HP Envy Desktop (TE01-014): Excellent Productivity Performance

Productivity maximizers looking for an everyday desktop PC could do worse than to make the HP Envy Desktop their workhorse.

- TOM BRANT

The $749 price of our review unit is a bit steep for the budget class (though we did see it on sale periodically for less than $700 during the course of our review), but it includes powerful components such as a six-core Intel Core i5 processor, a solid-state drive instead of a hard drive, and 12GB of memory. Need to load your old movie collection? You’ll appreciate the optical drive that can read and write DVDs, as well as the Gigabit Ethernet connectivity for serving your content to the rest of your devices.

A RIBBED BOX

Although the Envy Desktop shares the same boxy shape that PC towers have used for decades, HP has jazzed up the exterior to help it compete with sleek ultraportable laptops and all-in-one desktops. The Nightfall Black chassis has rounded corners and a ribbed front, which gives it a vaguely Sydney Opera House aesthetic (if the Opera House were rectangular). You should still probably hide this PC beneath your desk if possible, but if the front shows, at least it won’t look boring.

The Envy Desktop’s front ports are located in a column along the right edge beneath the power button and include a headphone jack, four USB Type-A ports, a full-sized SD card reader, and a USB Type-C port. This cornucopia of ports won’t leave you searching for a space to plug in external storage or charge several handheld devices simultaneously. Too many companies cram a token selection of ports into a tiny area on a desktop’s front edge, and it’s nice to see that HP is bucking the trend.

HP Envy Desktop (TE01-014)

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