Freelancers make up a bigger a part of the economic system than ever, so I used to be intrigued by HP’s new Dragonfly Professional laptop computer. It’s being marketed as designed particularly for freelancers with improved audio and video controls and devoted help for that market. It is an attention-grabbing idea, and the machine does have a number of good options, together with spectacular efficiency and a very good built-in webcam. Sadly, to my thoughts, the execution falls a bit wanting the idea, with a number of points that take away from the general expertise of utilizing the machine.
Measuring 0.72 by 12.4 by 8.8 inches (HWD) and weighing 3.4 kilos (simply over 4 kilos with the included 96-watt charger), the Dragonfly Professional is neither the lightest nor the heaviest 14-inch pocket book I’ve seen recently. It has an excellent, stable really feel with an aluminum base. The mannequin I used had a professional-looking black shade; it is usually accessible in white.
It has a 14-inch 1920-by-1200 IPS show within the 16:10 ratio that’s now commonplace on high-end laptops, and the display appeared brilliant at 400 nits. Simply as importantly, it comes with a contact display normal, which I discover very handy. The show appears to be like fairly good, although it doesn’t help pen enter, and there aren’t any choices for higher-resolution shows or for HP’s wonderful privateness screens.
The Dragonfly Professional has a big, responsive haptic trackpad. However it does not have a lot in the way in which of ports, solely two USB-C ports on the left and one on the fitting, which makes it handy to plug in from both aspect. There isn’t any USB-A, no HDMI, not even an audio jack. Whereas you will get USB-C port dongles for any of these capabilities, that’s awkward.
The backlit keyboard is first rate if not distinctive, and stands out for having 4 particular keys on the fitting aspect, which convey up the myHP app, tech help, video choices, and an software of your alternative. I just like the idea, however in observe, I by accident hit the myHP key too usually when aiming for backspace.
One huge promoting level of the Dragonfly Professional is that it’s designed for freelancers who spend loads of time on video calls. It has a 5-megapixel webcam, which typically appears to be like nice. HP presents a separate video management software, which can be accessed from the myHP software or a devoted key. Choices embrace face-framing (in extensive, portrait, or tight settings), including a background or a background blur, and setting a number of changes for low mild situations or picture enhancement. These controls can be utilized to enhance your image in third-party purposes, corresponding to Groups or Zoom, however be aware it’s worthwhile to select the HP Presence Digicam (versus the traditional HP Digicam X) to get it to work. (HP’s tech help gave me the improper data after I was testing, telling me it would not work in third-party video purposes.)
For audio, it has a Bang & Olufsen sound system with two up-firing and two down-firing audio system; HP claims it might probably stand up to 80 decibels with out distortion. To me, it sounded fairly good. Nevertheless, I generally might really feel a rumble on the keyboard when audio was enjoying, which was a bit disconcerting.
One other huge differentiator for the Dragonfly Professional is the 24/7 Professional Reside help. HP accurately notes that freelancers haven’t got an IT service desk like enterprise customers. The Dragonfly Professional has a devoted help key that connects you with an software to textual content or name a help technician.
I examined this out, however as a result of this was earlier than items have been extensively accessible, I am undecided how consultant my outcomes have been. For some questions, I bought good and proper solutions, corresponding to coping with OneDrive settings and repairing the myHP software. Nevertheless, I could not resolve a problem with inconsistent mouse actions – it turned out {that a} USB exhausting drive plugged into an adjoining USB port on an HP Thunderbolt Dock was interfering – and I acquired unhelpful and incorrect data relating to utilizing the video controls characteristic with Zoom.
The Dragonfly Professional comes with a yr of 24/7 Professional Reside technical help, with extra help costing $10.99 a month for as much as 36 months.
As the primary machine I’ve examined with an AMD Ryzen 7 7000 collection processor, the Dragonfly Professional did fairly properly in efficiency. The Ryzen 7 7736u has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base pace of two.7 GHz and a most turbo pace of 4.7 GHz, utilizing the Zen 3+ cores with Radeon 680M graphics, produced on TSMC’s 6nm course of. The unit I examined had 16GB of DRAM and a 512GB SSD.
HP says it tuned the system and processor for total responsiveness, negating the necessity to change to a balanced or efficiency mode, whereas conserving the machine as cool and quiet as attainable. It did appear to run quietly, and benchmark efficiency typically regarded good.
On most of my normal checks, the present AMD processor is notably quicker than the present Intel Alder Lake processors, notably in duties which might be closely multitasked or contain graphics. It was additionally quicker than most methods I examined with the earlier technology Ryzen 6800 collection as properly. This nonetheless is not a gaming laptop computer, however it’s a lot better at that than a lot of the earlier machines on this class.
On my hardest checks, it took 33 minutes and 45 seconds to run a fancy MatLab simulation, in contrast with 34 minutes and 37 seconds on the light-weight machine (the Ryzen 6850U-based Lenovo ThinkPad Z1, beforehand greatest at school). Present Alder Lake-based methods take 38-42 minutes. Doing a big video transcode in HandBrake took an hour and 9 minutes, a lot better than the hour and 31 minutes on the ThinkPad Z1 or the almost two hours on most Intel-based methods. I used to be impressed.
Nevertheless, the one exception to the nice scores got here in my Excel take a look at, the place it took 47 minutes to finish a big Excel spreadsheet that present Intel machines can full in about 37 minutes. That is just like the quantity I noticed with final yr’s AMD-based machines. My guess is it is as a result of Excel does not benefit from the extra cores, and so displays the slower clock speeds of the AMD cores in comparison with the present Intel “efficiency” cores.
The machine has a 65 watt-hour battery, which lasts over 15 hours on PCMark 10’s “Trendy Workplace” take a look at. Nevertheless, I wanted a BIOS repair to make sure that the machine went to sleep correctly; beforehand it could warmth up in my journey bag. HP says this has been utilized to all transport items. Even after that repair, generally I discovered I might get much less battery life than I anticipated if the machine sat in my bag in a single day.
It additionally charged comparatively rapidly because of the 96-watt charger, which is beefier than what I see on most enterprise laptops. This plugs immediately right into a wall outlet, versus most charging bricks, which has its execs and cons. HP says you’ll be able to cost the battery to 50% in half-hour.
The Dragonfly Professional has two USB-C ports that help 40 Gb/s switch and which appeared to work nice with a Thunderbolt dock, plus one different USB-C that helps 10 Gb/s, in addition to help for Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.2. I used to be stunned that it did not provide a wi-fi WAN (mobile information plan) choice. I do know this is not the preferred laptop computer choice, however it looks like it’d make sense for a lot of freelancers who might be working in several places.
Additionally, one uncommon factor I seen is that the underside of the machine could be very magnetic, rather more so than I’ve seen on different laptops recently. I am undecided how a lot of a problem that is, however it’s disconcerting.
The HP Dragonfly Professional has a listing worth (which matches the present web site worth) of $1,399 for a unit with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD (which is what I examined) and $1,549 for 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. It is a fairly aggressive worth for a comparatively skinny machine with superb efficiency for many purposes and a yr of technical help.
Ultimately, I like lots in regards to the machine. However there are different issues that depart me questioning it, corresponding to the dearth of an audio jack, the inconsistent battery, and several other lacking choices that at the least some freelancers will need corresponding to a higher-resolution show or mobile information. Tech help nonetheless looks like a piece in progress. In different phrases, it is near being an important resolution for freelancers, however simply misses the mark.
Here is PCMag’s full evaluate.
