Origins Explained is the place to be to find all the answers to your questions, from mysterious events and unsolved mysteries to everything there is to know about the world and its amazing animals! 1. Pompeii, Italy There are many scary stories in history, but the story of Pompeii is one that we just can’t get over. This is the city that was built in the fertile valley near a volcano, Mt. Vesuvius. When it erupted, it caught people by surprise and buried the city in soot and ash and left it covered and perfectly preserved for hundreds of years. Now much of it has been uncovered and it is a sad historical marvel and many people were frozen in time forever. 2. Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Sticking with Africa, let's head to Zimbabwe, which holds one of the biggest mysteries of the continent. It's called ... Great Zimbabwe. Yeah, does not really sound mysterious, does it? But don't let that fool you, there's more to this than you might think. 3. Thonis, Egypt If you're bi...
My HP Envy 13 review covering build quality, CPU performance, display options, plus battery life and thermals with comparisons to the HP Envy x360 13 with the Intel Evo platform / 11th Gen Intel Processors for 2021. This laptop has a lot to offer in portability for almost everyone including students, gamers, programmers, casual users and anyone working from home. This is a budget laptop with a premium laptop build. Affordable laptop for less than $ 1000 and a direct competitor to the Apple M1 MacBook Air!
What’s going on, Mchanga here. So, I review a lot of laptops and during that process, I’m always asking myself, who is this machine for. Instead of just rambling on and on about the specs, I want to focus on who I think should consider buying the new HP Envy 13. If you like the idea of the Apple M1 MacBook Air, but want to stick with Windows, stick around. I’ll leave all the affiliate links below in the video description. Personally, what I love about the HP Envy line of laptops is the balance between price, performance and portability. Many people can’t afford to spend a thousand dollars on a laptop, so this one starting at $739 is a big deal. As a student, I know how important it is to stick to a reasonable budget. If you aren’t a student yourself, maybe you have kids that need to complete their assignments while attending school from home. A lot of working professionals are currently working from home and you might want a small laptop that you can use at your kitchen table, but also comfortably toss in your bag and pull out while you’re sitting outside at Starbucks having your coffee.
If you’re looking at a 13-inch laptop, you want that mobility. Speaking for myself, I fell in love with this size laptop as a travel companion. While I’m not traveling right now, when I do, I don’t want to worry about weight and battery life.
This weighs in at 2.88 pounds, so that’s not a problem. We’ll get into battery life in a moment. So, what do you get for the asking price?
You can configure this up to an Intel Core i7 Tiger Lake CPU along with the Nvidia GeForce MX450 and 16 GBs of DDR4 Ram. There are storage options up to 1 TB. When you’re deciding on which specs to get, you want to be sure to choose the ones you can live with because these aren’t built to be user upgradeable. Rounding out the specs, there is WIFI 6 and Bluetooth 5 onboard. I would love to have LTE or even 5G as an optional upgrade, but I’m not going to dwell on it. Now, the hardware here is good and solid. My review unit is Pale Gold, but you can pick this up in the normal natural silver. I’ve never had any durability issues with HP laptops and so far, the Envy 13 has held up nicely. Families using this as a shared computer are bound to experience a drop here and there, and from my experience with this aluminum body, it should withstand day to day life. We get a decent number of ports. On the right side, the power port, the drop jaw USB Type A port and the micro-SD card slot.
On the left, the headphone microphone combo jack, another USB Type A port and a single Thunderbolt 4 port. Sure, there could’ve been another Thunderbolt 4 port, but it’s not big enough to complain about at this price point. This is a 13.3-inch Full HD Touch IPS Display. There are a few screen options that go all the way to 4K if that’s your preference. You can even get this laptop without the touchscreen if that’s your cup of tea. The screen is bright enough for most indoor applications, but I do wish it was brighter outdoors in direct sunlight. As with most IPS panels, the colors look good and the blacks look good. Whether you’re viewing text, photos or movies, it’s vibrant and color accurate. These aren’t the slimmest bezels on the market, but they’re good enough. I don’t know many people that aren’t having Zoom and WebEx meetings on a regular now, so the webcam has become a real necessity. The 720 P webcam here isn’t exactly a special one, but it does have what I consider to be a mandatory privacy shutter.
I’m trying to decide if I should eliminate webcam mention from all future reviews because they are almost all the same quality. I’m ready for a wow factor, but anyway. It’s fine and it gets the job done. The dual array mic is clear. The Audio by Bang and Olufsen speaker system gets loud without distortion. No complaints there. I type a lot and that includes responding to emails, interacting with all of you in the comments, typing up papers, reports, teaching myself programming…the list goes on. So, I like a keyboard that has well-spaced keys and noticeable tactile feedback. This keyboard is actually quite good, especially for the small size of this laptop. I’m not the biggest fan of gold or silver keys because I find them to be a bit more difficult to see from certain angles, but at this stage, I hardly look at the keyboard when I’m typing. It’s backlit and as a whole, if you only type a little or if you type a lot, it’s a nice keyboard. This is also where the fingerprint reader lives. I’ve found this to be almost as fast as logging in to the laptop with facial recognition, so I use it more often than not.
We talked about the price and you’re satisfied with that if you made it this far…we also know that it’s small and portable. So, let’s talk performance. The new intel processors built on the Intel Evo platform are good and efficient. Taking this Envy 13 through my daily life by browsing the web, completing assignments, working in the Microsoft Suite, watching videos, playing Valor ant was the best way for me to decide if it could keep up with me. It can.
As a disclaimer, Google Chrome isn’t my primary browser because I’ve found Microsoft Edge to be much nicer to my machine across the board. You’re going to cripple any machine with a slew of Chrome tabs. I was even able to edit videos in Adobe Premiere Pro on this little thing. Sure, the fans did kick in and they worked hard to maintain the thermals, but I still didn’t experience excessive thermal throttling or annoying fan noise. It never got too hot to the touch either. If you want a laptop for video editing, this should not be your first pick, but I can tell you it has the capability. If you want a gaming laptop, this is not the laptop for you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t play a few games on it as long as you stick to low settings in 1080.
In my time with the Envy 13, I’ve found it to be a nice little productivity warrior. Okay, battery life. I consistently got around 9 hours which easily takes me through the entire workday. It’s a 51-watt-hour battery so it’s a decent size for this size laptop. I’ve used this primarily at home, while I’m downstairs away from my desk. If I wanted to edit a video or something equally taxing, I prefer to be plugged in, but for everything else…I never felt concerned about having the charger nearby. I typically keep the screen at 60% brightness, so if you use less or more, your battery life will vary accordingly. The included 65-watt charger will get you from 0 to 50% in about 30 minutes. If you want a multi-tasking laptop that can do a little bit of everything while remaining budget friendly and small, I have to recommend this Envy 13.
There is no perfect laptop, but I think slimmer bezels on a 3:2 aspect ratio display with another Thunderbolt 4 port and a LTE modem inside would bring this one pretty close. If you like this video, hit the like button. If you feel like it, jump down in the comment section and let me know you like it. If you haven’t already and want to show your support, don’t forget to subscribe and make sure you tap the bell icon, so you’ll be notified every time I post new content.
