Is a $650 gaming laptop worth it?

So this is the new HP Envy x360.

Now while it might not look like a gaming laptop,

inside it is rocking the brand new AMD Ryzen Mobile.

If you've bought a laptop in the last few years,

more than likely it was powered by Intel.

However, AMD has stepped up in a big way with Ryzen Mobile.

Not only does this have a much more powerful CPU,

but the graphics should be good enough for actual gaming.

So it is definitely a larger laptop with a 15 inch display.

But, as part of their x360 line, what we're getting here

is a fully convertible design, which actually isn't

too thick either.

Cover wise, it feels pretty nice.

So we're getting a slightly sharp, angular design, which

a lot of HP laptops have had these days.

But considering the $650 price point, it looks

and feels pretty premium.

Open this guy up and we're going to see the full size

keyboard, as well as number row, as well as the

Bang & Olufsen speakers.

Something you won't find, however, are any stupid Intel

stickers all over the laptop.

Actually, there are no AMD stickers at all, are there?

For ports, there's a pretty decent selection, including

HDMI, a USB 3, as well as your headphone jack.

And on the other side, you're going to be getting

one more USB 3.0, a USB-C that supports charging,

as well as a full size SD card slot.

HP doesn't claim this is a gaming PC, but with Ryzen 5

inside it should be capable of some decent gaming.

So not only are we getting a Quad-Core Zen processor,

but we're also getting eight Vega GPU cores.

Now that's not going to be able to blow away some

proper dedicated graphics, but the idea is, is that

for $650, especially considering that this is

a very battery focused, sort of, lightweight laptop,

it should give us decent gaming performance.

Ryzen has proven to be pretty impressive on the desktop

side, offering a lot of fast cores at a reasonable price.

Thankfully, that comes across to Ryzen Mobile.

So in Geekbench, while it's not quite on par with Intel's

latest 8th-gen, 15 watt processors, it actually performs

really well compared to slightly older Core i5s.

Definitely plenty of performance for pretty much any

kind of normal usage.

Where things get really interesting is with

those Vega graphics.

So it is a huge step up over something like Intel

Integrated Graphics, and it's even on par with

some of the lower end dedicated graphics options.

Now this might not sound that impressive, but consider

that this is all in a 15 watt chip.

It nearly matches Intel's latest and greatest

on the processor side, and completely destroys them

on the graphics side.

And again, this is from AMD.

To put this to the test, we have CS:GO.

Now here running at 1080p medium, we're actually getting

pretty decent frame rates.

So we're averaging somewhere between the high 40s

to mid 50s.

And that is definitely very playable.

Obviously, ideally you're running in like 300,000 frames,

but considering that we've got a $650 laptop,

I'm definitely not complaining.

Next up, we have Rocket League.

Now this is a game that is pretty popular, and it's

also not that hard to run.

And yet again, here we're running at 1080p, this time

on quality settings.

Now the frame rate's actually really impressive here.

We're just pretty much staying above 60 frames per second

at all times.

Wow, that was terrible.

So, in theory, we actually can bump those settings up,

all the way up to the high quality if we wanted to.

Move over to GTA, and we're actually getting

pretty decent performance.

So on normal settings, at 1080p, we're getting between

30 to 40 frames per second.

For less demanding areas like this, we're actually

in the mid 40s or so.

When you get a lot of explosions, sometimes it dips

around 30, but again, pretty playable.

To really put this to the test, we have Pubg.

And well this, is not so great.

So, low settings at 720p, we're barely getting like 27, 28

frames per second.

I mean, this is a little bit more of an open area,

but even after we walk inside this building we're still

barely touching 30.

It's kind of usable.

It's not the worst experience I've ever tried.

But, maybe not the best Pubg machine in the world.

Things aren't all perfect in normal use either.

So when I was first setting up this laptop, I had

some weird driver issues, where the screen would go

really dim and I would have no control over it,

and sleep mode just completely disappeared.

Thankfully, a few Windows updates fixed that.

But still, not the best out of box experience.

Now it's not a huge surprise considering that this is one

of the very first Ryzen Mobile products to actually

go on sale.

So there might be a few kinks to be worked out.

I will say though, the AMD x360 is nice piece of hardware.

And of course, you do have that fully flexible hinge.

And while it is nicely weighted, I don't like how much

wobble there is when you actually touch it.

Although again, this is a very common complaint

with pretty much any of these sort of convertible designs.

The keyboard also isn't too bad.

So not only do I like the spacing and the layout

with having the number row, but also has a nice feel,

and importantly, especially considering the price,

it is going to be backlit.

With the screen issues patched it's a good panel.

So at 15.6 inches, with a 1080p resolution,

it looks pretty good.

And especially with this kind of size and price point,

I feel like 1080 is a totally reasonable sweet spot

for gaming, as well as productivity.

Now the actual display itself.

The color is nice, and the contrast is pretty impressive,

however, it just doesn't get that bright.

So when you're looking at it dead on, it's okay.

But that, combined with the fact that

it's really reflective, means that if you get this guy

even slightly off axis, it is really hard to see anything.

So like a lot of other HP laptops recently, it does have

Bang & Olufsen branded speakers, and especially considering

that it's a pretty big speaker row that's directed

straight at you.

Not only does it sound pretty good, but it

gets surprisingly loud.

However, it's not all great.

So the trackpad is just kind of okay.

Now I really wish it did have Windows Precision drivers.

As it is, the tracking is okay, and it does support

most of the major gestures, but the tracking could be

a lot better, and especially the trackpad size

feels a little bit small for a laptop in 2018.

There's also Windows Hello support for facial recognition,

which is a nice feature, except that for me, it only works

when I get my face very, very close to the laptop.

The webcam isn't much better.

So it is at least 1080p, but as you guys can see

from this quality, Team Crispy, this is definitely not.

The biggest issue though, is the hard drive.

So while the rest of the system is pretty well

specced out with the Ryzen 5, dual channel eight gigs

of memory, however, having a mechanical hard drive in

a laptop in 2018 just feels slow.

It would be so nice if they had actually configured this

with an SSD.

On one hand, Ryzen Mobile is seriously impressive.

Look back just a few months ago, and Intel was selling

15 watt laptop processors with lackluster graphics

and only two cores.

Yeah, they've stepped it up to Quad-Core now,

but you look at AMD, who has come out of nowhere

with an impressive Quad-Core design, and some

seriously powerful graphics.

And again, this is from AMD.

I know I keep saying that, but it is really impressive

what AMD has been able to pull off, especially coming

out of nowhere like this.

Now sure, this is not going to be a super high end

gaming machine that's going to work for everyone,

but it does have enough power to play some

pretty decent games.

On the other hand, the Envy x360 is good, but not perfect.

I feel like they got about 85% right.

With a better trackpad, a couple of tweaks, and

especially a standard SSD, I would like this thing

a lot more.

What gets me really excited is that this has forced

Intel Nvidia to price some gaming laptops in this sort of

$600 price range.

So, if you guys wanna see a video on one of those,

definitely be sure to let me know in the comments below,

and I will catch you in the next one.