What Is It? – Thinner and lighter seem to be the two words all notebook makers are responding to, and HP is no exception. Their latest entry in this category is the HP Envy 13 Notebook, which comes in at only 12.9 mm thick (that’s about a half-inch) and under 3 pounds in weight. It has a 13.3 inch non-touch screen, which is either an FHD with 1080 resolution, or there’s an option to purchase with a higher resolution screen. This Envy model – there are others (more about that later) – has no Ethernet jack, so it’s wi-fi only. There are 3 USB ports, plus an HDMI port for video output, a headphone jack, and a slot for an SD card. My review model had a 6th Generation Intel i7 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and a 128 GB solid-state hard drive. It came as Windows 10 Home Edition, with a free year of 25 GB on Dropbox, plus other included apps. There’s a fingerprint reader and the audio is from Bang & Olufsen, a premium audio supplier.
Is It 50+ Friendly? – The screen is nice and bright; the keyboard is large enough and the keys comfortable to press. The touchpad is a nice size (about 4 inches wide by 2 inches high) and responsive to the usual navigation plus some gestures, such as pinching an image to change the size.
Frustration Factor? – I don’t know why HP made this nice little notebook without a touchscreen, other than to be able to offer it at a slightly lower price. But more frustrating is something I mentioned earlier. There are several different products from HP called the Envy 13. One is called a laptop, the others notebooks; sometimes they are listed with three USB3 ports, not the two USB2 and one USB3 on my review model. And there either is or isn’t a backlit keyboard. My model didn’t have one.
What all this means is that if you shop online or in a store for an HP Envy 13 Notebook, you will likely not get the same model as I have in front of me as I write this. HP – and they are not alone – has multiple models of the “same” named product, but with different product numbers (this one is “13-d023cl”) and different features (and I don’t just mean options such as a higher resolution screen, larger hard drive or different processor).
It becomes like buying some new cars and trying to compare dealer prices in their ads. In the small print, two cars with the same name have different model numbers, and therefore slightly different trim packages, and you can’t do an apples to apples comparison.
I get that computer models may be slightly changed for marketing, parts availability, and a whole host of reasons, but it doesn’t make shopping for them easy if those differences are not clearly explained.
Is It Worth The Money? – My rant aside, the HP Envy 13 is thin and lightweight, easy to use even without a touchscreen, and very portable. Some technical review sites have complained that the advertised 10 hour battery life is more like 7 hours with modest use, below average for thin notebooks. The overall performance is good and there are those nice B&O speakers. I can’t find my exact review model online, but HP’s online store shows the Envy 13 starting at $799. And here’s an Amazon model for $779.
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