HP Envy 16 review: unassuming gaming laptop is a high achiever

The HP Envy 16 has an impressive specs list, packed full of heavy-hitting performance markers. While a lot of HP’s messaging around it gears it towards gamers, it packs enough of a punch to be well-suited to a number of disciplines. The large body means it’s not best-suited for those always on the go but the generous display and crisp visuals means it could work well for the designers, editors, and other creatives of that ilk out there.

HP Envy 16 review: Key specifications

HP Envy 16 review: Design and build

Upon first look, the HP Envy 16 is a sleek machine that’s as ready to be connected to a multi-device gaming set-up as it is to be taken out on the go. The 16" display is incredibly responsive thanks to its 120Hz refresh rate, an advantage that carries through to the smooth nature of the built-in touchscreen.

Particularly for design projects, the touchscreen is precise enough to allow for basic sketching or re-ordering of design elements, as tested out by me on a few graphic design projects I’ve been working on. The one drawback to the touchscreen is that the tilt isn’t quite far enough back to allow for comfortable use at the bottom, reducing the possibility of making sweeping gestures across the entire screen. A few times while using the touchscreen I was forced to adopt an awkward arm position just to reach the bottom 20% of the screen.

Nonetheless, whether you’re designing yourself, watching videos, or editing photos, the crisp contrast and vivid colours will serve you well. Particularly for photography and graphic design, the true-to-life colours will ensure you don’t end up with over-filtered or unrealistic photo effects after an editing session.

All of this makes for a fast-paced, comfortable-to-use laptop that has undeniably strong performance that is let down slightly by the less-than-premium case. The body of the laptop doesn’t take much pressure to start creaking, so on-the-go users might want to get a well-padded case for travel. The durability of the body doesn’t feel convincing, to say the least.

HP Envy 16 review: Features

The powerful RAM of the HP Envy 16 makes it snappy to switch between tabs and programs with ease, so multi-tasking is a breeze. If you’re anything like me and need a minimum of 20 tabs to work effectively, with at least two chunky programs running in the background, the HP Envy 16 can handle it in its sleep, with no noticeable performance dip even when I throw all of my various focuses at it at once.

One HDMI port feels one too few but we’re in the era of virtually every laptop needing a dock if you want to plug too many things into it. The HP Envy 16 boasts a number of USB C ports, so you’ve got plenty of options to plug in a compatible dock – which you’ll certainly need if you want to access an external SD card.

The graphics card is Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3060, which is nothing too new or flashy but has enough power to handle graphic-intensive tasks easily, from gaming to 3D design – or even both at the same time.

Bass-focused Bang and Olufsen speakers mean music and videos are delivered in crisp quality and there’s an impressive amount of range in the volume, so much so that the loudest volume was verging on uncomfortable when up close with the laptop. That’s perfect for any situations where collaboration or pitching in front of others means you need to rely on the laptop’s own speakers. No more awkward Bluetooth connections to an external speaker, the HP Envy 16 has you covered there.

The shallow keyboard lends itself best to light touches, allowing your fingers to skim over the keys at speed. It’s especially well-suited for using shortcuts, so those who are clued up on Adobe shortcuts and the like will be in their element.

HP Envy 16 review: Benchmark scores

HP Envy 16 review: Performance

As already noted, the HP Envy 16’s power allows for easy switching between intensive programmes, so you’ll be hard pushed to find a combination of tasks that impacts the speed noticeably.

If you’re wanting to use it for gaming, the RAM, graphics cards, SSD, and CPU combine to mean that you’ll have your choice of settings in virtually any game you try out, with outstanding performance on high-intensity games.

All of that performance is all well and good, but it does mean that the fans are working overtime to keep the laptop cool – and they’ll let you know about it too. After less than an hour of intensive work, the fans would kick up a loud noise, impacting how well you could hear music or video through the speakers.

Luckily, the volume levels have a lot of scope, so you can easily dial up the volume, but the noise can be irritating, to say the least. There was also a noticeable heat from the laptop itself, but both that and the noise of the fans was alleviated somewhat by using a laptop stand that allows more air to circulate. It’s certainly something to be aware of for anyone wanting to do long periods of editing, programming, or other intensive actions, especially on the move when a stand is less of a convenient option.

HP Envy 16 review: Price

While what’s under the hood is admittedly impressive, you might expect a more polished physical finish for the laptop’s price of £1469.99. The creaky case and cheap feel of the laptop belies its genuinely impressive performance, meaning it sadly feels less high-end than it could.

Powerheads might also expect a 13th or 14th-gen processor and potentially an RTX 4000 Series GPU for that price too, to make sure your power lasts through whatever 2024 and onwards might throw at you. Nonetheless, there’s no denying that the HP Envy 16 packs a lot in and it’s sure to see you through a fair few years, even with what it offers at standard.

Should I buy the HP Envy 16?

All in all, the HP Envy 16 is an excellent all-rounder with enough power to handle anything you throw at it. A beefy battery life, powerful processing power, and crystal-clear screen combine to mean it can easily carry you through an entire day of work calls, creative design, and onto an evening of gaming.