Hp Laptop Buying Guide
HP makes some of our favorite laptops, but with so many models in its portfolio, it's difficult to determine which one to choose. From the premium Spectre line to the Omen gaming rigs, we've reviewed countless HP laptops. Below is a list of the best HP laptops in each category.
hp laptop buying guide
If you've settled on a business laptop, be sure to read our best HP EliteBook guide or our more general best business laptops rankings. Some of HP's best laptops are portable devices. For a broader selection, check out the best laptops around, along with which HP laptop is right for you. Want to see how well HP's customer service does? We've got you covered. HP makes a lot of great laptops, but we really like the Envy x360 and Envy 13. They might not be the best laptop in the lineup, but they offer the best value. If you can spend a bit more, the Spectre x360 13 and Spectre x360 14 are better laptops. Plus, business users who need more power should check out the Elite Dragonfly.CES 2023 is in full swing, and HP has announced a collection of laptops with the latest specs: from the HP Omen 17 with RTX 4090 power to a new HP Dragonfly G4 with 13th Gen Intel. We're even seeing the best gaming laptops of CES 2023 (so far). It appears HP will have a bundle of new best laptop contenders this year, so watch this site.
You won't believe the battery runtime on the HP Elite Dragonfly G3! According to our in-house testing, it lasted a whopping 14 hours and 20 minutes. A typical premium laptop lasts about 10 hours, so we were pleasantly surprised to see that the Elite Dragonfly G3 surpassed that threshold by more than four hours.
The HP Envy 13 is the best laptop for under $1,000 and one of the best 13-inch laptops on the market. While it still has a plastic touchpad, the Envy 13 is a fantastic value if you want the best laptop for less than four figures. What makes this such a great deal is its entirely aluminum design and the excellent 11th Gen Intel Core CPUs.
In our testing, we found that an Envy 13 with an Intel Core i5-1135G7 delivers fast performance for almost any task. This specific Envy costs just $900 and can outmuscle laptops that cost well over $1,000. Moreover, the Envy 13 has a bright, vivid 13.3-inch display and a comfortable keyboard.
The Spectre x360 14 is the best 2-in-1 laptop ever. Newly released for 2021, the 13.5-inch model builds upon its predecessors but adds useful new features including a 3:2 aspect ratio display and 11th Gen Intel CPUs with Iris Xe graphics. Highlights of this laptop include a stunning design, bright and vivid 1920 x 1280-pixel IPS and 3K2K OLED display options, epic 12+ hour battery life and fast overall performance.
Add to that a generously sized touchpad that is silky to the touch as well as a comfortable (albeit shallow) keyboard, excellent security options (fingerprint sensor and facial recognition) and a good selection of ports, and well, it's easy to see why we like this laptop so much.
We recommend buying the Spectre x360 14 over the Envy 13 if you have the money, especially if you need the flexible design. In fact, the Spectre x360 14 is the best HP laptop if you want a convertible notebook. Sure, it has a few faults, but those are easily forgotten once you get this beauty in your hands.
HP's EliteBook x360 1040 G7 is among the best business laptops money can buy. This stunning laptop has a gorgeous chassis that flaunts a flexible hinge, allowing the x360 1040 G7 to convert from a laptop into a tablet.
It's one of a few rare notebooks that seemingly has no downsides. Along with that stylus chassis, you get a bright and vivid 14-inch display. But the EliteBook x360 1040 G7's greatness doesn't stop there. The laptop also has a surprisingly comfortable keyboard, fast performance and a host of security features, including an IR camera, a fingerprint sensor and MIL-SPEC-810 rated durability. The 10th Gen Intel CPUs, while lacking graphical oomph, are powerful, and the battery lasts for longer than 11 hours on a charge.
It may not feel as premium as its pricier relatives, but the Pavilion Aero 13 is every bit as capable. Armed with AMD Ryzen chips, the Aero can compete in a performance battle against notebooks costing twice as much. But it isn't just about the raw power. Accompanying its capable engine is a bright and vivid 13.3-inch display, strong battery life, and a selection of ports you don't typically see nowadays. There are compromises, as is the case with any mainstream laptop, but they hardly seem worth mentioning given everything the Aero 13 brings at this price.Highlights of this notebook include fast performance from AMD Ryzen chips, a featherweight magnesium alloy chassis, and a bright and vivid 13.3-inch display. You even get a generous selection of ports and a fingerprint sensor for fast login. It hardly seems worth voicing my gripes, but a larger glass touchpad, an IR camera, and quad speakers top my list of "wants" for the next model. This makes the Aero 13 something of a coming of age for a long-running but overlooked laptop line. We can only hope future Pavilion laptops grow up to fulfill the potential shown by this standout notebook. See our full HP Pavilion Aero 13 review
The latest edition of the HP Spectre x360 13.5 easily earns our Editors' Choice badge due to it being the premium 2-in-1 laptop to beat. Its elegant, sturdy design, boasting a fine chrome diamond cut look, belongs on a runway.
There are also plenty of ports so you can ditch the dongles and top-firing speakers sound surprisingly good. Yes, the webcam isn't the best but that's nothing an external solution can't fix. Cheaper than most premium business laptops, the EliteBook 840 G5 comes with a 10th Intel Core i7 CPU, up to 64GB of RAM and up to a 1TB SSD.
As one of the top laptop brands, HP has a laptop for every occasion, from premium business laptops to budget-friendly Chromebooks. That extensive selection might make it tough to decide which laptop is right for you, so here's a handy guide to the various model lines offered by HP.
Elite Dragonfly: HP's new premium business laptop, the Elite Dragonfly series sports a stunning, premium design that's both durable and lightweight. Expect the latest, top-of-the-line features and components, along with a sky-high price to match.
EliteBook: HP's business laptops, with IT support, strong performance and premium designs. For better portability, the thin-and-light EliteBook Folio is the name to look for. If you go with this line, be sure to check out our 5 essential accessories for EliteBooks.
Pavilion: For a happy medium between the bland, budget-friendly "Notebook" line and HP's premium Envy laptops, look no further than the affordably-priced Pavilion. These mid-range laptops come in all shapes and sizes, but all offer decent performance with solid feature sets.
We put HP laptops through extensive benchmark testing -- both synthetic and real-world -- before they end up in the hands of our reviewers. We evaluate everything from speed and battery life to display brightness, speaker volume and system heat.
We use a Klein K10 colorimeter to detect the brightness and sRGB color gamut of a laptop's display. For performance benchmarking, we run the laptop through a gauntlet of benchmarks, including Geekbench 4.3 and 5.0 and 3DMark professional graphics tests.
To determine real-world performance, we task the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and to duplicate a 4.97GB multimedia file. Our real-world graphics test is the Dirt 3 benchmark with medium settings and 1080p resolution.
Before you decide which is the best HP laptop, you should establish what you need the laptop for. HP is a reliable brand, but each machine will have different strengths (and weaknesses) that could make all the difference to your experience.
The next step down would be the HP Envy range, which connects the professional and consumer markets. Featuring a number of x360 2-in-1 laptops, the Envy range is premium but with more accessible prices than the Spectres and Zbooks, as well as some impressive specs.
HP laptops span pretty much the entire range of price points, thanks to the wide range of different-spec laptops available. If you're on a tight budget, you can get HP entry-level laptops or HP Chromebook laptops for as low as 200/$250. Then you can work your way upward through the 130 or so models and variants available until you get to the beefiest HP Omen laptops, kitted out with all the processing power you'll need and the latest-generation graphics cards, which will set you back over 3,000/$2,500.
HP is one of the most experienced maker of laptops in the world, and has achieved that status on the back of making high-quality, reliable laptops for decades. HP is perhaps best known for its business laptops and computers, but with over 130 models available at the time of writing this, you can find anything from ultra-cheap laptops for school through everyday work and business models to creative powerhouses and specced-out gaming rigs capable of giving dedicated gaming brands a run for their money - if you know how to get the most out of them, that is.
I say that because HP is also known in recent years for downtuning its machines, in the name of battery life and durability. That means that creative professionals and gaming aficionados may sometimes find themselves a little disappointed with the top-level performance of HP laptops that they use. Thankfully, you can manually change those settings, if you know what you're doing, or alternatively take it to a computer expert who will do it for you. However, if you want optimum performance over battery life or long-term durability out of the box, you may need to add other brands to your shortlist.
The best HP laptops are well worth checking out, whether you want a reasonably priced device for casual use, a business-oriented device for work, or a full-on workstation for creative professional tasks such as 3D modelling and animation. Founded in 1939, Hewlett-Packard is a company associated with trust, reliability and quality. But its naming conventions aren't very illustrative or helpful, so it can be confusing to try and work out which is the right model for you. 041b061a72