16-inch OLED Envy, HP Envy 16-h0044TX

I first met Envy about 10 years ago. The laptop his friend was using at the time was an Envy. It looked neat and the speakers were nice. He remembers that much. Since then, he has dealt with numerous HP laptops. Pavilion, Specter, Probook, Elite Book, Omen. But Envy has never dealt with it.

When I first saw the Envy, it was a premium laptop from HP. But at some point, the Specter took over the flagship. And the entry level is the HP series, and the mainstream is the Pavilion. So what about Envy?

To be honest, I thought Envy was going to retire. But Envy was alive. The image transformation was done properly as a laptop for creators. 16-inch 16:10 OLED 4K touch display, 12th Gen Intel Core i9 processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, Bang & Olufsen quad speakers. It is also a premium laptop with specifications. Envy is back.

HP laptops are divided into home, gaming and business categories. Here, home use is again divided into Specter, Envy, Pavilion, and HP series (home use). The role of Envy can be roughly understood in a summary article on the HP website. First of all, it is ‘creativity’ in one word, and the article summarized in one sentence is “With excellent performance in a stylish design, you can enjoy entertainment while working productively wherever you go.”

In other words, the rough nature of Envy is that it is optimized for productivity, work, and entertainment. Productivity and work are directly related to performance. Entertainment also has to do with display quality and sound.

Then, when I went to the NV page, it was listed as ‘a product designed by creators for creators’. This is because Envy has 13-inch and 15-inch 2in1 product lines. 2in1 can be used by switching between notebook, sketch, and tent mode.

However, the HP Envy 16-h0044TX to be introduced this time is not a 2in1 product line. So why a creator? Because of performance. The HP Envy 16-h0044TX has better performance than most desktops (Core i9-12900H, RTX 3060, OLED display). In addition, it supports functions such as a battery that can be used all day and HP Quick Drop.

The design is as luxurious as HP’s premium laptop. In the first place, the direct translation of the name of N.B. is jealousy. It is a name that expresses a pretty design that makes viewers jealous, but if it is ugly, the identity of the product itself is shaken. So Envy has a pretty cool design that lives up to its name.

The color is natural silver and the material is aluminum. The top plate is soft to the touch and the side finish is treated in a curved shape, so it looks good. The HP logo on the top shines with a glossy finish. In addition, the other parts can be written neatly with a matte finish.

It weighs 2.32 kg. At first glance, you might think that it looks heavy among 16-inch laptops, but considering the performance (Core i9-12900H, RTX 3060), it is not. The size of the adapter is also moderately large, but it does not exceed 3kg even if the adapter and the laptop body are added. It is convenient to put in your bag and carry around.

The I/O port is a good configuration for a laptop for creators. USB Type-A x1 (10Gbps, HP Sleep&Charge), USB Type-A x1 (10Gbps) Headphone/Mic Combo, microSD Media Card Reader, Thunderbolt 4 with USB Type-C 40Gbps x2 (USB PD, DisplayPort 1.4, HP Sleep&Charge) , HDMI 2.1 configuration. With two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a USB Type-A port and an HDMI 2.1 port, there is nothing lacking.

The Core i9-12900H is a 12th Gen Intel Elder Lake processor. 6 high-performance P-cores (6 cores, 12 threads) and 8 high-efficiency E-cores (8 cores and 8 threads) operate with a total of 14 cores and 20 threads. The maximum turbo clock is 5.0 GHz (P-Core). The E-core operates at 3.8 GHz. Intel Smart Cache 24MB, processor-based performance 45W, maximum turbo performance 115W.

Sometimes a 14-inch laptop has a corresponding processor, and in some cases, the performance is adjusted according to the cooling performance. The HP Envy 16-h0044TX does its job well. In addition, the memory is DDR5 4800 16GB. 8GB x 2 configuration.

The GeForce RTX 3060 is the perfect GPU for work and gaming. You’ll often see the RTX 3050 Ti in a work laptop, but the RTX 3060 is even better. Rendering using GPU greatly reduces work time.

A cooling solution is important for a Core i9-12900H and RTX 3060 combination. It can be used for a long time without performance degradation if the heat is properly handled. The cooling performance of the HP Envy 16-h0044TX is pretty decent. In CPU full load test, it is up to 85 degrees and is stabilized at 68 degrees. When gaming, the keyboard part of the laptop is confirmed to be about 40 degrees. The noise during heat is about 49dB on average, which is comparable to a quiet library.

Also, the best thing about the HP Envy 16-h0044TX is the display. In line with the recent trend, it has a 16:10 aspect ratio. It is much more comfortable than the existing 16:9 display. As the vertical viewing area is wider, productivity is also high.

The display quality is very high because it is OLED. The resolution is 3840×2400 and touch is supported. The color gamut is DCI-P3 100% and the brightness is 400 nits. Considering that entry-level laptops are usually 250 nits, 300 nits is good enough, and 400 nits is high. In addition, it is possible to block blue light certified by iSafe. In addition, the left and right bezels are also on the thin side.

A good way to check the color of an OLED display is through comparison. I did a simple comparison with a laptop with a plain display. After posting a photo of the protest against Jumunjin, I compared it, and the OLED, HP Envy 16-h0044TX, has a color close to reality from the sea to the sky. However, ordinary displays could not express colors properly.

They then compared photos taken at the entrance to the botanical garden. This result is more evident. The HP Envy 16-h0044TX accurately reproduces the colors of the sky and flowers. However, a laptop with an ordinary display had a dark screen and could not properly reproduce colors. These characteristics make the HP Envy 16-h0044TX suitable for tasks where accurate color representation is important.

The keyboard is tenkeyless. It seems to have been chosen as tenkeyless by placing quad speakers on the keyboard part. There is no particular inconvenience when using it. In addition, it is equipped with an LED backlight, so it is easy to see even in the dark. The size of the touchpad is also large, so it is easy to use.

Audio is a Bang & Olufsen quad speaker. I was able to change the equalizer through the Bang & Olufsen audio control program. music, movies, etc. Even with the volume turned up to the max, the sound didn’t break. Also, it changed significantly depending on the equalizer settings. After playing Lonely Night of Resurrection, when I switched from music to voice, I could immediately see that the vocal sound was emphasized rather than the instrument sound. Then, after turning on the bomb sound ASMR and switching to the movie mode, the sound of debris scattering after the bomb explodes can be heard relatively accurately.

In addition, the network supports Wi-Fi 6E, and the SSD is a PCIe 4.0 SSD. PD charging is also supported. The battery is 83Wh, and it can be used for up to 13 hours and 45 minutes while playing video. The camera is equipped with a 5-megapixel IR camera and dual digital microphones. Windows Hello facial recognition login feature is also available.

We confirmed the performance of HP Envy 16-h0044TX. I set the cooler to performance mode in the HP command center and tested it.

In the HP Envy 16-h0044TX, video editing is at the level of a high-performance desktop, and the game can be enjoyed at an average of 60 frames after compromising options at 4K resolution. The performance is not disappointing, and the finish of the laptop is also excellent as in the HP premium product line. The good sound that was a long tradition of ENV is still there. If you’re looking for a good laptop for creating content on the go and playing games, the HP Envy 16-h0044TX is a good choice.