01/2017
Rating: Total score: 60%

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The name “x360” comes up in many of HP’s notebook series. It now appears in the older Pavilion series, the Spectre series, and also the Envy series. The HP Envy x360 15m-bq121dx is easily the highlight of HP's first notebook centered around AMD's Raven Ridge platform. The Ryzen 5 2500U APU in this laptop directly challenges Intel's Kaby-Lake-R platform in the thin-and-light category. The chassis is not entirely new, as HP has been offering this same design with the Core i7-8550U CPU for months, but it is nonetheless a significant chassis update compared to last year's Envy x360 15. The jump from the Envy x360 15 2016 to the Envy x360 15 2017 is defined by HP's "micro-edge" narrow bezel design that offers an immense boost in the screen-to-body ratio of the display area. The system is consequently smaller in footprint, more attractive in design, and potentially lighter in weight, because of its thin 8mm bezels compared to thick-bezel convertibles that have yet to make the transition. Its all-aluminum materials return from last year's model sans the brushed surfaces to look more like HP's higher-end matte Spectre series instead. HP has dropped both the Ethernet port and one USB Type-A port in favor of a single USB Type-C Gen-1 port. Users who want to connect a native 4K external monitor can still do so via the HDMI 2.0b port, but users wishing for Thunderbolt 3 may want to consider the Yoga 720 or Spectre x360 15.

The Ryzen-based Envy x360 15 is limited to a 1080p IPS touchscreen. HP has once again sourced BOE Technology for its touchscreen, but with a slightly different panel ID than last year's model. Consequently, the display quality and colors are very similar with the two generations. Unfortunately, this means that the backlight is still relatively dim for a convertible. The main attraction for this particular system is indubitably the 15W - 25W Ryzen 5 2500U APU with integrated Radeon RX Vega 8 graphics.  AMD has finally dropped its controversial "module" core concept for the more traditional Simultaneous Multi-Threading (SMT) technique that is comparable to Intel's Hyper-Threading technology. It is a "true" quad-core APU capable of 8 simultaneous threads, not unlike the Kaby-Lake-R series. The processor clock rate idles at 1.48 GHz when on Power-Saver mode and can run up to 2.6 GHz and 3.6 GHz in multi-threaded and single-threaded operations respectively. The laptop also ships with a 1TB Hitachi HDD. Sound quality from the B&O stereo speakers is quite close to the speakers of the Spectre x360 15. Bass reproduction is fair, the maximum volume is sufficiently loud. There are no rattling, static, or major imbalances when on higher volume settings. HP has upped the internal battery capacity on this latest iteration to 55.8Wh. The capacity is still rather small compared to the 70+Wh batteries found in the 15.6-inch Spectre x360. At about 6.5 hours of real-world WLAN use before the automatic shutdown, this is about 2 hours shorter than the higher-end Spectre equivalent.

Hands-on article by Jagadisa Rajarathnam

AMD Vega 8: Integrated graphics card of the Ryzen APUs based on the Vega architecture with 8 CUs (= 512 shaders) and a clock of up to 1100 MHz.

Modern games should be playable with these graphics cards at low settings and resolutions. Casual gamers may be happy with these cards.

» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Graphics Cards and the corresponding Benchmark List.

R5 2500U: Mobile APU that integrates four Zen cores clocked at 2 to 3.6 GHz. The TDP is configurable between 12 to 25 Watt (15 W nominal) and the integrated Radeon RX Vega 8 is clocked at up to 1100 MHz.» Further information can be found in our Comparison of Mobile Processsors.

15.60":

15-inch display variants are the standard and are used for more than half of all laptops.

The reason for the popularity of mid-sized displays is that this size is reasonably easy on the eyes, often allows high resolutions and thus offers rich details on the screen, yet does not consume too much power and the devices can still be reasonably compact - simply the standard compromise.

HP: Founded in 1939, the US company is a major server and printer manufacturer and one of the leading IT companies in the world. Until 2015, the company was called Hewlett-Packard Company. After a split, the computer division was renamed HP Inc.

In 2023, HP had an approximate market share of 22% of global PC sales, making it number 2 after Lenovo.

68.45%: This rating is poor. More than three quarters of the models are rated better. That is rather not a purchase recommendation. Even if verbal ratings in this area do not sound that bad ("sufficient" or "satisfactory"), they are usually euphemisms that disguise a classification as a below-average laptop.

» Further information can be found in our Notebook Purchase Guide.

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