Complaining about your computer’s weight may well be over, and at a launch in Japan, HP is showing off what the next generation of its Elite laptops could be like, with a pro machine that’s under one kilogram.
HP’s newest laptop line, the HP Elite Dragonfly is quite light. Very light, in fact, weighing in at under 1 kilogram, all the while promising more than 16 hours of battery life.
There are a few caveats that have allowed HP to hit this weight, but it could mean the days of lugging around a big and heavy laptop are over.
At its launch event in Tokyo, HP unveiled the HP Elite Dragonfly, alatest rather business-centric laptop pitched at the crowd that buys very light laptops. That’s light in a weight sense, with the headline feature for the HP Elite Dragonfly being an overall weight of under 1kg.
In comparison, the already very-light MacBook Air that Apple re-introduced last year hits 1.25kg, and is only a laptop. HP’s Elite Dragonfly can do a little more, sporting one of those 360 degree hinges that turns laptops such as this into both a tablet and a laptop.
However, the one kilogram weight is still fairly interesting all the same.
There’s a small catch there, however, and one worth being aware of: HP will sell the HP Elite Dragonfly with two different battery configurations, both sealed so you can’t switch between them.
The ultralight version of the HP Elite Dragonfly is the model that weighs under 1kg, with an estimated battery life of up to 16.5 hours, but there’s also a long-life battery model option, with a claimed 24.5 hours of battery endurance on-board.
Opt for the long life model, and you’re looking at a laptop that will tip the airport luggage scales at over 1kg.
Essentially, it’s your choice: pick the sub-1kg Dragonfly and you get a little less on the battery, or pick the one that’s over it and you’ll find more battery life waiting for you.
It’s also a bit of a looker, as long as you like the colour blue. Or in HP-speak, “Dragonfly Blue”, because that’s the only colour it comes in.
The HP Elite Dragonfly is a 13 inch convertible laptop, so fans of tablet or tent modes can also use it with a reasonable amount of configuration options.
There’s an option for a 4K Ultra HD display, storage variants of up to 2TB on-board, and of course a variety of internal processors. It will sell with 4×4 LTE and WiFi 6 on board, meaning it’s 802.11ax friendly, much like the Samsung Galaxy Note10+ and the recently announced Apple iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro models, although naturally you’ll need a Wi-Fi 6 compatible network to take full advantage of that.
While the design is cutting edge, HP is sticking with an 8th-generation Intel Core processor for the HP Elite Dragonfly. HP’s positioning on this is to enable support for Intel’s vPro platform for its business customers, meaning no properly up-to-date Intel 10th gen right now.
HP is also putting a hard sell on its enabled security features, which include a physical shutter to cover the inbuilt camera, as well as an AI-driven approach to malware detection, a feature HP calls “SureSense”. HP’s claim is that it’s 99 percent effective in detecting zero-day type exploits, which is quite a bold claim.
As for when you can find it, we’ve been told the HP Elite Dragonfly will go in sale in Australia from November, with pricing starting at $2699.
Alex Kidman travelled to Tokyo in Japan as a guest of HP
