Is the HP Dragonfly Pro the Best PC Alternative to a MacBook?
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HP unveiled the Dragonfly Pro series of touchscreen laptops at CES 2023. The first Dragonfly notebooks to rock a “Pro” moniker include a Chromebook and a PC laptop, offering a sleek and sustainable design, top-notch hardware, and performance to match, all at price points with mainstream appeal. The PC version starts below $1,400, while the Chromebook has a $999 starting price.
Dragonfly Pro PC Laptop
$1399.99
After seeing the products in the metal ahead of their launch, I was particularly excited to put the Dragonfly Pro PC through its paces for its sticker price and AMD hardware. The former is incredibly agreeable for an HP Dragonfly notebook — such products are usually expensive and geared towards demanding users with big upgrade budgets.
On the other hand, by promising a fine equilibrium between performance and energy efficiency, the AMD Ryzen chip made me wonder how the notebook would stack against a similarly priced MacBook Air or a 13-inch MacBook Pro with an Apple M2 chip.
I spent a month testing the HP Dragonfly Pro PC in entry-level guise, and it consistently excelled as my go-to computer. The notebook’s design, performance, and battery life make it the best PC alternative to the compact MacBook Pro. Here’s a breakdown:
DESIGN: 8/10
Like every HP Dragonfly PC, the Pro iteration has a sleek design and a decidedly premium build. Available in black or white with a chrome HP logo on its display cover, the notebook will look equally slick on your desk, a conference room table, or at a coffee shop.
The materials used in the notebook are decidedly premium, plenty durable, and worthy of its price category. HP manufactured the Dragonfly Pro’s housing using reclaimed aluminum and magnesium with exceptional durability and tactility.
Made using recycled plastic, the keyboard of the Dragonfly Pro is one of the best in its class. Its well-spaced keys are quiet without skimping on satisfying travel and tactile feedback, though their backlighting could use more than two brightness levels.
In addition to a reliable fingerprint scanner, the keyboard has four extra buttons, including one that’s customizable via the myHP app. The remaining buttons include one for launching myHP, one for product support, and one for accessing its webcam controls.
The device’s haptic trackpad is excellent to interact with and vastly superior to non-haptic ones. I found it to be quieter and considerably more reliable.
The notebook’s trio of USB-C ports are fast and futureproof. Two (one on each side) have ultra-fast Thunderbolt connectivity for a seamless link with external monitors, docks, and other high-speed accessories. Every USB-C connector supports fast charging.
Strangely, unlike any MacBook and many PC rivals, the HP Dragonfly Pro lacks a standard audio jack. Even though getting access to the latter via an external accessory is quick and inexpensive via an external amplifier or a dongle, I wish I didn’t have to look for one when I wanted to use wired headphones or earbuds.
DISPLAY: 8/10
The 14-inch touchscreen of the HP Dragonfly Pro PC I tested is solid, if not the sharpest or the brightest in its price range. The panel’s 16:10 aspect makes viewing apps and documents side-by-side incredibly easy — I had no trouble taking notes during online meetings and referencing them while creating content after.
Considering the Dragonfly Pro’s starting price tag, I wish its screen had a higher refresh rate for smoother interactions similar to some of its PC rivals and the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros. However, the real-life performance benefits compared to the former and the much lower price than the latter are tradeoffs worth making.
PERFORMANCE: 9/10
AMD collaborated closely with HP to create the Ryzen 7 chip that powers the Dragonfly Pro PC, lasering in on real-life performance and energy efficiency instead of simply producing high synthetic benchmark scores. The result is remarkable — the notebook delivers abundant power and long battery life that belie its form factor and price range.
The Dragonfly Pro crushed my usual workflow of simultaneously running a double-digit amount of browser tabs, fielding emails and Slack messages, editing text, and modifying images while streaming lossless audio from Amazon Music. It didn’t treat me to warm wrist pads or distract me with fan noise during my work sessions.
Local gameplay was also a pleasant experience on the notebook, courtesy of its Radeon graphics. I spent hours playing Age of Empires IV, and the game ran superbly at full display resolution.
During my testing, the Dragonfly Pro regularly made it through a workday between battery charges and without requiring me to activate battery-saver mode in the late afternoon. Such a remarkable feat for a top-shelf PC ultrabook, perfectly showcasing the AMD silicon's power efficiency.
For comparison, high-end PC laptops with Intel chips will struggle to make it through a day that includes the abovementioned workflow. You’ll have to be mindful of the tasks on hand and your screen brightness to get close and, just in case, have a battery pack or a charger ready. The bundled one can power up the Pro’s battery from empty to 50% in only 30 minutes.
Tuned by the experts from Bang & Olufsen, the onboard speakers of the HP Dragonfly Pro pump out a surprisingly robust sound for its thin form factor. Its 5MP webcam with a software suite for tuning it is excellent, too.
WRAP-UP
The Dragonfly Pro’s real-life speed and battery life are the closest to what I have experienced from a MacBook with Apple silicon. After years of mainly relying on such hardware, that’s the biggest compliment I could give the newcomer. It’s your best option if you are looking for a compact PC laptop that blends uncompromising power and long battery life at a palatable price.
A budget of $1,399 will get you a Dragonfly Pro with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage — enough for all but the most demanding power users. Spending an extra $150 will double both and make the notebook even more future-proof. A similarly equipped 13-inch MacBook Pro will cost you $300 more than the starter Dragonfly Pro.
Every Dragonfly Pro comes with a year worth of 24/7 live support. An optional $10.99 monthly subscription plan includes support, an extended warranty, and 3-year accidental damage protection.
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