HP Envy 34 review: A stylish, but expensive, widescreen all-in-one PC

HP’s use of the ‘Envy’ brand title has continuously perceived to smack of hubris — particularly when used with something as mundane as an inkjet printer. but we can’t help admiring the sheer, all-out extravagance of this latest addition to the Envy vary. in addition to boasting an crowd pleasing 34-inch curved show, the Envy 34 is bursting at the seams with excessive-tech options designed to entice the smartly-heeled client or trade govt who’s searching for the final word laptop standing symbol. It comes with a horny hefty price tag, though, so we had been curious to look if the Envy 34 may earn its preserve and supply extra than just eye-candy.

Widescreen surprise

The standout function of the Envy 34 is, after all, that imposing 34-inch curved display, and it indubitably delivers the ‘wow’ factor whilst you sit down down in front of it for the first time. The 34 inches refers to the diagonal dimension, but the elongated widescreen show — with 21:9 facet ratio — still measures a full 31.5 inches huge, which makes it some eight inches wider than a standard 27-inch screen.

HP’s Envy 34 has a 34-inch curved (1.9m radius) IPS reveal with a resolution of three,440 by means of 1,440 pixels.

image: HP Inc.

It really does create an outstanding feel of scale, while the curvature of the monitor means that it fills nearly your complete container of view, adding to the experience of immersion. the most obvious use of the widescreen display is for gazing video, but HP additionally points out that the Envy 34 can supply a compact various to a dual-screen setup for an place of work pc, allowing you to with no trouble view two or three documents or browser windows on-display all at once.

Having two or three browser home windows or documents on-monitor immediately will have to be no drawback.

image: Cliff Joseph/ZDNet

Oddly, though, the display doesn’t provide the 4K resolution (3,840 x 2,one hundred sixty pixels) at the moment most popular by using most excessive-finish all-in-one methods. the real resolution is three,440 by 1,440 (109.7 pixels per inch, or ppi), which continues to be greater than twice the decision of a traditional HD (1,920 x 1,080) show, and the Envy 34 provides superb image high quality for video, images or gaming. on the other hand, it is not going to be best for Netflix addicts who need to watch 13 the reason why in authentic 4K resolution, and the 21:9 side ratio does still leave you with the ‘letterbox’ effect when viewing many video formats — albeit with the black bars on the left and right sides of the reveal, slightly than the highest and bottom. So while the sheer measurement of the Envy 34’s display is undeniably spectacular, many individuals may still opt to opt for a more conventional 4K display.

The Envy 34 does not supply full 4K resolution, and its 21:9 facet ratio will leave you with black bars on either side when viewing DVDs.

picture: Cliff Joseph/ZDNet

Sound and imaginative and prescient

There are touch-delicate controls for the B&O-branded sound machine built into the base.

picture: HP Inc.

The curvaceous show isn’t the Envy 34’s best promoting point. The display sits atop a substantial stand, which itself measures 23.5 inches large, and homes a 4-speaker soundbar. there may be also a wireless charging pad for Qi and PMA gadgets situated on the left-hand aspect of the stand, whereas a collection of contact-sensitive quantity and playback controls sit down over on the correct.

We additionally like the ‘pop-up’ webcam, which recedes into the highest of the reveal for privacy when it is no longer in use. The speaker device is a little bit disappointing, although. The sound is slightly highly effective, but lacks substance — particularly on the bass — and Dell does a a lot better job with the interior speakers on its rival XPS 27 all-in-one laptop.

most of the ports are at the back of the bottom, along with a big air vent.

image: HP Inc.

picture: HP Inc.

prime ZDNET opinions

the base unit additionally houses most of the laptop’s other components. there’s a single USB-C port and headphone socket on the proper-hand facet, with the remaining 4 USB 3.0 ports, HDMI enter and output, and Ethernet, all tucked annoyingly out of attain right on the back. the opposite remarkable characteristic around the again is the big air vent that runs virtually all the width of the base unit, and which emits a low — however still audible — hum from the cooling fan a lot of the time.

worth and efficiency

here in the UK, the Envy 34 is presently handiest to be had in a single configuration, priced at £1,999 (inc. VAT, or £1665.eighty three ex. VAT, or $ 1,829.ninety nine in the us). That price includes a quad-core Intel i7-7700T working at 2.9GHz (3.8GHz with TurboBoost), and a somewhat underwhelming 8GB of RAM (although HP’s US site does offer extra configurations with 12GB and 16GB). Storage is extra considerable, fortunately, with a 256GB stable-state drive functioning as the primary home windows C: pressure, and a separate 1TB arduous force for extra storage.

The SSD performs well, reporting write and browse speeds of 1520.7MB/s and 3150.3MB/s with ATTO Disk Benchmark, and allowing the Envy 34 to be up and working with home windows 10 in simply 10 seconds. The secondary exhausting force is a more modest performer, turning in 149MB/s for each write and skim, but that’s completely ample for simply storing information and paperwork.

there is enough uncooked horsepower to handle a number of purposes too, with the i7 processor attaining robust single- and multi-processor rankings of 4480 and 13,600 respectively within the Geekbench 4 take a look at suite. And while HP doesn’t market the Envy 34 as a portraits pc, its ranking of 89 frames per 2nd (fps) in Cinebench R15’s OpenGL check presentations it can handle gaming at residence, or video-modifying for trade presentations — even though, in each circumstances, many users may desire a show with proper 4K decision. however, our main challenge is the fact that the Envy 34 offers even fewer upgrade options than Apple’s iMac. the only configuration on hand in the UK doesn’t provide any build-to-order options, and whereas HP’s knowledge sheet states that the Envy 34’s two memory slots can deal with as much as 16GB of RAM, there isn’t any straightforward access to the motherboard for user upgrades, which seems remarkably brief-sighted for this sort of high-end pc.

Conclusions

stylish and robust, however expensive.

picture: HP Inc.

it can be laborious to not admire the sheer extravagance of HP’s Envy 34 and, on a extra sensible degree, it can be indubitably highly effective sufficient to deal with numerous inventive purposes, as well as entertainment and gaming. alternatively, it still seems slightly uncertain of its audience. players and business users alike will lament the dearth of enlargement and improve doable, while video buffs and Netflix addicts might merely prefer to buy a 4K display for his or her current pc. If that you may have the funds for it, then the Envy 34 gives a trendy and bold house leisure machine or executive personal computer pc — however that curved display must work lovely onerous to justify the cost tag.

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