HP Envy x360 15 review: affordable 2-in-1 laptop covers (most of) the creative basics
The HP Envy x360 15 is the bigger, younger sibling of the 13-inch HP Envy x360 we reviewed in late-2022. That one spent a good while on our guide to the best 2-in-1 laptops for creatives, so with this bigger model and newer components, surely it’s a shoo-in for our next update. Right?
We got a model in for testing to find out, and found that while the screen is as good as ever, and the 2-in-1 functionality is brilliant (even if it does feel bulky at this bigger size), the power fits a student laptop more than one for a professional with high-end requirements.
The HP Envy x360 15 is one of the biggest 2-in-1 laptops you’ll find when it comes to screen size, with a 15.6-inch OLED touchscreen display.
For a convertible laptop, it’s pretty huge, which is great if you want to use it as a tablet at home. The screen is beautiful and crystal clear, however, the point of a laptop is for it to be portable, and I found this fairly heavy and cumbersome to carry around. It didn’t fit in my compact laptop bag, requiring me to bring out the good ol’ rucksack when I had to travel with it. This is perhaps compounded by the fact that so many new laptops are coming in at just over a kilogram, so by comparison, 1.77kg feels like quite a lot now.
That said, if you need to be on the move for your work or studies and need a fair bit of power in something that can function as both a laptop and a tablet, this is a really great option. Just be mindful that while it will give you the ability to work on the go, it’s heavy and bulky to lug about.
The screen is a touchscreen, which is to be expected for a 2-in-1, and as it’s an OLED from HP, it’s very sharp and vivid, even though the resolution here tops out at a budget-level FHD
Features
The 2-in-1 functionality and the OLED touchscreen are the headline features on the HP Envy x360 15.
In tent mode, the screen can become a miniature ‘cinema screen’, and with the brightness and colour gamut on show here, any TV show or film was presented in vivid colours with deep true blacks. It can also function as a makeshift easel for drawing or artworking on the touchscreen.
I loved having the ability to flip the device into a tablet, it’s got a real sense of novelty and one that will be brilliant for creatives who do a lot of image editing and digital drawing.
But because it is so big, I also found it quite hard to use in that respect, because while it is stable enough to lean on and use a stylus in the triangular tent position, I was really conscious of leaning on it too hard.
Similarly, when it was in full tablet mode, I found that my hand or arm resting on the screen when I was drawing would interfere with the stylus, although some settings could possibly be adjusted to minimise the effect from accidental touch.
(Image credit: HP)
Benchmark scoring
Swipe to scroll horizontally
Geekbench 6:
CPU Multi-core:
GPU OpenCL:
Row 1 – Cell 0
7,428
12,452
Cinebench R23:
CPU Multi-core:
Row 2 – Cell 2
Row 3 – Cell 0
7,860
Row 3 – Cell 2
Handbrake:
Transcoding 10m34s 4K video to FHD:
Row 4 – Cell 2
Row 5 – Cell 0
9m20s
Row 5 – Cell 2
Performance
Sporting an Intel Core i5-1335U processor with Iris Xe graphics and only 8GB of RAM, this review unit actually has less power than the 13-inch variant we reviewed in late-2022. As it isn’t an ‘AI’ laptop, those specs and components will look rather old-fashioned in the rapidly moving tech space of next-gen laptops, but the upshot is that it can become a bit of a bargain prospect, thanks to the nice touchscreen and tablet functionalities.
That said, as creative pros at work, we found it to be rather slow compared to newer (and let’s face it, dearer) rivals. Performance benchmarking puts it squarely in the lower midrange of laptops, with decent CPU performance meaning it can handily carry any general work/student load, such as Office software, browsing and emailing, drawing apps and streaming.
However, the GPU is the now-near-obsolete Intel Iris Xe Graphics, an integrated Intel graphics chip that’s been eclipsed by the much more capable Intel Arc Graphics. This will deal with static images well enough (including light Photoshop work), but anything relating to rendering or 3D should be left to more powerful alternatives.
Price
The retail price for the HP Envy x360 15 is £999, but you can frequently find it discounted now, including a tempting offer for any student over Christmas, with it down to £699, a very competitive price for the spec.
Who is it for?
Students and hybrid workers looking for an affordable general-work laptop who like the touchscreen functionality and the tablet mode should be shortlisting this machine. If the big 15.6-inch screen is a bit much, or the OLED HD screen doesn’t have quite enough pixels for you, the HP Envy lineup has plenty of more compact alternatives, some of whom sport higher-resolution screens (albeit at a higher cost).
Buy it if…
You want an affordable 2-in-1
You like drawing on a tablet but also have a laptop
You don’t mind the limited screen resolution
Don’t buy it if…
You need to deal with any 3D, animation or heavy rendering work
