It’s been uncommon to find an AMD chip in a premium option (in the vein of Lenovo’s Thinkpad Carbon, the HP Spectre, or Acer’s Swift 5). AMD processors have mostly been fodder for budget and midrange laptops for the past few years.

It’s not just the Envy’s chip that stands out it’s the combination of the chip and the chassis.

Throughout my everyday browsing and streaming, as well as my fairly heavy load of office work that includes around a dozen apps and Chrome tabs with occasional downloads, Zoom calls, editing photos, and copying files, everything was smooth with no sign of slowdown. The six-core 4500U is intended to compete with Intel’s U-series Core i5, but its performance is comparable to that of an i7. (It’s also equipped with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.) My $799 review unit has the Ryzen 5-4500U, along with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. The new Envy can come with a few different AMD Ryzen 4000 chips. Not only does the 2020 Envy x360 look as nice and perform as well as last year’s Spectre x360 (which starts at $1,099), but using it also feels quite similar to using HP’s $1,500 Elite Dragonfly, one of the best business notebooks on the market.Ī big part of that is its processor. It’s easily the best laptop under $1,000 that you can buy right now. This model, which starts at $699, really blurs the latter line. Traditionally, the Envy line has been HP’s midrange option it’s a rung above the budget Pavilion, but a rung below the flagship Spectre.

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