HP ENVY x360 15-EE0020AU

The HP ENVY x360 15-EE0020AU design are mostly marginal or superficial. The most notable change is that the front edge is rounder and it no longer meets at a sharp line unlike on the 2018 model. This approach makes the lid much easier to grip and open with a thumb. Accents are also slightly different around the rear and bottom panel. Otherwise, the system still looks and feels the same as before which is good since chassis rigidity has always been a strong point for the Envy  15 series. Applying pressure on the palm rests, keyboard center, or outer lid will depress their surfaces just slightly with almost no audible creaking. It is a laptop aimed toward the more professional, enterprise crowd, so it doesn’t take a whole lot of risks with its design. Still, the design is well-built with an aluminum alloy chassis that helps it feel sturdy.

Processor

The HP ENVY x360 15-EE0020AU is equipped with the AMD Ryzen 7 4700U is a processor for thin and light laptops based on the Renior architecture. The 4700U integrates all eight cores based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture. They are clocked at 2 (guaranteed base clock) to 4.1 GHz (Turbo). There is no support for the thread-doubling SMT tech. The chip is manufactured on the modern 7 nm TSMC process and partly thanks to it AMD advertises a 2x improved performance per Watt for the Renoir chips. Compared to the faster Ryzen 7 4800U, the 4700U offers slightly lower clock speeds and no support for SMT / Hyperthreading. Due to the missing SMT and slightly lower boost clock, the Ryzen 7 4700U should be a bit slower than the Ryzen 7 4800U . Therefore, it should still beat the Intel Core i7 1065G7 in multi-threaded loads easily. The single core performance should be similar (as the 4800U is 4% faster compared to the i7 in Cinebench R20 according to AMD). Therefore, the R7 4700U is one of the fastest 15W processors, if the cooling of the laptop is sufficient.

Display

The HP ENVY x360 15-EE0020AU 15.6-inch, 1080p FHD touch display produces images and video nicely with rich color saturation, delivering solid brightness and contrast. The HP Envy x360 has an average brightness of 338 nits, short of the 392-nit average. The Surface Pro 7+ was the group’s star with 358 nits, and the Latitude rounded us out with 260 nits. The touchscreen display is highly responsive and accurate, but it doesn’t come with a stylus

Keyboard

Key feedback and layout are the same as on the 2018 model down to even their secondary functions, but it would have been nice to see some improvements at least.

Touchpad

The Precision-enabled clickpad is once again 12 x 6 cm. Its uncommon 2:1 aspect ratio was designed to better match the 16:9 display, but in reality, vertical movements feel much more cramped when compared to most other laptops with squarer clickpads.  The 5 x 3.8-inch touchpad on the Envy is massive and does a great job of executing Window 10 gestures including three or four-fingered swipes and simple finger taps. The bottom corners of the touchpad are super clicky and responsive.

Ports

The HP ENVY x360 15-EE0020AU  arrives with a fair amount of ports for its size. You’ll find a USB-Type A port, an SD card slot, and an AC power port on the right. You can find another USB-A port, an HDMI port, a USB-C port, and a 3.5 audio jack on the left.

Audio

As for audio, the HP ENVY x360 15-EE0020AU speakers pack a decent punch, though they sound particularly crisp and you notice a big bass response. The laptop’s dual microphones are more of a standout, producing loud and clear audio for videoconferencing.

Battery

The HP ENVY x360 15-EE0020AU lasted 11 hours and 23 minutes during the Mag battery test, which consists of continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of brightness.

Verdict

The HP ENVY x360 15-EE0020AU has been stagnant during these past few years. Despite having changes to the chassis and processors, most of these updates are largely aesthetic and with minimal performance boosts, respectively. The HP convertible is still notable for its excellent build quality and rigidity. It’s definitely not very light, but that helps make it feel stronger and longer-lasting than the equivalents from Lenovo, Acer, or Asus. HP ENVY x360 15-EE0020AU is a solid choice that offers peppy performance and is handy for mobile professionals or college students who need something relatively lightweight.