HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook review: The best of ChromeOS, but not worth the price

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

In fact, that hasn’t stopped different producers from making Chromebooks with attractive screens, nice industrial design and highly effective {hardware}. However HP’s Elite Dragonfly Chromebook, launched earlier this 12 months, could be the nicest I’ve utilized in a very long time. It additionally has a jaw-dropping worth level, beginning at effectively over $1,000. Very similar to the unique Chromebook Pixel, HP’s newest is a pleasure to make use of that may be very arduous to advocate due to that worth.

Design

Earlier than we discuss in regards to 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. Mixed with a reasonably spacious 13.5-inch touchscreen show with a 3:2 facet ratio, the Dragonfly is snug 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. However provided that HP is primarily focusing on this pc at enterprise customers, it is sensible that they went with a traditional look right here. There’s an honest collection of ports, regardless of the Dragonfly’s reasonably slim profile: it has two USB-C / Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB-A connection, a headphone jack, HDMI and a microSD slot. That’s rather a lot higher than you’ll get on a typical ultraportable.

Display screen and keyboard

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

Regardless of the refresh fee, the Dragonfly’s show is nice past simply the facet ratio. It’s brilliant and has good distinction with out issues being too over-exaggerated. It’s additionally reasonably reflective, which makes it not excellent if there’s a light-weight shining on the show, however the display is brilliant sufficient that it needs to be usable in all however the harshest of sunshine.

The keyboard and trackpad are additionally wonderful. 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 massive 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 or switching between digital desks, however I can’t say I seen a lot of something there.

Good specs (for a Chromebook)

Lastly, 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 expensive. However apart from 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 enjoying again music and video. Regardless of the high-resolution display and highly effective processor, battery life is strong if not spectacular. I bought between six and eight hours of regular utilization, which concerned lots of Chrome tabs, Spotify, Todoist, Slack, Google Hold, 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 take a look at. If battery is your foremost concern, the mannequin with a Core i3 processor or the lower-resolution display will possible final even longer.

It additionally does a high quality job working the handful of Android apps I examined it with. Within the final 12 months or so, you’ve been capable of run downloaded apps in pill, cellphone or resizable home windows, and for probably the most half I used to be capable of get Todoist, Spotify and Lightroom all working effectively in resizable home windows. Even Instagram lastly works correctly, though now that the web site now lets you create posts, it’s probably not obligatory any extra. Placing that apart, efficiency throughout principally all of the Android apps and video games I attempted was strong. However given what number of apps are within the Play Retailer, there’s nonetheless an excellent probability of working throughout some that don’t work effectively.

Whereas Chromebooks aren’t recognized for gaming, the Dragonfly simply dealt with some cloud-based play by way of 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 strong recreation controller assist, and it clearly works with exterior keyboards and mice. So supplied the titles you need can be found, that is most likely one of the simplest ways to play video games on a Chromebook at this level. That stated, this {hardware} ought to greater than meet the minimize for putting in Steam, as soon as Google and Valve begin rolling that out past its present restricted alpha part.