HP Dragonfly Pro review: You better watch your back, Apple

Price When Reviewed

$1,399

Best Prices Today: HP Dragonfly Pro

We’ve all been there—chilling on the native café, minding our personal enterprise, when some hip distant employee is available in with a MacE-book Pro and begins working away. No judgement from me—I take advantage of Macs, Windows PCs, and Linux gadgets on the common. But since Apple went with its personal customized processors, these machines have confirmed onerous for the PC business to match. Not solely are the most recent MacBooks enticing, they boast stunning energy and unimaginable effectivity, too.

That’s why HP partnered with AMD to create the brand new HP Dragonfly Pro. This slim laptop computer packs the most recent Ryzen processor, with 8 high-performance cores and highly effective graphics, to tackle the Mac. While you’ll must determine for your self in case you’d moderately have this over a MacE-book, we discovered that that is a pc price contemplating.

HP Dragonfly Pro: Specs and options

Our evaluation unit got here with the next specs and options:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7736U (8 core, 16 threads)
• Memory: 16 GB LPDDR5 6400 MHz RAM soldered (as much as 32 GB accessible at buy)
• Graphics/GPU: AMD Radeon 680M (12 graphics cores)
• Display: 14-inch 1920×1200 16:10 IPS touchscreen, 400 nits  
• Storage: 512 GB PCIe NVMe stable state drive (soldered)
• Webcam: 5MP IR digicam
• Connectivity:  2x USB 4 Type-C (40 Gbps, Thunderbolt 3 appropriate), 1x USB-C 3.2 10 Gbps
• Networking: Qualcomm WCN685x with Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
• Biometrics: Windows Hello facial recognition and fingerprint reader
• Battery capability: 86Wh
• Dimensions: 12.4 W x 8.7 L x 0.7 H inches
• Weight: 3.33 kilos, 3.95 kilos with AC adapter
• Price as Reviewed: $1,399

HP Dragonfly Pro:: Design and construct high quality

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

If HP was focusing on Apple’s high quality, I’ve received at hand it to them—the Dragonfly Pro will get shut by most measures. This skinny laptop computer feels prime quality from the second you tear off its recycled paper protecting. Although you don’t get loads within the field, you get a high-powered 96 watt energy brick and a braided USB-C charging cable. The energy brick and laptop computer each sport the modern, angular HP emblem, which units them aside from lower-end laptops provided by the corporate.

The laptop computer by itself has a pleasant form, with high-quality supplies like polycarbonate and aluminum utilized in its building, a few of that are post-consumer recycled. The black shade I sampled has a slight fleck to its shade, lending it a spacy sheen in the correct gentle. That mentioned, it’s not shiny and the one parts that picked up any fingerprints have been on the keycaps and the glass touchpad floor. Underneath, you’ll discover a pair of raised rubber strips that barely raises the angle of the keyboard whereas giving the cooling vent ample entry to air. And, when underneath load, it’ll want all of the air it could actually get, because the followers spin up and could be simply heard, albeit with a constant whoosh and never an annoying whine.

HP Dragonfly Pro: Connectivity

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Like Apple, HP has taken a minimalist strategy to ports. If you do most of your work on-line, and depend on cloud storage, you gained’t be too irritated however for these of us who plug in a bunch of equipment and nonetheless use corded headphones might have a more durable time. 

The Dragonfly Pro at the least provides you the chance so as to add ports because of its set of two USB 4 ports. These are appropriate with the Thunderbolt 3 normal, and can allow you to connect excessive pace storage (as much as 40Gbps), docks, and quick chargers. These two ports are on the left aspect of the pc, with a small LED letting if the laptop computer remains to be taking in energy from the charger.

On the correct aspect is a single plain-old USB-C 3 port with considerably decrease bandwidth. With solely 10Gbps switch speeds, I’d say that is extra helpful for gradual equipment or as a devoted charging port. If I’m going to gripe concerning the connectivity right here it’s that even Apple has a headphone jack on its mainstream Mac laptops. That omission is irritating to say the least. The different factor I can’t perceive is why the third port has such downgraded throughput. Whenever Apple provides customers greater than two ports, it tends to present them an analogous baseline of efficiency. Here, you’ll have to select and select ports primarily based on their pace.

Wireless is what I’d anticipate from a 2023 premium PC, because of a chipset from Qualcomm. What you get is the most recent Wi-Fi 6E know-how, together with Bluetooth 5.2 in your headphones and different wi-fi peripherals. 

HP Dragonfly Pro: Keyboard and trackpad

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Like the HP Dragonfly G3 Folio I attempted not too long ago, the Dragonfly Pro offers a top-notch on-the-go typing and mousing expertise. The keyboard is a standout for me, with its comparatively gentle contact however intuitive snap that allows you to know simply if you’ve pressed a key. One key, subsequent to the ability button, homes the fingerprint reader, which some might choose for unlocking their machine. I discovered that I used to be capable of stand up and operating at nearly my regular typing consolation stage and pace inside a matter of hours…with one main caveat.

You see, this keyboard pitches up a slight curveball to these of you with ingrained typing habits—there are 4 particular keys assigned to HP providers alongside the correct aspect of the keyboard. What this implies is that the keys on the perimeters of the keyboard are typically narrower and the whole lot is squished in direction of the left aspect. Sometimes that meant that when reaching for backspace, I’d overreach and hit one in all these gray keys as a substitute. Unfortunately, these buttons can’t be remapped utilizing any of HP’s included utilities, and so they’re meant to level in direction of some subscription providers you’ll must pay for. We’ll get into these a bit later within the evaluation.

The easy glass touchpad was a pleasant shock. It has a haptic suggestions mechanism, like what you’d discover on an Apple laptop computer, utilizing a linear motor to simulate clicks. It feels actually nice to make use of, and also you’d be hard-pressed to inform it’s not truly clicking a mechanical button down. While the palm detection may use a bit enchancment, scooting the cursor across the interface and dragging information right here and there was no drawback in any respect.

HP Dragonfly Pro: Display, audio system, and webcam

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Unlike with many laptops I’ve tried in current months, I’m going to start out this part with the audio system. These audio system are tremendous spectacular! Everything I threw at them sounded unimaginable, from loud motion sequences in motion pictures to spoken content material, and even the grueling abuse of pingy, bleepy digital music. If you employ your laptop computer as your fundamental leisure system, the Dragonfly Pro’s quad speaker system can play absolutely anything and make it sound full of life with out distortion I may discover. Those upgrading from an older laptop computer to this HP Dragonfly—your ears are in for a deal with.

The show is sweet sufficient, however particularly if HP is aiming for the MacE-book Pro 14-inch, it might need a bit extra work to do. I discovered that the Dragonfly Pro has a excessive distinction, colourful, and particularly shiny 16:10 show with a peak brightness of round 400 nits. But this display screen is fastened at 60hz and doesn’t have any next-gen tech like mini LED for improved distinction, a lot much less larger refresh charges for gaming or simply making the interface look smoother. You get all this stuff with the high-end MacE-book Pro fashions. One factor to notice is that HP has opted for rounded corners on the LCD, which admittedly is a pleasant match for the rounder look of Windows 11.

The wider 16:10 display screen leaves room up high for a 5 megapixel webcam, two microphones, and an infrared sensor. That helps you to select to unlock your laptop computer with facial recognition, which stays one thing Apple hasn’t put into its laptops…ever. The webcam has a bunch of helpful options constructed into HP’s myHP app, which you’ll entry with a devoted key on the keyboard. Autoframing is completed moderately nicely right here and I discovered that my face was well-exposed and detailed even with this function turned on. Audio was about what I’d anticipate for a work-focused machine and also you’ll discover two noise discount settings (convention and private) which allow you to management how a lot background sounds get into your Teams or Zoom calls.

HP Dragonfly Pro: The help upsell

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

HP appears to be angling to show its laptops into extra of a subscription service because of the inclusion of one thing it calls Pro Live. Instead of taking your laptop right into a retailer for tech assist, you’re a keyboard button away from reaching a human both through voice or textual content chat. By making a single key ship you proper into the myHP app, it’s clear they need to get customers used to having that operate shut at hand.

So, the HP Dragonfly Pro provides each purchaser a 12 months of guarantee with Pro Live help included. For an added payment of $10.99 per 30 days, customers can lengthen their entry to stay help as much as 36 months and in addition add unintentional injury safety for as much as 1 alternative laptop per 12 months. I can see why somebody would discover this interesting (particularly a freelancer with out an IT division), but when I’m sincere, it’s onerous for me to think about cases the place I’d want immediate assist but in addition nonetheless have a pc that’s working nicely sufficient to run the help software program.

Personally, I’d moderately have a traditional keyboard format or the ability to remap these three keys to do one thing totally different than entry myHP settings and options. The one olive department HP has handed customers is the generic ellipse key, which is the one one you may program your self. Otherwise, the three keys on high of it—mapped to myHP’s management panel, help entry, and digicam settings—aren’t yours to change. 

HP Dragonfly Pro: Performance

If you want an overachieving Windows laptop computer in an unassuming physique, the HP Dragonfly Pro is all that. While we’d anticipate an Intel P-class chip in a machine of this type, HP has opted for the most recent cellular Ryzen 7736U from AMD as a substitute. Ryzen is a formidable drive in large desktop PCs, this HP manages to make use of the effectivity of this chip to nice profit. With its 8 cores and 16 threads (all of that are high-performance), together with robust embedded Radeon graphics, we discovered that it ran rings round related programs outfitted with 12th gen Intel and Xe Graphics.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

We benchmark each laptop computer with the PCMark 10 suite. This software program provides us an excellent baseline, utilizing on a regular basis duties to gauge a pc’s true efficiency. Due to its 8 highly effective cores, the HP Dragonfly Pro retains tempo with and beats competing Intel-based laptops which have 12 cores. Rest assured that this laptop computer, regardless of its skinny profile, packs in additional than sufficient energy for all types of duties.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

In this efficiency take a look at, we use Cinebench R15 to get a way for a way nicely all a laptop computer’s processors work collectively to render 3D graphics. In this take a look at, we discovered that the HP Dragonfly Pro acquitted itself very nicely, though not considerably surpassing the Intel-powered competitors. 

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

Although your typical Intel slim pocket book has better-than-ever graphics, AMD’s Radeon cores are nonetheless a minimize above. When operating the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark, the HP Dragonfly Pro confirmed off spectacular efficiency and not using a separate GPU chip, placing current Intel Xe Graphics take a look at outcomes to disgrace.

I received curious so I downloaded and performed Forza Horizon 4 and took it for a spin. I noticed constant 60 fps efficiency on medium settings, which different ultrabooks may solely want for. Gamers with day jobs—the HP Dragonfly Pro can simply as handily assist you finest Excel workbooks and your Steam library.

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

In our remaining efficiency chart, we use Handbrake and time how lengthy it takes to show an HD film right into a tablet-friendly file that’s closely compressed. The HP Dragonfly Pro was capable of spin up and sort out this problem quicker than many different skinny laptops in current reminiscence, taking far much less time than different high-quality notebooks just like the Surface Laptop 5 and its cousin, the HP Dragonfly Folio G3.

HP Dragonfly Pro: Battery life

IDG / Brendan Nystedt

If you’re anticipating battery life that’s world-beating from the HP Dragonfly Pro, you is perhaps a bit disillusioned. In our looping video battery life rundown, we measured a pair minutes wanting 10 hours of playback. When in comparison with related 13-inch ultraportable notebooks, it’s principally middle-of-the-pack.

But if you take a more in-depth take a look at that mid-pack, you notice that the Dragonfly Folio G3 and Surface Laptop 5 each run on lower-power U-class Intel chips. With that in thoughts, you’re getting an enormous enhance in computing and graphics efficiency whereas getting battery life aggressive with weaker machines. The HP Dragonfly Pro runs two hours longer than the performance-focused Dynabook Portege X40, which reveals how nicely balanced this AMD-powered pocket book is.

HP Dragonfly Pro: Conclusion

It’s been some time since I noticed a pc I examined that I’d truly need to personal, however I’d say that the HP Dragonfly Pro checks off many of the bins for this freelancer. It feels good to make use of, is zippy and responsive, has nice audio system, and even has a comparatively sane worth. Although it’s an unorthodox selection to select AMD for this sort of machine, it’s clear that when Ryzen is given an opportunity to shine, it could actually kick numerous butt.

As as to if or not I’d take this over a MacE-book Pro 14 with the brand new M2 Pro chip, nicely, that’s a difficult query. Apple’s newest have unimaginable screens, a lot of ports, magnetic charging, and heaps of environment friendly energy besides. But these fashions additionally begin on the eyewatering worth of $2,000—$600 greater than this HP with pretty shut specs, too. If you don’t have a powerful choice for macOS, you’ll get numerous worth with the HP Dragonfly Pro. It’s environment friendly, long-lasting and, not like the Mac, can truly flex its muscular tissues and play video games throughout your downtime.