For a very long time for those who wished a enterprise laptop computer you needed to both select an unpleasant machine full of options or a trendy pocket book that skimped on practicalities, however the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 tries to stability each.
From an aesthetic standpoint the G3 is immediately spectacular – it is hewn from magnesium and aluminum alloy and it is coated in stylish touches. And on the within, HP’s newest deploys a 3:2 show, a brand new Intel Core i7 processor and loads of security measures.
There’s a renewed give attention to house and hybrid working with this pocket book, too, which isn’t any shock. In sensible phrases meaning patrons get a top-notch 5MP webcam with noise cancellation and face monitoring to impress on video calls.
You’ll must pay round $2,000 to get your fingers on this spectacular, versatile pocket book, although, and that is not low cost – different machines with aggressive specs are sometimes far cheaper.
Features and Design
The Dragonfly G3 is a great-looking laptop computer. The aluminum and magnesium alloy on the skin is available in a slate blue shade that is not far faraway from a deep gunmetal gray, and 90% of the steel within the casing is recycled – a boon for anybody who needs their tech to return with a facet of environmental know-how.
Below the keyboard there’s sensible, indented Dragonfly lettering, and above the typing gear there is a refined speaker grille. The edges are curved, the modern HP brand on the lid glows with a chrome-effect end, and the show’s bezels are very slim. The laptop computer opens to a 180-degree angle, which aids collaborative working and viewing – though the Dragonfly G3’s kind issue does set it aside from the previous G2, which was absolutely convertible.
Happily, this pocket book is not nearly beauty. There’s solely a tiny little bit of flex within the base and display, which is to be anticipated in a small, slim laptop computer, and it is higher right here than many contemporaries. We don’t have any qualms about its capability to outlive in the true world – the Dragonfly’s MIL-STD-810H testing ensures that it will face up to drops, temperature modifications, liquid and mud ingress and different excessive eventualities.
HP’s sturdy construct is all of the extra notable when you think about that this laptop computer weighs 2.49 kilos and it is solely 16mm thick. The slim design means you may barely discover the Dragonfly in your bag, and the sturdy exterior ensures it’s going to survive frequent journeys between the house and workplace.
The Dragonfly’s dimensions stay spectacular after a go searching the remainder of the market. The newest Dell XPS 13 Plus is a bit slimmer however a tad heavier – similar to the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 if you embody its keyboard. The Apple MacBook Pro 13 weighs extra. Only the forthcoming Asus ZenE-book S 13 OLED is much less cumbersome, with a 14.9mm physique and a pair of.43-pound physique. HP’s laptop computer competes on the scales and, whereas appears to be like are subjective, the darker HP holds its personal in opposition to any of these rivals.
Even the ability brick appears to be like higher than the connectors you may get with different machines due to a braided monochrome cable that’s pleasingly compact.
HP’s machine has two Thunderbolt 4 ports, with one on both sides of the chassis, and on the right-hand edge you may discover a USB 3.2 Gen 1 socket with a drop-down cowl, an audio jack and a Kensington lock connector. The left-hand margin deploys an HDMI 2.0 output, and one of many Thunderbolt ports delivers 65W of exterior charging energy.
On the within, dual-band 802.11ax wi-fi and Bluetooth 5.2 present connectivity; elsewhere, the HP has a fingerprint reader within the energy button. Security choices proceed, with TPM 2.0 and HP’s personal Wolf system, which protects the BIOS, eliminates malware and consists of nice system administration and restoration choices. The Dragonfly additionally helps the Tile app, which may observe the G3 and different units with Tile tags connected, like baggage or wallets.
Only a few options are lacking. You do not get Intel vPro on this Core i7-1255U mannequin, however it’s accessible with completely different processors for those who configure the laptop computer your self – together with the i7-1265U. There’s additionally no card reader.
Input, Camera, Build Quality
And then there’s the webcam. The 5MP (2,560 x 1,920 pixels) decision means you get crisper, sharper photos than on the overwhelming majority of different laptop computer shooters – no marvel when you think about that the Dell and Apple machines each have 720p lenses.
The digicam is not simply detailed, colours are correct with out changing into oversaturated, face monitoring is spectacular, and it helps Windows Hello sign-in. The solely issues that did not work nicely had been the looks filters, which had been unsubtle and worsening. If you desire a laptop computer with extra imaging gear, your solely choice is the Surface, which pairs a 5MP webcam with a 10MP rear-facing digicam.
HP has accomplished an amazing job with the Dragonfly’s keyboard. The buttons strike an excellent stability between the crispness wanted for quick typing and the softness that retains issues snug for complete work days. The satisfying keys are quiet and fast, too.
The structure is okay, with a double-height Return key and huge Space bar, however not excellent – the ability button is annoyingly put in subsequent to the Delete key, and different HP enterprise laptops have an additional column of keys to carry the Home, PgUp and PgDn keys – and there isn’t any signal of that right here. There’s no quantity pad, however that is virtually a given on a small laptop computer.
The trackpad is nice, too. It’s giant, makes use of haptic {hardware} to register quick, correct clicks, and helps gestures.
Display Performance
There’s tons to love concerning the show. The Dragonfly’s panel has a 13.5″ diagonal and a facet ratio of three:2, which makes it taller than typical 16:9 or 16:10 screens. That’s sensible design: it means you get extra vertical house than on most different pocket book shows, making it simpler to view extra element in paperwork and internet browsers. For productiveness, that is helpful.
The panel’s most brightness degree of 775cd/m2 is fairly good and sits alongside a black level of 0.31cd/m2 to create a distinction ratio of two,500:1. Those are improbable figures, and their real-world affect is fast: the Dragonfly has unbelievable low-end depth and high-end punch, there’s loads of nuance between completely different shades, and all the things appears to be like impressively vibrant. You will not get this type of efficiency elsewhere until you purchase an OLED pocket book.
The Dragonfly’s delta E of 1.77 is nice and the colour temperature of 6,332K is equally spectacular – your eyes merely will not detect any accuracy points. The HP’s panel renders 99% of the sRGB shade gamut at 105.3%, so it may show each shade wanted by mainstream workloads with out veering into the oversaturation that top quantity figures can generally trigger.
Those nice benchmark outcomes imply the HP works nicely in all kinds of conditions. It’s vibrant sufficient for indoor and outside use and has the vibrancy to make media look improbable. Its colours are correct to do a fantastic job with mainstream content material creation like mild photograph modifying, and your on a regular basis searching will look daring.
The audio system do an amazing job by producing loud, well-balanced and detailed audio – simply ok for music and media and simply the match of any rival.
The Dragonfly G3’s show additionally has the HP Sure View privateness filter, which works very nicely – press F2 and folks on both facet of you merely will not see the show. The solely draw back here’s a slight lack of brightness.
Sadly, although, the HP’s show cannot transcend these on a regular basis work and artistic conditions. It solely produced 72.7% of the Adobe RGB shade house and 74.9% of the DCI-P3 gamut, which is not excessive sufficient to work in both shade house.
And whereas the HP’s decision of 1,920 x 1,280 is nice for on a regular basis workloads, the Dell is obtainable with the next decision for those who pay extra and the Apple, Asus, and Microsoft machines present larger resolutions out of the field – and the previous two have wider gamuts. Those are extra appropriate in order for you a sharper show for artistic work.
Performance
The HP Elite Dragonfly G3 could be configured with a variety of completely different CPUs, however our assessment pattern arrived with a Core i7-1255U – one of many first chips we have seen from Intel’s new wave of low-power laptop computer CPUs.
The i7-1255U has a base energy restrict of simply 15W and may enhance to 55W, and it is designed to interchange acquainted components just like the Core i7-1165G7. This processor has two P-cores with hyper-threading alongside eight single-threaded E-cores. The P-Cores have base and enhance speeds of 1.7GHz and 4.7GHz, whereas the modest E-Cores run at 1.2GHz and three.5GHz.
The i7-1255U has Intel Iris Xe graphics with 96 execution models with a peak pace of 1250MHz, and the chip has 12MB of L3 cache.
That’s a decent specification for a low-power CPU, however this is among the weaker components from the brand new vary. The i7-1260P, as an illustration, has 4 P-cores, a slightly sooner GPU and extra L3 cache with TDPs of 28W and 64W. AMD’s Ryzen 7 6800U is one other low-power contender due to eight multi-threaded Zen 3+ cores and a 2.7GHz base clock. If you want extra details about the i7-1260P and 6800U, we have already taken a deep dive into these components.
The new CPU sits alongside 16GB of DDR5 reminiscence and a 512GB WD SN530 SSD with mediocre learn and write speeds of two,436 MB/s and 1,818 MB/s. Those SSD outcomes are ok to maintain the Dragonfly feeling responsive, however they’re unimpressive within the general scope of issues.
In Cinebench R23’s single- and multi-core benchmarks the Dragonfly scored 1,552 and 5,796. Those are affordable figures: each simply beat the i7-1165G7 used within the Surface Pro 8, they usually’re quick sufficient to allow slick on a regular basis computing, a great deal of browser tabs and a few mild photo-editing.
The i7-1260P although is much sooner, particularly within the multi-core run. The AMD Ryzen 7 6800U is miles higher in multi-core checks, too. The low-power i7-1255U could not achieve floor elsewhere. In the PCMark 10 Application take a look at the i7-1255U scored 10,803, which beat the older Intel chips and AMD’s new silicon however falls behind the i7-1260P.
Single-threaded tempo is Intel’s conventional stronghold, however the i7-1255U’s Excel results of 15.417s can not compete in opposition to the aforementioned CPUs.
These outcomes aren’t any shock contemplating the i7-1255U’s modest specification, and it is not all unhealthy information – there’s nonetheless sufficient energy right here for on a regular basis duties. For more difficult apps and core-heavy duties, although, this chip is not ok – you may discover extra capability from beefier Intel CPUs, the MacBook Pro’s M2 and the AMD Ryzen 7 6800U.
Stress-testing reveals that the CPU’s P-cores peaked at 2.1GHz in an all-core benchmark and three.1GHz in a single-core take a look at – speeds which might be a way in need of what the CPU can theoretically obtain. It’s commonplace for slender laptops to exhibit throttling and the i7-1255U ran at extra acceptable clocks when the chip wasn’t dealing with constant, high-end workloads, however it’s extra proof that the Dragonfly is better-suited to on a regular basis duties and bursts of exercise reasonably than something strenuous.
This isn’t the laptop computer to purchase if you wish to take pleasure in some after-hours gaming, both. In Rainbow Six Siege the Iris Xe core contained in the Dragonfly delivered a mean of 49 fps – a consequence that is corresponding to different Intel CPUs however miles behind the RDNA2 core inside the brand new AMD Ryzen 7 6800U. The sample repeated in Gears 5, the place the i7-1255U returned an underwhelming common of 24 fps.
The restricted CPU does imply the Dragonfly delivers good thermal efficiency. You’ll solely hear fan noise for those who put your ear proper as much as the casing – and, even then, it is extraordinarily quiet. The steel above the keyboard and on the underside will get a bit heat with extended CPU utilization, however the temperatures are by no means a difficulty.
It helps with battery life, too. In PCMark 10’s Applications battery life benchmark with Wi-Fi enabled and the show at 200 nits the HP lasted for 14 hours and 26 minutes. The HP nonetheless lasted for 9 hours and 40 minutes with the show at most brightness, and people outcomes improved additional (by as a lot as 90 further minutes) when the Dragonfly ran less-demanding workloads.
It’s good longevity, and you will all the time make it by a full workday with this pocket book – and in most conditions it’s going to deal with the commute, too. This battery life will possible evaluate nicely to different machines, too.
Wrap Up
In the context of Windows ultraportables, the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 provides higher battery life than most machines, and the HP impresses elsewhere. It’s acquired a lot of sensible enterprise options inside a svelte, good wanting, and sturdy enclosure. The 3:2 show provides good vertical house, unbelievable distinction and correct sRGB colours.
The keyboard is intuitive, the audio system are nice, and the 5MP webcam is crisp and versatile. And whereas that Intel CPU cannot sustain with different chips, it is nonetheless acquired the ability for on a regular basis computing.
For all of that, although, your beginning worth hovers round $2,000 for a Core i5 mannequin or an additional $200 for a Core i7 (each with 16GB RAM, 512GB NVMe SSD). Using HP’s on-line configuration instrument to chop the spec down the laptop computer will value a minimum of $1,914 for the entry-level mannequin that makes use of a Core i5 processor and omits the super-bright display and bigger SSD.
The configuration instrument permits customers to deploy processors with vPro, NFC modules, cellular broadband and a variety of equipment and prolonged warranties, however all of them increase the value.
That worth is an issue. If you wish to replicate the specification of the HP we have reviewed on a Dell XPS 13 Plus it’s going to value you $1,549 and solely $1,849 with an OLED or 4K show. The MacBook Pro 13 prices $1,699 with 16GB of reminiscence. The Surface Pro 8 sits at $1,599 with an equal specification, and the Asus ZenE-book ought to land at $1,500 or much less.
If you just like the sound of the HP Elite Dragonfly G3’s vary of options, its light-weight design, the three:2 show, or the spectacular battery life then this machine justifies the value – and whereas it falls behind in some areas, it has no large weaknesses. But if these features aren’t important for you, we would store round earlier than making a shopping for determination.
