HP Envy 13 x360 vs Dell XPS 13 (9310) 2-in-1: Which One is Better Convertible Laptop?

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In this comparison of HP Envy x360 13 and Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1 laptops, we’ll see which one is performing better overall. Both the laptops are convertible and have the latest Tiger Lake processor but the major difference between them is the Envy is a budget option and the XPS is a premium option. So, let’s see which one is worth the price to buy.

BUY NOW	BUY NOW
HP Envy 13 x360	Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1
PROS	PROS
Light and portable. Plenty of ports.	16:10 display which is great for media consumption. Solid performance. Clear audio quality.
CONS	CONS
Not a better keyboard comparing it to a standard one.	Low keyboard travel. Fewer ports.

SPECIFICATIONS

INTRODUCTION:

This is the comparison of HP Envy x360 13 gainst Dell XPS 9310 2-in-1 laptops. The Envy x360 is available in both 13 and 15 variants and we are comparing the more portable 13-inch variant. It does perform enough for the price range it sells. The latest version of Dell’s excellent XPS 13 laptop updated with a fresh bit of Tiger Lake processor. Here, we are looking at the XPS 13 the 2-in-1 edition which quickly and easily converts from a laptop into a massive tablet thing with just a quick bit of wrist action. Let’s see which one is worth the price.

DESIGN & BUILD:

HP Envy 13 x360

At 1.32 kilograms, the Envy 13 x360 is very light and portable and the convertible functionality only adds to its versatility and is around 15 millimeters thick at the thickest point in its wedge-shaped design. The laptop is light enough to be carried around with ease but also doesn’t feel like they’ve compromised on build quality as it feels robust and premium. It feels solidly built and there are no creaks anywhere.

The keyboard is a chiclet-style one but it provided a better typing experience than I expected. Thanks to the good key travel and proper spacing and size of the keys. The layout isn’t too far away from a regular desktop 10 keyless keyboard and there’s no deck flex either despite the light design. In fact, there’s no flex on the chassis and the display portion has a very slight flex which is only seen if you actually try to put much pressure. The backlight is in white and is pretty even and you can choose two different levels of backlighting. The mousepad is fairly large for the size but I felt it to be a bit disappointing compared to the keyboard as it is a plastic one and doesn’t feel as smooth or easy to use and navigate as a typical glass trackpad. Perhaps HP thought that the touchscreen ability would mean that most people would resort to that instead of solely relying on the trackpad.

Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1

Like the Normal XPS 13, this 2-in-1 is a proper skinny machine albeit slightly heavier at around 1.3 kilos which to be fair is still proper light for a pro laptop. I had no trouble logging it around and Dell’s design is sleek and straightforward. The metal chassis is surprisingly tough despite the fact that you’ve got that skinny finish. It’s also a bit soft inside with a velvet palm rest that feels lovely against the skin. The big whoop of this 2-in-1 versus other Dell XPS laptops is that 360-degree hinge action which means that you can flip the display and turn this notebook into a tablet or alternatively you can also prop it up in tent mode which works splendidly well for enjoying a bit of Netflix or Youtube or playing around with touchscreen compatible apps. Once you stick the XPS 13 into tablet mode and naturally that keyboard is completely disabled once you pass the 180-degree marks, you don’t have to worry about mashing the keys accidentally with your fingers or palms.

I definitely appreciate the flexibility of being able to put the XPS 13 2-in-1 into this tablet-style mode, great for browsing articles online. It is obviously quite cumbersome compared with dedicated tablets like an iPad Pro, so if you’re going to be using it in tablet mode for more than about sort of 10-15 minutes, you’re probably want to rest it on a surface.

When you’ve got the XPS 13 2-in-1 in laptop mode, you’ll notice that that backlit keyboard really makes the most of the limited space it has. It’s kind of insane just how close to those edges the keyboard stretches which means you get good-sized keys that are easy to touch type on despite the laptop’s compact design. The travel is unsurprisingly shallow, so I did find that the type and action were quite hard on my fingertips at first although you do kind of adjust over time. While the return key stretches across two rows, Dell has unfortunately committed the cardinal sin of cramming the page down and up keys next to those tiny cursor keys. So, every time I tried to use those cursor keys to move just a single row up or down in a document, I’d end up hitting the page down, a page up, and skipping all the way to the end. Eventually, I just ended up ignoring those cursor keys and just using the perfectly responsive and spacious touchpad to move around the documents instead. Thankfully, those hinges stay nice and stiff when you’re in touch screen mode as well, so it is a pleasure to use.

DISPLAY QUALITY:

HP Envy 13 x360

The display is a 13.3 inch full HD 1920x1080p IPS panel with a max brightness of 400 nits. The display is sharp, has good contrast as well as brightness, and it performs well in every situation albeit with higher reflections than we would like, especially in direct sunlight situations owing to the highly glossy display.

Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1

It’s a compact 13.4 inch LED panel and it’s perfect for play as well as work. The full HD resolution serves up fine detail when you’re editing photos or just chilling with some Netflix although you can upgrade to 4K if you’re loaded. The contrast is sharp and the color temperature is pleasingly neutral, while those visuals have a realistic edge too. The full sRGB gamut is accurately covered as is 78% of the Adobe RGB. Now, the 16 by 10 aspect ratio is just as well suited to multitasking with two up side by side as it is for streaming a movie and the anti-reflective finish is perfect for venturing outdoors. The display doesn’t dim down quite as much as I would have liked for evening use but on top of brightness, it is positively retina-searing. It hits around 450 nits which is definitely better than most rivals.

FEATURES:

HP Envy 13 x360

Our configuration comes with an Intel 11th gen Tiger Lake 1165G7 i7 processor, Intel Xe graphics, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB NVMe SSD. Now, this HP laptop is a convertible which means that it can convert into your tablet as well as be used in several different positions based on your requirement. As a laptop, the keyboard remains active until you go beyond the 180-degree angle for the hinge after which the laptop automatically disables the keyboard as well as enables auto rotation for your tablet mode. You get a stylus in the box which is pretty cool as it charges over USB Type-C and also comes with a nice design that hides the charging port and has a red circular ring at the top to indicate the charge status.

The storage is a Samsung NVMe SSD which is rated for a max read speed of 3500 megabytes per second and a write speed of 2900 megabytes per second and our test showed that it performed as good if not slightly better than promised and one of the best SSDs that you can get on a laptop currently. The 16GB of RAM is soldered, so in case you’re thinking of getting the 8GB and then upgrading later, we’d suggest spending that extra amount to get the 16GB variant.

The touch input is quite nice and useful, especially for photo editing which this can handle easily. The Envy supports Windows Hello and uses the fingerprint scanner that’s neatly tucked in the keyboard between the cursor and alt keys and the fingerprint scanner is pretty fast and accurate.

Despite the slim profile, they manage to pack in pretty good connectivity options. You get a micro SD card reader on the right as well as a USB Type-C, an audio jack on the left, and two USB Type-A ports on either side. The Type-C port is the Thunderbolt 4 port which is supported courtesy of the Intel 11th gen i7 CPU inside it and allows for the transfer of speeds up to 40 gigabits per second as well as support for a 5K display.

For audio, you get a pair of Bang & Olufsen speakers and they sound good in terms of quality and a fairly good depth and bass. However, they do not have great loudness. There’s a 720p webcam about the display in the center and this is a decent one in terms of quality, nothing much to brag about quality-wise but the good thing is that you get a physical shutter to cover the camera for added privacy when you want to disable it and you can disable the microphone as well when it’s not in use to prevent other apps from gaining access without your knowledge.

Intel also has several leads for the platform including the need to bundle fast Wi-Fi six internet connectivity, Thunderbolt 4, fast storage drives, sleek design, high-quality audio, and much more. Intel mandates that laptops need to wake up from sleep in less than a second have nine hours or more of battery from a full HD display on a single charge and provide four hours or more of usage from just 30 minutes of charge on a full HD display. In short Intel’s Evo platform makes sure that your laptop is faster more reliable and more flexible than ever before. So, you can work anywhere and everywhere hassle-free.

Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1

Unlike the standard Dell XPS 13, the selection of ports is rather limited. You’ve got a pair of Thunderbolt 4 connections which are at least split between the two edges unlike the MacBook ports and that’s basically it besides the headphone jack and a micro SD memory card slot.

To make sure that unlocking the XPS 13 2-in-1 is as quick and convenient but also as secure as possible, Dell has thrown in a couple of really good options. First, you’ve got a fingerprint sensor built into that power button just housed in the corner of the keyboard, so a quick tap your print against that then you’re generally into the laptop within a second. Alternatively, you also have face recognition support courtesy of that 720p webcam and it’s generally just as quick if not quicker than the fingerprint sensor and it works really well even in a dark environment. I also found that the 720p webcam was absolutely fine for a bit of Skype, Zoom, and any video conference. Sadly, there’s no privacy shield to cover up that webcam when you don’t want it to be in use but you do at least get a little LED that flashes on alongside it to let you know when the camera is being used by an application, although it is very small and probably quite easy to miss. I also found that the XPS 13’s dual-mic setup works perfectly fine for a bit of Skype and Zoom and whatever if you don’t want to be rocking a headset, they made me sound perfectly natural.

You’ve got a pair of stereo speakers hidden away on the back of the laptop. So, you don’t have that audio blasting at your face whichever mode the XPS 13 is in but the speakers are still loud enough to make themselves heard when you’re in a fairly noisy environment. If you do want to listen to some tunes on the XPS 13 2-in-1 as well, you’ve got that headphone jack built-in and you’ve got reliable Bluetooth 5.1 support for the use of external headphones.

PERFORMANCE:

HP Envy 13 x360

In terms of performance, although this would most likely be used for productivity and multimedia consumption, we did try to push it to its limits by doing photo and video editing in 4K, and in this, the Intel 11th gen i7 1165G7 CPU performed very well and much better than some other laptops that I tested alongside it. While the lack of a dedicated GPU means that this wouldn’t be your first choice if you’re a creator, I didn’t expect it to perform as well as it did. The Intel Iris Xe graphics perform surprisingly well, especially on a slim and light productivity machine such as this.

Scrubbing through a timeline with video editing was pretty quick, thanks to the fast storage, and the CPU and Intel Iris Xe graphics handled it nicely with quick export times as well. If your use is primary productivity but needs some creativity flowing at times, this can definitely help do the tasks but make sure you go for the 16 GB variant. The laptop supports the Intel Wi-Fi six-card and got consistent results in our speed test and the range was also pretty good. It has Bluetooth 5 which we use to connect to various Bluetooth headphones and TWS and all perform well, although the connectivity process isn’t the smoothest on a Windows laptop due to the clunky UI.

Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1

The general performance is good with the Intel core i5 1135G7 processor plus 8GB of RAM. I could happily mess around with a couple of dozen Chrome tabs open at once without seeing any slow down here and likewise, I could edit pics in and indulge in other creative tasks. Of course, the XPS 13 uses basic integrated Iris Xe graphics, so don’t expect to blaze through many games, it can play only older and less demanding titles. Benchmarking results were unsurprisingly limited. The Cinebench returned a score of just 920 for instance but thankfully the XPS 13 2-in-1 didn’t seem to heat up much at all even when I was using it for an extended period of time.

This particular model comes packing a 256 GB NVMe SSD and it’s certainly not sluggish but it’s hardly whipped fast either. Two gigabits per second for reading speeds and fall in just under that for write and suddenly with those kinds of speeds, the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 is beaten by quite a lot of rivals around this sort of price point. You can also boost the level of storage by expanding the storage option.

BATTERY:

HP Envy 13 x360

The laptop comes with the proprietary port on the right which supports up to 65 watts of power but the great thing is that it can also charge over the Type-C port. The laptop comes with a 51-watt battery that doesn’t sound like a large capacity but this is where the 11th gen Intel i7 chipset comes into play with good efficiency which manages to give a battery life of 10 hours in our daily use cases and one of the reasons behind this is the fact that the laptop is part of the Intel Evo platform where there are few minimum requirements that any laptop that is part of this platform should meet. Simply put the Intel Evo platform means that Intel makes sure that manufacturers do whatever is possible to improve the end-user experience. Better battery life means that you have less to worry about needing a charger and even if you do require to use a charger the fast charging functionality means that your work isn’t dictated by charging ports anymore and that allows you to be more flexible and free.

Dell XPS 13 9310 2-in-1

As for the battery life, I tended to get around five to six hours of mixed-use per charge, that’s generally like working in chrome with a few tabs open and streaming media at the same time. Obviously, if you aren’t working in chrome, you tend to get slightly better battery life. This is a very similar result to the standard XPS 13 and many other ultraportable laptops around this sort of price point.

WHICH TO BUY?

HP Envy x360 13 does everything the target audience wants and then some more. I was almost certain that I wouldn’t be able to handle complex photo or video editing but I was pleasantly surprised that the Intel 11th gen 1165G7 Intel i7 chipset was able to handle easily 4K video editing which makes this an ultrabook that can actually serve creators as well as office and education users. Like the standard XPS 13, it’s certainly not cheap but if you want a capable ultraportable laptop that you can use for basic creative tasks, then it definitely does the job more than well gorgeous display, pretty decent usability, and all.

The price range of these laptops is so different, there is a huge gap between them. The HP Envy 13 performs better even though it doesn’t give you a better display and some premium features and also comes at a very less price compared to the Dell’s XPS 13 laptops. If you want a great display and better accessories with the same features and performance, then you can choose XPS 13 2-in-1 at a range of $2000.

Arya

Hello! I'm Surendar Arya, a passionate tech writer from Uttar Pradesh, India. I'm a freelance contributor to the tech blog - The World's Best And Worst. My enthusiasm for technology drives me to explore the latest trends and innovations in the field. I take immense pleasure in guiding individuals on how to leverage technology for their benefit, making their lives easier and more efficient.