Everyone wants a piece of the MacBook Pro, but HP’s new laptops throw caution to the wind to undercut Apple. The new Envy 15 sets its sights on content creators, sporting features like an eight-core 10th-gen Intel processor and a 4K OLED screen.
It’s a complete redesign of the 15-inch laptop, now featuring a silver all-aluminum chassis and smaller borders around then screen. HP says it now has an 83% screen-to-body ratio, but it still features a larger bottom bezel. On the keyboard deck, you’ll notice the expansive touchpad, upward-facing speakers, and a fingerprint reader located next to the left arrow key.
Envy 15
The base Envy 15 model has a 1080p screen, but HP was much more excited about its new
These are similar options to what companies like Dell and Razer offer.
In terms of performance, the Envy 15 comes with Intel’s new 10th-gen H-series processors, up to the eight-core Core i9. This chip should make the Envy 15 a powerful mobile video-editing machine. The Envy 15 also features up to an RTX 2060 graphics card, up to 32GB of RAM, and a terabyte of SSD storage. HP even includes an empty storage slot configured in RAID 0.
HP has redesigned the cooling system to allow for higher performance. Like many companies, the Envy 15 has moved to a vapor chamber system rather than a traditional heat-pipe design. HP says the result is 33% more processing power for the Envy 15.
On the laptop’s sides, HP has chosen to keep legacy ports around. This includes two USB-A ports, HDMI, and two Thunderbolt 3 ports. Again, this matches what is offered on
The Envy 15 weighs 4.7 pounds and measures at 0.73 inches thick.
The new laptop starts at $1,350, but you’ll need to pay extra from the more powerful,
The Envy 15 will be available starting in June at HP.com, but is also expected to be sold by retailers such as Costco, Amazon, Office Depot, and others.
HP brings AMD to the rest of the Envy lineup
HP has also updated the rest of the Envy lineup, including the Envy 13, Envy x360 13, and Envy x360 15. These other Envy
Interestingly, there’s a solid mix of Intel and AMD throughout, which spells good things for AMD’s Ryzen 4000 processors.
The Envy 13 is Intel-only, while the Envy x360 13 2-in-1 is AMD-only. The Envy x360 13 is a bit heavier, has a 360-degree hinge, and comes in a slick black finish. Despite its Ryzen 7 4700U eight-core processor, it starts at just $700. The Envy 13, meanwhile, starts at $1,000 with Intel’s quad-core Ice Lake processors. Other than that, the two
The Envy x360 15 includes options for either 10th-gen Intel H-series processors or Ryzen 4000H. Again, despite having more cores, HP will sell the AMD model at a $150 discount below the Intel variant. The AMD-powered Envy x360 15 starts at $700, while the Intel model starts at $850.
ZBook Studio and Create
HP also announced two new additions to its ZBook workstation lineup. The ZBook Studio and ZBook Create have been designed to more adequately compete with the
The most drastic changes are to the chassis, which now weighs less than 4 pounds and is just 0.69 inches thick. That makes these powerful workstations even smaller than the Envy 15 and the
The difference between the ZBook Create and ZBook Studio comes down to graphics. The Studio supports Quadro 5000 graphics with up to 16GB of VRAM, while the Create uses GeForce RTX graphics (up to RTX 2080 Super) with up to 8GB of VRAM. HP says the two graphics options are similar in performance on content creation tasks, while the Quadro graphics does better in CAD or engineering applications thanks to the extra VRAM. The GeForce RTX graphics, though, will be a bit better for gaming.
The result is a ton of performance. HP says the ZBook is seven times faster than the
Like previous ZBooks, these new workstations include options for other either Intel Core i9 or Intel Xeon processors.
To match the great speakers of the
Both the ZBook Studio and Create will be available in August 2020.