intel 8th gen HP Envy x360 (late 2017) BP series

[NumLock21]

Update: Dec 18, 2017

Visit the Typing Test and try!

 

Update: Nov 27, 2017

Due to lack of any documentation when this review was made, there is a misinformation about the location of the memory module. The memory module is not on the underside of the motherboard, it's actually beneath the silver cover, next to the M.2 slot.

 

Original content

TLDR version is at the very bottom.

 

HP Envy x360, part of their premium line, is offered with a variety of specifications to choose from. They come with both AMD or Intel based processors, up to 16GB of DDR4 memory on selected models, 1080P IPS display, a solid state drive, including PCIe NVMe, and a mechanical hard drive. The stock configuration just provides the essential specs to get by, but it can also be customzied to your liking such as having a 4K display, combo based storage like SSD+HDD, or opting for a dedicated graphics. On the AMD side, HP only offers the FX line up with a Dark Ash color design, and on the Intel side, you get both 7th or 8th gen in a Natural Silver finish. Comparing the two different color designs, the Dark Ash does look nicer, but for Intel based platforms, there is no choice but to get in Natural Silver.

 

Encountering the laptop, it immediately attracts you towards it, with is sleek design and beauty. While at it, opening up your visual senses, letting you know on what a proper good looking laptop should look like. When closed the laptop profile is quite thin measuring at just 0.77 inches, of course not ultrabook thin, but still thin enough, that it should fit into most laptop carrying case with room to spare for your other laptop accessories. Now even though it's not ultrabook thin, it's still good to have a bit of space in it, allowing internal components to have some breathing room, and not have it sandwiched all together. The built quality is extremely solid, as there is almost no sag or flex towards the screen or keyboard, all thanks to the use of a aluminum chassis.

 

Opening the screen can be achieved with the lift of a finger, where its 360 degrees geared hinge, users can go from laptop to tablet, for when your on the move, stand, while watching your favorite shows or movies, and tent mode during game play or presentation. The screen itself also supports 10 point touch, as well as Windows Ink. With the supported Windows Ink pen, users can start showing their artistic drawing skills, highlight websites, or jot down reminders, and save them for later on. The pen runs on a single quadruple A battery and it's quite good. When using the pen, under the Windows Ink workspace, it comes in two modes, pen and free hand. In pen mode, only the pen input gets registered allowing users to rest their hand on the screen, just like as using a real pen and paper. In free hand mode, only your hand input gets registered, and not the pen. Typing on it feels nice as well, with the low profile keys, which results in less travel distance until it registers a key stroke. Based on personal typing test, the result came in at 81 words per minutes. The keyboard has backlit keys and a number pad on the side. Now some may not like the number pad, cause of the physical size limit of this laptop, to type comfortably, you'll need to sacrifice your viewing experience by place the laptop slightly to one side. The screen included by standard has a maximum resolution of 1920x1080, but with their Micro Edge display, it gives it somewhat a more immersive experience as you'll hardly notice the thin black bezels that surrounds the screen. Viewing angles are extremely good too, up to 180 degrees, with no color shifts, all due to their use of a IPS panel. The webcam is nice as well, with support up to 1920x1080 of video recording resolution at 30FPS, as well as the dual IR beams, for Windows Hello, for those that want to use their face as their security login.
On to connectivity, there is a total of 3 usb 3.1 gen 1 ports, with one of them being type C, that also supports display port 1.2 via a adapter, no thunderbolt 3. 2 of the usb ports also has sleep and charge. A combo microphone / headphone jack is also present as well as a standard size SD card reader, and a HDMI 2.0 port capable of driving 4K at 60Hz. There is no ethernet port on this laptop due to its thin profile, so anyone that needs one, will have to settle with a adapter. Other things it has is a power button with built in led, hdd status led, volume rocker, and charging port also with a LED indicator.

 

Using the different modes features on this laptop with its 360 degrees geared hinge. Laptop mode was your standard laptop experience, nothing too special about it. Both Stand and Tent mode offers similar expereience, and is only useful when running programs or games that supports touch screen functionality. Out of the these 2 modes, tent mode is the better option, because the speakers and keyboard will not literally become the bottom based of the laptop and get covered up or scratched by the surface it's put on. Tablet mode with the windows ink is a neat feature, you get to walk around holding a unique pen, while writing on the screen, like you're at the forefront of technology. But this awesome status of yours, is short lived, due to the laptop's physical size and weight of 4.75 pounds, your arms will get tired really quick. Anyone that will need to use their laptop constantly in tablet mode for work or school, will have to look at those with less weight, and with a screen size of 13.3 inch or less. When transitioning from laptop to any other modes, you'll need to pay close attention to where you're holding it because, there is a great chance a program or important document can be accidentally closed off due to the laptop's thin bezel. Speakers by BANG & OLUFSEN sounds pretty good. The track pad is decent, click buttons is a bit on loud side, and battery life is average. At 100% charge, using it for web browsing and other non intensive task, it last about 5 to 6 hours. Charging it back up to near full capacity takes around 1 hour or so, with the use of their built in HP fast charge. One feature that wasn't stated on their site or product page is whether the battery has their built in Smart technology, which stops charging once the battery reaches full capacity, to prevent from over charging and reducing the battery's life span, and to prevent from constantly plug and unplug the charger, increasing the chances of breaking it. They do have a web page with a explanation on this technology, but doesn't specify which models supports this feature. On some of the competing laptop vendors, it comes with a windows utility that let's you know for sure, if you have this feature not, and can also be disable for those that don't want to use it. Upgrading components on this laptop can be accessed by opening up the bottom panel cover, where it reveals the internal components. But the amount of user accessible upgrade is extremely limited. The only components that can be swapped out are the storage drives and battery. All other components will require further disassembly of the laptop just to reach them. To save yourself from this hassle, just go with the highest specs you can get, within your price range.

 

At stock configuration, this specific HP Envy x360 is equipped with a Intel 8th gen Core i5 based on the Kaby Lake-R architecture, with Intel HD graphics, a total of 8GB DDR4 2400MHz, 1TB HDD @7200rpm, and Windows 10 Home Edition 64bit. Benchmark and performance results is perform on a customize version of this laptop, that has a Intel 8th gen Core i5 4C/8T @1.6GHz with Intel HD graphics + Nvidia MX150 graphics with dedicated 4GB of GDDR5 vram. Intel 120GB SATA SSD, and Windows 10 Professional 64bit. All other specification is exactly the same as the stock configuration. Because of the limited capacity of the SSD, all games are running off the external 1TB HDD and everything else is running off the SSD. All are running at stock settings, since there is no overclocking on this laptop.

First up on the list is Cinebench R15, a popular cpu benchmark, to see how well the cpu performs

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Next up are some synthetic benchmarks. The benchmark settings are as follows
3DMark Fire Strike for High Performance PC at 1920x1080, DirectX 11
3DMark Time Spy Extreme at 2560x1440, DirectX 12
Unigine Valley at 1920x1080 High settings, DirectX 11
Unigine Superpositon at 1920x1080 Medium settings, DirectX mode

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Here is PCMark8

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Next up LuxMark

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Time for some gaming benchmarks. Numbers are in Frames Per Second (FPS). Some games are frame capped and those without mentioning of what quality its running at, means those games don't offer those settings.

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Now for some real world benchmarks

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Temperature

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HP Envy x360 BP series

 

 

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Pen for Windows Ink

 

 

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Cover showing their new HP logo

 

 

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Left side: HDMI 2.0, USB 3.1 Gen 1 type A, Power button with built in LED, combo mic/headphone jack, and HDD status led

 

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Right side: charging port with led indicator, USB 3.1 Gen 1 type A, volume rocker, USB 3.1 Gen 1 type C, SD card slot. Both USB ports here supports sleep and charge

 

 

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Bottom of the laptop, intake/ventilation perforated cut outs in the center and exhaust vents in the rear

 

 

 

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Inside of the laptop, after opening the bottom cover. From here we can see on the left is the M.2 slot for NVMe PCIe SSDs. Bottom left is the place for 2.5" HDD or SSD and next to that is the battery. The cpu and gpu is connected with a single copper heatpipe that is cooled by a single exhaust fan. Memory is not shown here because with the 8GB it has, 4GB is onboard with another 4GB as a single DDR4 ram stick. Maximum for this model is 12GB, unless that single slot can support a single stick 16GB.  and the ram slot is on other side of the motherboard.  A 2x2 wifi card that can be seen poking out next the left speaker. Anyone planning on getting one, then select SSD+HDD combo or just the HDD so it comes with the proprietary SATA ribbon cable and 2.5" rubber drive frame, because there could be a chance these parts may not be included for those that only select the M.2 SSD. The M.2 stand off and screw can easily be found on Amazon.

 

 

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Keyboard

 

 

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Keyboard with custom cover made for Envy x360 BP series. There are plenty of others for other laptop models on Amazon

 

 

 

 

Price starts out at msrp of $720 dollars for the AMD FX platform and Intel 8th gen stock configuration is just $10 dollars more, starting at $730 dollars. The pen cost $60 dollars for models that does not come included. Some models can be customized by selecting the list of parts that can be choose from. There are different series these laptops, so pay close attention to the model you want, because the physical appearance and design are different from one another. HP Envy line of laptop has always been about having premium quality parts without breaking the bank, and the HP Envy x360 seems to have meet this goal, by giving users a premium looking laptop, with a reasonable price tag. So if your out there currently look for a laptop, then consider checking out the HP Envy x360.

Note: This review has no association or is a sponsor from Hewlett Packard, HP. The laptop is a personal purchase.

 

HP Envy X360 Official site

http://www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/envyx360/overview.html

 

Buy HP Envy x360

http://store.hp.com/us/en/mdp/laptops/envy-x360-344518--1?jumpid=cp__us/en/psg/envy_x360/hero-shop-now#!&Tab=vao

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2/144-3173301-9114769?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=HP+envy+x360

 

 

 

TLDR version

• Specs: Intel 8th gen Core i5 8250U at 1.6GHz turbo 3.4GHz 4 cores / 8 threads
• Nvidia GeForce MX150 w/4GB GDDR5
• 8GB (1x4GB+4GB onboard) DDR4 2400MHz
• 1TB HDD swapped out with a Intel 120GB SSD
• 15.6" 10 point touch micro edge to edge display
• FHD IR camera for Windows Hello
• Bundle accessories HP Pen and Laptop protective sleeve (during the promotion period)
• 90w charger with Nvidia graphics /45w charger with onboard Intel graphics
• Performance is pretty good, can play some games like GTA V and Crysis 3.
• Battery life is average around 5-6 hours
• The different mode are cool. Tablet mode is nice, but weight of laptop makes it heavy really quick.
• Pen is awesome, lets you write on the screen as if you're actually writing on a piece of paper
• Speaker sounds nice
• Display has good viewing angles
• Really good build quality

[genexis_x]

Nice review. May I know what's the CPU clock under long period heavy load and also gaming? 

[NumLock21]

11 hours ago, ZM Fong said:

Nice review. May I know what's the CPU clock under long period heavy load and also gaming? 

Clock speed is around 3 to 3.4GHz during heavy load. CPU tops out at 3.4GHz.

[genexis_x]

2 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Clock speed is around 3 to 3.4GHz during heavy load. CPU tops out at 3.4GHz.

That's interesting...I saw online reviews saying that it only runs around 2.3 GHz under long heavy load

 

3.4GHz while gaming? That's impressive

[NumLock21]

Just now, ZM Fong said:

That's interesting...I saw online reviews saying that it only runs around 2.3 GHz under long heavy load

 

3.4GHz while gaming? That's impressive

Nope, runs at 3.4GHz, which is the max turbo for this cpu.

[genexis_x]

3 minutes ago, NumLock21 said:

Nope, runs at 3.4GHz, which is the max turbo for this cpu.

Great. Now I can tell other ppl that you can game on a laptop with Kaby Lake R ULV CPU without losing clock speed and performance.

[NumLock21]

2 hours ago, ZM Fong said:

Great. Now I can tell other ppl that you can game on a laptop with Kaby Lake R ULV CPU without losing clock speed and performance.

It's a KB-R/U not KB-R/ULV. How long is considered at "long heavy load / gaming"? I ran GTA V for 1.5 hours and cpu usage was around 70% majority of the time. Did a Aida64 stress test, and it seems what you read is correct, the cpu tops out at 2.2 to 2.4GHz, at 100% load. 1 hour has passed, so far no thermal throttling and it's at a steady 60C.

The cpu paired with a decent gpu can play games on it.

[genexis_x]

On 10/15/2017 at 4:49 AM, NumLock21 said:

a steady 60C

Wow. Much better than I expect.
Even full turbo speed in games. Kaby Lake R really impresses me.