HP is the latest manufacturer to explore the depths of the thin but powerful branch of laptops. The Envy 15 (15-ep0000) is definitely something special, looking extremely sleek, and having a keyboard surrounded by two pretty large speaker grills. We just can’t help but think about the MacBooks by looking at it.
In addition to the chick, the laptop provides immense power thanks to the behemoth Core i9-10885H and the RTX 2060 Max-Q. Well, this is the maxed-out model, which we weren’t able to snatch, mainly because its price is way too high. However, we got the more “budget-friendly” model, which features a Core i5-10300H and a GTX 1650 Ti but still retails at above 1000 bucks.
If we have to be honest, we were really excited to see what HP has done, when they released this device, since the Envy lineup is pretty solid these days. So let’s what does this laptop got, and make a quick comparison to the Yoga Slim 7 (15) and the Inspiron 15 7590.
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-envy-15-15-ep0000/
Contents
Specs Sheet
HP ENVY 15 (15-ep0000) - Specs
All HP ENVY 15 (15-ep0000) configurations
What’s in the box?
Inside the package, there are some paper manuals, as well as a 150W power brick, the device, itself, is protected by an antistatic bag.
Design and construction
As we said, HP has done a great job with their Envy machines this year. As such, the Envy 15 (15-ep0000) features an aluminum body that weighs 2.15 kg and has a profile of 18.5mm. As you can notice, this is not exactly a lightweight device, but this is to be expected, considering the powerful hardware inside. In terms of rigidity, there is some slight flex to the chassis, and the lid but still – nothing to worry about.
Of course, the lid opens easily with a single hand, thanks to the stable and smooth hinges. Once open, it shows thin bezels on the sides and the top, and a bulky one on the bottom. Also, the camera can be found above the display, which is good.
Now, the base is where we see a more interesting picture. Unlike some of its Windows-based competitors, it lacks a NumberPad section and instead has a center-placed backlit keyboard with a duo of speakers around it. Also, it has a pretty large fingerprint reader next to the Arrow keys, and the famously bizarre Power button location.
In terms of comfort, the keyboard is great, as it has a long travel and clicky feedback. Additionally, there is almost no keyboard flex. Equally impressive is the touchpad. It has a glass surface, which delivers incredibly smooth gliding and very accurate tracking.
Taking a peek at the bottom panel, reveals the relatively large vents, and a set of two further speakers-cutouts (although the total amount of speakers is actually two). As for the hot air – it escapes the machine from two cutouts on the back and one on the right side of the device. Also, we should mention that closing the lid shouldn’t obstruct the exhaust, as the air is aimed slightly at an angle towards the desk.
Ports
On the left side, there is the charging plug, followed by a USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port, then an HDMI connector, two Thunderbolt connectors, and a MicroSD card reader. And on the right, you got an Audio jack and USB Type-A 3.2 (Gen. 1) port.
Disassembly, upgrade options, and maintenance
To get inside, you only need to undo 5 Torx-head screws. After that, just pry the panel with a plastic tool, and carefully work your way around the device. Then, lift it upwards and keep in mind there is one last clip holding it in the center.
At first glance, the cooling solution looks promising, with a total of three heat pipes, two of which are shared between the CPU and the GPU. Also, two metal plates are covering the video memory and the VRMs, while the fans are pretty large in diameter, although they are slim in profile.
It supports 32GB of DDR4 memory in dual-channel mode, and there are two M.2 PCIe slots that can work in RAID 0 mode or independently.
The battery here is an 83Wh unit.
Display quality
HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000) has an IPS panel, model number AUO AUOCC81. Its diagonal is 15.6″ (39.62 cm), and the resolution 1920 х 1080 pixels. The screen ratio is 16:9, and we are looking at a pixel density of – 142 ppi, and a pitch of 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 60cm (24″) (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).
It has comfortable viewing angles. We offer images at 45° to evaluate image quality.
The measured maximum brightness of 398 nits in the middle of the screen and 387 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 5%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 6620K – slightly colder and almost matching the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from a uniformity perspective. In other words, the leakage of light from the light source.
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work. The contrast ratio is very good – 1690:1.
To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.
Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.
Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.
The yellow dotted line shows HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000)’s color gamut coverage.
Its display covers 99% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.
Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.
We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.
Below you can compare the scores of HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).
The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.
The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale, and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.
Response time (Gaming capabilities)
We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.
We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 30 ms.
PWM (Screen flickering)
Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.
HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000)’s screen doesn’t flicker at any brightness level. Thankfully, this enables you to play for extended periods of time, without the risk of further damaging your eyes and brain.
Blue light emissions
Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.
Conclusion
HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000)’s display has an IPS panel that is great for content creation. It has a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, relatively high maximum brightness, and a good contrast ratio. It also doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment and is able to display basically all of the colors found on the Internet (99% of sRGB coverage). Moreover, our Gaming and Web design profile, helps it achieve great standard-matching color accuracy, which is good news to photographers, designers, and people who work with color-sensitive materials, in general.
Buy our profiles
Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000) configurations with 15.6″ FHD IPS AUO AUOCC81.
*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected]
Read more about the profiles HERE.
In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.
Office Work
Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.
Design and Gaming
This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.
Health-Guard
Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.
Sound
HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000)’s Bang & Olufsen speakers produce a very good sound. Its low, mid, and high tones are clear of deviations.
Drivers
All of the drivers and utilities for this device can be downloaded from here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-envy-15-ep0000-laptop-pc-series/32552523
Battery
Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. The huge 83Wh battery pack delivers 19 hours and 20 minutes of Web browsing and 13 hours and 49 minutes of video playback.
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.
CPU options
Processor-wise, you can pick from the Core i5-10300H, Core i7-10750H, and the Core i9-10885H.
Results are from the Cinebench 20 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
GPU options
On the graphics side, you have the GTX 1650 Ti, and the RTX 2060 Max-Q.
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
HP ENVY 15 (15-ep0000) GPU variants
Here you can see an approximate comparison between the GPUs that can be found in the HP ENVY 15 (15-ep0000) models on the market. This way you can decide for yourself which HP ENVY 15 (15-ep0000) model is the best bang for your buck.
Note: The chart shows the cheapest different GPU configurations so you should check what the other specifications of these laptops are by clicking on the laptop’s name / GPU.
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
| Far Cry 5 | Full HD, Normal (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Ultra (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average fps | 69 fps | 63 fps | 59 fps |
| Rise of the Tomb Raider (2016) | Full HD, Lowest (Check settings) | Full HD, Medium (Check settings) | Full HD, Very High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average fps | 120 fps | 87 fps | 43 fps |
| Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018) | Full HD, Lowest (Check settings) | Full HD, Medium (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average fps | 92 fps | 58 fps | 53 fps |
| Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands | Full HD, Medium (Check settings) | Full HD, High (Check settings) | Full HD, Very High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average fps | 59 fps | 55 fps | 49 fps |
Temperatures and comfort
Max CPU load
In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.
Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.
| Intel Core i5-10300H (45W TDP) | 0:02 – 0:10 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000) | 4.02 GHz (B+61%) @ 87°C | 3.52 GHz (B+41%) @ 76°C | 3.56 GHz (B+42%) @ 82°C |
| Lenovo Ideapad Creator 5 (15) | 4.11 GHz (B+64%) @ 91°C | 3.99 GHz (B+60%) @ 94°C | 3.67 GHz (B+45%) @ 94°C |
| Dell XPS 17 9700 | 3.83 GHz (B+53%) @ 94°C | 3.59 GHz (B+44%) @ 95°C | 3.31 GHz (B+32%) @ 89°C |
| Dell XPS 15 9500 | 3.43 GHz (B+38%) @ 85°C | 3.34 GHz (B+34%) @ 97°C | 3.34 GHz (B+34%) @ 99°C |
| Dell G3 15 3500 | 3.70 GHz (B+48%) @ 97°C | 3.53 GHz (B+41%) @ 97°C | 3.32 GHz (B+33%) @ 95°C |
| Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3i (15) | 4.00 GHz (B+60%) @ 94°C | 3.76 GHz (B+50%) @ 94°C | 3.57 GHz (B+43%) @ 94°C |
| Acer Predator Triton 300 (PT315-52) | 3.35 GHz (B+34%) @ 72°C | 3.33 GHz (B+33%) @ 79°C | 3.31 GHz (B+32%) @ 84°C |
Despite not showing the highest frequencies of all laptops we’ve tested with this processor, the HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000) is definitely the best when we also take the temperatures under consideration.
Real-life gaming
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min) | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min) | GPU frequency/ Core temp (Turbo mode) |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000) | 1602 MHz @ 65°C | 1603 MHz @ 63°C | – |
| Lenovo Ideapad Creator 5 (15) | 1187 MHz @ 65°C | 1159 MHz @ 67°C | – |
| Dell G3 15 3500 | 1560 MHz @ 77°C | 1453 MHz @ 79°C | – |
| ASUS ROG Strix G15 G512 | 1647 MHz @ 66°C | 1626 MHz @ 70°C | – |
| Acer Nitro 5 (AN515-55) | 1628 MHz @ 74°C | 1601 MHz @ 81°C | – |
| Acer Predator Triton 300 (PT315-52) | 1581 MHz @ 70°C | 1551 MHz @ 78°C | 1673 MHz @ 66°C |
| ASUS TUF A15 (F506) | 1566 MHz @ 68°C | 1549 MHz @ 69°C | – |
This notebook also manages to stay on par with some of the best mid-range gaming laptops on the market.
Gaming comfort
Well, the laptop is not that quiet under combined load such as gaming. But thankfully, it’s neither too hot, nor too loud.
Verdict
Undoubtedly, the HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000) is one of the most exciting devices this year. It has incredibly high potential, especially if you pair it with the top of the line Core i9-10885H and the RTX 2060 Max-Q. However, even the low-tier version, equipped with the Core i5-10300H and the GTX 1650 Ti will definitely enable you to edit 4K videos and play a lot of the latest AAA titles with decent eye candy.
Also, we got an extremely long battery life, with more than 19 hours of Web browsing and 13 hours and 49 minutes of video playback.
HP Envy 15 (15-ep0000)’s display has an IPS panel (AUO AUOCC81) that is great for content creation. It has a Full HD resolution, comfortable viewing angles, relatively high maximum brightness, and a good contrast ratio. It also doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment and is able to display basically all of the colors found on the Internet (99% of sRGB coverage). Moreover, our Gaming and Web design profile, helps it achieve great standard-matching color accuracy, which is good news to photographers, designers, and people who work with color-sensitive materials, in general.
When we look at the I/O we will see that there is no RJ-45 connection, but on the bright side, you got two Thunderbolt 3 connectors, as well as a MicroSD card slot and more. If we have to be honest, we found almost no downsides to this machine. Indeed, the machine is a bit pricey, and it has a horrific Power button location, but at the end of the day, these are things you can and will get used to. And the comfortable input devices will make your experience even better.
Since the laptop has a far better cooling solution than the Inspiron 15 7590 and the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 (15), we would definitely recommend it for pretty much every type of task.
Pros
- Great price/performance ratio
- Stylish premium build
- Very good input devices and fingerprint reader
- Two RAM slots with a maximum capacity of 32GB, and two M.2 slots with RAID 0 support
- The display doesn’t flicker at any brightness level (AUO AUOCC81)
- 99% of sRGB coverage and very accurate color representation with our Gaming and Web design profile (AUO AUOCC81)
- Very potent hardware options + two Thunderbolt 3 ports
Cons
- Poor Power button placement
- A bit pricey
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-envy-15-15-ep0000/
No usb charging = no Thanks. A plus for 2 NVME though.
If it helps at all, the reason for no USB charging is due to the fact that USB simply cannot handle the amount of power this beast requires. Unlike Apple, this is not a simple design decision.
Those USB C ports do not look like they are Thunderbolt 3 enabled in your images. Some Envy models 2020 models do have Thunderbolt 3 (with the proper lightening symbol by them) and some are just super speed USB 3.1. Refer to page 4 here: User Guide (hp.com) The models that are Thunderbolt 3 capable also come with a 200W charging brick, not the 150W. See here: HP ENVY 15 (2020): Specs – Detailed Specifications (windowstip.com Pointing this out as I almost got caught out buying the i9 OLED model with the RX 2060 gpu, but it does not support… Read more »