HP Envy x360 m6

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Our verdict

The Envy x360 m6 offers a lot of style and performance for the money, but a weak screen and keyboard hold it back.

To the

Stylish look

Fast Kaby Lake CPU

Strong sound

Against

Blunt display

Flat keyboard

Mechanical hard drive

If you're looking for a stylish yet affordable 15-inch 2-in-1, look no further than the HP Envy x360 m6. Starting at $629 (US$899) as configured, this sleek convertible combines a Attractive aluminum body with strong multitasking performance and precise audio output. However, the Envy x360 is also riddled with compromises, including a dark screen, a flat keyboard, and an old-fashioned mechanical hard drive.

draft

The sleek, silver aluminum Envy x360 m6 looks like a MacBook from the front, but the shiny metallic accents of the rear-mounted 360-degree hinges make it more of a copycat. These hinges let you slide the device between display, laptop -, tablet, and tent modes, and it feels stable in each.

At 0.9 inches and 4.6 pounds thick, the Envy x360 m6 is similar to that

Acer AspireR15

(0.8 inches, 4.8 pounds) and slightly thicker than that

Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1

(0.7 inch, 4.6 pounds) and the 15-inch

Lenovo Yoga 710

(0.7 inches, 4.2 pounds).

HP placed the Envy's first USB 3.0 port and its security lock slot on the left side of the notebook, along with the power and volume buttons. On the right side is the second USB 3.0 port, the non-charging USB -Type-C port, the HDMI port and the SD memory reader.

Best HP Laptops

The Envy x360 m6's 15.6-inch display is crisp but suffers from dark, muted colors. Watching the music video for Missy Elliot's "I'm Better," I noticed that the pink laser lights weren't as popping, as they should, while an underwater scene view looked gray instead of crystal blue. Still, the 1080p panel was sharp enough that I could see individual glitter flakes in Missy's makeup and the grout tiles in the floor in the background of the pool scene.

Measurements using our colorimeter revealed that the x360's screen only reproduces 62 percent of the sRGB spectrum. That's on par with the Inspiron 15 (62 percent) but compared to the Yoga 710 (101 percent), the Aspire R (109 percent) and the mainstream notebook average (91 percent).

The Envy's display wasn't particularly accurate, scoring a 5.8 (lower is better) on the Delta-E test. That's worse than the Aspire (4), Inspiron 15 (0.9), Yoga ( 0.8) and the average for mainstream notebooks (2.6).

I knew the HP convertible's panel was dim, but I didn't expect it to be so low in our brightness test. The panel emits just 200 cd/m² (average brightness). That falls short of the Aspire (310 cd/m²). m²), the Inspiron 15 (244 cd/m²), the Yoga (322 cd/m²) and the mainstream notebook average (267 cd/m²).

Keyboard, touchscreen, touchpad

The Envy x360 m6's full-size, backlit keyboard needs a bit more depth. When I tested it on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, I hit 77 words per minute, a notch below my 80 wpm average. My performance dropped because the keys were too shallow, causing my fingertips to hit the floor and touch the deck, which became painful over time. Our subsequent keyboard measurements (1.3 millimeters of travel and required 60 grams of actuation force) showed that the travel exceeded that Problem is as we prefer between 1.5 and 2.0mm.

The convertible's touchscreen display tracked my input closely as I navigated the desktop. It also had no trouble keeping up with my finger as I quickly scribbled in Paint.

The Envy's 4.6 x 2.5-inch buttonless touchpad fluidly accepts my swipes and gestures, and recognizes two-finger scrolling and three-digit app switching. It also provided a solid feel with each click.

Audio

The Envy x360 m6 can kick out the tunes. The laptop's speakers filled a large conference room with a solid rendition of Missy Elliott's "I'm Better". The highs sounded sweet without being too harsh, the vocals came through clearly and the bass actually kicked (a rarity considering what qualifies as bass in many laptops).

This convertible sounds so great thanks to Bang & Olufsen tuning. Keep the music preset as I didn't hear any real benefit from using the movie or voice settings.

perfomance

Equipped with an Intel Core i7-7500U CPU, 16 GB RAM and a 7,200 rpm 1 TB hard drive, our test configuration of the Envy x360 m6 offers strong mainstream performance and multitasking. I didn't notice any lag even after changing my screen to 12 Chrome tabs (including Slack, TweetDeck, and Google Docs) and a 1080p YouTube video. The system remained responsive after I launched a full system scan in Windows Defender.

Thanks to its 7th Gen Core i7 CPU, the Envy x360 m6 scored a solid 8,069 on Geekbench 3's overall performance test. The $649 ($5,318) Acer Aspire R 15 (Core i5-6200U), the Inspiron 15 (Core i5-6200U) for $749 ($6,499) and the Yoga 710 (Core i7-6500U) for $949 had scores of 5,318, 6,499, and 6,681, respectively.

Aimed at a budget-conscious audience, the Envy x360 m6 uses a 1TB hard drive instead of a fast but smaller and more expensive SSD. As a result, HP's laptop completed our file transfer test in a modest time of 1 minute and 40 seconds, a transfer rate of 50 .9 Mb/s. That might beat the 29.9 Mb/s hard drive (1 TB, 5400 rpm) in the Aspire R 15, but the 122.6 Mb/s SSD in the Inspiron 15 and the 164 .2 Mb/s SSDs in the Yoga 710 have taken their time, as has the 162.8 Mb/s average for mainstream notebooks.

The HP convertible matched 20,000 names with addresses in 3 minutes and 35 seconds in our OpenOffice Spreadsheet Macro test. That's faster than the times of the Aspire R 15 (4:59), the Inspiron 15 (4:47), and the Yoga 710 (4:02) and the mainstream notebook average (4:21).

You can't even come close to playing a demanding game on this notebook as it could only run Dirt 3 Racer (set to 1920x1080 and medium graphics) at 22 frames per second. That's below our 30fps playability threshold.

Games with more modest requirements should run smoothly on the Envy x360 m6 with Intel HD 620 graphics, which scored 74,705 points in the Ice Storm Unlimited graphics benchmark test. That beats the Intel HD 520-equipped Aspire R 15 (49,995) and Inspiron 15 (64,067), but falls short of the average for mainstream notebooks (82,322) and the Nvidia GeForce 940 MX-based Yoga 710 (84,670).

battery life

Mainstream 15-inch notebooks aren't exactly known for great battery life, and the Envy x360 m6 won't change that perception. It only lasted 6 hours and 15 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test (web surfing over Wi-Fi at 100 nits of brightness) , which is near average for mainstream phones (6:31) and longer than the Aspire R 15 (5:20). At 6:55 and 9:19 respectively, the Inspiron 15 and Yoga 710 get more out of a full charge out.

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cam

The Envy's 0.9-megapixel webcam shoots grainy, but true-color photos. When I took a selfie in our office, it really captured the red of a wall and the dark navy blue of my shirt detail off.

heat

This HP convertible is one cool customer. After streaming 15 minutes of full-screen HD video on the notebook, our heat gun recorded temperatures of 81 degrees Fahrenheit on the touchpad, 83 degrees on the G&H keys, and 89 degrees on the bottom. These Temperatures were well below our 95 degree comfort threshold.

software

We're used to notebooks preloading with bloatware like Candy Crush Saga and Netflix, but HP includes a link to Priceline.com and an Amazon shopping app. Buying a new computer shouldn't require digital house cleaning on day one, but that's exactly what you'll do after that first start.

HP also adds a few proprietary apps, including JumpStart, which walks you through Windows 10 keyboard shortcuts and system customization. There's also Recovery Manager, which offers servicing options, and Audio Switch, which simplifies audio input and output management.

HP Envy x360 m6

setting options

The entry-level 15-inch Envy x360 m6 is sold by HP for $629 and packs a Core i5-7200U CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB 5400RPM hard drive. HP also sells it with one Core i7-7500 CPU, 16GB of memory, and the same 1TB 5400RPM hard drive for $729.

The $899 Best Buy-exclusive model we reviewed is almost the same as the $729 model above, but has a faster hard drive (1TB 7,200 rpm). It's clearly not worth the $170 premium , only to switch from a 5,400 RPM drive to a slightly faster one. A better, albeit more expensive, version is the $949 model sold by HP, which has both a 1 TB 7,200 RPM drive as well as a 128 GB SSD.

bottom line

The HP Envy x360 m6 is a sexy, speedy 2-in-1 that thrives on heavy multitasking in the office and playing music after hours. Although the $899 configuration we tested for a laptop with While it's a bit pricey with a mediocre screen and mechanical hard drive, the $730 or $629 models offer good value for money.

However, if you're looking for an affordable 15-inch 2-in-1, this is it

Acer AspireR15

offers decent performance and a bright display for just $550. And if you can shell out a full $949, the speedy 15-inch is

Lenovo Yoga 710

offers a great keyboard, fast SSD, and long battery life. However, if you're looking for a good balance of performance, style, and price, the HP Envy x360 m6 is a worthy choice.

Credit: Jeremy Lips/Laptop Mag

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