HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook: Two-minute evaluation
The HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is the quickest, most lovely, and simply the costliest Chromebook that has ever been made, and we love each little bit of it. It’s merely the very best Chromebook for enterprise available on the market proper now, matching efficiency, safety, and stability with an distinctive design.
This Chromebook is dearer from the soar than most of the finest enterprise laptops on the market, however for an enterprise–degree machine, that is nonetheless almost half the value of some one- or two-year-old enterprise 2-in-1s working Home windows. This makes it a pretty choice for some greater degree fleet customers who want extra than simply primary entry to your organization’s cloud companies and apps.
That is additionally the primary Chromebook to characteristic Intel vPro, which introduces multilayered safety features above and past what you will discover within the client market, together with the flexibility to encrypt knowledge in reminiscence and never simply on the level of storage.
Leaving apart all of the business-centric options, spec-to-spec, that is unquestionably the very best Chromebook available on the market when it comes to efficiency — and its distinctive design makes it simply nearly as good to take a look at as it’s to make use of.
Transferring on to the enterprise aspect of issues, the higher-specced Elite Dragonfly Chromebooks include an Intel Alder Lake chip with vPro, so enterprise professionals can take pleasure in all the safety features {that a} vPro chip brings to the desk.
Even the entry-level configuration has further safety features that make it greater than able to protecting a distant or cellular workforce linked, so you’ve gotten loads of choices to work with in the event you’re seeking to outfit your workforce with new gadgets or in the event you’re only a enterprise proprietor searching for a safer technique to handle your organization.
Even higher, the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook comes with a one-year subscription to Parallels for ChromeOS, so you’ll be able to run your important legacy Home windows apps on this machine.
In brief, you’ll be able to (almost) have all of it with the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook, and IT professionals and enterprise professionals on the market ought to positively give this one a great, arduous look.
HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook: Worth and availability
- How a lot does it value? Beginning at $1,149 (about £999 / AU$1,699); $1,499 (about £1,199 / AU$2,099) as reviewed.
- When is it out? It’s accessible now
- The place are you able to get it? You may get it within the US, with UK and Australia availability forthcoming
HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook Key Specs
Right here is the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook configuration despatched to TechRadar for evaluation:
CPU: Intel Core i5-1245U with vPro
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe
RAM: 8GB DDR4
Display screen: 13.5-inch, 1920x1280p, 400 nits, touchscreen
Storage: 256GB
Ports: 2 x Thunderbolt 4, 1 x USB Kind-A 10Gbps, 1 x combo jack, 1 x HDMI 2.0, 1 x MicroSD slot
Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.2
Digital camera: 5MP webcam with bodily privateness shutter
Weight: 2.8 lbs | 1.27 kg
Dimension (W x D x H): 11.59 x 8.73 x 0.65 ins | 294.38 x 221.74 x 16.61 mm
Battery: 50WHr
The HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is obtainable now within the US on HP’s web site and thru different retailers, beginning at $1,149 (about £999 / AU$1,699).
The beginning configuration comes with an Intel Core i3 1215U, 8GB LPDDR4x, 128GB NVMe SSD, and a 13.5-inch QHD+ (2256x1504p) touchscreen show with a max brightness of 400 nits. This config lacks Intel vPro, nevertheless, so you will have to maneuver as much as the Core i5 to even have the choice of including that characteristic.
For those who wished to go hog for the boss and get them the very best of the very best configurations, you are taking a look at an Intel Core i7-1265U vPro, 32GB LPDDR4x, 512GB, and a 13.5-inch WUXGA+ (1920x1280p) touchscreen show, additionally with 400 nits max brightness. You may should spend $3,393 for this top-flight config, which for any Chromebook is truthfully surprising. However generally it is good to be the boss, is not it?
Our evaluation configuration, at proper, is not almost as costly, however it’s nonetheless $1,449, which is so much for a Chromebook, to make certain. Nonetheless, that is an enterprise machine, so this is not surprising given the extra safety features, and it’s nonetheless less expensive than different gadgets in its class working Home windows.
HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook: Design
- 5MP webcam with bodily privateness shutter
- Attractive design
- Lovely touchscreen show
The HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is a beautiful machine to take a look at – even measured in opposition to the remainder of the Elite Dragonfly household, which has all the time been superbly designed. There’s merely no denying that it is a pretty minimalist-looking laptop computer.
The show is manufactured from Corning Gorilla Glass 5, and comes with both a 2260 x 1504p or 1920 x 1280p decision, however in both case, that is going to be the most effective wanting shows you have most likely seen on a Chromebook that is not an OLED.
The keyboard is somewhat tight, however that is to be anticipated from a 13.5-inch laptop computer and the keys have enough journey and suggestions to be snug to make use of and useful to sort on with accuracy.
The trackpad is snug and responsive and is the primary to introduce haptic suggestions right into a Chromebook trackpad. The trackpad can be has a 3:2 facet to match the show’s facet ratio, so the trackpad enter can be extra carefully mirrored on the show.
The HP Digital Pen comes with the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook by default, however you’ve gotten the choice to drop it out of your cart for a $35 financial savings if you have already got a stylus that you simply choose. For those who go for it although, simply know that the pen will recharge when it’s magnetically connected to the aspect of the laptop computer, which is a pleasant characteristic to have and a vital characteristic of the very best 2-in-1 Chromebooks.
The 5MP webcam will get you excessive decision video for teleconferencing, however it could be overkill on one thing like Google Meet, which caps video decision effectively under the 5MP mark. An essential level to notice right here is that the webcam additionally has a bodily privateness slide that covers the digicam when not in use.
Lastly, it is solely 0.65 inches tall (16.61 mm) and weighs lower than 3 kilos (1.27 kg). That is an extremely transportable machine that may simply slot in a small laptop computer bag and even slightly below your arm when you stroll to a gathering or by way of a convention corridor.
The one main criticism we will level to right here is the comparatively few ports, however at this level, that is beginning to really feel like criticizing a laptop computer as a result of it would not have an optical disc drive. You do not get a skinny laptop computer for nothing, and no less than you get two Thunderbolt 4 ports together with an HDMI 2.0 output.
HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook: Efficiency
- Improbable productiveness efficiency
- Intel vPro safety features
- Wi-Fi 6E and optionally available 5G/LTE connectivity
Benchmarks
Right here is how the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook carried out in our suite of benchmark exams:
Geekbench 5 for Android (Single core): 918; (Multi core): 2,441;
WebGL Aquarium (10K fish): 60 fps; (20K fish): 45 fps; (30K fish): 32 fps
Kraken JavaScript (decrease is best): 506
Octane 2.0: 79,914
JetStream 2: 217
TechRadar HD Film Check: 6:22
The HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is essentially the most highly effective Chromebook we have ever examined, however it’s additionally the primary we have ever gotten our palms on that options the brand new Intel Twelfth-generation U-series processors. This makes it troublesome to check it to its competitors proper now, because it actually is not a good struggle in any respect.
We’ll do it anyway.
In our Acer Chromebook Spin 713 evaluation, we raved concerning the Core i5-1135G7 CPU’s efficiency, which ended up having the very best Octane 2.0 rating of any Chromebook we reviewed final yr: 59,918. Properly, the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook blows that away with a 79,914, a virtually 20,000 level distinction with primarily the identical specs aside from the processor.
The Elite Dragonfly Chromebook can be the very best scoring Chromebook in our Kraken and Jetstream 2 exams, beating out the Chromebook Spin 713 by almost 200 factors, 506 to 691, respectively (decrease is best, on this case).
We opened up WebGL Aquarium (opens in new tab) in Chrome to check out the Intel Iris Xe graphics and had been pleasantly stunned to see the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook rendering 10,000 fish at 60 fps, working proper into the arduous ceiling of the show’s refresh fee. Double the fish to twenty,000 and this drops right down to about 45 fps, with an extra 10,000 fish on high of that, for a complete of 30,000, and it was rendering at about 32 fps.
Other than benchmarks, the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is quick and snappy with nearly any workload you wish to throw at it. Google apps run like butter, and there was nothing in the best way of significant slowdowns in our time with the laptop computer.
HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook: Battery life
- Satisfactory battery life
- Fast cost
If there may be anyplace that the HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook stumbles, it is battery life. That is to not say that its horrible: The Dragonfly lasted for six hours and 22 minutes in our HD film take a look at, however that is considerably weaker than many different competing Chromebooks, particularly these working Arm-based processors.
This wasn’t surprising both, since Intel Alder Lake chips are energy-hungry irrespective of the efficiency tier. However in our day-to-day expertise with it, we had been in a position to get a typical eight-hour workday out of this laptop computer on a full cost (generally working on fumes in direction of the tip). Fortuitously, the laptop computer makes use of fast cost expertise to get you again in control in comparatively quick order.
Ought to I purchase an HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook?
Purchase it if…
Do not buy it if…
Additionally think about
HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook: Report card
| Worth | Whereas undoubtably costly, for an enterprise-class machine, the Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is less expensive than different laptops on this class. | 4 / 5 |
| Design | The HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is a stupendous wanting laptop computer, as long as you want minimalist design. | 5 / 5 |
| Efficiency | That is essentially the most highly effective Chromebook we have ever examined so far. | 5 / 5 |
| Battery Life | Nice efficiency would not include out a variety of energy, so the battery life right here is not the very best, however it’s an appropriate trade-off. | 3.5 / 5 |
