HP Envy x360 13: An affordable laptop with Ryzen 4000 and other perks

Credit: Gordon Mah Ung

HP Envy x360 13 Performance

For testing, we ran the Envy x360 13 using its out-of-box default setting of “HP recommended,” as well as the laptop’s Performance setting via the HP Command Center.

Our first test for the Ryzen 5 4500U is the CPU-focused Cinebench R15. It’s a test built on an older version of Maxon’s Cinema4D rendering engine and measures performance of a CPU rendering a 3D model. While 3D modelling on a 13.3-inch laptop isn’t what most people are doing, the test is a good stand-in for how well a laptop will perform at multi-threaded tasks.

The Ryzen 5 4500U is built on AMD’s game-changing Zen 2 cores and features six cores, but it doesn’t have Symmetrical Multi-Threading turned on. Based on the price of the Envy x360 13, you really should expect to get mid-range to budget performance. But the Envy x360 and its Ryzen 5 deliver better—basically premium performance that runs right up against Intel’s newest and most powerful 10th-gen chips.

In multi-core performance, only Intel’s 10th-gen Core i7-10710U, with its six cores and 12 threads, outruns the Ryzen 5 4500U. That mid-range Ryzen 5 even holds its own against the four-core, eight-thread Core i7-1065G7 found in so many premium laptops.

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While Cinebench R15 performance might be good way to represent how well a CPU can run highly multi-threaded tasks, most mainstream applications are single-threaded, so we run Cinebench R15 again using a single CPU thread. The single-threaded performance of the Envy x360 13 is solidly in the middle of the pack, but in real life it would be very hard to tell the difference.  

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Modern laptops are mostly limited by how well they manage heat. The less heat from the CPU or GPU (or ambient temperature), the higher and longer they can boost clock speeds and finish a task quickly. To simulate a heavier load we run the free utility HandBrake to encode a 30GB, 1080p file using the Android Tablet preset. Shorter times are better. 

While the performance preset hasn’t yielded great dividends with other laptops we’ve tested, when we tried it with the Envy 360 13 we saw a very decent 11-percent decrease in how long it takes to convert the file. We also see just how potent the cooler running Ryzen 5 4500U is: The only laptops in its class that outperform the Envy 13 x360 are the MSI Prestige 14 set to its performance setting, and the Acer Swift 3—no surprise given its 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 4700U CPU. (We include for reference Dell’s older and larger XPS 15 7590 laptop, though that’s really a different class of computer.)

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To get a feel for how it performs in mundane everyday tasks, we also run PCMark 8’s Work test, using the CPU rather than GPU acceleration. The Envy x360 13 gives up ground to the more premium laptops (plus Acer’s cheaper, yet gutsier, Swift 3) due to its lower clock speeds, but the results are so close that you probably can’t tell the difference. The lesson is that if all you do is sit in a browser, or work in Office while watching a Youtube stream in the background, then picking a laptop should probably focus more on screen, keyboard, trackpad, speakers and even color, rather than on the fancy CPU or GPU specs.

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Graphics Performance

For those who seek some graphics performance for light-duty games, we run UL’s 3DMark Sky Diver test. For the most part, the Ryzen 5 4500U delivers performance similar to that of Intel’s current premium 10th-gen Core i7-1065G7. In other words, a midrange chip that’s supposed to compete with a Core i5-1035G1 or Intel’s UHD graphics is punching above its weight class, delivering premium graphics performance at a mainstream price.

Battery Life

Our last test is likely the most important for anyone who buys this class of laptop: battery life. We charge the laptop's battery to full, set display brightness to 250 to 260 nits, enable airplane mode set, and plug in earbuds at midrange volume. Then we loop a 4K video file using Windows’ Movies & TV app, until the laptop shuts down.  

While the Envy x360 13’s 1-watt display surely helps battery life, the use of DDR4 memory probably doesn’t. A more advanced laptop might have LPDDR4X memory, which is more energy-efficient but also more expensive. The older DDR4 in the Envy x360 13 somewhat limits graphics performance, and it also consumes more power than LPDDR4X. 

The battery capacity is a fair 51 Watt-hours, and the Envy x360 13 gets a very respectable 10-plus hours of run time in our test. While that doesn’t touch the 14-hour range of its Intel-based rivals, it’s closer than AMD-based laptops have reached in prior generations. 

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Conclusion

The HP Envy x360 13 is one of only a handful of Ryzen 4000-based laptops we’ve reviewed, but it reinforces a sea change we’re seeing in performance available to consumers.

You are literally getting premium CPU and graphics performance that would typically cost you two to three hundred dollars more with an Intel CPU. For example, last year’s Intel-based Envy x360 13 with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage cost roughly the same $800 as this current Ryzen-based model, but the newer model far outstrips the older in CPU performance. You’re also getting a laptop that hits many right notes in fit and finish. It’s not perfect by far, but this is overall an impressive laptop at a great price.