There is of course no shortage of beautiful laptops, but HP manages to distinguish itself with the HP Elite Folio. This convertible, which you can use as a laptop as well as a tablet, is finished with artificial leather. And that’s not the only striking thing about the Folio Elite, because the processor comes from Qualcomm and therefore uses the ARM architecture. Who is the Elite Folio a good choice for?
HP Elite Folio (3G2M1EA)
Price €1880.34
Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2
RAM 8GB
Graphic Qualcomm Adreno 690
Screen 13.5 inch ips (1920 x 1280) touch screen with stylus
Storage 256GB SSD (NVMe 3.0 x4)
OS Windows 10 Pro
webcam 720p with Windows Hello support
Dimensions 29.86 x 22.96 x 1.61 cm
Weight 1.32 kg
Battery 46 Wh
Connections 2x USB-C 3.2 (Gen 1 5 Gbit/s with DisplayPort 1.4), 3.5mm audio jack
wireless Wi-Fi 6, bluetooth 5.2, 4G
Website www.hp.com 8 Score 80 
- Pros
- Beautiful design
- Excellent battery life
- Good screen
- Nice keyboard
- Silent operation
- Negatives
- Price
- Surcharge 4G
- Not all programs work
- Performance
HP’s Elite Folio stands out immediately after taking it out of the box, as this is not your average laptop. When folded, it looks more like a luxurious notepad with a leather cover. HP has covered the Elite Folio with a synthetic leather. It looks nice and feels nice, but I’m afraid that due to lack of feet on the bottom you will quickly see faded / damaged spots. Wear will probably be with this artificial leather with a less beautiful ‘patina’ than with real leather. When opened, the laptop has a modern design with a magnesium finish. With a weight of 1.32 kg, it is perfectly portable.
You don’t get much in terms of connections, but it is sufficient for what it is. You can expand in the form of two USB-C ports, both of which work at a Gen1 speed of 5 Gbit/s. They both support charging the notebook as well as connecting a screen. It is handy that a USB-c port has been placed on both the left and right. On the right you will find another 3.5mm headset jack next to the USB port. Wireless connections are available in the form of WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2 and on the tested version also a 4G modem.
folding hinge
The Elite Folio is a convertible laptop that can be used as a laptop as well as a tablet. The hinge construction is striking. In the normal position you open the device like a normal laptop and you can use it that way. However, the screen has a second hinge in the middle that you can access by pulling on the bottom of the screen. If you don’t, it will be held together by magnets. They are strong enough, so that the Elite Folio can be used as a normal laptop without any drawbacks. If you do pull the bottom of the screen, you can flip the screen over, after which the device becomes a tablet when you fold the laptop. However, you can also place the screen at an angle, after which you can draw conveniently with the supplied pen. On the back of the screen you can see all three positions that HP had in mind when designing, although there is secretly a fourth option because you can also use the screen diagonally from the back and that seems slightly more stable than the variant where you use the screen diagonally from the front. The construction is sturdy, magnesium is used in the hinge, just like on the palm part, which is visible at the back of the screen.
ARM processor
In addition to the special appearance, the HP Elite Folio has another striking feature, because the laptop does not contain a processor from Intel or AMD, but an ARM processor from Qualcomm. These are the ones designed for PC applications Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2. This is a chip equipped with an ARM processor with eight cores with a clock speed of up to 3.2 GHz. Of course, the SoC also contains a built-in GPU. The chip is on the list of supported processors for WIndows 11. The tested version (3G2M1EA) is also equipped with WiFi, Bluetooth and a 4G modem (Snapdragon X20 LTE-Advanced). If you don’t need 4G, there is the cheaper 3G2M0EA which, just like the review model, is equipped with 8 GB of Ram and a 256 GB SSD. If you need more RAM or storage, there is the 3G2M2EA which is equipped with 16 GB RAM and a 512 GB SSD. This version is still cheaper than the tested model because a 4G modem is missing.
The Snapdragon SoC is the same in all versions and is a chip that is related to the Snapdragon 855 used in smartphones and also to the Qualcomm SQ1 and SQ2 used by Microsoft itself. It’s a smooth chip when running ARM software. Unfortunately, many Windows software is not available as an ARM variant. However, you can also run x86 programs. However, at the time of testing it is only possible to run 32 bit x86 programs, support for 64 bit x86-64 programs is still in beta. The special ARM version of Microsoft Office is also still in beta, at the time of testing the ordinary user is still dependent on the 32 bit x86 variant. All software from Microsoft itself will probably be available in an ARM variant, but of course that does not have to apply to software from other developers. This is therefore not a laptop for a professional user who, for example, wants to use more advanced 64-bit video editing programs. This is more of a laptop for relatively simple office work where you only crop a photo now and then.
Nice screen ratio
The screen has a nice 3:2 ratio, so you have more workspace in height than with a 16:9 or even 16:10 screen. The brightness of the screen is very good. The screen resolution is not that special with 1920 x 1280 pixels, but for the 13.3 inch format in itself an excellent resolution. Images look sharp while you are not bothered by the high-res quirks that Windows occasionally still has. It is striking that there seems to be a pattern on the screen, perhaps the result of the touch layer or the use of fall-resistant Gorilla Glass 5.
A webcam has been incorporated above the screen. That 720p webcam has moderate image quality, the images look blurry with some noise through them and the camera has some difficulty with more difficult lighting conditions. The webcam is very handy with a slider. In contrast to some other HP laptops, this is not an electronically operated slider, but a manual variant that you operate with a slider above the webcam. The slide itself is internal and has a white pattern so that you can clearly see that the slide is closed. The camera is suitable for Windows Hello, so you can log in with facial recognition.
Work comfortably
It is pleasant to work on the Folio, especially if you do a lot of word processing. The keyboard can only be described as fantastic, this is one of the most comfortable laptop keyboards I’ve ever used. The attack has enough travel that is combined with a clearly felt click. The whole also feels remarkably solid. The key illumination can be set in two brightness levels. Under the keyboard, HP has placed a touchpad that is also very comfortable, the built-in button has a very pleasant click. You can also operate the laptop with a touch screen and that screen also has support for an active stylus. You get that stylus included and HP has also found a handy storage place. When you’re not using it, the stylus is in a compartment above the keyboard and is also charged directly there, so you always have a full stylus. A recess next to the pen ensures that you can remove it from the compartment. The pen sticks to the lock thanks to a magnet and the magnet is so strong that the pen automatically rotates in the right orientation, even if you put it upside down in the compartment. So you don’t have to worry about the charging contacts not making contact. It is a solution that is superior in use to the loop you often see for carrying a pen. In the same compartment you will also find the extendable SIM card slot for the mobile internet connection that you can easily click open when the pen is removed.
Performance
Since this laptop uses an ARM processor, the benchmarks we normally use in PCMark 10 won’t work. PCMark does offer alternative benchmarks that are somewhat similar to the benchmarks we normally use. These use Microsoft Office instead of open source programs to perform the tasks. In this PCMark 10 Applications benchmark, this laptop scores 5491 points. It is nice that the laptop also remains wonderfully quiet while running benchmarks, due to the lack of a fan. For comparison, I also ran the same benchmark on a laptop with a normal Intel processor in the form of the Intel Core i5-8350U, an older quad-core processor from 2017. This laptop scores 6710 points in the same test. It indicates that the Elite Folio is not a real powerhouse, but is sufficient for normal office use. The SSD scores well with a read and write speed of 3109.32 and 1675.37 MB/s.
Also, the normal battery benchmark cannot be run on this laptop, but there is also an alternative battery benchmark based on Microsoft Office and Edge instead of open source software. In terms of workload, this benchmark compares reasonably well with the battery benchmark based on open source office software. In this benchmark, the Elite Folio scores an impressive run time of 15 hours and 32 minutes. So this is really a laptop for users who do not encounter a socket during the working day. The ARM processor thus has important advantages such as long battery life and quiet operation, but at the same time it is less powerful than x86-64 processors.
Conclusion
The HP Elite Folio is clearly a laptop for a very specific target group, because for a general audience there are significant drawbacks given the high price. If you, as a consumer, are mainly looking for a laptop as your primary Windows computer, then this Elite Folio may not be the most ideal candidate due to the ARM architecture. However, if you are looking for a laptop for performing typical (business) office tasks with which you can work anywhere, then the Elite Folio is a very interesting device. Not only does the Elite Folio have a really excellent battery life, there is also a built-in 4G modem so you can have an internet connection everywhere. The laptop is also pleasantly light and, with its synthetic leather finish, it also looks beautiful. You pay a lot for that, so this laptop is especially suitable for business users who are on the road all day.
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