HP Envy x360 14 review: OLED makes this compact 2-in-1 shine

While HP offers a handful of color options, most retailers will only have the Meteor Silver color — that’s par for the course with HP laptops. In years past, HP used the same silver color for the keyboard, which made the keys reflective and hard to read. The 2024 Envy x360 changes to a matte gray tone with large, crisp legends. The two-tone color looks nice when you open up the PC, and it’s easy to read. The backlit keys have good tactility, but the bottom-out is on the mushy side, which is more noticeable the closer you get to the edges.

The keyboard layout is typical of HP laptops, which means you get a power button right above backspace. I’m not sure why HP continues to do this. An errant press won’t trigger this key — you have to press for about a second, but backspace is one of the few keys I’m liable to mash throughout the day. Several times, I pressed what I thought was backspace only to realize I had just put the computer to sleep.

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

If you use Microsoft’s Copilot AI frequently and hate pressing more than one key, you’ll be happy to know there’s a Copilot key on the keyboard. It’s to the right of the spacebar, between the left alt and the right arrow. This is a little-used part of the keyboard, so it’s as good a place as any. AI fans will like having the dedicated button, and the rest of us can safely ignore it.

The trackpad is a bit larger than previous Envy machines, and it’s centered below the keyboard. The size makes scrolling and other gestures easy, and the click mechanism doesn’t make too much noise. It doesn’t have a glass cover like some premium laptops, but it’s still one of the better trackpads I’ve used on a mainstream laptop.

HP Envy x360 14: Display and audio

The HP Envy x360 14 offers a fantastic viewing experience with its 2880×1800 OLED screen. At 14 inches, the display is a good size for portability, and the 16:10 aspect ratio gives you a little more vertical space when scrolling through long web pages.

The OLED panel has the inky blacks and eye-catching colors I’d expect, and the resolution is higher than many laptops in this price range. Everything is sharp, and the viewing angles are excellent. The OLED is under a sheet of durable Gorilla Glass, which will help prevent scratches. However, the glass is extremely reflective. It’s fine in typical indoor lighting, but if you’re outside, the reflectiveness might be a bother.

The screen has solid peak brightness at 500 nits, which allows it to display HDR content. The HDR colors on this panel look super-vibrant — it really does make a noticeable difference compared to SDR content. However, HDR is only available when the laptop is plugged into power. Outside of HDR, the brightness peaks at a still-respectable 400 nits.

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

This is a touchscreen display, which you’d expect from a 2-in-1 convertible. Single and multitouch interactions work well (or at least as well as they ever do in Windows 11), and the Gorilla Glass panel is nice and smooth to swipe across. HP also includes support for pens using the MPP 2.0 standard, but it does not include one in the box. A compatible stylus will run you about $60.

Like most laptops, there are two down-firing speakers on the underside. They get impressively loud, but the sound is flat and distorted at higher volume levels.

The HP Envy x360 14 does not wow with raw speed. In fact, the benchmarks show it trailing behind machines with similar specs. As we’ve seen from other recent HP laptops, the default “Smart Sense” power mode keeps the machine cooler and quieter at the expense of performance.

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

PCMark 10 is designed to test a machine across a variety of metrics like web browsing, video chat, and photo editing. Here, we’re looking at the overall score. The Envy brings up the rear in this test, putting up a score more in line with the Core Ultra 5 CPU.

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Cinebench is a CPU-focused test that shows how a machine handles heavy but brief multi-core workloads. This is another test where the HP Envy x360 14’s default performance tuning knocks it back. Performance here is even lower than productivity-oriented laptops.

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

The Handbrake test is similar to Cinebench in that it shows how a computer handles multithreaded tasks, but this is a longer-duration test. We transcode a 35GB MKV file to a smaller format and time the process. Unsurprisingly, the Envy took substantially longer than comparable laptops, even some that should be less powerful.

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

While this isn’t a gaming laptop, the Core Ultra chips do have capable Arc integrated GPUs inside. However, HP’s default power mode has an impact here, as well. Based on this benchmark, even simpler games will struggle with the Envy’s Smart Sense power mode.

HP’s choice to make its default power mode so conservative is a little baffling. It definitely makes the machine quiet — even under sustained load, the fans are barely above a whisper. However, HP is leaving a lot of performance on the table. It’s the same situation PCWorld called out with the Spectre x360 14, which is an even more expensive laptop.

I ran the Envy x360 14 through its paces in Performance mode, and the benchmarks shot up by 15 to 20 percent. For instance, PCMark went from 5,405 to 6,201 with Performance mode enabled. That puts it in the same range as other laptops running the Core Ultra 7 CPU.

At the very least, HP’s laptops should switch to Performance mode when plugged in. As it currently stands, you have to manually change this in the myHP app. That’s not to be confused with the Omen Hub or HP Smart apps. In general, HP has too many pre-installed apps on this machine, including third-party stuff like McAfee and Booking.com.

HP Envy x360 14: Battery life

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

Ryan Whitwam / Foundry

In a refreshing change, the HP Envy x360 14 does well in our battery life test, which loops a 4K video on repeat until the machine dies. At about 13.5 hours, it’s slightly under HP’s battery life claims.

While Smart Sense impedes the above tests, it saves substantial power by slowing the CPU. In this mode, you’ll have no trouble making it through a full day of work and then some. Most of the comparable machines have much larger battery capacities than the HP Envy — for example, a whopping 71Wh in the Lenovo Yoga 7i versus 59Wh for the Envy. Yet, HP’s battery life is still very competitive due to the default performance tuning. If you want to unleash the full potential of the hardware, be aware your battery life will suffer.

Should you buy the HP Envy x360 14?

The HP Envy x360 14 is a good laptop for general use and productivity. It has a great trackpad, a serviceable keyboard, 16GB of RAM in the base model, Wi-Fi 7 support, and the inclusion of a webcam shutter is a thoughtful extra. I’m also impressed by the slim profile and long battery life. The gorgeous OLED display is the primary selling point for this machine, though. It’s rare to see such a good screen on a laptop priced at just over $1,000. It’s not all good news, though.

HP’s default power mode cuts performance noticeably, and you have to manually change that setting every time you need more power. That will cut into the strong battery life. It would also be nice if HP could reduce the number of pre-installed apps, possibly by centralizing all its settings in a single app instead of three.

Still, this machine is worth considering if you need a compact, capable 2-in-1 laptop.