HP Elite Dragonfly Max im Test: Premium

The HP Elite Dragonfly Max is designed for executives who work on both Zoom calls and face-to-face meetings. The Elite Dragonfly Max features a 5-megapixel (1440p) webcam that is twice the resolution of standard 720p laptop webcam and is flanked by four microphones for better zoom audio.

Given that it could be years before you return to pre-pandemic travel levels, I doubt HP's decision to outfit the Elite Dragonfly Max with a 13.3-inch display rather than a more spacious 14-inch panel. Then there's the price: It's sky high at

$2,789 at HP.com

In many ways it competes well with other premium business convertibles, but at this price point the raw CPU performance and battery life are surprising disappointments.

HP Elite Dragonfly Max Features: Top notch

As per the specs, the HP Elite Dragonfly Max model we tested has a top-end CPU, ample RAM, ample solid-state storage capacity, and ample connectivity. Here are the details:

CPU:

Quad core Intel Core i7-1185G7

Storage:

16 GIGABYTES

Graphic:

Intel Iris Xe

Storage:

512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD

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13.3-inch, 1920 x 1280 IPS touch

Cams:

1440p with physical camera shutter

Connectivity:

Right side: Two Thunderbolt 4, HDMI 2.0, headphone/microphone combo jack. Left side: SuperSpeed ​​USB 5Gbps Type-A, SIM card

Networking:

WiFi 6, 5G WWAN, Bluetooth 5.0

Biometrics:

IR facial recognition, fingerprint reader

Battery capacity:

4 cell, 56 watt hours

Dimensions:

11.98 x 7.78 x 0.63 inches

Measured weight:

2.59 pounds (laptop), 0.62 pounds (AC adapter)

Our

$2,789 Elite Dragonfly Max

is the top-end device in the line. You can save $550 by going for the

$2,239 Baseline Elite Dragonfly Max

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, which comes with a Core i7-1165G7 CPU (which has slightly lower clock speeds than its higher-spec Core i7-1185G7 sibling) but otherwise shares the exact same configuration. These fixed-configuration models go in and out of storage, but the

customizable Elite Dragonfly Max, starting at $2,409 at HP.com

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, is another option. It lets you expand storage up to 32GB and storage up to 2TB SSD and opt for mobile broadband. All models share the same 13.3-inch Full HD touchscreen display (1920 x 1080) with the HP Sure View privacy feature.

Black Beauty

The HP Elite Dragonfly Max exudes C-suite style with a thin but sturdy magnesium chassis in an alluring matte black finish. It's sure to turn heads in the boardroom or in the business class of an airplane. It's also rugged: The Dragonfly Max has passed MIL-STD 810H testing to prove its resistance to shock, heat, cold, humidity and other extreme conditions.

The smooth matte finish is also effective at repelling fingerprints and smudges. If you choose to wipe the system, the Dragonfly Max is designed to withstand 1,000 wipes (per HP) without discoloring or fading. That's more than 19 years of wiping on a weekly schedule. The laptop comes with a utility — HP Easy Clean — that disables the touchscreen, keyboard, and touchpad for two minutes so you can wipe down without making crazy typing errors.

Matt Elliott/IDG

The HP Easy Clean utility disables the keyboard, touchpad, and touchscreen so you can wipe down the Elite Dragonfly Max without disrupting your work.

There are other handy utilities on board as well. HP Sure View can be turned on with the press of a function key, so prying eyes don't see what's on your screen - it makes it almost impossible to see the display unless you're sitting right in front of it. Another utility lowers the laptop's temperature when it's on your lap and sacrifices a bit of performance to avoid scorching your thighs. The Dragonfly Max also reduces battery drain when it detects it's been put in a bag , and speeds up wake-up time when you take it out.

Weighing just 2.59 pounds, the Dragonfly Max is an easy travel companion. Compared to other premium business laptops, that is

Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310

weighs 2.9 pounds and the larger 14-inch

HP Specter x360 14

weighs 3 pounds. The smaller 12.3-inch

Microsoft Surface Pro 7+

with the signature cover/keyboard is only slightly lighter at 2.42 pounds. If you want to sacrifice 2-in-1 versatility, the 13-inch is

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano

weighs only 1.99 pounds.

Stellar display and webcam

The main feature of the Elite Dragonfly Max's 13.3-inch Full HD touch display is its amazing brightness of 1,000 nits. Although it didn't appear any brighter than my MacBook's 500-nit display in a direct comparison with Sure View disabled Pros, it's still one of the few displays I've seen in direct sunlight. Note, however, that enabling Sure View dims the display severely.

At every setting, the display's colors appeared vibrant, with deep blacks and bright whites. The HP Eye Ease feature reduces blue light without adding the yellow cast you've seen in other solutions. Eye Ease is always on and cannot be disabled , which you don't want. After using the Dragonfly Max for a week, my MacBook Pro's screen looked cold and blue in comparison.

My only gripe with the display is the size. At 13.3 inches and a 16:9 aspect ratio, the display feels cramped, especially when you're trying to scroll a large spreadsheet or document. I'd like a few more ounces for a 14-inch display.

The Elite Dragonfly Max is ready for the video conferencing era. The 5 megapixel webcam above the display can record 1440p video at 30 frames per second. With twice the resolution of the 720p webcams found on almost every other laptop are, the video captured was excellent, with accurate skin tones and colors and little noise or graininess. There's also a physical privacy cover. Thanks to the laptop's four microphones -- two front-facing and two outward-facing -- video calls sound clearer.

Who needs passwords when the Elite Dragonfly Max offers biometric options? There's a separate IR camera for Windows Hello facial recognition. (The privacy cover also blocks the IR camera, so you'll have to open it to use this feature. ) Alternatively, you can use the fingerprint reader, which is located under the lower right corner of the keyboard.

The laptop's four speakers -- two firing upwards on either side of the keyboard, two firing from the front edge of the bottom -- provide excellent audio output for such a compact laptop. The full sound shows clear highs and mids and something resembling bass response - rare for any laptop.

Keyboard, touchpad, connectivity

Both the keyboard and the touchpad are excellent. The keys offer a firm response with the right drop and are very quiet when pressed. The typing feel is supported by the rigid magnesium chassis, which does not bend even under heavy use. The keyboard has via two levels of backlighting, and between the Fn keys is a microphone mute button that helpfully illuminates a small LED when you're muted. However, given the focus on video conferencing, I was surprised to find no dedicated Fn keys for starting and ending calls The touchpad accurately tracked my mouse movement and offered firm clicks, and its matte finish made for a smooth glide, even during a wet July test week.

Matt Elliott/IDG

Even heavy typists should immediately feel comfortable with the robust, firm keyboard of the Dragonfly Max.

The highlights of the Dragonfly Max's port selection are the two Thunderbolt 4 ports, but I wish they were spread across both sides of the laptop instead of both being on the right edge. I would also like the USB Type-A port from the left Move border to the right as it will probably be used to connect a mouse and most people are right-handed.

Matt Elliott/IDG

A pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports punctuate the Dragonfly Max's connectivity, although it's slightly less versatile when both are on the same side of the laptop.

HP Elite Dragonfly Max performance

In our test,

It was the best of times and it was the worst of times

for the Elite Dragonfly Max. It showed excellent application performance but lackluster multimedia capabilities and battery life.

We compared the Elite Dragonfly Max to two other high-end 2-in-1 convertibles, the

Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 9310

and the

HP Specter x360 14

, each equipped with the Core i7-1165G7 CPU; and

Microsoft's Surface Pro 7+

, a 2-in-1 with a detachable keyboard that uses a Core i5-1135G7 CPU.The

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano

based on the Core i7-1160G7 CPU; it is not a convertible, but a comparably sized premium business notebook that is worth considering. All five systems have 16 GB of RAM and integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics.

Matt Elliott/IDG

The HP Elite Dragonfly Max led the field in PCMark 10's productivity suite. It will handle all your mainstream applications with aplomb.

Our first benchmark is PCMark 10, which measures performance in everyday computing, including office productivity tasks, web browsing, and video chatting. It's a close race - pretty much any modern laptop can handle mainstream applications with ease - but the Elite Dragonfly does Max took first place among the five premium business devices here.

The story changes when you look at raw CPU performance. First, let's look at Cinebench, a CPU sprint of sorts. The Elite Dragonfly Max's numbers aren't bad, but they fall well short of similar competition.

Matt Elliott/IDG

The HP Elite Dragonfly Max's Cinebench scores are decent, but lag behind the scores of other premium business laptops.

We use the HandBrake utility to convert a 30GB movie to Android spreadsheet format, an intense task that puts a strain on the CPU - and the laptop's ability to keep it cool. Again, the Elite Dragonfly Max has the competition left behind.

Matt Elliott/IDG

HandBrake is a grueling test that heats up the CPU and penalizes laptops that have to throttle to handle the heat. The HP Elite Dragonfly Max obviously made some sacrifices to stay cool.

The Elite Dragonfly Max isn't the first thin, light, and small laptop to falter in CPU performance due to thermal limitations. It's worth noting, however, that the Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1, the most similar device in our comparison, all outperformed in both tests.

although

Intel's integrated graphics Iris Xe is surprisingly good

As our tests have shown, none of the Iris Xe-equipped laptops here are mistaken for gaming machines, particularly the Elite Dragonfly Max, which came last in our 3DMark benchmark.

Matt Elliott/IDG

None of these thin, light, and small laptops can be mistaken for a gaming machine, but the Elite Dragonfly Max is the most disappointing of them all.

While some of the lackluster performance above is due to the limitations of smaller laptops, battery life is the biggest disappointment. We test the laptop's battery life by playing a 4K video using the default Windows Movies & TV app with a screen brightness of around Repeat at 250 nits and 50 percent volume with headphones connected.

Matt Elliott/IDG

When it came to battery life, the HP Elite Dragonfly Max lagged behind most of its competitors, even with smaller batteries.

It might seem tough to ding a laptop that lasted close to 11 hours on battery, but consider the competition. Sure, the Elite Dragonfly Max with a 56Wh battery has the Surface Pro 7+ and its 50Wh pack survived. But the Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1 has a 51Wh battery and the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano has a 48Wh battery, but both lasted longer than the Elite Dragonfly Max. (The HP Specter x360 14 has an outsized advantage with its 66.5Wh supply.) The Dragonfly Max can handle all but the longest work days on a single charge, but competing models seem to be more efficient.

Competing Priorities

The HP Elite Dragonfly Max has a nice, sturdy body and a host of well-thought-out utilities that business leaders are sure to please. It also offers a gorgeous (if small) display, surprisingly robust audio output, and a 1440p webcam that cams 720p Its premium design and long list of features justify the high price, but overall performance left us wanting. Even a slight disappointment is noticeable when a laptop's price tag approaches the $3,000 mark .

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