HP 15.6 Inch Touchscreen Laptop w/13th Gen Intel i7-1355U and 16 GB RAM (FD0127DX) Review

Lightweight, all-purpose laptop with decent specs, and a large touchscreen. Amazon Affiliate Product Link: https://geni.us/JuADP As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. #CommissionsEarned

The laptop measures 14” wide by 9.25” deep and is ¾” thick. For I/O it has a USB-A 3.0 port and power port on the right-hand side and a second USB-A 3.0, HDMI 1.4 out, USB-C 3.0 port, and combo mic/headphone port on the left. There are no ports or vents along the back.

Inside you have the 41 Wh battery, two sticks of 8GB 3200 MHz DDR4 RAM (16GB total, which is the maximum rated capacity for this model), and one m.2 SSD slot pre-installed with a 512GB NVMe Gen 4x4 SSD which you could swap that with a higher capacity drive.

The laptop weighs about 3.5 lbs and the screen opens to a maximum angle of about 120°. My build runs on a 13th Gen Intel i7-1355U 1.7GHz processor with 5GHz max boost clock. The IPS display is glossy and, without a glare filter, rejects reflections well. The panel and mouse trackpad respond to touch much like a smartphone including multi-point gestures like pinch to zoom. The bezels on the top and sides of the screen are decently thin, and in the middle along the top is a 720p integrated webcam with dual-array microphone. It has a status LED so you know when it's on and a sliding privacy cover to physically prevent unauthorized recording. The image quality of the camera is serviceable for virtual meetings and live streaming but tends to be slightly grainy with a soft focus even in the best lighting conditions. Note that it is not compatible with Windows Hello facial recognition for login.

Spec-wise, the panel has a max resolution of 1920x1080p FHD with a 16:9 aspect ratio, and it is decently bright at 300 nits but only has 8-bit color covering 45% of the NTSC color gamut (65% sRGB); so it may not be detailed or color accurate enough for some creators and digital artists. As I'm more accustomed to 100% sRGB displays, the colors look slightly dull and under-saturated to me, however, clarity is very good though with crisp, easy-to-read onscreen text. I was impressed with how oleophobic the glass is, keeping it relatively fingerprint and smudge free. The panel does not, however, fold 360 degrees flat for use as a ""tablet"" which is unfortunate as the screen's hinge tends to give slightly when the screen is touched or tapped. As for connectivity, it supports WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3, however, there is no Ethernet port for wired connections.

The keyboard is full-size and has a number pad on the right-hand side while the up/down directional arrow keys are half-keys. While the exterior of the laptop feels pretty solid, there is a bit of flex to the keyboard deck and a sense of hollowness when typing. The keys are also fairly click-y with a high actuation force and rough plasticky feel which is different from the soft-touch mushiness you find in other laptops. The keyboard's top row consists of action keys by default, like emoji menu, brightness, volume, and playback controls, while F-functions are secondary. There's a dedicated key for launching HP's system control and configuration apps, Omen Gaming Hub and/or myHP, as well as Window's AI assistant, co-pilot. The power, caps lock, and speaker/mic mute keys all have status LEDs built-in, so you know when they are toggled on.

One of the things that I found really impressive was the sound quality of the downward-facing stereo speakers. They are loud with a bright, rich sound that resonates throughout the entire keyboard deck with only the slightest hint of tinny boxiness and distortion at max volume. The fans are also surprisingly quiet and don't compete with the speakers making this laptop a good fit for consuming music and streaming video content.

Overall, this laptop is a decent entry to mid-level, general use laptop that is quiet, fast, and has a nicely-sized touchscreen. I appreciate that the battery charges quickly, in just a few hours, though while it’s rated to last up to nearly 8 hours on battery, I found that on max brightness I’m usually able to only get around 2-3 hours of mixed use from it. To extend the battery life to its max, you'll need to enable Eco settings and reduce screen brightness for additional power savings. While color accuracy isn’t top tier and the only upgrade path is increasing the capacity of its sole SSD, its specs are good enough to handle games like Warframe and Path of Exile at medium graphics, and it performs well for everyday tasks like web browsing and consuming media. It’s a nice lightweight option for on-the-go use that doesn't feel heavy or bulky, though the charger will add another half pound of weight.

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