When it comes to 2-in-1 laptop performance, the HP Envy x360 15 (2021) is almost in a class by itself.
It has great CPU and graphics scores, a well-built design, a great screen, a long battery life, and an amazing price.
But it’s on the heavier side, and using it as a tablet isn’t the most comfortable thing we’ve ever done with a 2-in-1, but we think the pros far outweigh the cons.
Still, some people might not agree, and we wouldn’t blame them.
Holistic Review!
In terms of price, performance, and specs, the HP Envy x360 15 (2021) is right in the middle between the less expensive HP Pavilion x360 and the more expensive HP Spectre x360 2-in-1 laptops.
However, it isn’t just an undercard contender. Even though it’s not the best choice for everyone, the HP Envy x360 15 (2021) is one of the best 2-in-1 laptops of the year.
The HP Envy x360 15 (2021) is well made, but the way it looks isn’t very interesting.
Even though it’s an HP laptop, it looks pretty good. On the other hand, the touch screen display is great, even though it isn’t a fancy 4K OLED.
With up to 400 nits of brightness, the HP Envy x360 15 (2021) looks great both inside and outside, in a coffee shop or, we imagine, on a work site.
When you use the Envy x360 15 in tablet mode, it doesn’t feel as natural as it could.
Some hybrid laptops let you flip the screen and feel like you’re holding a Windows 10 iPad, but the HP Envy x360 15 (2021) is not one of those laptops.
What About Other Features!
It’s hard to forget what it is, and even though Windows 10 tablet mode worked fine, the weight and bulk of the laptop when used as a tablet might turn some people off.
The HP Envy x360 15 shines, though, when it comes to how well it performs.
It makes the most of its powerful Zen 3 Ryzen CPU and won the 2-in-1 crown in almost all of our benchmark tests.
The Envy x360 15 with a Radeon GPU does better than its competitors with Intel Iris Xe, and in some cases by a large amount.
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Where things were close, the Envy x360 15 still came out on top.
Its battery life isn’t the best we’ve seen recently, but it’s definitely near the top if not on the podium.
So, the HP Envy x360 15 (2021) is already one of the best HP laptops we’ve seen this year.
With its great price-to-performance ratio, it’s also one of the best values for a 2-in-1 laptop.
Price And What’s Available!
Both Intel Tiger Lake and AMD Zen 3 mobile processors are now available for the HP Envy x360 15 (2021).
On HP’s website, you can choose from many different configurations to make it better fit your needs.
However, the AMD models only come with a 15.6-inch, full HD (1080p) WLED display, and some of them have only 250 nits of brightness.
The starting configuration for these models includes an AMD Ryzen 5 5500U processor with Radeon graphics, 8GB RAM, and 256GB PCIe SSD storage for just $659.
Design
As we’ve already said, the HP Envy x360 15 (2021) is a business-oriented laptop made by HP.
Because of this, its design doesn’t take a lot of risks.
Still, the design is well-made, with a sturdy aluminium alloy chassis and a darker metal tone that makes it look better than the Intel models of the HP Envy x360 15.
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The HP Envy x360 15 (2021) is also a bit bigger than some other 2-in-1s.
It’s 0.72 inches thick and weighs 4.11 pounds, so it’s not the most portable 2-in-1 we’ve seen, but it’s not the worst either.
Performance
The Ryzen 7 5500U far surpassed our expectations.
It got great scores on benchmarks and ran very smoothly and quickly during the weeks we used it.
It holds its own against more expensive 2-in-1s with an Intel Core i7-1165G7, like the HP Spectre x360 15 and the Lenovo ThinkBook 14s Yoga.
It beats them both in several ways, like multicore performance, and costs much less as well.
The only area where the Envy x360 15 didn’t do as well as the Spectre and the ThinkBook 14s Yoga was in single-core performance, where it scored 300 to 400 points less in Geekbench, PCMark 10, and other CPU single-core benchmarks.
That isn’t too surprising, though, since Intel processors are usually better at single-core performance.
However, when it comes to multi-core processing or integrated GPU performance, AMD’s Ryzen processors beat their competitors’ Intel chips by 2,000 to 3,000 points.
How long does a battery last
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The HP Envy x360 15 (2021) was also great when it came to its battery life.
With a 51WHr battery, we thought it would last at least a full workday on a single charge.
In our PCMark 10 battery test, it did a little better than that, lasting just over 13 hours.
This is about 20 minutes longer than the HP Spectre x360 and about five hours longer than the ThinkBook 14s Yoga.
