HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook assessment: The better of ChromeOS, however not well worth the worth | Engadget

Google has been making high-end Chromebooks for nearly a decade now, courting again to the $1,300 Chromebook Pixel in 2013. At the time, many individuals noticed it as a wonderful however unusual gadget. In the years that adopted, each Google and its {hardware} companions have made premium Chromebooks increasingly more commonplace. Though, a still-unconfirmed report earlier this 12 months suggests Google is giving up on making laptop computer {hardware}, at the least for now. The firm hasn’t mentioned something of the kind but, however the actuality is that Google hasn’t made a brand new Chromebook for the reason that Pixelbook Go in late 2019.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped different producers from making Chromebooks with beautiful screens, nice industrial design and highly effective {hardware}. But HP’s Elite Dragonfly Chromebook, launched earlier this 12 months, is perhaps the nicest I’ve utilized in a very long time. It additionally has a jaw-dropping worth level, beginning at properly over $1,000. Much like the unique Chromebook Pixel, HP’s newest is a pleasure to make use of that could be very laborious to advocate due to that worth.

Design

Before we speak concerning the bummer that’s the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook’s price, let’s go over the great things. The Dragonfly is analogous in stature to a MacBook Air, weighing in at about 2.8 kilos and measuring solely .65 inches thick. Combined with a reasonably spacious 13.5-inch touchscreen show with a 3:2 facet ratio, the Dragonfly is comfy to work on and simple to journey with.

Design-wise, it’s a spartan affair, with a darkish grey end and just a few silver accents to be discovered. But on condition that HP is primarily concentrating on this laptop at enterprise customers, it is smart that they went with a traditional look right here. There’s an honest choice of ports, regardless of the Dragonfly’s slightly slim profile: it has two USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB-A connection, a headphone jack, HDMI and a microSD slot. That’s loads higher than you’ll get on a typical ultraportable.

Screen and keyboard

There’s a handful of issues that make the Dragonfly actually stand out. For starters, it has a superb show, with a 3:2 facet ratio that gives much more vertical viewing area than your commonplace 16:9 display screen. The configuration I’m testing has a 2,256 x 1,504 decision, good for about 200 pixels per inch. Sure, there are extra pixel-dense shows on the market, however this one seems to be beautiful, with sharp textual content and pictures and principally no seen pixels. It’s the nicest display screen on a Chromebook I’ve seen in a very long time. The solely minor knock is its unremarkable 60Hz refresh charge, however that shouldn’t be a significant concern for most individuals. Still, HP spared principally no expense on all the things else, so it might have been good to have.

Despite the refresh charge, the Dragonfly’s show is nice past simply the facet ratio. It’s shiny and has good distinction with out issues being too over-exaggerated. It’s additionally slightly reflective, which makes it not very best if there’s a lightweight shining on the show, however the display screen is shiny sufficient that it ought to be usable in all however the harshest of sunshine.

The keyboard and trackpad are additionally glorious. The keys are agency, however not too agency, and have loads of journey for a comparatively skinny laptop computer. The trackpad, in the meantime, is giant and responsive. Nothing fairly matches as much as the trackpad on a MacBook for me, however this one feels fairly shut. HP says it’s a haptic trackpad, with personalized vibrations for some particular actions like pinning home windows in cut up display screen or switching between digital desks, however I can’t say I observed a lot of something there.

Good specs (for a Chromebook)

Finally, the Dragonfly largely has cutting-edge spec choices; the mannequin I examined has a Twelfth-generation Intel Core i5 processor, built-in LTE, 256GB of storage and 8GB of RAM. LTE isn’t precisely cutting-edge anymore, and 8GB of RAM is a bit stingy on a pc this dear. But other than these quibbles, that is loads of horsepower for principally something you wish to do in ChromeOS; I by no means skilled any stutters when switching apps or taking part in again music and video. Despite the high-resolution display screen and highly effective processor, battery life is stable if not spectacular. I received between six and eight hours of regular utilization, which concerned a number of Chrome tabs, Spotify, Todoist, Slack, Google Keep, Trello and the occasional Android app right here and there. It managed to play again a film for 8 hours and 50 minutes in our battery drain check. If battery is your foremost concern, the mannequin with a Core i3 processor or the lower-resolution display screen will seemingly final even longer.

It additionally does a high-quality job operating the handful of Android apps I examined it with. In the final 12 months or so, you’ve been in a position to run downloaded apps in pill, cellphone or resizable home windows, and for essentially the most half I used to be in a position to get Todoist, Spotify and Lightroom all working properly in resizable home windows. Even Instagram lastly works correctly, though now that the web site now permits you to create posts, it’s not likely needed any extra. Putting that apart, efficiency throughout principally all of the Android apps and video games I attempted was stable. But given what number of apps are within the Play Store, there’s nonetheless a great probability of operating throughout some that don’t work properly.

While Chromebooks aren’t identified for gaming, the Dragonfly simply dealt with some cloud-based play through NVIDIA’s GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming – not a shock given the highly effective (for a Chromebook, at the least) {hardware}. At this level, ChromeOS has fairly stable sport controller assist, and it clearly works with exterior keyboards and mice. So offered the titles you need can be found, that is most likely the easiest way to play video games on a Chromebook at this level. That mentioned, this {hardware} ought to greater than meet the lower for putting in Steam, as soon as Google and Valve begin rolling that out past its present restricted alpha section.