Why it matters: Windows 11 and Office 2021 are due to launch in a couple of weeks, and manufacturers are updating their most popular devices with better support for blended work and study. HP is no exception and the company seems to have a Windows 11 PC to suit all tastes and budgets.
After Dell, Asus, and Lenovo, HP is the latest manufacturer to release new hardware designed for Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 11 operating system.
The new Specter x360 2-in-1 laptop is arguably the star of the show, with a large 16-inch, 16:10 IPS touchscreen display and a 5-megapixel webcam for video conferencing. The device also supports Windows Hello authentication. HP claims that the high-resolution webcam enables AI-assisted face tracking so that it is always in the center of the frame during video calls. At the same time, the webcam has a physical privacy shutter and can automatically lock your laptop when you walk away.
The internals include an 11th-generation Intel Core i7-11390H processor paired with Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3050 laptop GPU, 16GB of DDR4 memory, a 512GB NVMe SSD, and 32GB of Intel Optane memory. The best-in-class model has a 4K OLED display and HP promises up to 17 hours of battery life when you combine web browsing and video streaming.
Pricing starts at $1,639 for the base model with a 3K+ IPS display and will be available starting next month at the HP Online Store and later this fall at Best Buy.
Next, a 34-inch Envy desktop all-in-one with a 5K display (5120 x 2160) is capable of up to 500 nits of brightness and supports 98% of the DCI-P3 color space. HP removed the bottom speaker and softened the bezels for a cleaner design. You can adjust the height of the screen, the stand has a built-in 15W Qi wireless charger for your phone, and you get a 16MP webcam that can be magnetically attached to any of the four sides of the screen.
The new All-In-One can be equipped with an 11th generation Intel Core i9 processor, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Max-Q GPU, 32GB of DDR4 RAM and 512GB of NVMe storage. HP claims that the user can upgrade the RAM and storage, which is a definite advantage these days.
Connectivity options include four USB Type-A ports and two Thunderbolt 4 ports with support for USB4 transfer speeds of up to 40Gbps, as well as two USB Type-C ports and one USB Type-A port operating up to 5Gbit/s. There’s also HDMI output for a second screen, Wi-Fi 6, and Bluetooth 5.
Pricing for the new HP Envy All-in-One starts at $1,999 for the standard configuration and ships next month. If that’s beyond your budget, the company has announced an updated Pavilion model with an AMD Ryzen 5000 processor and 27-inch screen starting at $799.
HP also announced a new 11-inch tablet designed for the Windows 11 operating system. The new device is powered by an Intel Pentium Silver N6000 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It also has a 13MP rotating camera and an ink digitizer. Units start at $599.
If you need a little heart, the company has a new 14-inch laptop powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7c Gen2 mobile platform, 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, and 128GB of eMMC storage. The tablet will begin shipping in December, and the laptop will be available at Walmart next month.
