Technologies

HP Envy x360 13 Review: Midrange 2-in-1 That’s Short on Battery

This compact convertible is customizable, and we suggest you take advantage of the reasonable upgrade prices.

The HP Envy x360 13 is a compact, midrange two-in-one based on a 13.3-inch touch display with a tall 16:10 aspect ratio that makes the screen feel roomier than a 13.3-inch widescreen display. Still, it’s less screen than you get with the 14-inch, 16:10 Lenovo Yoga 7i, which remains our favorite two-in-one for most buyers. At $1,050, the HP Envy x360 model we tested costs a bit less than the Yoga 7i we looked at, but we think the Yoga 7i is worth the extra funds.

For starters, the Envy x360 13 isn’t any lighter than the 14-inch Yoga 7i, so there’s no weight penalty to pay for the added screen real estate. More to the point, the Envy x360 13 we tested supplies only 8GB of RAM. Any laptop or convertible with a price north of $1,000 should serve up 16GB of memory, as the Yoga 7i does. The meager memory allotment holds back the Envy x360 13’s performance. Its battery life also failed to impress, and we aren’t fans of the silver-on-silver, low-contrast keyboard. Unless you find the Envy x360 13 on sale at a substantial discount, we would steer two-in-one shoppers to the Yoga 7i.

7.8

HP Envy x360 13

$1,050 at Best Buy

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Like

Rigid, metal chassis
HP offers affordable upgrade options
1440p webcam

Don’t Like

Only 8GB of RAM hampers performance
Poor contrast between keys and key symbols
Disappointing battery life

Our test model (13-bf0013dx) is available at Best Buy for $1,050. You can also find it for the same price at HP.com. Best Buy and HP are constantly rotating sales, and while our review configuration is not marked down at Best Buy right now, it’s $200 off at HP and selling for only $850. The line starts at $900 at HP for a system with the Core i5-1230U processor, and this baseline model is also $200 off and selling for $700. Upgrading to the Core i7-1250U CPU of our test system is a $150 upgrade on the customizable model on HP’s site. And for a $220 upgrade, you can get the Core i7-1250U and 16GB of RAM — a much better option than the $150 CPU-only upgrade we received.

HP also offers two display upgrades, both of which are aggressively priced. We received the baseline display, an IPS LCD touch panel with a 1,920-by-1,080 resolution. For $30 more, you can upgrade the resolution to 2,560-by-1,600. That’s a reasonable sum for the added pixels, but the baseline display looked plenty crisp across its 13.3 inches on our test system. However, the $60 display upgrade gets you an OLED panel with a 2,880-by-1,800 resolution. We’d happily spend that amount for the incredible color and contrast that an OLED panel delivers. In the UK, the Envy x360 13 starts at £730 for an AMD Ryzen 5-based config and £750 for a Core i5-based model. In Australia, it’s AU$999 for a Ryzen 5 model and AU$1,399 for a Core i5 model.

With the upgrade to the Core i7-1250U CPU but with the baseline 8GB of RAM, our Envy x360 13 test system trailed competing two-in-ones from Dell and Lenovo that feature similar 12th-gen Intel U-series chips but with 16GB of RAM. As configured, the Envy x360 13 will suffice for basic office tasks but is a poor choice for more intensive creative work that requires more RAM and better graphics. Perhaps the most surprising test result was its lackluster runtime; it lasted only eight hours on our battery drain test. That might be enough to squeeze out an entire workday on a single charge, but other two-in-ones can run for hours longer on a single charge.

HP Envy x360 13-bf0013dx

Price as reviewed	$1,050
Display size/resolution	13.3-inch 1,920 x 1,200 touch display
CPU	1.1GHz Intel Core i7-1250U
Memory	8GB LPDDR4x-4266 MHz RAM (onboard)
Graphics	128MB Intel Iris Xe Graphics
Storage	512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
Networking	Wi-Fi 6E (2×2)(19c) and Bluetooth 5.3combo (Supporting Gigabit data rate)
Operating system	Windows 11 Home 22H2

Slim and silver

The Envy x360 13 boasts a trim, all-metal chassis that’s only 0.63-inch thick and weighs only 3 pounds. It’s eminently portable, but the 3-pound weight begins to feel less impressive when considering the slightly larger, 14-inch Yoga 7i also weighs 3 pounds.

I don’t take issue with the Envy x360 13’s size or weight, but I do have a problem with the silver keyboard. The keys match the rest of the system — silver lid, silver keyboard deck and silver bottom panel. That’s a lot of silver. I don’t mind the monochrome design, but the silver keys are hard to read because there’s little contrast between the silver keys and dark gray key symbols. The Envy x360 13 would look equally sleek with a traditional black keyboard and be much easier to use. The keys themselves are flat, with shallow travel and snappy feedback. And they offer two-level backlighting, which I had to frequently employ to see which key was which.

For such a small laptop, the touchpad looks and feels roomy. It accurately recorded my mousing gestures, and its click response was just about perfect. It’s quiet when clicked with a firm-but-not-too-firm feel.

Before 16:10 laptop displays started replacing widescreen 16:9 panels, I would have said a 13.3-inch laptop is too small for your everyday laptop, even if you needed to carry it to work or class each day. You’d be better off with a 14-inch model for the added screen space at the expense of toting a few more ounces in your laptop bag. The 13.3-inch, 16:10 has me rethinking this advice. It was large enough to work comfortably, including multitasking and juggling multiple windows. The 1,920-by-1,200 resolution is plenty crisp on the 13.3-inch panel and offers plenty of brightness. It’s rated for 400 nits of brightness, and I measured it to be even a bit brighter than that at 460 nits.

The 13.3-inch, 16:10 panel also feels natural with the display rotated 360 degrees into tablet mode. Larger 15.6-inch and narrower 16:9 panels can feel a bit unwieldy when used as a tablet. I could hold the Envy x360 in one hand without issue or awkwardness and swipe and tap on the screen with the other. A stylus, however, was not included with our test system. On Best Buy, it states that a stylus is not included, but if you buy from HP, an HP Rechargeable MPP2.0 Tilt Pen is included in the price.

The Envy x360 13 boasts a 1440p webcam that produces an incredibly crisp picture that makes the previous-gen 720p cameras look like grainy, poorly balanced garbage. It’s also an IR cam that you can use to sign in simply by placing your face in front of the display. Without a fingerprint reader, the camera is the system’s only biometric security feature.

The laptop offers a pair of USB Type-A ports and a pair of USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 support. You also get a microSD card slot. Missing are HDMI and Ethernet ports. HP includes a USB-C-to-Ethernet adapter, but it would have been nice if that adapter also had an HDMI connection.

With a trim, aluminum chassis and a bright, fairly roomy 13.3-inch display, the HP Envy x360 13 has the makings of a versatile yet portable two-in-one convertible. In the end, the Lenovo Yoga 7i outclasses it by offering a larger display at the same 3-pound weight, better performance and much longer battery life. With HP’s customization options at affordable prices, you don’t need to spend all that much more to configure a better Envy x360 13 machine that includes 16GB of RAM and an OLED display. We still would worry about the battery life since you cannot upgrade to a bigger battery.

How we test computers

The review process for laptops, desktops, tablets and other computer-like devices consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our expert reviewers. This includes evaluating a device’s aesthetics, ergonomics and features. A final review verdict is a combination of both objective and subjective judgments.

The list of benchmarking software we use changes over time as the devices we test evolve. The most important core tests we’re currently running on every compatible computer include: Primate Labs Geekbench 5, Cinebench R23, PCMark 10 and 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra.

Longer bars indicate better performance

System configurations

HP Envy x360 13-bf0013dx	Microsoft Windows 11 Home; 1.1GHz Intel Core 17-1250U; 8GB DDR4 4,266MHz RAM; 128MB Intel Iris Xe Graphics; 512GB SSD
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i	Microsoft Windows 11 Home; 1.3GHz Intel Core i5-1235U; 16GB DDR4 4,266MHz RAM; 128MB Intel Iris Xe Graphics; 512GB SSD
Dell Inspiron 14 7420 2-in-1	Microsoft Windows 11 Home; 1.7GHz Intel Core i7-1255U; 16GB DDR4 3,200MHz RAM; 128MB Intel Iris Xe Graphics; 512GB SSD
Lenovo Yoga 7i (Gen 7)	Microsoft Windows 11 Home; 1.7GHz Intel Core i7-1255U; 16GB DDR5 6,400MHz RAM; 128MB Intel Iris Xe Graphics; 512GB SSD

Technologies

iOS 17 Cheat Sheet: Your Questions on the iPhone Update Answered

Here’s what you need to know about new features and upcoming updates for your iPhone.

Apple’s iOS 17 was released in September, shortly after the company held its Wonderlust event, where the tech giant announced the new iPhone 15 lineup, the Apple Watch Series 9 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2. We put together this cheat sheet to help you learn about and use the new features in iOS 17. It’ll also help you keep track of the subsequent iOS 17 updates.

iOS 17 updates

Using iOS 17

Getting started with iOS 17

Make sure to check back periodically for more iOS 17 tips and how to use new features as Apple releases more updates.

17 Hidden iOS 17 Features You Should Definitely Know About

+15 More

See all photos

Technologies

Get Ready for a Striking Aurora That Could Also Disrupt Radio Communications

Don’t expect the storm to cause a lingering problem, though.

A geomagnetic storm is threatening radio communications Monday night, but that doesn’t mean you should be concerned. In fact, it may be an opportunity to see a colorful aurora in the night sky.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has issued a geomagnetic storm watch after witnessing a coronal mass ejection from the sun on Saturday. The watch, which was issued over the weekend and will expire after Monday, said the onset of the storm passing over Earth on Sunday night represented a «moderate» threat to communications. As the storm continues to pass through, it could deliver a «strong» threat on Monday night that could cause radio communications to be temporarily disrupted during the worst of it.

Even so, NOAA said, «the general public should not be concerned.»

A coronal mass ejection occurs when magnetic field and plasma mass are violently expelled from the sun’s corona, or the outermost portion of the sun’s atmosphere. In the vast majority of cases, the ejection occurs with no real threat to Earth. However, in the event the ejection happens in the planet’s direction, a geomagnetic storm occurs, and the Earth’s magnetic field is temporarily affected.

In most cases, geomagnetic storms cause little to no disruption on Earth, with radio communications and satellites affected most often. In extreme cases, a geomagnetic storm can cause significant and potentially life-threatening power outages — a prospect that, luckily, the planet hasn’t faced.

Switching poles

Every 11 years, the sun’s magnetic poles switch, with the north pole and south pole swapping positions. During those cycles, the sun’s activity ramps up as it gets closer to pole-switching time. The height of its activity is called solar maximum, and scientists believe we either may be entering the solar maximum or may be already in it.

During periods of heightened solar activity, sunspots increase on the sun and there’s an increase in coronal mass ejections, among other phenomena. According to NOAA, solar maximum could extend into October of this year before the sun’s activity calms and it works towards its less-active phase, solar minimum.

Even when geomagnetic storms hit Earth and disrupt communications, the effects are usually short-lived. Those most affected, including power grid operators and pilots and air traffic controllers communicating over long distances, have fail-safe technologies and backup communications to ensure operational continuity.

But geomagnetic storms aren’t only about radios. In most cases, they also present unique opportunities to see auroras in the night sky. When the storms hit, the plasma they carry creates a jaw-dropping aurora, illuminating the night sky with brilliant colors. Those auroras can be especially pronounced during the most intense phases of the storm, making for nice stargazing.

If you’re interested in seeing the aurora, you’ll need to be ready. The NOAA said the «brunt of the storm has passed» and even if it lingers into Tuesday, there won’t be much to see after Monday night.

Technologies

Last Total Solar Eclipse for 20 Years Is Coming: How to See and Photograph It

It’s your last chance until 2044.

Get your eclipse glasses ready, Skygazers: the Great American Eclipse is on its way. On April 8, there’ll be a total eclipse over North America, the last one until 2044.

A total solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, blocking the sun and turning an otherwise sunny day to darkness for a short period of time. Depending on the angle at which you’re viewing the eclipse, you may see the sun completely shrouded by the moon (called totality) or some variation of it. The more off-angle you are and the further you are from the path of the eclipse, the less likely you’ll be to see the totality.

The 2024 total solar eclipse will happen on Monday, April 8. The Great American Eclipse will reach the Mexican Pacific coast at 11:07 a.m. PT (2:07 p.m. ET), and then traverse the US in a northeasterly direction from Texas to Maine, and on into easternmost Canada. If you want a good look at it, but don’t live in the path of totality, you shouldn’t wait much longer to book accommodation and travel to a spot on the path.

Or how about booking a seat in the sky? Delta Airlines made headlines for offering a flight that allows you to see the entire path of totality. Its first eclipse flight, from Austin, Texas, to Detroit sold out quickly. But as of Monday, Delta has added a second flight from Dallas to Detroit, which also covers the path of totality. The airline also has five flights that will offer prime eclipse viewing.

Not everyone can get on one of those elusive eclipse-viewing flights. Here’s a look at other options to nab a chance to see this rare sight and what to know about it.

Total solar eclipse path

The eclipse will cross over the Pacific coast of Mexico and head northeast over mainland Mexico. The eclipse will then make its way over San Antonio at approximately 2:30 p.m. ET on April 8 and move through Texas, over the southeastern part of Oklahoma and northern Arkansas by 2:50 p.m. ET.

By 3 p.m. ET, the eclipse will be over southern Illinois, and just 5 minutes later, will be traveling over Indianapolis. Folks in northwestern Ohio will be treated to the eclipse by 3:15 p.m. ET, and it will then travel over Lake Erie and Buffalo, New York, by 3:20 p.m. ET. Over the next 10 minutes, the eclipse will be seen over northern New York state, then over Vermont. By 3:35 p.m. ET, the eclipse will work its way into Canada and off the Eastern coast of North America.

Best places to watch the Great American Eclipse

When evaluating the best places to watch this year’s total eclipse, you’ll first want to determine where you’ll have the best angle to see the totality. The farther off-angle you are — in other words, the farther north or south of the eclipse’s path — the less of an impact you can expect.

Therefore, if you want to have the best chance of experiencing the eclipse, you’ll want to be in its path. As of this writing, most of the cities in the eclipse’s path have some hotel availability, but recent reports have suggested that rooms are booking up. And as more rooms are booked, prices are going up.

So if you want to be in the eclipse’s path, and need a hotel to do it, move fast. And Delta’s eclipse-viewing flight from Dallas to Detroit has just four seats left at the time of publication.

Eclipse eye safety and photography

As with any solar eclipse, it’s critical you keep eye safety in mind.

During the eclipse, and especially during the periods before and after totality, don’t look directly at the sun without special eye protection. Also, be sure not to look at the sun through a camera (including the camera on your phone), binoculars, a telescope or any other viewing device. This could cause serious eye injury. Sunglasses aren’t enough to protect your eyes from damage.

If you want to view the eclipse, you’ll instead need solar viewing glasses that comply with the ISO 12312-2 safety standard. Anything that doesn’t meet that standard or greater won’t be dark enough to protect your eyes. Want to get them for free? If you’ve got a Warby Parker eyeglasses store nearby, the company is giving away free, ISO-certified solar eclipse glasses at all of its stores from April 1 until the eclipse, while supplies last.

If you don’t have eclipse viewing glasses handy, you can instead use indirect methods for viewing the eclipse, like a pinhole projector.

Read more: A Photographer’s Adventure With the Eclipse

In the event you want to take pictures of the eclipse, attach a certified solar filter to your camera. Doing so will protect your eyes and allow you to take photos while you view the eclipse through your lens.

There’s also a new app to help you both protect your eyes and take better photos of the eclipse on your phone. Solar Snap, designed by a former Hubble Space Telescope astronomer, comes with a Solar Snap camera filter that attaches to the back of an iPhone or Android phone, along with solar eclipse glasses for protecting your eyesight during the event. After you attach the filter to your phone, you can use the free Solar Snap Eclipse app to zoom in on the eclipse, adjust exposure and other camera settings, and ultimately take better shots of the eclipse.

2024 eclipse compared to 2017

The last total solar eclipse occurred in 2017, and many Americans had a great view. Although there are plenty of similarities between the 2017 total solar eclipse and the one coming April 8, there are a handful of differences. Mainly, the 2024 eclipse is going to cover more land and last longer.

The 2017 eclipse started over the northwest US and moved southeast. Additionally, that eclipse’s path was up to 71 miles wide, compared with a maximum width of 122 miles for this year’s eclipse. Perhaps most importantly, the moon completely covered the sun for just 2 minutes, 40 seconds in 2017. This year, maximum totality will last for nearly four-and-a-half minutes.