HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023) review: The OLED screen saves this 2-in-1

The HP Spectre lineup is where you’ll get the best experience if you’re looking for the best Windows convertible from the company, but if you’re on a budget, there’s the Envy line. While it’s more mid-range and brings slightly cheaper starting costs, the HP Envy lineup is just as good, still offering features from the best HP laptops, like great webcams.

The new HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023) is one such option. It’s not the fanciest 2-in-1, and it’s not a huge upgrade from its predecessor, but I still enjoyed using it over the month I had it. With AMD Ryzen CPUs under the hood, battery life is king on this device (although Intel CPUs are also available). However, at its default, it’s nothing special. There are actually two things I hated about the device. The screen is only FHD resolution, and the finish on the laptop means it picks up a lot of fingerprints like crazy.

That said, my model was upgraded with an OLED screen, and that, combined with the 5MP webcam, helped make this a multimedia powerhouse for watching my favorite shows and video conferencing with coworkers and family. It’s what kept the HP Envy x360 15.6 from being too boring.

HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023)

Solid convertible

The HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023) is a solid Windows 2-in-1. There are many configurations for all budgets, including an option for an OLED screen. It also features AMD Ryzen or 13th-generation Intel CPUs, and it has superb battery life.

Operating System

Windows 11 Home

CPU

AMD Ryzen 7 7730U

GPU

Integrated AMD Radeon Graphics

RAM

16 GB LPDDR4x-4266 MHz RAM

Storage

1TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD

Battery

55Wh Li-ion polymer

Display (Size, Resolution)

15.6-inch 1920×1080 OLED, multi-touch, 400 nits brightness

Camera

HP Wide Vision 5MP IR camera with temporal noise reduction

Speakers

Dual speakers with Audio by Bang & Olufsen

Color

Nightfall Black

Ports

1x USB-C 10GBps, 2x USB-A 10GBps, 1x HDMI 2.1, headphone/microphone combo, 1x full-size SD card reader

Network

Realtek Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3

Dimension

14.07×8.99×0.72 inches

Weight

4.03 pounds

Pros

• Great battery life
• Solid performance for general productivity
• Comes in both Intel and AMD models

Cons

• Screen only has FHD resolution
• Picks up fingerprints like crazy

HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023): Pricing and availability

There are a lot of places you can buy the HP Envy x360 15.6, and there are a lot of configurations to suit your budget and needs. All models support pen input, but the unit I was sent did not include a pen.

Currently, the laptop is for sale at Best Buy and HP.com. Pricing starts at $800 for the entry-level model with the AMD Ryzen 5 7530U CPU, the standard FHD resolution IPS screen with 250 nits of brightness, 8GB RAM, and a 256GB SSD. My review unit is sold at HP.com and costs $1,200. It features the AMD Ryzen 7 7730U CPU, a 15.6-inch FHD resolution OLED display, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD.

Intel models are also available if you prefer. You can pay $1,590 for the highest-end model with the Intel Core i7-1355U CPU, a 15.6-inch FHD OLED screen, 16GB RAM, a 1TB SSD, and RTX 3050 graphics.

Design

Your typical aluminum 2-in-1

The HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023) comes in two colors. You can pick it up in either Nightfall Black or Natural Silver (the one we have for review is the Nightfall Black). There’s really not much to the design otherwise. Coming in at about 4.03 pounds and 0.72 inches thick, this is your average 15.6-inch laptop.

It’s made out of aluminum, with soft rounded corners on the front but more squared-off edges on the back for a subtle wedge shape. Those rounded corners are almost taking inspiration from the Lenovo Yoga 7i that I reviewed earlier this year. The difference is that the Nightfall Black finish collects fingerprints like crazy.

Since this is a convertible laptop, you can use it in different ways. The lid is super easy to open with one hand since it has a notch, and the hinge is strong. The chassis also doesn’t bend when you squeeze it. I found that the weight is evenly distributed on the machine, too, so it’s comfortable to hold. There are even fake speaker grills next to the keyboard, though I would have liked to see a numpad instead. The actual speakers are at the bottom of the laptop. And yes, even though there are only dual speakers, they still sound great.

As far as ventilation and cooling go, you can be assured that this 2-in-1 stays cool. There are vents only on the back, so you don’t have to worry about air being blown on your hands as you use this device. The keyboard deck doesn’t get hot, nor do the hinges and other parts of the device.

Port selection is solid

Since this is a 15.6-inch machine, the HP Envy x360 (2023) has a lot of ports. I have the AMD model, so there’s no Thunderbolt, and the Ryzen CPU onboard isn’t Zen-4 based, so there’s no USB4. I know some people might be disappointed with that when it comes to bandwidth, but the port selection is excellent anyway, enough that I didn’t need to use a dongle during use.

On the left side, there’s a USB-A port, a headphone jack, and a full-size SD card reader. Usually, you’d see microSD card storage, so full-size SD card readers are a treat. The USB-C port hits speeds of 10GBps and supports USB Power Delivery, DisplayPort 1.4, and HP Sleep and Charge. The USB-A port hits 10GBps. On the right side, there’s a standard USB-A 10Gbps port and an HDMI 2.1 port. The USB-A port supports HP Sleep and Charge.

Keyboard and trackpad

Great for your productivity

The keyboard on the HP Envy x360 (2023) is spacious and easy to use. The keycaps have a solid feel to them, great travel, and don’t feel cheap. The layout of the navigation keys is a bit weird, though, and it made me move my hands slightly further over when typing. Speed typing doesn’t make too much noise, either. I hit my usual average of 90–100 words per minute. Of course, the keyboard is backlit with two levels of lighting. The fact that the entire keyboard deck is black helps make the lighting look brighter than it is.

The keyboard does have a couple unique features, although I didn’t find them useful. There’s an emoji button on the F1 key to help you express your personality, and there’s an HP Jumpstart button on F9 that can help you launch the HP Command Center, the Omen Gaming Hub, or my HP.

The trackpad is pretty good, too. It’s not directly in the center of the bottom, but it’s pretty large, and its smooth surface makes scrolling and dragging very easy. Like many other 2-in-1s, it’s a pretty loud-sounding trackpad, especially when you click directly in the corners.

Display

The best part of this convertible

HP upgraded the display on my Envy x360 (2023) to an IMAX Enhanced OLED panel, but you’d usually only find it with an IPS panel. I’m glad they did because I really love laptops that have OLED panels. Color accuracy and contrast end up being off-the-charts excellent. HP also ships a 5MP webcam at the top, which helps make this device your video conference hub.

Unfortunately, the display still only comes with FHD resolution and a 16:9 aspect ratio. It’s a sacrifice for this price, but it made the laptop difficult for multitasking. You’ll have to switch over to an HP Spectre should you want more pixels and a better screen-to-body ratio.

To test this display, I pulled up a video tour of Citi Field, home of the New York Mets. As an MLB fan, I’m quite familiar with Citi Field, and the moment the video started playing, I felt right at home, enjoying the ballpark from the comfort of my desk. I don’t have access to the apps that are IMAX-enhanced for this display, but with a standard YouTube video looking so amazing, I’m sure that the video and audio content that is enhanced would look excellent as well.

The colorimeter results above show just how good this display is. Anything above 90% is excellent, and this laptop passed that with flying colors. It’s 100% sRGB, 97% AdobeRGB, 90% P3, and 91% NTSC. Brightness was at 350 nits, and contrast was at 102,800:1.

At the top of the display is a 5MP Windows Hello IR webcam, which will help you never look grainy or washed out on calls. It even has a privacy shutter for when you want to cover the lens. Other nifty webcam features include HP Presence 2.0, which gives the webcam features like auto framing, background adjustment, low light adjustment, and skin color correction. There’s even a multi-camera view, which lets you use a second webcam and combine it into layouts for sharing content. For added security, the webcam supports a walk away lock and wake-on approach. I love it when a laptop has this many webcam features.

Performance

Plenty of power for web browsing

Under the hood of the HP Envy x360 (2023) is the AMD Ryzen 7 7730U CPU. This CPU pulls 15W of power, has eight cores and 16 threads, and runs at up to 4.5 GHz. Compared to what you’d find in something like the Acer Swift Edge 16, this isn’t a top-end AMD CPU, although it is in the top-end part of the Ryzen 7030 mobile lineup.

I mainly use my review units in my everyday workflow, so I browsed the web in Edge and Chrome, used social media apps like Telegram, installed the Windows Subsystem for Linux and Android, and ran a virtual machine. The HP Envy x360 excelled at these tasks. I had no slowdowns, no lag, no problems at all.

However, it didn’t fare too well with gaming. Counter-strike: Global Offensive was barely playable, and more demanding titles like Shadow of the Tomb Raider were even worse off. This was to be expected since you need a GPU for these kinds of tasks. You’ll want to consider the top-end model with the GeForce RTX 3050 GPU if you want to play video games. The HP Envy x360 is strictly for productivity and web browsing, where you’ll get the best possible performance. But do note the Ryzen 7 CPU is throttled for better battery life, as performance dips by nearly 1,000 points in our PCMark 10 tests, so for the best possible performance, you’ll have to be near an outlet.

Battery life is another strength of this laptop. I got to about eight and a half hours, sometimes nine, with everyday tasks. That’s with the screen at around 40% brightness and Windows set for best power efficiency. The lower-resolution OLED panel really helps bump battery life, as laptops like the HP Spectre that have high-resolution displays tend to suffer with battery.

Should you buy the HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023)?

You should buy the HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023) if:

• You want an OLED screen
• You want a Windows convertible on a budget
• You want a laptop with great battery life

You shouldn’t buy the HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023) if:

• You need a laptop with a high-resolution display
• You always like to see your laptop clean
• You need better performance

The HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023) is a solid convertible. If you’re looking for a device just for web browsing or want a laptop with an OLED display, it’ll do the trick. Unless you buy the model with RTX graphics, this laptop is just not made for gaming. You’ll also have to get the right finish as the Nightfall Black gets dirty quickly, and the screen might be limiting for intensive multitasking.

HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023)

The HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023) is a solid Windows 2-in-1. There are many configurations for all budgets, including an option for an OLED screen. It also features AMD Ryzen or 13th-generation Intel CPUs, and it has superb battery life.