HP Envy 13 (2021)

HP Envy 13 (2021)

If you want a compact, lightweight, stylish, and premium laptop without a steep price tag, the HP Envy 13 fits your needs. On the outside, it looks very similar to a MacBook Air running Windows. One thing I am not satisfied with is that this machine has a plastic touchpad. HP may have done this to cut costs, or perhaps to maintain some distance from the pricier Spectre lineup.

Minimalist Design

The HP Envy 13 is a mid-range ultraportable laptop. Its exterior design is not as flashy as the Spectre lineup, and its hinge cannot rotate 360 degrees like the Envy x360. Even so, the HP Envy 13 still provides a great experience when you use it.

The entire chassis is crafted from silver aluminum, looking more premium than more expensive laptops built from magnesium alloy. As far as I know, using magnesium alloy reduces a laptop's weight, but that is not a worthwhile trade-off for everyone.

Weighing in at just 1.3 kg with slim display bezels, the HP Envy 13 is not too heavy. It also offers more connectivity ports than a MacBook, with a USB-C port, a USB-C port, a headphone and microphone combo jack, and a microSD card slot. The laptop also features DisplayPort 1.4, allowing you to connect to a 4K 120Hz monitor or two 4K monitors at a 60Hz refresh rate.

The keyboard offers good key travel and feels solid and sturdy. Responsive feedback helps you type very fast. I really like the HP Envy 13's keyboard: I can comfortably type a long essay on this laptop, much more so than on many other expensive models.

The HP Envy 13's keyboard also has LED backlighting with 2 different brightness levels to turn on in low-light rooms. The laptop also includes a fingerprint scanner button, though it is a bit small. As for the touchpad, I do not rate it highly; it seems a bit loose. Because the touchpad is made of plastic, gliding does not feel smooth.

The laptop is equipped with dual Bang & Olufsen speakers. It delivers relatively good stereo sound with rich mid-range audio, though the bass is a bit weak.

Sharp Display

At a mid-range price point, you cannot ask for too much from the display. The laptop features a 13.3-inch screen with Full HD 1080p resolution. While a 4K laptop screen would look sharper, it is unnecessary because high resolution also impacts battery life. Even the recently released MacBook Air only has a 1600p resolution.

When it comes to color gamut, the 2021 HP Envy 13 covers 100% sRGB, 79.3% DCI P3, and 74.7% Adobe RGB. This means the HP Envy reproduces colors relatively accurately, so you can use it for graphic design or content creation. sRGB is the standard color gamut for traditional laptops. DCI P3 is the standard for high-end phones, laptops, and tablets because its colors are deeper, richer, and sharper.

If you want 100% DCI P3, you will likely have to pay more money. Even the MacBook Air does not reach this level. Personally, I find the HP Envy 13's 100% sRGB looks great already. On top of that, it is backed by an impressive contrast ratio (for an IPS display) of 1675: 1.

Outstanding Performance

The unit I tested is powered by an 11th Gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The Core i5 on this machine is slower than the Core i7 on the Dell XPS 13 , as well as the Ryzen 7 CPU on the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7. For basic, straightforward daily tasks, however, there is not much difference.

The 2021 HP Envy 13 offers an optional Nvidia MX450 graphics card. In 3DMark's Time Spy benchmark test, the Nvidia MX450 scored 66% higher than Intel Xe. With this graphics card, you can comfortably play several graphics-demanding games. When typing documents or browsing the web, the HP laptop makes no audible noise at all. However, running at full capacity, the fans spin up faster and push out airflow, creating noise that sounds like the machine is getting ready for takeoff.

The SSD delivers moderate read and write speeds, with 1708MB/s read and 967MB/s write.

Battery Life up to 12 Hours

The HP Envy 13 is equipped with a 51Wh battery, similar in capacity to the Dell XPS 13 (52Wh). HP claims a battery life of roughly 10 hours to 16 hours 45 minutes when streaming video. In actual use, I got 12 hours 15 minutes of streaming video on YouTube. Battery life will also depend on your display brightness settings.

You can also check other configurations in HP. You can also compare it with the HP Envy 17 (2020) or the HP Envy x360 Convert 13-bd0063dx (2021).

Summary

Overall, the HP Envy 13 - 2021 is a laptop priced much lower than the Dell XPS 13 and Apple MacBook, yet it delivers solid performance alongside an optional discrete graphics card. The main point worth mentioning is that compared to the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 (from the Lenovo Yoga & IdeaPad lineup), which has a similar price, the Lenovo delivers better CPU performance and battery life than the HP Envy 13. In return, the HP Envy 13 offers an optional discrete GPU.