HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000) review – sleek, portable, powerful

Commonly known as the more affordable version of the Spectre lineup, the Envy laptops should offer a semi-premium feel to their users. Actually, the relationship between the aforementioned series is similar to the ZenBook – VivoBook one in the ASUS world.

With us, we have the Envy 13 (13-aq0000) which only differs from the (13-aq1000) with its processors of choice. It comes equipped with the Whiskey Lake CPUs from Intel, while the latter is delivered with the Comet Lake. The two of them differ only by the clock speeds their silicone is design to reach and perhaps some efficiency.

In addition to that, you can get this notebook with a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce MX250 graphics card. While it is the 10W variation, it still should enable you to play some light to medium titles. Let’s not forget the 1080p IPS panel with optional touchscreen support. If you want to represent, this is a good laptop to start with.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-envy-13-13-aq0000-13-aq1000/

Contents


Specs Sheet

HP ENVY 13 (13-aq0000, 13-aq1000) - Technische Daten

  • AUO AUO572D
  • Farbgenauigkeit  3.1  0.8
  • HDD/SSD
  • bis zu 4000GB SSD
  • RAM
  • up to 32GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro
  • Batterie
  • 53Wh, 4-cell
  • Gehäuse Material
  • Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum
  • Abmessungen
  • 307 x 211.5 x 14.7 mm (12.09" x 8.33" x 0.58")
  • Gewicht
  • 1.17 kg (2.6 lbs)
  • Ports und Konnektivität
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort, Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • Kartenleser
  • MicroSD
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ac
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Audio-Buchse
  • 3.5 mm combo
  • Merkmale
  • Fingerabdruckleser
  • optional
  • Web-Kamera
  • HD
  • Beleuchtete Tastatur
  • optional
  • Mikrofon
  • Dual-Array Microphone
  • Lautsprecher
  • 4 Speakers, Bang & Olufsen
  • Optisches Laufwerk
  • Sicherheitsschlitz

Alle HP ENVY 13 (13-aq0000, 13-aq1000) Konfigurationen

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What’s in the box?

Luckily, HP provides quite a detailed image of the Envy 13 on the outside of the box, if you happen to forget the laptop you ordered. Inside, you will find a 65W power adapter, as well as some paper manuals. We can’t miss to point out how cute the power brick looks. As HP uses the same design for its gaming series, as it uses for the premium ones – imagine the 200W brick that charges the HP Pavilion Gaming 15 (2019) shrunk to the size of a bite-sized chocolate bar.


Design and construction

In terms of build materials, HP uses aluminum and plastic – something pretty much expected, given the price range. As of the design, there are a lot of edges on the Envy 13. some of them are more prominent and sharp than the others, but thankfully, those that are making direct contact with your wrists, are more comfortable and we didn’t find a problem. Also, we find the laptop slim and light enough even for the most fragile of users – 14.5 mm thickness and 1.17kg of weight – astonishing.

Its lid, sadly, cannot be opened with a single hand. At least with our unit. However, it has a hinge mechanism, similar to the Pavilion 15 (15-cs2000/3000) and the ZenBooks and VivoBooks of ASUS, that lifts the backside of the base in order to get more airflow to the fan. Additionally, the lid has some flex to it, although not too much as on cheaper models.

As of the base, it is home to the speakers. Also, you can find the keyboard there (what a surprise). It has a decent key travel and a relatively clicky, yet not very noisy feedback. We are happy with the spacing between the keys and the size of the keycaps, however, the “Up” and “Down” arrow keys are too small. By the way, just beneath the arrow keys, you will see the fingerprint reader. It is pretty fast and accurate, which is always good when it comes to biometrics.

Then, there is the touchpad. A rather wide but slim, compared to the majority of devices. It has a matte surface, which is not the best when it comes to gliding, and the click mechanism is a bit tight. However, it is one of the decent ones out there.

Turn the laptop upside down, and you will only see the ventilation grill. Heat, on the other side, is exhausted from in between the base and the lid.

Ports

On the left side of the device, you can see a headphone jack, a USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) port, as well as a USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 1) port. On the other side, there is the power plug, another USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) port, an SD card reader, and the camera shutter switch. Since the Type-C port is only for data transfers, there is no way to charge the laptop through it or to output an image from it.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

In all matters straight, the HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000) is easy to disassemble. It is just the fact that you need to remove both of the bottom feet, which makes it more laborious. In addition to the two Torx-head screws, there are 7 Phillips-head ones. Then, pop the panel with a plastic tool, ideally starting from the hinge gaps.

Cooling-wise we see something interesting. Only one heat pipe cooling both of the chips. However, the coolest spot is in the middle – where it connects to the heat spreader – a neat solution.

As we can see from the images, the RAM is soldered to the motherboard, which is petty. However, you have the option to upgrade the storage via a single M.2 NVMe drive slot.

Battery-wise – a 53.2Wh package. Something rather big for a 13-incher.


Display quality

HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000) is equipped with a Full HD touchscreen IPS panel, AUO AUO572D. Its diagonal is 13.3-inch (33.78 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080p. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 166 ppi, their pitch – 0.15 х 0.15 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 50 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).

Viewing angles are comfortable. We offer images at different angles to evaluate the quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 365 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and also 365 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of just 4%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6200K – warmer than the 6500K temperature for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 6300K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 81% Brightness (White level = 137 cd/m2, Black level = 0.09 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is excellent – 1630:1 (1460:1 after profiling).

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000)’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 95% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 28 ms.


Health impact – PWM / Blue Light

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000)’s display doesn’t flicker at any brightness level. This makes it comfortable for long periods of use.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000) is equipped with an outstanding IPS touchscreen panel. It has wide viewing angles, a very good contrast ratio, a backlight, which is comfortable at all brightness levels and a color coverage of 95% of sRGB. Additionally, designers will be happy to hear that the Average dE drops below a value of 1.0, thanks to our Gaming and Web design profile, making it one of the most accurate displays when it comes to color representation, we’ve tested.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000) configurations with 13.3″ AUO AUO572D (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Mit dem Kauf von LaptopMedia-Produkten erhalten Sie nicht nur effiziente und gesundheitsschonende Profile, sondern Sie unterstützen auch die Entwicklung unserer Labore, in denen wir Geräte testen, um möglichst objektive Testberichte zu erstellen.

Büroarbeit

Office Work sollte vor allem von Benutzern verwendet werden, die die meiste Zeit mit dem Betrachten von Textstücken, Tabellen oder einfach nur mit dem Surfen verbringen. Dieses Profil zielt darauf ab, durch Beibehaltung einer flachen Gammakurve (2,20), einer nativen Farbtemperatur und wahrnehmungsgerechten Farben eine bessere Deutlichkeit und Klarheit zu liefern.

Design und Spiele

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Gesundheitsschutz

Health-Guard eliminiert die schädliche Pulsweitenmodulation (PWM) und reduziert das negative blaue Licht, das unsere Augen und unseren Körper beeinflusst. Da er für jedes Panel maßgeschneidert ist, schafft er es, die Farben wahrnehmungsgetreu zu halten. Health-Guard simuliert Papier, so dass der Druck auf die Augen stark reduziert wird.

Erhalten Sie alle 3 Profile mit 33% Rabatt


Sound

HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000) has a decent sound quality. As its more premium cousins in the Spectre range, its speakers are tuned by Bang & Olufsen. Their low tones have some deviation, however, while the mids and highs are clear.


Drivers

You can download all of the drivers and utilities for this notebook from here: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-envy-13-13-aq0000-13-aq1000/

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. This notebook is equipped with a 53.2Wh unit.

It managed to do 18 hours and a half of Web browsing and 12 hours and 30 minutes of video playback.


CPU options

As we mentioned at the start the 13-aq0000 series come with a Whiskey Lake processor option, while the 13-aq1000 feature a Comet Lake CPU.


GPU options

In terms of graphics devices, alongside the integrated solution, you have the option for an MX250 (10W) with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.


Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i5-8265U (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000)2.83 GHz (B+77%) @ 74°C1.91 GHz (B+19%) @ 67°C1.92 GHz (B+20%) @ 64°C
Lenovo Ideapad L340 (15″)3.27 GHz (B+104%)@ 72°C1.99 GHz (B+24%)@ 60°C2.01 GHz (B+26%)@ 65°C
ASUS VivoBook S15 S5322.96 GHz (B+85%) @ 75°C2.95 GHz (B+84%) @ 90°C2.17 GHz (B+36%) @ 68°C
Lenovo ThinkBook 13s2.76 GHz (B+73%)@ 75°C2.74 GHz (B+71%)@ 84°C2.11 GHz (B+32%)@ 74°C
Lenovo ThinkPad T490s3.43 GHz (B+114%)@ 91°C2.69 GHz (B+68%)@ 91°C2.19 GHz (B+37%)@ 80°C
HP ProBook 450 G62.69 GHz (B+59%)@ 64°C2.53 GHz (B+60%)@ 68°C2.09 GHz (B+31%)@ 71°C

Although we didn’t really see super high clock speeds from this laptop, the temperatures were very well maintained.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce MX250GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)
HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000) (10W version)1164 MHz @ 66°C1164 MHz @ 67°C
ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 UX463 (10W version)1142 MHz @ 68°C1145 MHz @ 74°C
Acer Swift 5 Pro (SF514-54GT) (10W version)1170 MHz @ 61°C1167 MHz @ 61°C
ASUS ZenBook 14 UX434 (10W version)1132 MHz @ 66°C1129 MHz @ 71°C

The great temperatures on this notebook reveal that the 10W version of this graphics card is probably the best choice. Despite that, it trails the “lightest 14-inch laptop with a dedicated GPU” by 5-6 degrees.

Comfort during combined load


Verdict

Okay, HP. We really enjoyed using your Envy 13 (13-aq0000). That is not to say we didn’t find any down points. Minor or not, having no USB Type-C charging is a let down in 2020. Additionally, we would have loved to see Thunderbolt connectivity on this laptop or at least the option to output an image from the Type-C port.

Next – the soldered memory. Yes, we know, the manufacturer was short in space inside, and we appreciate slim and light devices, but we also appreciate the option of post-purchase upgradability.

Speaking of which, there is a single M.2 NVMe-enabled slot for storage expansion, while on the outside, there is a MicroSD card reader. The latter is good news to photographers, but what is more important to them is the display.

HP Envy 13 (13-aq0000) is equipped with an outstanding IPS touchscreen panel. It has wide viewing angles, a very good contrast ratio, a backlight, which is comfortable at all brightness levels and a color coverage of 95% of sRGB. Additionally, designers will be happy to hear that the Average dE drops below a value of 1.0, thanks to our Gaming and Web design profile, making it one of the most accurate displays when it comes to color representation, we’ve tested.

While performance is relatively good, it is nowhere near the one on laptops like the XPS 13 7390 or the Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000). However, take a look at battery lifetimes. Its 53.2Wh battery unit was able to last for 18 hours and 30 minutes of Web browsing and 12 hours and a half of video playback.

What do you think, is this laptop a better offer than the ASUS VivoBook 14 S432 and the Acer Swift 5 (SF514-54GT)? To us, it certainly has the premium looks, a beautiful touchscreen display and many more. But it is placed against one of the lightest laptops out there, and one that features a second display tucked underneath its touchpad.

Pros

  • Its keyboard is backlit and great for typing
  • Excellent IPS panel that covers 95% of sRGB
  • Our Gaming and Web design profile makes the colors on this laptop extremely accurate
  • Doesn’t use PWM to adjust its brightness levels
  • Thin and light chassis
  • Great battery life


Cons

  • Lacks a Thunderbolt connector
  • No RAM upgradability post-purchase

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-envy-13-13-aq0000-13-aq1000/

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3 Comments
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Pam
Pam
4 Jahre vor

“+ ErgoLift and ScreenPad 2.0 boost its versatility”

Please.

02nz
02nz
3 Jahre vor

“Since the Type-C port is only for data transfers, there is no way to charge the laptop through it or to output an image from it.” “Minor or not, having no USB Type-C charging is a let down in 2020.” You should read your own specs, which clearly state that the USB-C port supports both Power Delivery and DisplayPort. I can confirm this as I have the same model. The supplied charger uses its own port, but the unit charges fine with a USB-C charger (I think 45W is the minimum). Unlike some older HP laptops you don’t get a… Read more »

Jack
Jack
3 Jahre vor
Antwort an  02nz

I managed to give mine a full charge overnight (while switched off) with a 15w phone charger. *Very* handy if caught out!! HP-ENVY-Laptop-13-aq0502-SA
Very happy with this Laptop!