HP Elite Dragonfly G3 review: A compact notebook with great battery life for hybrid workers

|
, , ,

TOP PICK 2023 TOP OF ARTICLE

With the pandemic came a lot more people working from home full- or part-time. Depending on your job, it can be a pain to have to work between two different computers, one at home and one in the office. Not only that, one of the benefits of working from home, or being a hybrid worker, is the ability to set up shop virtually anywhere that allows it. While many employers have moved workers back to the office, there are just as many that have adopted a hybrid work attitude, which has transformed some laptop models to better suit this work style.

Estimated reading time: 15 minutes

Our HP Elite Dragonfly G3 review looks at the 3rd-gen model which has been redesigned for hybrid mobility with a bigger screen, better camera, and next-gen performance. Read on for our full review and see why it (quite easily) earned a Top Pick Award here at Techaeris!

Specifications

The HP Elite Dragonfly G3 laptop we reviewed has the following features and specifications (configurable when ordering):

Processor family12th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 processor
ProcessorIntel®️ Core™️ i7-1265U (up to 4.8 GHz with Intel®️ Turbo Boost Technology, 12 MB L3 cache, 10 cores, 12 threads)
Display13.5″ diagonal, WUXGA+ (1920 x 1280), IPS, BrightView, 400 nits, 72% NTSC
GraphicsIntegrated: Intel® Iris® Xᵉ Graphics
Memory16 GB LPDDR5-6400 MHz RAM (onboard)
Internal drive512 GB PCIe® NVMe™ TLC SSD
External I/O Ports2x Thunderbolt™ 4 with USB4™ Type-C® 40Gbps signaling rate (USB Power Delivery, DisplayPort™ 1.4)
1x SuperSpeed USB Type-A 5Gbps signaling rate (USB Power Delivery)
1x headphone/microphone combo
1x HDMI 2.0
AudioAudio by B&O
Webcam5MP privacy camera
KeyboardHP Premium Keyboard – spill-resistant, backlit keyboard
Pointing deviceClickpad with multi-touch gesture support, taps enabled as default
Wireless technologyIntel® Wi-Fi 6E AX211 (2×2) and Bluetooth® 5.3 wireless card (supporting gigabit data rate)
Wireless technology WWANIntel® 5G Solution 5000
Power supply65 W USB Type-C™ adapter
BatteryHP Long Life 6-cell, 68 Wh Li-ion polymer
Fingerprint readerFingerprint sensor
Windows HelloFingerprint, facial recognition login
Operating systemWindows 11 Pro
Software includedHP Connection Optimizer; HP Hotkey Support; HP MAC Address Manager; HP Support Assistant; HP Easy Clean; HP Power Manager; myHP; HP Privacy Settings; Touchpoint Customizer for Commercial; HP Notifications; HP QuickDrop; HP Quick Touch; HP PC Hardware Diagnostics Windows
Support service includedHP 3-year Return to Depot Notebook Hardware Support.
Manageability featuresHP Client Management Script Library (download); HP Client Catalog (download); HP Manageability Integration Kit Gen4 (download); HP Image Assistant Gen5 (download); HP Patch Assistant (download); HP Cloud Recovery; HP Connect for Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Security managementAbsolute persistence module; HP DriveLock and Automatic DriveLock; HP Secure Erase; HP Sure Click; HP Sure Sense; BIOS Update via Network; HP Sure Admin; HP BIOSphere Gen6; HP Client Security Manager Gen7; TPM 2.0 embedded security chip (Common Criteria EAL4+ and FIPS 140-2 Level 2 Certified); HP Sure Start Gen7; HP Wake on WLAN; HP Tamper Lock; HP Sure Run Gen5; HP Sure Recover Gen5; Secured-Core PC Enable
Sustainable impact specificationsMolded paper pulp cushion inside box is 100% sustainably sourced and recyclable; Outside box and corrugated cushions are 100% sustainably sourced and recyclable; 10% post-consumer recycled plastic; Low Halogen; Bulk packaging available; Ocean-bound plastic in speaker enclosure(s)
Energy efficiencyTCO CertifiedENERGY STAR® certified
ColorSlate Blue (Natural Silver available)
Dimensions11.7 x 8.67 x 0.64 in
WeightStarting at 2.2lb

What’s in the box

  • HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook
  • 65W USB Type-C power adapter
  • Documentation
What's included with the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook
What’s included with the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook.

Design

HP is one of those companies that take customer feedback to heart. Always surveying existing and potential users, the company has redesigned the Elite Dragonfly for the growing hybrid workforce. Some of the key takeaways from a recent survey the company conducted was that hybrid workers require:

  • something small and light with great battery life
  • seamless connectivity
  • an elevated design to reflect the company and self-image
  • seamless audio & video for connecting with others
  • the need for security and privacy features to protect data in public spaces

As a result, the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 has a new 13.5″ clamshell design with a 3:2 aspect ratio, giving it a bigger screen, but still starting at around 2.2 lbs (1kg) in weight. The frame is constructed from a combination of metal and aluminum to maintain weight and recyclability. Our review unit was the Slate Blue colour, which looks rather slick, and it’s also available in Natural Silver for those wanting a more traditional colour. The edges are all nicely rounded, “pillow corners” as HP calls them, with the HP logo in silver on the middle of the lid.

Opening the notebook up, you’ll see the rubber dome backlit keyboard with five full-sized rows and a smaller 1/3 height row with function keys, a customizable myHP app key, an HP Sure Shutter camera privacy key, and a dedicated power key. The arrow keys are on the bottom right of the keyboard with the up and down arrow keys being half height but wider than usual. There is also a larger touchpad, 34% larger than the last Elite Dragonfly model. The fingerprint reader sits just above the trackpad as a dedicated key between the right Alt and Home keys. Above the keyboard is the speaker grill for the audio which is powered by Bang & Olufsen. Finally, the Dragonfly wordmark is etched in silver under the left side of the keyboard and it matches nicely with the silver bevel around the touchpad.

As for ports, the left side of the laptop has a USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port, a nano SIM card slot (optional), and a full-sized HDMI 2.0 port. On the right side is where you’ll find a lock slot, a second USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port, a drop jaw SuperSpeed USB Type-A port, and a 3.5mm audio/mic combo jack. It’s pretty rare for ultraslim notebooks to include a USB-A port and it was definitely a clever design with the drop jaw style and a welcome addition to the Elite Dragonfly G3. Both USB-C ports double as charging ports so you can connect the included USB-C power adapter to either side of the laptop, depending on your setup.

The ports on the right side of the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook
The ports on the right side of the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook.

The bottom of the laptop has two long horizontal rubber-like ridges that act as feet and elevate the laptop up to allow airflow and cooling through the bottom vent grille. Towards the front of the laptop are two more bottom-firing speakers for a total of four — a rare sight in laptops this size.

The display panel is glossy and has fairly small bezels. The front-facing 5MP webcam is centered in the top bezel and pressing the privacy key on the keyboard flips the internal cover over the camera. You can tell when it is disabled as there are angled white lines across where the camera sits. On either side of the camera, on the top edge of the actual lid, are two edge microphones.

Overall, I really love the design and feel of the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook. While small and compact, it looks pretty slick and has a couple of ports that you don’t normally see on a laptop of this size.

Display

One of the main issues with smaller 13″ laptops is the screen size. HP is trying to counter this by moving from a traditional 16:9 aspect ratio to a 3:2 aspect ratio. By doing so, they’ve managed to squeeze an extra 1/2-inch into the display. While it may not sound like much, it definitely does make a difference. As a result, the screen resolution gets a minor bump from 1920×1080 to 1920×1280.

The display on the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 is pretty solid, with a maximum brightness of 400 nits and is easily viewable under most ambient lighting. The only time I had a bit of an issue was sitting in front of a window with the sun bearing down on it, but you’re going to get that with most displays. With 72% NTSC coverage, the colour was decent enough for most work, including light photo and video editing.

My only minor complaint with the screen is that it is glossy. Being a non-touchscreen I would have much preferred a matte finish on it to help reduce glare. It’s not the end of the world, and like I said a minor complaint.

Other display options include an FHD touchscreen, an FHD HP Sure View Reflect with up to 1000 nits of brightness, and a WUXGA (3000×2000) OLED with 400 nits of brightness.

The display on the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook
The display on the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook.

Software

Being a hybrid work notebook, the Elite Dragonfly G3 ships with Windows 11 Pro. As we’ve mentioned before, Windows 11 ran just fine on our system as configured. Even though it is a smaller screen, the Windows 11 snapping utility is great for tiling multiple windows and works great when connecting this laptop to an external monitor via HDMI.

In addition to the default Windows 11 apps, the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 ships with quite a few HP apps, most of them enterprise or security related. These apps include HP Audio Control, HP Client Security Manager, HP Documentation, HP Easy Clean, HP PC Hardware Diagnostics Windows, HP Power Manager, HP Privacy Settings, HP Quick Touch, HP QuickDrop, HP Support Assistant, HP Sure Click Secure Browser, HP System Information, HP Wolf Security, myHP, and Tile.

Based on Chrome, HP Sure Click Secure Browser offers up even more built-in protection against malicious links and phishing attempts. HP Wolf Security is a “comprehensive endpoint protection and resiliency that starts at the hardware level and extends across software and services.” While the former is a benefit for every user, the latter can be used by company IT departments to further protect your company at the organization level with CPU-enforced malware prevention, remote location, locking, and wiping lost or stolen PCs, and continually monitoring devices for anomalous behaviour. If you’re IT department hasn’t set up HP Wolf Security, or this is going to be a personal laptop for you, you can also track it using the included Tile app and functionality.

Performance

With its Intel®️ Core™️ i7-1265U, 16GB LPDDR5-6400 MHz RAM, and 512 GB PCIe® NVMe™ TLC SSD, one would expect decent performance from the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 — and it didn’t fail to deliver. Browsing with multiple (15+) tabs open didn’t slow down the system as well, and it ran basic office tasks like word processing and spreadsheet editing just fine. Even though it comes with an integrated Intel Iris® Xᵉ Graphics card, using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop was satisfactory as well. All in all, unless you’re running CAD-intensive applications or high-end video editing, you should easily get by with most office-related tasks using this notebook.

Typing was fine with the rubber dome backlit keyboard, and I was still able to maintain 100-110 wpm. The touchpad was smooth and decent performing and responsive when tapping for extra context functionality.

Sound Quality

The speakers on the HP Elite Dragonfly G3, like many other HP products, are powered by Bang & Olufsen. I never have high expectations for laptop speakers but I was mildly impressed with the ones on this notebook. While most laptops these days can get rather loud, they still sound flat and tinny. With this notebook, however, I didn’t actually mind streaming music or watching videos with the onboard speakers. They are quite loud at 50% and actually have a decent sound stage. While there isn’t any “booming” bass, there is enough that the lack of isn’t taking away from the content you are watching.

Part of the up-firing speaker grille on the HP Elite Dragonfly G3
Part of the up-firing speaker grille on the HP Elite Dragonfly G3.

As one would assume from that, using the onboard speakers while in a video chat was equally acceptable, and the HP Audio Control has a few options like AI Speaker Noise Reduction and equalizer settings to fine-tune the sound to your preferences and needs.

Camera

Typically speaking, most laptops these days still come with a basic 720p HD camera. The camera on the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 is 5MP, offering four times more pixels than an HD camera. We’ve been lamenting for some time now here at Techaeris on the lack of FHD and higher-resolution cameras on laptops and it’s nice to finally see some OEMs including them.

HP went all out, improving the camera quality significantly over last year’s HP Elite Dragonfly Max by doubling the subjective test cases, including more low-light environment tests, during development. With new features like the HP Appearance Filter, global background blur, and auto frame features to keep you in focus and centered in the frame, the company is definitely moving in the right direction when it comes to video conferencing and chat on its hybrid work laptops.

On that note, the 5MP camera on this hybrid work notebook provided a nice clear image during our test calls.

Microphone Quality

Of course, microphone quality is important while in a video chat. Typically, the best still comes with a dedicated headset but, again, HP is improving in this area as well. The HP Elite Dragonfly G3 has two Edge Mics on the top edge of the lid. With the included HP Dynamic Voice Leveling and position of the microphones, you can walk up to 3 meters (almost 10 feet) from the laptop and the microphone gain will automatically enhance to optimize voice clarity. Not only that, the HP Audio Control app uses AI Microphone Noise Reduction and offers other settings like conference or personal mode to filter out even more background noise and give better clarity to voices.

During my test video chats, the microphone quality on the Elite Dragonfly G3 was outstanding, and the other people in the chat had no complaints about being able to hear me or the quality of my voice.

Connectivity

This isn’t a section I normally include as Wi-Fi connectivity on most laptops is a no-brainer and is pretty solid. The HP Elite Dragonfly G3 features Wi-Fi 6E connectivity, so you’re getting the latest and greatest when it comes to Wi-Fi connectivity. If you have a Wi-Fi 6 router, you’ll get fantastic speeds. My link speed on a Wi-Fi 6 router was pegged at 1201/681Mbps for transmitting and receiving, which isn’t too shabby.

The keyboard and trackpad on the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook
The keyboard and trackpad on the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook.

In addition, the notebook has an optional nano SIM card slot for cellular connectivity. I did test it briefly and, as with any cellular connection, will depend on your service level and service plan. For the most part, it was more than acceptable for working while sitting in the local Starbucks.

Battery Life

For some reason, I am notoriously hard on laptop batteries. Rarely do I get close to the manufacturer’s recommended battery life. HP claims up to 22 hours of video playback with the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook. However, no one is really using a laptop just for watching videos. I did test some YouTube streaming for a couple of hours and based on the battery used, I don’t see why it wouldn’t get close to that.

As for real work case scenarios, I used this notebook mostly for word processing, web browsing, music streaming while working, and the odd short video. Overall, I was able to get between 10 and 14 hours of battery life depending on what I was doing. On average, I spent two or three hours a day on it and had to recharge it after day 4 of use both times I had to charge it up. I did find that I was able to squeeze a bit more out of it the second time and over time, the laptop learns your work patterns and optimizes power consumption with intelligent charging.

Price/Value

Depending on the configuration you get, the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 starts at $1,839. Our review unit comes in at around $2,686 and you can max it out at over $3,000. As you can see, there are plenty of options depending on your processing, storage, or screen resolution needs. As far as the value, the Elite Dragonfly G3 is pricier than similarly specced options. However, each of those options usually come with a tradeoff like shorter battery life, lower resolution camera, poor audio quality, fewer ports, or cheaper construction quality.

Wrap-up

Not only is the HP Elite Dragonfly G3 notebook stylish and compact, but it can offer great performance, decent battery life, and quality video conferencing for hybrid workers. If you, or your company, is in the market for some laptops for work in the office, at home, and on the go, the Elite Dragonfly G3 is a solid choice and definitely worthy of a Top Pick Award here at Techaeris.

In some of our articles and especially in our reviews, you will find Amazon or other affiliate links. As Amazon Associates, we earn from qualifying purchases. Any other purchases you make through these links often result in a small amount being earned for the site and/or our writers. Techaeris often covers brand press releases. Doing this does not constitute an endorsement of any product or service by Techaeris. We provide the press release information for our audience to be informed and make their own decision on a purchase or not. Only our reviews are an endorsement or lack thereof. For more information, you can read our full disclaimer.

Last Updated on April 7, 2023.

Previous

Why a VPN is good for privacy, security, and protecting online identity

[UPDATED] Seagate FireCuda 530 Heatsink review: A blazing-fast Gen4 SSD with a price tag to match

Next

Latest Articles

Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap