HP Elite Dragonfly Vs Dell XPS 2-in-1: Which to Buy?

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BUY NOW	BUY NOW
HP Elite Dragonfly	Dell XPS 13 7390 2-in-1
PROS	PROS
Attractive design and looks. Superb build quality. Great battery life.	Bright and sharp FHD touch display. Good battery life. 16:10 aspect ratio. Fast performance from 10th-gen Ice Lake processor.
CONS	CONS
Old gen processor. Highly glossy display.	Heavier than you’d expect. Low-profile keyboard can be divisive. Not upgradable.

SPECIFICATIONS

DESIGN

HP Elite Dragonfly

It’s a 360 degree convertible with a very pretty blue color which is your only color option but unlike the Spectre line, it’s not very blingy other than highlighting on the hinge area. It even has an oleophobic coating to avoid getting so gloopy looking like most dark matte laptops.

The casing is made of CNC magnesium, not the usual aluminum and we’ve seen magnesium using laptop casings before and it’s lighter but there’s more flexing is going on. HP did a really good job here with this for the top panel, the bottom panel, and the keyboard deck panel is relatively pretty thick 0.7-millimeter sheets of magnesium and there is no flex, this is a rigid feeling laptop.

It feels premium and durable, in fact, it is military-grade 810g rated for a shock for drops and all that sort of thing which is something that you’re not gonna find in the Spectre line. The Spectre x360 of 2019 is a very mature product and it’s actually pretty good too. It’s a little bit lighter than the Spectre, the weights will vary on which of the two batteries you go for.

The keyboard on this is backlit and white and it’s very good. It might not have that kind of ergonomic smile-shaped key, really cushy feel on the Lenovo ThinkPad x1 yoga has that competes with this but it’s very nice to type on. I find it quite enjoyable, it’s not quite as cushy and it beats the Dell XPS line in terms of tactile feel and key travel, as a Microsoft precision trackpad on board too.

Dell XPS 13 7390 2-in-1

In terms of design, it is terrific. It’s great, I really like it. It’s 2.9 pounds which gives it a little bit of heft to make it feel premium but it’s still really lightweight still that great XPS form factor with the slim bezels. I think they really nailed it with this design.

This thing has the new Dell Maglev keyboard. It is edge to edge, it’s beautiful in my opinion. The key travel is very shallow, so that’s something you kind of has to get used to but the keys give you a great response. It gives you a nice little clicky response, it’s not too loud like a MacBook.

Overall, I really like it and it’s a great keyboard. It has three levels of backlighting and it also has a built-in fingerprint scanner into the power button. This fingerprint scanner has been kind of hit or miss for me, it’s only worked about 60% of the time. So, I’m hoping that maybe with some software updates that this will get a little bit more accurate.

The trackpad is just kind of your traditional trackpad. It’s average size not quite as big as a MacBook but definitely big enough to get anything done that you need. It has a soft touch to it and has dell precision drivers and it works great.

DISPLAY

HP Elite Dragonfly

For the displays, you have three choices that don’t quite mirror the Spectre for this period of time. You have that one lock full HD IPS high-efficiency panel and that’s rated at 400 nits and it’s not a bad panel at all. It’s perfectly Pleasant and for a 13.3-inch screen, that resolution certainly is sufficient for most people.

If you’re doing serious photo and video editing, of course, you might want something higher than that though. Then, there is a 4K display option which is IPS and not OLED, and that one’s HDR claimed 515 nits of brightness. Lastly, there’s the privacy screen full HD option, that one’s 1000 nits but that’s because of the privacy feature where the viewability and all that sort of thing to make it viewable for you.

With all these panels keep in mind that we don’t see this so much anymore but if you look in the windows settings for display, you’ll see that it does have an ambient light sensor and by default, it’s turned on and it’s gonna adjust brightness for you.

So, if you find it’s not as bright as you thought, check that setting because that is turned on. If you want to use it outdoors, you probably will want to but turn off that setting to get the maximum brightness, especially because this is clad in Gorilla Glass 5 which is pretty glossy and it’s pretty reflective.

Dell XPS 13 7390 2-in-1

The screen on the Dell XPS 2-in-1 is gorgeous. It is super bright, it is rated at 500 nits which means you can use it outside. It is really color accurate, very slim bezels as you can see and it is also a 16 by 10 ratio which in my opinion is the sweet spot for productivity and media and consumption. I don’t like the width of 16 by 9, 3 by 2 are great, 16 by 10 is the sweet spot.

BATTERY

HP Elite Dragonfly

Battery life on this is going to on which resolution display you go with or if you go for that high brightness privacy screen and actually use that feature a lot and you’ve got 38 one hour battery and a 56-watt hour battery to choose from. We have the 56 watt-hour battery with the most efficient full HD one-watt panel on board and battery life is in fact quite good. I’ve been managing 10 hours of use time with brightness set to 150 nits and as light to moderate productivity. If you’re pushing it hard or editing video which probably isn’t the executive target for this sort of thing, the 4K IPS display will hit battery like probably of around 2 hours, maybe not quite that bad and so the more power-efficient generally for computer use than the OLED display option on the Spectre x360 certainly.

Dell XPS 13 7390 2-in-1

Battery life has been quite good. I definitely not getting what they said you would get which they classified as 15 hours. In my usage of moderate to heavy, I’ve been getting 9 to 10 hours easily and it also charges up really fast too. I went from 15% to full charge in about two hours.

WHICH TO BUY?

The HP elite dragonfly is very light and it is very well equipped in terms of ports, options like LTE, fingerprint scanner, vPro, and Gorilla Glass 5 for greater durability even mil-standard 810g rating for shock and vibration.

Overall, the XPS 7390 2-in-1 is a really good laptop. The combination of the form factor being a 2-in-1 plus the processing speed, I think makes this a really great buy. It is not perfect by any means but I think there’s definitely room to improve.

In my opinion, other than the 10th gen processor, everything is perfect and great in quality in the Elite Dragonfly. The Dragonfly with 10th gen processor will also be available but it will be so expensive. If you have the performance in priority with the 13-inch compactness, then XPS 13 is a better choice.  

Arya

Hello! I'm Surendar Arya, a passionate tech writer from Uttar Pradesh, India. I'm a freelance contributor to the tech blog - The World's Best And Worst. My enthusiasm for technology drives me to explore the latest trends and innovations in the field. I take immense pleasure in guiding individuals on how to leverage technology for their benefit, making their lives easier and more efficient.