HP Envy 13-aq0044nr Review

Ultrabooks have come a long way ever since they were introduced. They have a wide user base and pretty much anyone nowadays can make an ultrabook work for their needs. Are you searching for an ultrabook that won’t let you down? You’re in the right place. The HP Envy 13-aq0044nr is the latest ultrabook from HP and packs a punch to fulfill even the heavy user’s needs.

In this HP Envy 13-aq0044nr review, we are looking at this new ultrabook that comes with some premium features like a 4K display, a touchscreen, and other impressive specs. This laptop is mainly for people who need a lot of power. It will be a good fit for business users and college students. How good is this laptop? Does it justify the price point? Let’s find that out.

Design

The laptop comes in a natural silver color which screams premium. The laptop’s first impression is very nice and you feel the same way when you touch it. The construction of this ultrabook is solid and doesn’t feel like it’ll break when you drop it down.

One of the primary advantages of an ultrabook is the size. Here, we have a 13.3″ display which keeps the size in check. The laptop weighs around 3.4 pounds which is pretty good for its size. You can easily take this with you wherever you and work when you’re traveling without any problem.

The keyboard we have here is a nice tactile keyboard. You get a nice feeling when you’re typing on this laptop, and that’s mainly because of the key travel. If you’re someone who types a lot, then you’ll enjoy this keyboard. The backlighting on the keyboard certainly helps in dark situations. The touchpad is smooth and registers your taps and glides responsively.

The HP Envy 13-aq0044nr also comes with a fingerprint reader as well. Though not 100% accurate, the fingerprint reader does make it easier for you to log in to your laptop. Overall, the laptop has a nice, modern design that looks good on the eyes and is also very practical.

HP Envy 13-aq0044nr Specs

The display is one of the best features of this laptop. We have a 13.3″ display with 4K resolution. This gives us an extraordinary pixel density and you can’t get sharper pictures anywhere else. The bezels surrounding the screen are very thin. HP calls it the 3-way micro-edge bezel.

Another nice thing about the display is that it is a Corning Gorilla Glass NBT. These glasses are durable and very hard to break. The screen also doubles up as a touchscreen which adds another dimension to the user experience. The screen is responsive to touch and making gestures is a breeze.

How good is the HP Envy 13-aq0044nr for multimedia? The display comes with good colors and excellent sharpness. You’ll enjoy watching movies and other TV series on this screen. The viewing angles are also very impressive, so no complaints there as well. The speakers are pretty decent and can fill a small room with ease. You might get a bit of distortion at higher volumes but not a big concern.

Raw Performance

The HP Envy 13-aq0044nr is run by an Intel Core i7 processor from the 8th gen. This processor comes with four physical cores and has a base clock speed of 1.8GHz. The clock speed can reach a maximum of 4.6GHz with the help of turbo boost. When it comes to sheer power, this processor doesn’t disappoint.

The processor has a cache memory of 8MB which is more than enough for most users. This Intel chip scores nicely in benchmarks and you can see why this is an upper mid-range processor. When it comes to everyday performance, the laptop doesn’t sweat at all. Daily activities like browsing the web, social webs, streaming content online, working on your office stuff are all very smooth. The ultrabook can comfortably handle even heavy workloads without any problems.

The processor is well complemented by the memory department. We have 16 gigs of DDR4 RAM and they make multitasking such a pleasure in this machine. This memory also makes it possible to run heavy applications without compromising on the performance of the device.

Storage and Gaming

The HP Envy 13-aq0044nr model does well when it comes to storage. We have a 512GB solid-state drive which gives you a lot of space to play with. The SSD also keeps the performance in check. The laptop boots up real quick and the same can be said for applications and games as well.

Talking about games, the laptop comes with an Nvidia GeForce MX 250 as the graphics card. This graphics card is much better than the integrated GPU but does not measure up to some of the high-end GPUs. With this GPU, you will be able to do some mid-range gaming without any problem. You can also run some high-end, AAA titles but you should meddle with the settings to keep the frame rate playable.

Battery life and Connectivity

HP claims a battery life of 12 hours and 45 minutes. While that does look a bit outlandish, it certainly is possible when you’re working on a light load. Browsing the web and watching movies on this laptop can be considered a light load and can give you around 8 to 10 hours of battery life. If you’re a student and going to take notes in this laptop, then it can last the full 13 hours HP has promised.

The HP Envy 13-aq0044nr comes with good connectivity options. There is a couple of USB 3.0 gen A ports, a USB type C port, and a headphone jack as well. There is also a media card reader if you’re someone who manages storages with media cards. In addition to these ports, there is a physical kill switch for the webcam which aims to improve your privacy. The laptop also supports Bluetooth and WiFi as well.

Bottomline

The HP Envy 13-aq0044nr is an excellent ultrabook for the price. It comes with premium features like a touchscreen, 4K display, Corning Gorilla Glass NBT and much more. The laptop is great for everyday work and can handle some serious workload if needed. If you’re looking for an ultrabook that is beautiful, powerful and can help you with a bit of gaming, then this is it.