Assignment 3: Product Review

A Pretty Mediocre Laptop.

So I use my laptop for work, school, and entertainment, and I could not have chosen a worse laptop to use (that's sarcasm, but seriously this is pretty bad). Over the Summer of 2017, I purchased the HP Envy x360 from Best Buy for $899.99. I split the cost with my mom (kind of, I paid $400 and she paid $600) and I thought it was a good decision at the time, but let me enlighten you as to why that is not true.

Firstly, this laptop was marketed as a strong mix of a working machine, as well as an entertainment system. The Best Buy employee who helped us in our search told us this laptop would be a good product to do school work while also being able to run and play most major video games. If you're not familiar with the way PC gaming works, you need a strong system to run some of the higher quality games. Unlike game consoles, any game you purchase for a game console is guaranteed to work on that system but that is not the case on PC. In my case, this laptop can hardly run Minecraft, one of the most popular and simple games on the market. Ironically, the laptop came pre-installed with the game.

Secondly, the laptop is prone to software issues. Numerous times my touchpad has randomly stopped working and essentially preventing me from doing work. I can navigate a little bit using the touchscreen, but not everything that my job requires me to do. I haven't found a solid solution to this issue, but it hasn't arisen recently. These software issues can also be caused by doing simple tasks, such as disabling the touchscreen. The system cannot handle the idea of the touchscreen being turned off and after doing so, the laptop locked me out until I managed to turn the touchscreen back on. Such annoyingly random issues.

Lastly, the battery life is atrocious. I leave the laptop in battery saver mode to use the power as best as possible, but even still I may only get two hours of usage before it needs to be plugged in. This is not preferable when I'm often on the move and working whenever I can. It severely limits my usage time, which is very detrimental whenever my work often requires my attention for multiple hours at a time to be complete. Unsatisfactory, period.

There are some nice things about the laptop though. It starts up relatively fast and it has facial recognition that keeps intruders out (though it doesn't recognize me when I don't have my glasses on, so I guess the software works well). It's also not too large and fits in most of my bags that I would use to carry the laptop. The touchscreen is also useful at times.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this laptop for how much it cost me. You can probably get a used one for cheaper that's higher quality.

Me when my laptop starts acting up.

What do I know though, I just want to play video games on the go.