HP Elite Dragonfly G2 review – extremely light convertible which has all it takes when it comes to security

The second-generation HP Elite Dragonfly is one of the most secure convertibles on the market. Yes, the price of security and privacy is high, but some scenarios just require such features. Yep, the Sure View system is back, and we really hope that HP has done some improvements to it.

Another major feature of this device is actually its size. In fact, it is probably the lightest convertible on the market, weighing only 990 grams. This is tablet territory, guys.

But if we have to be completely honest, the laptop doesn’t look that much different from its predecessor. The body looks pretty much the same, but the brain behind it is different. HP utilizes the Tiger Lake architecture and offers pretty much every processor from the lineup, starting from the Core i3-1115G4, and going all the way to the Core i7-1185G7. This should not only result in a pretty responsive system but also in a pretty powerful one, provided the cooling can cope with the pressure.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-elite-dragonfly-g2/

Contents


Specs Sheet

HP Elite Dragonfly G2 - Specs

  • IVO X133NVFF R0 (IVO8596)
  • Color accuracy  4.9  1.9
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 2000GB SSD
  • RAM
  • up to 32GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Pro, Windows 11 Pro
  • Battery
  • 56.2Wh, 4-cell, 56.2Wh, 4-cell
  • Body material
  • Magnesium alloy
  • Dimensions
  • 304.3 x 197.5 x 16.1 mm (11.98" x 7.78" x 0.63")
  • Weight
  • 0.99 kg (2.2 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-C
  • Thunderbolt 4
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • HDMI
  • 2.0b
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5mm Combo Jack
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • optional
  • Web camera
  • HD
  • Backlit keyboard
  • Microphone
  • Multi Array World-Facing Microphone
  • Speakers
  • 4x Stereo Speakers, Bang & Olufsen
  • Optical drive

What’s in the box?

Given the fact that this is a device with a rather premium price tag, it comes as no surprise that the packaging experience is on point. The box the laptop gets delivered in is black, and it hides a white subpackage, which looks stunning. Once you open it, you will be met by the laptop, which is protected by a black cloth. Underneath it, there are two compartments, each designated by a simplistic sketch of what’s inside – the 65W USB Type-C power adapter, and the dedicated Pen.


Design and construction

Once again, we have a blue laptop, which is made entirely out of magnesium. This is what gives it the impressive 16.1mm thickness and 990 grams of weight. The finish can be described as matte and does a good job to keep fingerprints and smudges away. On the other hand, the base is a bit flexy, but the laptop has generally good structural integrity.

Despite the low weight and the 360° hinges, the lid almost opens completely with a single hand. Looking at the display, you can kind of see the additional layer of the Sure View system. Also, it is good to see that the bezels are rather thin and that the manufacturer has included an HD Web camera, which is paired with an IR face recognition system.

As we mentioned, the laptop is largely unchanged from last year, and one of the key areas that we loved about it is the keyboard. It has a rather long key travel, clicky, yet quiet feedback, and well-thought-out spacing. Definitely one of the best found on a convertible. Here, you can also see that half of the quad-stereo speaker setup is surrounding the keyboard.

You also get the likes of a fingerprint reader, and a very good touchpad, which packs great responsiveness, accurate tracking, and smooth gliding.

Turn the laptop upside down, and you will find the other two speakers and a ventilation grill. It is worth mentioning that the hot air exhaust grill is located on the back, and is extremely slim.

Ports

The port selection here looks a bit bland. However, it is still better than the MacBook Air, as it has a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port on the left, followed by the Power button, and an optional SIM card tray. Then, on the right, you will find an HDMI connector, an audio jack, and two Thunderbolt 4 connectors.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

Getting inside of this notebook is fairly easy. You just need to undo all 5 Torx-head screws, and then pry the bottom panel, starting from the back. Then, just lift it away from the chassis.

As you can see, the battery takes most of the space inside this device and has a capacity of 56Wh.

Expectedly, the memory here is soldered to the motherboard. On the bright side, HP offers configurations with up to 32GB of dual-channel memory. Storage-wise, there is one M.2 PCIe x4 slot.

In terms of cooling, you get two thin heat pipes, a small heat sink, and a tiny fan, which is surprisingly able to push a ton of air.


Display quality

HP Elite Dragonfly G2 is equipped with a Full HD IPS touchscreen panel, IVO X133NVFF R0 (IVO8596). 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). One important feature of this device is its Sure View technology. Its purpose is to block unwanted viewers from seeing the content of your screen. A key role in that place the backlight and an additional light directing layer.

We apply these photos to evaluate the viewing angles. The 45-degree photos are taken with a longer exposure than the front-facing one.

The following set of images are taken with the same exposure (manual shooting mode) in a dark room.

The maximum measured brightness is excellent – 860 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 871 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 7%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 5450K – warmer than the standard 6500K temperature for sRGB.

In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 13% Brightness (White level = 140 cd/m2, Black level = 0.067 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 great – 2100:1.

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 on 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 Elite Dragonfly G2’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 88% 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 Elite Dragonfly G2 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.

After that, we test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “Gray-to-Gray” method from 50% White to 80% White and vice versa between 10% and 90% of the amplitude.


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 Elite Dragonfly G2’s backlight does not use PWM for brightness adjustment. This makes it comfortable and safe for use in this aspect.

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.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP Elite Dragonfly G2 configurations with 13.3″ IVO X133NVFF R0 (IVO8596) (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.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

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.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

HP Elite Dragonfly G2’s Bang & Olufsen speakers produce a sound with very good quality and decent maximum volume. Additionally, the low, mid, and high tones are clear of deviations.


Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-elite-dragonfly-g2-notebook-pc/34514046

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. Here, the 56Wh battery lasts for 11 hours and 40 minutes of Web browsing, and 12 hours and 2 minutes of video playback.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.


CPU options

This device can be configured with pretty much the entire Tiger Lake lineup. This includes the Core i3-1115G4, Core i5-1135G7, Core i5-1145G7, Core i7-1165G7, and Core i7-1185G7.

HP Elite Dragonfly G2 CPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the CPUs that can be found in the HP Elite Dragonfly G2 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which HP Elite Dragonfly G2 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different CPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / CPU.


GPU options

And since there are no dedicated GPUs, you only get what Intel has provided the specific processor – Iris Xe Graphics G4, Iris Xe Graphics G7 (80EU), and Iris Xe Graphics G7 (96EU).

HP Elite Dragonfly G2 GPU variants

Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the HP Elite Dragonfly G2 models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which HP Elite Dragonfly G2 model is the best bang for your buck.

Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.

Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS129 fps93 fps60 fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS119 fps67 fps47 fps

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 i7-1165G7 (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
HP Elite Dragonfly G23.17 GHz (B+13%) @ 98°C @ 34W2.34 GHz @ 76°C @ 18W2.14 GHz @ 73°C @ 16W
Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro (14)3.90 GHz (B+39%) @ 85°C @ 61W2.57 GHz @ 69°C @ 26W2.37 GHz @ 57°C @ 20W
HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw2000)3.46 GHz (B+24%) @ 97°C @ 42W3.03 GHz (B+8%) @ 97°C @ 32W2.49 GHz @ 82°C @ 22W
HP Pavilion 14 (14-dv0000)3.08 GHz (B+10%) @ 91°C @ 40W2.79 GHz @ 89°C @ 29W2.13 GHz @ 71°C @ 18W
Acer TravelMate P4 (TMP414-51)2.99 GHz (B+7%) @ 94°C @ 33W2.66 GHz @ 93°C @ 27W1.86 GHz @ 68°C @ 16W
Lenovo ThinkBook 15 Gen 23.63 GHz (B+32%) @ 94°C @ 45W3.32 GHz (B+19%) @ 94°C @ 38W2.87 GHz (B+3%) @ 80°C @ 28W
Dell Inspiron 13 7306 2-in-13.12 GHz (B+11%) @ 99°C @ 33W2.68 GHz @ 99°C @ 25W2.04 GHz @ 83°C @ 16W
ASUS ZenBook Flip S UX3713.48 GHz (B+24%) @ 90°C @ 43W2.79 GHz @ 90°C @ 27W1.95 GHz @ 69°C @ 14W
Acer Swift 3X (SF314-510G)3.74 GHz (B+34%) @ 95°C @ 45W3.45 GHz (B+23%) @ 95°C @ 37W3.09 GHz (B+10%) @ 85°C @ 28W
Acer Swift 3 (SF313-53)3.55 GHz (B+27%) @ 95°C @ 44W3.17 GHz (B+13%) @ 95°C @ 34W2.32 GHz @ 64°C @ 17W
Acer Swift 5 Pro (SF514-55GT)3.54 GHz (B+26%) @ 94°C @ 39W3.27 GHz (B+17%) @ 94°C @ 31W2.44 GHz @ 74°C @ 17W

The cooling solution of this notebook is pretty average. It stays way out of the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Pro (14) league, but it tends to be better than the Dell Inspiron 13 7306 2-in-1.

Comfort during full load

In order to provide sufficient airflow, the tiny fan inside of this device spins up quite rapidly. This produces some noise, which can be clearly heard. On the other hand, the hottest spot of the keyboard remains just below 40°C.


Verdict

At the end of the day, the Elite Dragonfly G2 is a mere refresh of its predecessor, but we feel that it has been critically improved in two areas. The first one is regarding the display.

HP Elite Dragonfly G2’s IPS panel (IVO X133NVFF R0 (IVO8596)) has excellent maximum brightness, great contrast ratio, and wide color coverage (88% of sRGB). Contrary to its predecessor, its backlight doesn’t flicker at any brightness level, which makes it a lot more comfortable for use. Moreover, our Gaming and Web design profile brings the color accuracy to a commendable Average dE of <2.0, making it usable for e-commerce, art, and professional work in general. What is more surprising in our view, is that the Sure View technology actually works well, and at a certain angle makes the display invisible. Unlike the panel that we tested on the HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw2000), the viewing angles are decent when the function is turned off. However, we noticed blurriness of the screen at every brightness setting, regardless of the condition of the Sure View system. This is a bit unfortunate because you won’t be getting the amazing visual experience this display should provide.

And the second one is most definitely the graphics performance. Since the last model came with Whiskey Lake U processors, the big difference is not a surprise. However, we feel that HP’s CPU management policy is way too lenient, and you get a fraction of what the respective processor is capable of.

Although the battery, which lasts for 11 hours and 40 minutes of Web browsing, and roughly 12 hours of video playback, is the same as last year, the difference is huge. Just as a reminder, we got about 20 hours of Web browsing.

Still, the speakers are absolutely amazing, considering the size of the machine. In addition to that, you get a very comfortable input device combo, a ton of security and privacy options, including a fingerprint reader, and an IR sensor for face unlock.

Unfortunately, the memory is soldered to the motherboard, and the port selection isn’t as wide, as we hoped. Despite that, you have two Thunderbolt 4 connectors, a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, a SIM card tray, and an HDMI connector.

What we are trying to say here, is that if your main concern is security, this little guy may be the perfect unit for you. But if you need anything more than it (and you shouldn’t at this form factor), you will probably need something more powerful.

Pros

  • Sub 1kg magnesium chassis
  • More than 10 hours of battery
  • PCIe x4 support
  • Two Thunderbolt 4 ports
  • An HP Pen inside the box
  • Input devices are on point
  • Great speakers
  • WiFi 6 and optional LTE support
  • One of the brightest display we’ve tested (IVO X133NVFF R0)
  • Covers 91% of sRGB (IVO X133NVFF R0)
  • Sure View works as intended (IVO X133NVFF R0)
  • Doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment (IVO X133NVFF R0)


Cons

  • RAM is soldered to the motherboard
  • Premium price tag
  • CPU performance is unimpressive
  • The image looks blurry in the middle of the screen on our unit (IVO X133NVFF R0)

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-elite-dragonfly-g2/

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danny glout
danny glout
2 years ago

the nits brightness you cite of 800 plus is twice that of that on the official HP site….Are you sure you are measuring the base unit here and not the Max or a FD plus upgrade?