HP Envy 14 (2021) : This budget content-creation laptop does it all

While you can find laptops that outperform the Envy 14, it’s harder to find one that can do so for the same price.

- MARK HACHMAN

Laptops like the HP Envy 14 fall into the category of content creation: notebook PCs with a modestly powerful discrete GPU that can play some games, edit video, or simply serve as a solid all-around PC. This $1,200 14-inch laptop satisfies all three.

While some laptops outperformed the Envy 14 in our tests, many couldn’t do so for the same money. At its price point, the Envy 14 offers top-notch battery life, support for powerful external Thunderbolt hardware, and a pleasing everyday typing experience. We’ve awarded it an Editor’s Choice—you’ll see why.

BASIC FEATURES

HP says it ships its Envy 14 in one of three configurations. The model we tested is the midrange configuration (14-eb0010nr), which includes a Core i5-1135G7, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Max-Q, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The MSRP is $1,250, but we saw it on sale for $1,210 at Amazon (go.pcworld. com/en14) during testing. HP also sells a $1,000 basic version of the Envy 14 (known as the HP Envy 14 14t-eb000) on HP.com without the discrete GPU or touchless display, and with 8GB of memory. HP also says that for $1,700, you can buy the premium model of the HP Envy 14 on HP.com with 1TB of SSD storage. We didn’t see that model listed at press time, though.

While you might consider the Envy the stylish HP product line compared to the budget-friendly Pavilion line and premium Spectre line, HP has recently refocused Envy as optimized for creators (go. pcworld.com/opzd). You’ll see how it is tuned for those particular users as we go through the specs and features, beginning with this list of the basics:

Processor: Intel Core i5-1135G7 (as tested), Core i7-1165G7