HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook: Impressive, Flawed, Expensive Leave a comment

HP might make one other vary named “Envy,” but it surely’s the Elite Dragonfly that actually invokes the green-eyed monster. It’s a tool with a hefty price ticket that’s made for enterprise customers however has options to draw anybody in search of a skinny, mild, high-end productiveness laptop computer. 

At CES 2023, HP revealed that the Dragonfly identify would lastly be bestowed upon shopper fashions, with a brand new Dragonfly Pro and Dragonfly Pro Chromebook. But earlier than that occurs later this 12 months, there’s the matter of HP’s ChromeOS-flavored addition to the present enterprise vary.

This is without doubt one of the best Chromebooks you should buy—brace for a screeching handbrake of a caveat—if you may abdomen the hefty worth. You’ll be getting a classy, light-weight, and pleasant productiveness laptop computer, however with just a few flaws. It’s an achievement in {hardware} that falls foul of perfection. Here’s why.

Sparks Fly

Writing, looking, and planning are a pleasure on the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook. There are few gadgets in the marketplace that welcome you into productiveness fairly like this one—not the brand new Dell XPS 13 (6/10, WIRED Recommends), nor HP’s luxe shopper Spectre x360 14, which options in our best laptops information. 

The Intel Core i5-1245U vPro, 8-GB RAM, and 256-GB SSD configuration had no bother munching by means of 20+ tabs. The keyboard performs a giant half, with a strong quantity of journey and a pleasingly mild crunch of suggestions. Appropriately, the evaluation you are studying now could be being written on stated laptop computer, and getting phrases on the web page as speedily as that is blissful. 

Unfortunately, two factors let the productiveness bundle down. The haptic trackpad simulates an unsatisfying “click,” although it’s correct and well-sized. And below extra intensive productiveness workloads, the battery life solely manages round 6 hours. Your mileage might range, because it did all through my testing, typically managing nearer to eight hours on much less hectic days.

The 3:2 show boosts productiveness additional, with the squarer show including extra display actual property in your essays, net pages, spreadsheets, and extra. The picture high quality is a tad underwhelming, particularly for a $1,000-plus machine. No actual complaints, however you’ll discover higher panels on gadgets cheaper than this, with OLED changing into extra frequent on sub-$1,000 laptops. Anti-glare is an non-obligatory add-on and is sorely wanted, because it’s fairly the reflective show. 

So what of the enterprise focus of the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook? On prime of the Intel vPro processor, which allows simpler and deeper gadget administration, in addition to an added safety layer, there are just a few extra touted inclusions. There’s a bodily privateness shutter for the webcam, which you’ll discover on some non-business-focused laptops, and the choice so as to add an HP Sure View show. My evaluation mannequin didn’t characteristic this tech, however I’ve tried it earlier than and it’s at all times labored as marketed—a toggle-able characteristic that stops onlookers to your left and proper from seeing what’s in your display. A neat trick. The webcam itself gives an in depth picture, and the microphone delivers respectable audio. Neither is jaw-dropping, however you’ll get no complaints from colleagues. 

Luxe Looks

This Chromebook is without doubt one of the costliest you should buy, so that you’re nicely inside your rights to anticipate a style of the nice life. Fortunately, the design lives as much as this. It’s gloriously skinny and remarkably light-weight. The pleasure of engaged on this each day, transferring this mild machine deftly from dwelling to desk and wherever else you go alongside the best way, is palpable. The magnesium and aluminum hybrid isn’t fairly as flashy as a MacBook or Dell XPS 13 Plus (7/10, WIRED Recommends), but it surely nonetheless soars above plastic and appears luxurious.