HP Envy 17 review: a competitive large-screen laptop with broad appeal

When it comes to the best laptops around, HP is a brand name that often comes up in the discussion. The veteran PC maker has decades of experience in pushing out high quality laptops for a range of different user needs, and at a range of different price points – and the latest HP Envy 17 model brings with it a specs list and feature set that make it an attractive all-rounder for home or office use.

I've spent many weeks testing out the HP Envy 17 (the HP Envy 17-da0000na to be exact, codename lovers), so I can provide my verdict on everything from graphics performance to battery life. I've covered all the areas that are important when weighing up whether or not this is the laptop for you, based on my experience.

Of course, when it comes to laptops, you've got a wealth of options to pick from – with a multitude of screen sizes, laptop designs, and internal spec configurations to choose from (across both Windows and macOS). If you think the HP Envy 17 isn't going to be the right pick for you, then we've got plenty of other buying advice to share, including our guides to the best laptops under £500, the best lightweight laptops, and the best student laptops.

Price & Availability

The HP Envy 17 is available to buy now. At the time of writing, you can pick up the configuration I tested for around £1,250 / $1,740.

The shopping widgets embedded on this page will lead you towards the best prices and deals for the laptop currently on the web. You'll find it on sale at Amazon and Currys, or you can also pick it up direct from HP.

Design & Display

There's no doubting the quality of the design when it comes to the HP Envy 17. It looks gorgeous, in a plain and minimal way, and feels great to use too: from the soft texture of the keyboard keys to the responsive and smooth touchpad.

I like the darker shade of the keyboard, and the speaker grille that sits just above it – with support for DTS:X Ultra audio and a decent level of punch – the integrated sound being better than you'll get on most laptops.

The chassis is made from aluminium, which feels premium when touched and held. On the laptop lid, you've got a slightly reflective, subtly styled HP logo.

With a weight of 2.5kg, you can't really call this a lightweight or ultraportable laptop, though it's easy enough to pick it up and move it from room to room. That's part and parcel of buying a 17-incher, though.

The additional size of a larger laptop like this does mean room for more ports, though, and you're well served by the Envy 17. You get three USB-A, one HDMI 2.1, one USB-C, one Thunderbolt 4 with USB-C, and one 3.5mm headphone/mic jack.

I've definitely got no complaints about the build quality either, with everything from the screen hinge to the touchpad solid and well-made.

Then we've got the 17.3-inch display, with the screen size one of the key reasons you would pick this laptop out from the crowd.

Other than its size, the IPS LCD touchscreen panel doesn't really stand out, with 300 nits of brightness, a 60Hz refresh rate, and 100% sRGB coverage. In the UK, you're limited to an FHD (1,920 x 1,080 resolution), though a 4K option is available in the USA.

Features & Performance

The review unit I was sent by HP came with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155U processor, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage, and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 laptop GPU with 4GB of memory.

It's a pretty powerful spec list for the price you're paying – one that should be able to cope with virtually any task well enough. It can also manage some pretty serious gaming, if you're prepared to dial down those quality settings a little.

Based on my time testing the HP Envy 17, I didn't have any problems with performance: the laptop was snappy and responsive, and coped well with demanding websites and some advanced photo editing tasks.

The fans usually start whirring once the load gets above the basics, but the volume of these fans is always kept at a respectable level, while the underside of the laptop never gets too toasty.

I was able to test out some less demanding games on the laptop, including GTA V and Lego Indiana Jones, and everything ran perfectly well, with high frame rates well above 60fps (this is on a 1080p panel, remember).

HP also includes its own Omen gaming software, which frees up RAM for your games, though the laptop fans were pretty much running constantly during gaming sessions. You might want to buy one of the best gaming headsets to offset that.

Clearly, you can get laptops that run significantly faster in both the CPU and GPU departments, but the HP Envy 17 manages to hit a decent level for the price – and every laptop has a compromise somewhere.

With built-in Nvidia RTX graphics and 32GB of RAM, it goes a long way above and beyond what you'll get at the budget end of the market, while in no way troubling the top-end models in our best gaming laptop list.

HP has included a host of additional tools and features on top of Windows 11 Home here. The laptop can be set to dim the screen when you're looking away, and to lock itself when you leave your desk – it can then wake the screen when you return.

Windows Hello face scanning is supported, though there's no fingerprint sensor, which I find is a generally more reliable option than facial recognition. Each to their own in this regard, though.

There's also a selection of integrated enhancements for the 5-megapixel (2,592 x 1,944 resolution) webcam, including face tracking (using digital zoom), enhanced lighting, and background blurring. Video calling works really well, with crystal clear pictures and audio, and this is a great pick for a laptop if you spend a lot of time in online meetings or calling friends and family.

When it comes to battery life – which will be of interest to most potential buyers, apart from those planning on keeping it in one place – the HP Envy 17 doesn't really stand out, perhaps due to that large display.

I generally got in the region of 6 or 7 hours of battery life between charges, so it just about gives you a full working day away from a power supply, if you're careful about how you use it.

A couple of hours of video streaming, with the display brightness set to its maximum and the volume set fairly low, dropped the battery level by 29% on average – so you're looking at around 6 hours of movie watching, unless you dim the screen a little.

On the plus side, it does charge up quickly, and with the right charger installed you can bump the battery level up by 50% in just half an hour. That's a great bonus that I wish more laptops offered.

HP Envy 17 review: Verdict

If you're in the market for a large-screen laptop, then the HP Envy 17 is absolutely worth considering. Its 17.3-inch display gives you lots of space to work with (FHD resolution notwithstanding), and it performs well whether you're sitting back and watching a movie or trying to crunch through some spreadsheet calculations.

Of course, a screen that size means you're compromising in other areas: this is quite a bulky and quite a heavy laptop, relatively speaking. Add in so-so battery life and you need to think about how often you're going to be taking this laptop on the move with you. I do like a laptop with a full-sized keyboard and a number pad though, so there are pros and cons to something of this size.

Performance hits that mid-range sweet spot where you get a lot more than the basics, without going near the very best and most well-specced models out there. Nvidia is now rolling out its 50 series of laptop GPUs, so this is now two generations behind – good enough for some lighter gaming needs, but it won't really satisfy gaming enthusiasts.

There are quibbles to be had with the HP Envy 17, then, but considering the experience I've had working with the laptop for weeks, I have to give it a thumbs up overall. The keyboard and trackpad are a pleasure to use, most tasks are completed quickly and without fuss, and there are plenty of connectivity options to take advantage of too.

Also consider

As I've mentioned, there's plenty of choice out there at the moment when it comes to laptops – so if the HP Envy 17 isn't for you, there are a lot of other models to consider.

We recently tested the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 and came away impressed: it offers lots of power, an appealing design, and a vibrant 15.3-inch IPS LCD touchscreen display.

Apple is of course making great strides with its own silicon in its laptops, if Windows isn't a must-have for you. The new M4 MacBook Air pulls together superb performance and battery life, and wraps it all up in a lightweight package (with both 15-inch and 13-inch models available).