HP TECH TAKES /...
Exploring today's technology for tomorrow's possibilities
Subscribe
HP ENVY 17-inch Laptop: A Complete Review
Tom Gerencer
|
December 10, 2022
The HP ENVY 17-inch laptop is a sleek, powerful device for the price, and it boasts a large display with exceptional color, driven by a high-end graphics card to do it justice. If you work in photography, video, or 3D graphics on the go, but you have a modest budget, you’re barking up the right tree with the HP ENVY 17.
This laptop offers just the right mix of light, portable, powerful, and large, with 17.3 inches of screen real estate, audio by Bang & Olufsen, a full-sized keyboard (with a number pad!), and all kinds of other perks. If you’re interested in seeing why demand is spiking for this model, dig into our complete HP ENVY 17 review.
Why choose an HP ENVY laptop?
The HP ENVY line of laptops combines exceptional power with a stylish design. It looks great in the conference room and serves up sought-after components like the latest Intel® Core™ processors and graphics cards from NVIDIA® and Intel.
Combine that power with available 4K displays for streaming with crisp, realistic detail, and this machine is a joy to use. Every feature and facet from the color gamut to the battery life (10 hours of video with fast charge, even with its massive display) was designed to live up to the HP ENVY name.
In the end, the HP ENVY 17.3 touch screen laptop is powerful and sleek, with a smooth user experience and delightful surprises around every digital corner. Let’s dig into the highlights.
It starts with the amazing display
Larger screen laptops are enjoying a popularity surge right now as more of us work from home and also play more on our laptops. When you’re binging your favorite shows, gaming, and finishing up work, you’ll get more from your PC when you have more screen real estate, vibrant colors, and a higher resolution.
The colors here are accurate and brilliant, which is key when you’re slaying monsters in The Witcher 3 or streaming the latest episode of Yellowstone. And if you’re a photographer or video editor, you’ll appreciate the HP ENVY 17’s color-calibrated monitor that makes your work a lot more consistent.
Large display footprint
A 17.3-inch display will make you second-guess how you ever did a lick of work while squinting to see a smaller screen. Even with the easy docking and external displays most of us connect to these days, jaunts to the couch or back porch can last hours when distractions come to call. It just makes sense to have the breathing space of a bigger screen.
Cutting edge graphics cards
Underpinning the HP ENVY 17’s big, beautiful display is a choice of GPUs that can fill the space with stunning visuals. You can stock it with a super-powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX™ graphics card to support the latest PC games and creative apps like Photoshop or Blender. If you don’t need ray tracing because you’re not an avid gamer, you can stick with the visuals of the Intel Iris® Xe graphics card for a budget-friendly boost.
Choose Full High Definition or 4K Ultra High Definition
For video editing or 3D design, this laptop’s 4K Ultra HD option is a welcome add-on. An eye-popping 3840 x 4096 pixels deliver extreme pixel density, creating stunning clarity you really have to see to fully grasp. If you’re not a graphics pro or avid gamer, you can push the price point down by opting for the crisp FHD version.
Optional touch screen
If you’re an artist who works in Illustrator or Autodesk, you already know how touch screens can truly make a difference. Forget about using an extra device and fully embrace the sketching and note-taking potential of the HP ENVY 17’s touch screen.
Awe-inspiring sound
It’s astounding how laptops keep edging closer and closer to being portable home entertainment systems that almost literally blow your hair back. Case in point, the HP ENVY 17t’s dual speaker configuration features audio by Bang & Olufsen. The included HP Audio Boost feature delivers louder, fuller sound with exceptionally deep base and room-filling sound quality.
Full-size keyboard with number pad
In another envy-producing move, the full-size natural silver keyboard on this machine lets you work anywhere with an authentic at-the-desk feel. Let your fingers range over the spacious key grid, and when you need to enter numbers, you won’t have to hunt and peck thanks to the convenient number keypad.
It’s more and more common today to work in low-light environments like darkened lecture halls or home theaters while the kids catch up on episodes of Brave Wilderness. The backlit keyboard supports those workflows, letting you see and type without turning on a nearby lamp to find the volume button or a function key.
Light and portable, but large
It may not be ultrathin or ultralight, but the HP ENVY 17 still manages a surprising portability level with its 17-inch chassis and three quarters of an inch thickness. It weighs just over 5.5 lbs, too, so you’ll carry it easily in a backpack or messenger bag without feeling weighed down.
And yet, this laptop feels as close to a desktop as it comes, with the large 17-inch screen, spectacular visuals, and other full-sized features it smartly manages to pack into its frame.
Fast, powerful, and versatile
The HP ENVY 17 is full-featured, sleek, and stylish, but don’t let that distract you from the awesome specs hiding under the hood.
OS and processor options
You can choose between Windows 11 Home or Pro with a minimum quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, up to a hefty Intel Core i7 capable of clock speeds up to 4.7 GHz, with up to 16 threads of task-processing muscle.
RAM and storage
Every laptop today should have at least 8GB of RAM, but whether you need more comes down to your type of work you do. If you’re an office warrior who mostly sticks to apps like Microsoft 360, Google Workspace, and web browsers, you can save money by sticking with the base level of RAM in this HP laptop.
However, if you’re more into high-energy creative apps like Premiere Pro or Maya, it’s nice to know you can pump the memory up to a staggering 32GB of speedy DDR4 SDRAM. For storing all your software, and the often massive project files that go with them, you can customize your storage up to a 1TB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD.
Ports
You’ll find plenty of ports for peripherals in this machine, with some that even supply power. In fact, the port setup here is similar to a built-in docking station, with a pair of high-bandwidth USB-C ports (Thunderbolt 4) that can connect powered devices or a dock that delivers power and connects external monitors. There are also three SuperSpeed USB-A ports hidden along the sides, and HDMI and audio ports.
Long battery life
For a laptop with such a large, bright screen, this device delivers an impressive battery life of 10 hours while streaming video. The touch screen version comes in slightly lower, but both versions delight with fast charge, so you can boost back up to 50% charges with just 30 minutes of outlet time.
Want even more battery life? Compare this HP laptop 17t touch optional review to the HP 17z and other large-screen laptops from HP.
Superb conferencing
Because it’s designed for creative work, HP put a lot of thought into the conferencing features of the HP ENVY 17, and the way they work together to deliver a seamless, beautiful experience. For instance, if you’re chatting with a client and the dog starts barking at the UPS driver, AI noise reduction kicks in, so you don’t have to scramble to mute your mic.
5MP webcam
The 5MP webcam with Auto Frame technology will help you look your best, ensuring a bright, vivid image during chats. When you’re working solo, one nice feature here is a privacy shutter that lets you turn the webcam off, with a physical button that’s impervious to hacking.
Dual mics and WiFi 6
The dual-array digital microphones will make sure you come through loud and clear. Plus, with WiFi 6 and Bluetooth, you can connect to networks that support multiple devices without freezing during calls or dropping frames.
Easy file sharing
When you’re on a call, sometimes you need to grab a file from your phone or another device. HP QuickDrop makes that a lot easier. Part of HP Palette - an app that supports creative workflows - HP QuickDrop allows you to wirelessly share photos, text, videos, and documents instantly between laptops and mobile devices.
If you enjoyed this HP ENVY laptop 17t review, see why there’s so much buzz around the HP ENVY line of laptops.
Summary
The HP ENVY 17 laptop is a sleek, expertly crafted device with cool and quiet operation, plenty of memory, an amazing screen, and so many other benefits. For creatives and power users alike, this machine delivers and then some.
About the Author: Tom Gerencer is a contributing writer for HP Tech Takes. Tom is an ASJA journalist, career expert at Zety.com, and a regular contributor to Boys' Life and Scouting magazines. His work is featured in Costco Connection, FastCompany, and many more.
