Last month AMD formally launched its Ryzen Mobile APUs with partners Acer, HP, and Lenovo announcing that systems using the new processors would be out by the end of the year. The first system to become available for purchase appears to be the HP Envy X360 convertible notebook which is available with a Ryzen 5 2500U APU. The 15.6” 2-in-1 starts at $574.99 (at time of writing) and thankfully appears to take full advantage of the AMD processor.
The HP Envy X360 was spotted by Anandtech who noted that the notebook is currently being sold at HP.com as well as brick and mortar Best Buy stores. The notebook is part of the company’s higher end Envy brand. It weighs in at 4.75 pounds and measures 14.16” x 9.8” x 0.77”. The 360° hinge allows the touchscreen display to flip around to lay flat with the underside of the keyboard enabling tablet mode. The top half with thin bezels holds the 15.6” 1920 x 1080 display and IR capable Windows Hello camera. The bottom half holds the rest of the hardware and features a backlit island-style keyboard with numpad, a wide trackpad, and the various I/O ports around the edges including USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 with DisplayPort 1.4 and USB Power support (for charging), two full size USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, HDMi, and a headset jack. Other features include Bang and Olufsen audio with dual speakers and a stylus that can be used with Windows Ink, One Note, and other apps.
Internal specifications include the above-mentioned Ryzen 5 2500U, up to 16 GB of dual channel 2400 MHz memory, and mechanical and solid-state storage options. The base model of this laptop starts at 8 GB DDR4 at 2400 MHz (2 x 4GB) and 1TB of 7200 RPM hard drive storage. Users can configure the notebook with up to a 1TB NVMe SSD or a combination of SATA hard drive and NVMe M.2 drives. The HP Envy X360 also features Intel 802.11ac Wi-Fi and it is all powered by a 3-cell 55.8 Wh battery. The APU is a 15W TDP chip with four Zen-based CPU cores (eight threads) running at 2 GHz base and up to 3.6 GHz boost, a RX Vega-based GPU clocked at up to 1100 MHz with 8 CUs (512 cores), and 6 MB of cache (2MB L2 and 4MB L3).
The HP Envy X360 15z Touch convertible laptop is available now starting at $574.99 and going up to $1374.99 fully loaded with Windows 10 Pro.
In all this looks to be a good design win for AMD is a promising start for the future of Ryzen Mobile. Thankfully the APU appears to be running at its full 15W TDP and is not being held back by single channel memory like past AMD mobile chips have allegedly been. I am looking forward to seeing what AMD’s other partners have to offer. Until then though, we have a Ryzen 7 1700 powered Asus ROG gaming laptop to ponder about!
It blew away an alienate
It blew away an alienate 7700hq powered laptop.
Actually tested the laptop at BB, and plan on having mine next week. Though initial impressions are excellent. It’s Fast, Fast, Fast.
It’s the kind of laptop that should not leave you twiddling your thumbs.
Good to hear, I will have to
Good to hear, I will have to see if my Best Buy has it and go check it out. Its a bit bigger than im looking for though, 15.6" notebook wouldnt fit into my work locker lol. If they out this in a ~12" and still have a stylus im game. I still crave a yoga book with a better keyboard its almost the perfect device for me!
I’ll wait for a regular form
I’ll wait for a regular form factor ProBook with the Ryzen 7 2700U and more Vega nCUs and a higher wattage/better cooling solution. I still want a laptop with a DVD/BR player as that can be swapped out for a Hard Drive and an SSD for the other dirve bay. But it looks like NVM/PCIe drives will take over.
AMD’s Ryzen 2700U specification entry lists a cTDP (Configurable TDP) of 12-25W for the 2700U. So a ProBook of a similar form factor to my old HP ProBook 4540s(Quad Core Ivy Bridge i7) variant at 35 watts cooling solution would be great with the 2700U configured by the OEM up to its maximum 25 watts top metric. My current ProBook 4540s comes with a core i7 3632QM and a discrete mobile Radeon 7650M(Terascale rebrand) GPU and that Vega graphics on the 2700U looks to be better than the 7650M in graphics performance so I can get by without needing a discrete mobile GPU.
I’d love to see the OEMs push
I’d love to see the OEMs push for 20 watts of dissipation instead of sticking with 15.
I hated HP for years for
I hated HP for years for crippling it’s AMD laptops. Based on AMD’s slide about this laptop it looked like I was going to keep hating them(based on that slide, 8GB max and most likely no NVMe and only one storage).
But it looks much much better in the end and if I was living in US, making ordering directly from HP something much simpler, I probably haven’t pass the chance to bought it when it was at $600.
HP’s ProBooks were great
HP’s ProBooks were great until Intel started pushing that Ultrabook crap thin and light Apple Envy based laptop from factor on the entire NON Apple OEM laptop market.
So for the past 2 years the only ProBooks for sale at MicroCenter have been the ProBooks with the dual core U series core i7s/i5s and mostly GCN 1.0 discrete mobile GPUs.
I have been in online chats at HP’s online store asking them to get some Regular Form Factor laptops that include the Ryzen 7 2700U at its Maximum cTDP of 25 watts(Dual Channel Memory of at least 16GB). HP has got to stop with using those Useless Ultrabook form factor laptop designs on all of its business class ProBook/Other HP laptops. And HP ProBooks at least aways get the Pro version of Windows and not the Crappy home version.
The really bad thing about the Dual core Intel i7s/i5 SKUs is that they cost more than the older Quad core SKUs and I have a ProBook 4540s laptop with an Intel Core i7 3632QM and Radeon 7650M(Terrascale Rebrand) disrcete mobile GPU that cost me less than what Intel/Laptop OEMs where charging for some very crappy Ultrabook dual core laptop SKUs.
If HP could take that old 4540s laptop case design and put the Ryzen 7 2700U(25+ Watts of cooling rating) in there then HP would not even need to Include the Radeon discrete mobile GPU as the 2700U’s 10/Vega nCUs on that APU SKU would very likely beat the Radeon 7650M hands down. Give it dual channel memory of at least 16GB capacity and some modern NVM/SSD. And I still want the DVD-RW/BR/BR-RW drive for playing content that way. Those DVD bays can also be swapped out for HardDrives/SSDs caddys also.
Now I am wating for ASUS to maybe put a Desktop Raven Ridge APU in a laptop form factor at 45-65 Watts like ASUS has put a Desktop Ryzen 7 1700 in a Gaming Laptop and I have plenty of money saved up over the Ultrabook years from NOT doing My yearly laptop upgrade to afford a Laptop with a Desktop Raven Ridge APU inside.
Watch for the Acer Swift 3
Watch for the Acer Swift 3 with Ryzen 7, SSD, and a GPU chip.
The article lists the
The article lists the starting price as $574.99, but the cheapest configuration on HP’s site is $729.99.