Hp - Envy Desktop - Intel Core I7 - 16gb Memory - 512gb Solid State Drive Reviews
Productivity maximizers looking for an everyday desktop PC could do worse than to make the HP Green-eyed Desktop (starts at $549) their workhorse. The $749 price of our review unit is a bit steep for the budget form (though nosotros did see it on sale periodically for less than $700 during the course of our review), but it includes powerful components like a 6-core Intel Core i5 processor, a solid-state drive instead of a difficult bulldoze, and 12GB of memory. Demand to load your onetime movie collection? Y'all'll capeesh the optical drive that tin can read and write DVDs, likewise as the Gigabit Ethernet connectivity for serving your content to the rest of your devices.
A Ribbed Box
Although the Envy Desktop shares the same boxy shape that PC towers take used for decades, HP has jazzed upward the exterior to assistance it compete with sleek ultraportable laptops and all-in-one desktops. The Nightfall Blackness chassis has rounded corners and a ribbed front, which gives off a vague Sydney Opera House artful (if the Opera House were rectangular). You should still probably hibernate this PC beneath your desk if possible, merely if the front shows, at least information technology won't look boring.
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The Envy Desktop's front ports are located in a column along the right edge beneath the ability push button, and include a headphone jack, four USB Type-A ports, a full-sized SD card reader, and a USB Type-C port. This cornucopia of ports won't leave you searching for a space to plug in external storage or charge several handheld devices simultaneously. Too many companies cram a token selection of ports into a tiny surface area on a desktop's front border, and it's overnice to run across that HP is bucking the trend.
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The Green-eyed's chassis measures thirteen.iii by 6.1 by 11.9 inches (HWD) and weighs about 13 pounds depending on configured options. It'south low-cal enough to motion easily with two easily, only it's nevertheless big and heavy compared to the Apple Mac mini and other similarly tiny desktops, which typically accept up no more space than a wireless router and weigh much less than 10 pounds.
1 of the reasons to buy a desktop PC of the Envy'south size is expandability. If you program on increasing memory or calculation a more powerful graphics card in the time to come, a traditional desktop PC is a far better selection than an AIO or mini PC. The Envy Desktop offers a ii.5-inch bulldoze bay, a 3.5-inch drive bay, and two M.2 slots on the motherboard for a total of 4 possible places to stick storage devices. (At least one of these will exist occupied by the bulldoze that comes with the PC.)
The PCI Express add-in card possibilities are far more limited. Y'all get a single total-length PCIe x16 slot, which will come up already occupied if y'all social club the Envy Desktop with a discrete GPU. About people won't care, but the limited PCIe situation could be an issue for some niche use cases, for instance if you need both duplexed Ethernet and dedicated graphics.
The Envy Desktop includes a 400-watt power supply, which should provide plenty of power for whatever components that you want to add, though a high-terminate graphics carte could exist a push.
Ports on the Dorsum
Effectually dorsum, in that location are four more than USB Type-A ports, the Gigabit Ethernet jack, HDMI and VGA video outputs, two iii.5mm sound outputs, and a microphone input. A full of viii USB-A ports is generous, but unfortunately all of the rear ports are limited to USB two.0 speeds, which is fine for keyboards and mice but makes for glacially irksome information transfer speeds. The front end USB ports all follow the faster USB three.1 Gen 1 spec.
We look for at least 2 oval-shaped USB-C connectors on desktops these days, so it'due south disappointing that the Envy Desktop only has one. We also like to see at least one DisplayPort video output. While the Envy Desktop lacks a built-in one, many discrete GPUs include DisplayPort, and so adding ane isn't too difficult.
In addition to its concrete connections, the Envy Desktop includes 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 for wireless connectivity.
HP includes a one-year express hardware warranty and 90 days of telephone back up, starting from the date you purchase the PC. The company likewise throws in some basic peripherals—a keyboard and mouse that are sturdy, simply not comfortable enough for marathon writing or gaming sessions. The peripherals are bachelor in either wired or wireless versions.
Configuration Options
The version of the Envy Desktop reviewed here includes a six-core Intel Cadre i5 processor with Intel UHD 630 integrated graphics; 12GB of DDR4-2666 memory; and a 512GB SSD. Other configuration options include an eight-cadre Core i7 CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 graphics, and upwardly to 16GB of memory.
The latest Envy Desktops use Intel'due south ninth Generation CPUs, although yous might still detect one with an 8th Generation chip like the Core i5-8400 in our review unit.
Encounter How We Test Desktops
I compared the Envy Desktop'south performance in our benchmark tests to that of other similarly priced desktops including the HP Pavilion, the Acer Aspire, the Lenovo IdeaCentre 510A, and the Apple Mac mini. The Envy'south six-core processor helped propel information technology to impressive results in multimedia tasks such equally editing photos and encoding video files. When information technology comes to bones tasks similar word processing, spreadsheet editing, and casual gaming, it's still a step alee, merely the performance differences aren't as dandy.
We use PCMark 10 to measure overall arrangement performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, web browsing, and videoconferencing. A score of iv,000 or greater on this test represents fine operation, and indeed I noticed no slowdowns while web browsing or installing and uninstalling apps.
PCMark eight has a storage subtest that nosotros use to appraise the speed of the system'southward boot drive. Since all of the PCs here have SSDs, their storage functioning is roughly equal.
For multimedia performance, nosotros use Maxon's CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The issue is a proprietary score indicating a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads; information technology'south clear that while the HP Envy is no workstation, it can handle occasional rendering tasks much better than the Mac mini or IdeaCentre can.
The results of our Handbrake video encoding trial are similar, although the Mac mini skipped this benchmark. The Handbrake examination is a highly threaded CPU workout that scales well with cores and threads.
We besides run a custom Adobe Photoshop paradigm editing benchmark (as with Handbrake, lower times are better hither). The Photoshop test stresses the CPU, storage subsystem, and RAM, simply it can besides accept advantage of virtually GPUs to speed upwardly the process of applying filters. None of these systems is great at photo editing, simply the Envy Desktop and Acer Aspire are conspicuously a cut above their competitors cheers generally to their more powerful CPUs.
Gaming Performance
If you program to use the Envy Desktop for playing games any more complicated than Candy Trounce or Minecraft, you'll want to configure it with a discrete GPU. Otherwise, you lot'll become results similar to the disappointing numbers that our integrated-graphics-equipped Envy achieved in the 3DMark and Superposition tests. The IdeaCentre fares better considering of its AMD Radeon Vega integrated graphics.
3DMark measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run 2 dissimilar 3DMark subtests, Heaven Diver and Burn Strike. Both are DirectX eleven benchmarks, only Sky Diver is more than suited to laptops and midrange PCs, while Fire Strike is more than enervating and fabricated for high-end PCs to strut their stuff.
Similar 3DMark, the Superposition test renders and pans through a detailed 3D scene and measures how the system copes, offering a result in frames per 2nd (fps).
A Capable Daily PC
The Envy Desktop is a good everyday PC, offering fantabulous productivity operation in an attractive chassis with a scrap of room for expansion. While its gaming functioning is lackluster, that tin hands be remedied by adding a detached GPU. However, if you lot plan to add several PCIe cards or accept lots of USB-C peripherals, you'll want to look elsewhere.
HP Envy Desktop (TE01-014)
The Bottom Line
The HP Envy Desktop is a skillful everyday PC, offering first-class productivity functioning in an attractive chassis with room for expansion.
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Source: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/hp-envy-desktop-te01-014