HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook review: fast, modern, helpful

There’s only one configuration of the Dragonfly Pro Chromebook, priced at $999 for a Core i5-1235U, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB PCIe SSD. It can be ordered in either black or white. That makes it an expensive Chromebook, but less than HP’s other enterprise-oriented versions.

HP’s new 24/7 Pro Live Support service provides either chat or phone support with a live agent. It’s free for the first year of ownership, and then $11 monthly for up to 36 months. Once you’ve established an HP account, you can simply click the support agent link in the HP Support Assistant app, select your specific laptop, and get support without the usual muss or fuss.

I had a question about how to turn on the RGB keyboard lighting, and so I used the service to get an answer. The process was simple and direct, and I had the instructions within five minutes of starting the chat. By the way, the process of turning on the backlighting is easy. Press and hold on the home screen, select Set wallpaper & style, and then the keyboard options will be toward the bottom. You can select no backlighting, white, a specified other color, or a rainbow effect.

This is a great service for anyone without an IT department who still wants someone in their corner to help resolve tech issues. While I didn’t fully test the service, I got enough of a feel to know that it’s a solid addition, and well worth consideration for the right customer.

As we always point out in our Chromebook reviews, ChromeOS doesn’t require nearly the resources of Windows 11 or MacOS. It’s a lightweight operating system built largely on web technologies, and as such, can get away with lesser components. The Dragonfly Pro Chromebooks use a 12th-gen Core i5-1235U, a 15-watt 10-core (two Performance and eight Efficient), 12-thread CPU running at a max Turbo Frequency of 4.4GHz. It’s a midrange CPU for Windows 11 machines but a high-end processor for ChromeOS.

Toss in the 16GB of RAM, a lot for a Chromebook, and the Dragonfly Pro Chromebook is among the speediest ChromeOS laptops we’ve reviewed. It’s the fastest we’ve tested in Geekbench 5 multi-core mode, and it took first place in the web-based Speedometer 2.0 test. I pushed the laptop hard, opening multiple tabs and running several Android apps in the background, and I suffered no slowdowns. Even Android games played well thanks to the Intel Iris Xe graphics (not that they were all comfortable to play in a clamshell). Asphalt 9 is my go-to test, and it was smooth and stutter-free.

Ultimately, you’ll find the Dragonfly Pro Chromebook to meet your most demanding workflows. There’s nothing ChromeOS can throw at the laptop that it can’t handle.

Battery life was less than the other Intel Core Chromebooks in our comparison group, and also less than most of the ARM-based Chromebooks. If your ChromeOS workflow is at all demanding, you’re unlikely to get a full day of work out of the machine.

The Dragonfly Pro Chromebook boasts a 14.0-inch 16:10 IPS display at 2560 x 1600, which is a sharp resolution for the display size. HP boasts up to 1,200 nits of brightness, which I can’t test because my colorimeter doesn’t support ChromeOS.

However, I found the display extremely pleasant to use during my testing. I don’t need such high brightness, but if I were to work in areas with a lot of ambient lighting (or outside), then certainly, that would come in handy. Colors were bright and natural, and blacks were true without fading to grey. It’s a great display for productivity or creative work and should please most users.

Audio was impressive, with tons of volume that completely filled my home office. There was no distortion at full volume, with clear mids and highs and a touch of bass. That’s thanks to four speakers, one on each side of the keyboard and two downward-firing. I wouldn’t need a pair of headphones or external speakers for streaming video or music, and overall I’d rate audio quality as a strength.

The webcam is an 8MP version, a first for a Chromebook, and it provides a clear, crisp image. HP worked closely with Google to optimize video quality in different lighting conditions, and videoconferencers will be pleased with the results.

The Dragonfly Pro Chromebook is incredibly fast, built as well as the best laptops around, and has several features that bring it in line with its Windows competitors. Not many ChromeOS machines have haptic touchpads and Thunderbolt 4, not to mention live 24/7 technical support that’s so easily accessible.

It’s expensive at $999, but it’s one of the best Chromebooks around and raises the platform to compete with Windows 11 and MacOS more directly. It’s still ChromeOS, so if that doesn’t work for you, then this isn’t your machine. But if you’re looking for a quality Chromebook that doesn’t compromise, the Dragonfly Pro Chromebook qualifies.

Editors’ Recommendations