HP – ENVY x360 2-in-1 15.6″ Touch-Screen Laptop -AMD Ryzen 7 5825U – 12GB Memory – 512GB SSD – Nightfall Black

Context: I got this laptop to replace my old one as it was struggling to keep up with my activities and this laptop was on a crazy good sale for $699. I was a little hesitant in purchasing it as I’ve had friends whose hinges have broken on this model but ultimately decided it was worth a shot. When it arrived, there was a gaping hole in the back of the box/package, though that likely was shipping’s mistake rather than best buys. Thankfully, I could not find any signs of damage, but it’s possible my experience was minorly influenced by that. The laptop itself is pretty nice, especially for the price I got it at, but there were enough small problems with it that I ended up returning it.
Pros:
I like the color and sleekness of the design. It’s got a light sheen to it without getting too reflect-y. I haven’t noticed any glare on the screen and the color/saturation is pretty good as well. I’ve been happy with its brightness levels, as it can go several levels higher than on my old laptop. I love that the screen really maximizes its space. This is a 15.6 in but only slightly larger than my old 14 in. It’s not crazy light, but for the size and specs, it’s not too heavy. The laptop stands on its own pretty well when in an upside-down position and doesn’t try to close further while tapping the screen. I haven’t had any issues with the touchscreen as it responds well and doesn’t lag. The screen’s texture had a tiny bit of drag but I’d say is pretty good overall. Even though it needs the fan more than I’d like, I never had the computer heat up a ton which is very nice.
Cons:
After thoroughly examining it and not seeing any signs of damage, I messed around with the hinges a bit. They seemed sturdy enough but did have a little bounce when I open the laptop. It seemed to work fine in tablet and upside-down mode, and the light bounce didn’t really bother me but if you use the touchscreen while in regular laptop position, I could see it getting very annoying very quickly.
I was not particularly impressed with the design in general. The image makes it look like the speakers are on the sides of the keyboard area, but the sound definitely comes from the bottom. In general, the quality was not great and super muffled due to its location. I also noticed right off the bat that the touchpad and keys were pretty loud. This is something I hadn’t thought much about before, but this laptop’s definitely louder than my old one. The touchpad has just a tiny bit less glide than I’d like, but the light “thud” sound it made every time I tapped was definitely the bigger problem for me. My touchpad making sound is an indicator that I physically pushed the click area down rather than just tapping, so the constant tap sound here bothers me a lot. The keys are also a bit annoying. I appreciate having some sound when I press a key down, but I found myself getting distracted by the sounds from this keyboard.
Finally, and my biggest reason for returning, is that the capacity just wasn’t enough for me. I was coming from a Ryzen 5 3000 series with 8 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD, and no touchscreen/2-in-1. Considering the serious upgrade in each of those areas, I was expecting a much larger difference than I got. If I had over 20ish tabs open, the fan would start going and it didn’t take much more to start pushing my specs to their limits. In my task manager, my memory never dropped below 65% and it, my disc, and occasionally my CPU would often reach the 90-100% area. Considering that’s with mostly regular sites and I do digital art/light gaming, I was very unimpressed that it was already struggling before I’d even opened those. I’ll definitely be going for a 16gb instead to feel secure for my art/gaming, but I would also recommend that for any fellow tab hoarders out there, this computer isn’t really built for more than 15-20 tabs without starting to struggle a fair bit.
Overall:
4 stars since its problems are more annoyances than large fallacies. If you aren’t a gamer/digital artist/editor/tab hoarder/etc, I would guess this computer would do well for you. The keypad and touchpad might take some getting used to, but those could probably be adjusted to fairly quickly. The audio is definitely a drawback, but if you aren’t using it for music or things, it still is pretty understandable. Overall, definitely not the laptop for me, but I could see it being a great laptop for someone else.

Great laptop and very fast for school and work needs.