HP is amping up the temperature when it comes to the laptop market. The company made a splash with its HP 15 ay013nr and now it's looking to do the same on the upper end of the scale by launching the HP ENVY m7-n101dx.
This is one of HP's latest high end laptops and it features a Full HD touchscreen display, a Core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM amongst its list of virtues. Today, as we do everyday, we take a deep look at this model to uncover everything it has to offer in our exclusive review of the HP ENVY m7-n101dx. Ready to tag along?
Pros: 16GB of RAM, Core i7, Dedicated graphics chip, 1TB of storage, Full HD touchscreen display, competitive price.
Cons: Standard battery life, mechanical hard drive instead of SSD.
HP ENVY m7-n101dx Review with Pros and Cons
Let's talk design
In terms of overall design the HP ENVY m7-n101dx doesn't really stand out. It's not an engineering marvel like the Dell XPS lineup or Apple's MacBook lineup. However, it has something that these models don't: a discrete design willing to let you go unnoticed. That said, we do appreciate its black colouring which sets a different tone from the more traditional "grey laptops".
Its screen is comprised of a 17.3 inch anti-glare Full HD WLED-Backlit IPS touchscreen display. It's not a convertible, it's what's known as a hybrid. Personally I don't see the touchscreen as something particularly useful, especially when we're not talking about a convertible but there's a whole lot of people who actually appreciate this feature so it's nice to see that companies are no longer charging a premium for it.
It's keyboard has the typical island style with a dedicated numeric pad on the side. It's also worth noting that we're looking at a backlit keyboard so typing away in the middle of the night won't be an issue for power users and night owls.
As with most 17 inch models, it's not particularly light, weighing a bit under 7 pounds with a thickness that goes a bit beyond the standard 1 inch present within its 15 inch counterparts.
Is it packing heat?
While the design might be important to many users, it's what's underneath that's really gonna make a difference in your day to day operations. In that regard, we couldn't be any happier. Powered by an Intel Core i7-5500U (Broadwell) clocking in at a base frequency of 2.4GHz, this laptop is just about ready for anything you'd like to do.
Getting into details, this is a 64 bit processor that can reach a maximum speed of 3.0 GHz with 4MB of cache and four threads working perfectly in sync. It's actually harder to think of things this CPU can't do than it is to mention all the things it can. Suffice to know; power won't be an issue with this model.
RAM is also holding strong with 16GB of DDR3L SDRAM, more than enough to help you do intensive multitasking now and for many years to come. Again, performance of the HP ENVY m7-n101dx isn't going to be a problem.
What about gaming? What's the GPU like?
Though this laptop wasn't designed as a gaming laptop, it's more than ready to take on casual gamers. Equipped with an Nvidia GeForce 940M with 2 GB of dedicated vRAM, the HP ENVY m7-n101dx can take on most modern AAA titles with a very solid frame rate as long as you place the settings in HD instead of Full HD.
Again, this laptop wasn't designed specifically as a gaming laptop but it can get the job done if that's what you're into. What's more, such a graphics chip is perfectly suited for stuff like graphic design, video and image editing at a professional level.
How's battery life and storage?
As with most 17 inch laptops, battery life isn't really its strong suit. All in all we've got a 4 cell battery that should deliver anywhere in the realm of the 3-4 hours, 5 hours in the best case scenario. You've got to take into account that the battery at hand is supporting a Full HD display and many high end components which typically consume a great deal of power.
As for the storage, we've got a single mechanical hard drive with a 1TB capacity and a standard 5400 rpm speed. Sure, an SSD might've made this laptop the perfect companion but with so many people opting for storage capacity over storage velocity the 1TB hard drive seemed like the more sensible option unless you were willing to pony up several hundred extra dollars.
Anything else worth knowing?
Most people have already made up their minds in this review of the HP ENVY m7-n101dx, but some wait it out till they see the connectivity options which many find to be as important as anything else mentioned throughout this review.
Case and point, we've got 4 USB 3.0 ports, one supporting USB boost, an HDMI output, SD card reader, ethernet port, audio jack, DVD reader as well as your typical high speed WiFi ac standard and Bluetooth support.
Being a high end laptop such as this one we also expected an HD webcam as well as the Bang&Olufsen audio system so we wheren't that surprised to see these features implemented.
Final statements and thoughts...
We really couldn't have asked for a better list of specs when it comes down to the HP ENVY m7-n101dx review. It's got everything from a high end processor to a quality Full HD display and a powerful dedicated graphics chip ready to do the heavy lifting.
Sure, storage and battery life aren't standout features but with a 17 inch laptop we hardly expected them to be. Besides, most of us still prefer having 1TB of space over 128-256GB of SSD, especially when we know that speed and efficiency isn't going to be a problem in the first place. Overall, if you're looking to buy a 17 inch laptop you really can't go wrong with this one, especially when you consider its low price point.