HP Elite Dragonfly Max review: Premium convertible, killer webcam - shepherdcousemen

The HP Elite Dragonfly Max is studied for executives World Health Organization are happening Zoom calls as very much like they are in personal meetings. The Elite group Dragonfly Max features a five-megapixel (1440p) webcam that offers double the resolution of the standard 720p laptop webcam, and information technology's flanked by four microphones for amended Zoom audio.

Given that IT could constitute years before you return to pre-pandemic travel levels, I question H.P.'s decision to turnout the Selected Darning needle Max with a 13.3-inch display or else of a roomier 14-inch panel. Then there's the price: It's pitch-peaky at $2,789 connected HP.com. It competes well in to the highest degree ways with other bounty business convertibles, but for that price the in the altogether CPU carrying into action and battery biography are surprising disappointments.

This review is part of our ongoing roundup of the best laptops. Go in that respect for information on competing products and how we tested them.

HP Elite Devil's darning needle Max features: Fantabulous

Supported its specifications, the HP Elite Dragonfly Max model we reviewed has a top-end CPU, ample RAM, decent solid-state store mental ability, and abundant connectivity. Here are the inside information:

• Mainframe: Quad-core group Intel Core i7-1185G7
• Memory: 16GB
• Graphics: Intel Iris Xe
• Storage: 512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
• Display: 13.3-inch, 1920×1280 IPS touch
• Webcam: 1440p with physical camera shutter
• Connectivity: Right side: Two Thunderbolt 4, HDMI 2.0, headphone/mike combo port. Left side: SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps Type-A, SIM visiting card
• Networking: Wi-Fi 6, 5G WWAN, Bluetooth 5.0
• Biometry: Iridium facial recognition, fingerprint reader
• Barrage fire mental ability: 4-cell, 56 Watt-hours
• Dimensions: 11.98 x 7.78 x 0.63 inches
• Measured weight: 2.59 pounds (laptop), 0.62 pounds (Ac adapter)

Our $2,789 Elite Dragonfly Max is the pinnacle-conclusion social unit in the line. You can save $550 past opting for the $2,239 baseline Elite Dragonfly MaxRemove non-product link, which features a Core i7-1165G7 CPU (which has slightly lower clock speeds than its higher-end Core i7-1185G7 sib) but otherwise the exact same configuration. These fixed-form models move in and out of stock, but the customizable Elite Dragonfly Max, protrusive at $2,409 happening HP.comRemove non-product link, is another option. With information technology, you can expand the memory to 32GB and the storage up to a 2TB SSD, and opt for mobile broadband. All models feature the same 13.3-inch, Instinct HD (1920×1080), touchscreen display with HP's Sure View privacy feature.

Unclean beauty

The HP Elite Dragonfly Georgia home boy oozes C-suite style with a thin, yet rugged magnesium chassis ended in an beguiling matte ignominious. Information technology's sure to turn heads in the boardroom or business-class section of an airplane. It's also hard: The Skeeter hawk Max passed MIL-STD 810H tests to prove its durability against shock, heating plant, cold, humidity, and other extreme conditions.

The diplomatic, matte finish is also effective in repelling fingerprints and smudges. Should you want to wipe down the system, the Dragonfly Grievous bodily harm is designed to be wiped down 1,000 times (per H.P.) without staining or fading. That's more than 19 years of wipes along a one time-per-week schedule. The laptop computer includes a utility—HP Easy Clean—that disables the touchscreen, keyboard, and touchpad for two minutes thus you can wipe down the machine without causing wacky input errors.

Matt Elliott/IDG

HP's Easygoing Clean utility disables the keyboard, touchpad, and touchscreen then you rear end wipe down the Elect Dragonfly Georgia home boy without disturbing your work.

On that point are other handy utilities on control board. HP For sure Consider can be toggled on with the press of a function key to keep snoopiness eyes from sighted the contents of your screen—it makes information technology nearly impossible to picture the display unless you are sitting directly in front of information technology. Another utility lowers the temperature of the laptop computer when it's on your lick, sacrificing a bit in performance to avoid hot your thighs. The Dragonfly Soap also reduces battery usage when it senses it's been put in a bagful, and speeds up the wake-finished time when you take it out.

Deliberation only 2.59 pounds, the Dragonfly Max is an elementary travel fellow. Compared to else exchange premiu business laptops, the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 weighs 2.9 pounds and the larger 14-edge HP Spectre x360 14 weighs 3 pounds. The smaller 12.3-inch Microsoft Surface Pro 7+ with the Signature cover/keyboard is lone slightly lighter at 2.42 pounds. If you are glad to sacrifice 2-in-1 versatility, the 13-inch Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano weighs a mere 1.99 pounds.

Stellar display and webcam

The Elite group Dragonfly Max's 13.3-in, Broad-HD touch display is most remarkable for its brightness rating of an astonishing 1,000 nits. While in a root-by-side comparison it didn't come out any brighter with Sure Purview disabled than the 500-nit display connected my MacBook Professional, IT's all the same unity of the fewer displays I've full-fledged that can be viewed easy in address sunlight. You should banker's bill, however, that enabling Trusted View greatly dims the display.

At any setting, the showing's colors appeared vivid, with deep blacks and burnished whites. Its Horsepower Eye Ease feature reduces dispiriting light, and does so without adding the yellowish tinge that you've seen in strange solutions. Eye Ease is always on and can't comprise disabled, non that you'd want to. Subsequently exploitation the Dragonfly Max for a calendar week, my MacBook Pro's screen looked cold and depressing by comparison.

My exclusive complaint about the presentation is its size. At 13.3 inches, with a 16:9 panorama ratio, the display starts to feel incommodious, specially if you'ray trying to scroll a large spreadsheet OR document. I'd happily carry around a few more ounces for a 14-inch video display.

The Elite Snake doctor Max is healed furnished for the videoconferencing ERA. The pentad-megapixel webcam above the display can record 1440p TV at 30 frames per second. With twice the resolution of the 720p webcams found on nearly every else laptop computer, the video it captured was outstanding, with accurate pelt tones and colors, and little noise or coarseness. Thither's as wel a physical privacy cover. Video calls vocalise clearer, thanks to the laptop computer's four microphones—two front-veneer and two world-lining.

Who inevitably passwords when the Elite Devil's darning needle Georgia home boy offers biometric options? There's a separate Atomic number 77 camera for Windows Hello face recognition. (The seclusion cover also blocks the Inland Revenue camera, indeed you'll need to open it to use this feature.) Instead, you could use the fingerprint reader situated below the lower-right corner of the keyboard.

The laptop's four speakers—deuce that fire upward on either root of the keyboard, two that ardor from the front edge of the bottom panel—provide excellent sound outturn for such a compact laptop computer. The full sound exhibits clear highs and mids and something resembling a bass response—rare for whatsoever laptop.

Keyboard, touchpad, connectivity

The keyboard and touchpad are both stellar. The keys offer a hard answer with the accurate amount of travel, and they're rattling quiet when ironed. The typewriting experience is aided away the rigid, magnesium chassis, which does non flex, even off below industrial typiing. The keyboard features two levels of backlighting, and there's a mic mute button among the Fn keys that helpfully shines a small LED when you are muted. Given its cente videoconferencing, however, I was surprised to find no dedicated Fn keys to pop and end calls. The touchpad was accurate in recording my mousing gesture and offered fresh clicks, and its felt finish successful for smooth gliding, even off during a wet July's week of examination.

Matt Elliott/IDG

Even heavy typists should be immediately easy using the Skeeter hawk Georgia home boy's sturdy, firm keyboard.

The highlights of the Snake doctor Max's port selection are its pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports, but I wish they were separate across each broadside of the laptop or else of some located on the right butt on. I'd also move the USB Type-A port from the left bound to the far, because IT'll prospective be secondhand to connect a mouse, and most people are opportune-handed mousers.

Matt Elliott/IDG

A pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports highlight the Dragonfly Easy lay's connectivity, although having some located happening the same side of the laptop is a little to a lesser extent versatile.

HP Elite Dragonfly Easy lay performance

In our examination, it was the best of times and it was the worst of times for the Elite Devil's darning needle Max. It turned in excellent lotion operation, but it exhibited lackluster multimedia capabilities and battery life.

We compared the Elite Dragonfly Max against two unusual high-end 2-in-1 convertibles,  the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310 and the HP Spectre x360 14, each of which features the Core i7-1165G7 CPU; and Microsoft's Show u Pro 7+, a 2-in-1 with detachable keyboard, which uses a Core i5-1135G7 CPU. The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano is based on the Core i7-1160G7 CPU; it's not a convertible, but information technology's a similarly sized superior business laptop well worth considering. All five systems feature 16GB of RAM and integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics.

Matt Elliott/IDG

The HP Elite Dragonfly Max led the pack on PCMark 10's productivity suite. It will care all your mainstream applications with aplomb.

Our first benchmark is PCMark 10, which measures performance connected everyday computing work including office productivity tasks, entanglement browsing, and video chats. Information technology's a close race—pretty much any modern laptop can care mainstream applications with ease—but to its credit, the Elite Dragonfly Max finished first among the five superior business machines Here.

The story changes when you look at purer CPU performance. We first search at Cinebench, a kinda CPU sprint. The Elite Snake feeder Max's Numbers aren't bad, but they tag along those of similar competition by a earthshaking margin.

Dull Elliott/IDG

The HP Elite Dragonfly Max's Cinebench numbers are fine, but they chase the results of other premium business laptops.

We use the HandBrake utility program to convert a 30GB pic to Android put over format, an intensive task that taxes the Processor—and the laptop's ability to keep it cool. Here, again, the Elite Dragonfly Max trailed the contest.

Matt Elliott/IDG

HandBrake is a strenuous test that heats skyward the CPU, penalizing laptops that must throttle execution to pull off heat. The HP Selected Dragonfly Max intelligibly ready-made some sacrifices to stay cool.

The Elite Dragonfly Max is not the first thin, light-headed, and undersized laptop to falter on CPU carrying out because of thermal constraints. Notwithstandin, information technology's worth noting that the Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1, the most similar automobile in our comparison, blows it out of the water on some tests.

Although Intel's Iris Xe tight-knit graphics is surprisingly good, as our tests have shown, none of the Iris Xe-armed laptops here will be illogical with gambling machines, especially the Elite Dragonfly Max, which brought up the rear on our 3DMark benchmark.

Matt Elliott/IDG

None of these thin, candent, and small laptops could personify mistaken for a gaming motorcar, simply the Elite Dragonfly Max is the nearly underwhelming of the lot.

While some of the lacklustre performance above toilet be chalked up to the limitations of smaller laptops, the battery life is the biggest disappointment. We test laptop barrage life history by looping a 4K video using the stock Windows Movies & TV app, with screen brightness set to about 250 nits and the volume dialed to 50 percent, with headphones plugged in.

Matt Elliott/IDG

The H.P. Elite Dragonfly Max lagged behind nearly of the competition in battery sprightliness, even few that had smaller batteries.

It may seem harsh to ding a laptop that ran for nearly 11 hours on battery, but consider the competition. Trusty, the Elite Dragonfly Goop, with a 56Wh battery, outlasted the Rise Pro 7+ and its 50Wh pack. But the Dingle XPS 13 9310 2-in-1 has a 51Wh battery, and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano has a 48Wh battery, yet both lasted longer than the Elite Snake feeder Max. (The Horsepower Spectre x360 14 has an outsize advantage with its 66.5Wh add.). You'll be capable to get through all but the longest workdays on a single charge with the Dragonfly Max, only competing models appear to represent more efficient.

Competitory priorities

The HP Selected Dragonfly Max boasts a beautiful, rugged envelopment and a emcee of thoughtful utilities that business execs are certain to enjoy. It as wel supplies a gorgeous (if slender) display, surprisingly robust audio production, and a 1440p webcam that puts 720p cams to attaint. Its commencement-plac design and endless list of features help to justify its lofty price, but its performance on the healthy left us wanting. Even a mild disappointment is significant when a laptop's price approaches the $3,000 mark.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/394896/hp-elite-dragonfly-max-review.html

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