HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook Review

A decade ago, the first Google Chromebook Pixel made a case for deluxe Chromebooks with always-on connectivity and a standout screen. Today's aspirant as the best ChromeOS laptop you can buy is HP's Dragonfly Pro Chromebook ($999), loaded with features including a brilliant 1,200-nit display, 8-megapixel webcam, and an RGB backlit keyboard akin to gaming laptops. However, the Dragonfly Pro targets productivity users—specifically freelancers and other small-business entrepreneurs. Fast, classy, and backed by special 24/7 support, the Dragonfly Pro Chromebook is a superb system, but its limited hardwired connectivity keeps it from claiming our Editors' Choice award among premium Chromebooks.

A Half-Pound Overweight 

Crafted from CNC machined aluminum in Sparkling Black (which sounds contradictory) or Ceramic White, the Dragonfly Pro Chromebook measures 0.7 by 12.4 by 8.7 inches and weighs 3.33 pounds. That's the same size as our 14-inch Editors' Choice winner, the Acer Chromebook Spin 714, but the Acer is lighter at 3.09 pounds despite the heavier hinge of a 2-in-1 convertible design.

The single $999 configuration features an Intel Core i5-1235U processor (two Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, 12 threads) or CPU, 16GB of memory (RAM), and a 256GB NVMe solid-state drive (SSD) as well as Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth. You won't find any SD or microSD card slot to expand storage, and mobile broadband is not included, though HP says a version with a SIM slot is coming later.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Like the Acer Chromebook Spin 714, the HP's screen is a 14-inch in-plane switching (or IPS) touch panel with 16:10 aspect ratio, but with a sharper resolution—2,560 by 1,600 pixels—and higher brightness up to 1,200 nits, making text on it legible even in outdoor sunlight. The laptop's screen bezels are slim (HP claims an 87.6% screen-to-body ratio) and a fingerprint reader in the keyboard enables speedy secure logins and unlocking. You'll feel almost no flex if you grasp the screen corners or press the keyboard deck.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

HP's Dragonfly Pro Chromebook has a decent number of ports—four—but unfortunately they're all the same Thunderbolt 4 ports. If your flash drive or other peripheral has a USB Type-A connector, or you need to connect an SD card, you'll need an adapter. Worse, with no HDMI port, you'll need a USB-C dongle to plug in an external monitor. Still worse, you will find no audio jack for headphones or earbuds here, so you'll need a USB-C to 3mm adapter to listen to music or watch videos in private.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Like a Good Neighbor…HP Is There?

Since freelancers don't have IT departments, HP has devised a free year of tech support (known as Pro Live Support) available around the clock, with agents dedicated to this laptop and ChromeOS and able to seamlessly switch from online chat to a phone call. If that's not reassuring enough for you, then $10.99 per month buys up to three years of repair or replacement for drops or spills—you're allowed one disaster per year and can cancel anytime—and that fee extends the Pro Live Support for two more years.

(Credit: Eric Grevstad)

Using the HP Support Assistant app (a Chrome extension) requires setting up an HP account with your Chromebook's serial number. I used its chat tool to ask a basic question and received prompt and friendly help. There was some of the usual online chat awkwardness or “insert variable into script” flavor, such as “Thank you for asking, I'll be happy to help you with [repetition of question]” instead of simply immediately giving an answer, but I was satisfied overall.

Looking and Sounding Sharp 

Video calling here is about as good as it gets on a Chromebook. HP's webcam captures square, 16:9 full HD, or 4:3 (3,264-by-2,448-pixel) images as well as 1080p videos. Its images looked a little softer-focus than I expected considering its sharp resolution, but they are well-lit and colorful as well as free of noise or static. Real Tone image processing borrowed from Google Photos helps capture accurate skin tones.

It helps that the display is exceptionally bright and vivid. The brightness keys on the top row of Chromebook keyboards span 16 settings from off to max. I've almost never turned a screen more than two steps below the brightest level for everyday use, but happily worked with the Dragonfly Pro six or eight steps down from peak illumination.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Display contrast is deep, and colors are rich and well saturated here. The panel's viewing angles are wide, though the touch glass causes reflections at extreme angles. Blacks are inky, and white backgrounds are pure within the screen. Like all Chromebooks, the HP includes a range of scaled or “looks like” resolutions (the default is 1,600 by 1,000) in case you find the native 2,560 by 1,600 makes icons and screen elements too tiny; you probably will, though fine details are razor-sharp. To put a finer point on it, the Dragonfly Pro's is the best Chromebook screen we've tested to date.

With two woofers and two tweeters, this Chromebook's speakers are exceptionally loud—I usually crank a laptop's audio all the way up when testing, but it was just too much—with remarkable stereo separation. It gets hollow or boomy above half volume, but you'll be able to discern a fair amount of bass, and it's easy to hear overlapping tracks.

Most Chromebooks with backlit keyboards oblige you to use the Alt and screen brightness keys to toggle the backlight. This HP keyboard has its own special key in the top row because it has showy multicolored backlighting. A setting in the ChromeOS wallpaper tab lets you choose from half a dozen keyboard light colors, a rainbow palette, or for the color tone to match the primary color of the current wallpaper set.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

HP commits its usual laptop sin of arranging the cursor arrow keys in a clumsier row instead of an inverted T, with half-height up and down arrows stacked between full-size left and right, but otherwise has a snappy if shallow typing feel. It's easy to maintain a fast pace. The haptic touchpad glides smoothly, with a silent, gentle click.

Testing the HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook: Cream of the Chrome Crop 

For our benchmark charts, we compared the HP Dragonfly Pro Chromebook with four other upscale ChromeOS laptops led by the abovementioned Acer Chromebook Spin 714. HP also contributed our business Editors' Choice winner, the cost-no-object HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook. The other two spots went to recent reviews with higher-wattage Intel P- rather than U-series CPUs, the modular and upgradable 13.5-inch Framework Laptop Chromebook Edition and the Acer Chromebook 516 GE cloud-gaming-oriented model.

Productivity Tests

We test Chromebooks with three overall performance benchmark suites—one ChromeOS, one Android, and one online. The first, CrXPRT 2 by Principled Technologies, measures how quickly a system performs everyday tasks in six workloads such as applying photo effects, graphing a stock portfolio, analyzing DNA sequences, and generating 3D shapes using WebGL.

The second, UL's PCMark for Android Work 3.0, performs assorted productivity operations in a smartphone-style window. Finally, Basemark Web 3.0 runs in a browser tab to combine low-level JavaScript calculations with CSS and WebGL content. All three yield numeric scores; higher numbers are better.

The Dragonfly Pro posted excellent results: It led the pack in Basemark Web and fought hard for the lead in the other two benchmarks. Multitasking with numerous browser tabs or enjoying 1080p streaming video is no problem with this Chromebook. The long-awaited Adobe Photoshop on the Web hasn't budged from beta for a year and a half but, when it finally arrives, the Dragonfly Pro will be a first-class platform for it.

Component and Battery Tests

We also run an Android CPU benchmark, the multi-core Geekbench test by Primate Labs, which simulates several normal CPU-intensive tasks. An Android graphics processor benchmark, GFXBench 5.0, stress-tests both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering that exercises graphics and compute shaders, reporting results in frames per second (fps).

Finally, to test a Chromebook's battery, we loop a 720p video file with screen brightness set at 50%, volume at 100%, and Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting disabled until the system quits. Sometimes we must play the 69GB video from an external SSD plugged into a USB port, but these machines had sufficiently roomy onboard drives.

Unlike its competitive performance test results, the Dragonfly Pro battery runtime was the shortest of this bunch, mainly because half brightness on this machine is much sunnier and drained power more quickly than the others. However, the Dragonfly Pro hung tough in Geekbench against the faster CPU inside the Acer 516 GE, and the two HP Chromebooks made the most of their Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics. No cause for complaint, especially since this ChromeOS machine would be just as ready to play cloud-streamed games as the other gaming-focused Chromebooks.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Verdict: An Excellent Chromebook, But Not the Best

To be sure, $999 is costly for a Chromebook, but the HP Dragonfly Pro is a better buy than the enterprise-oriented Dragonfly Elite (more than $1,700 as tested). Its support, performance, webcam, sound, and keyboard are all first-class—no, the RGB backlighting isn't really a productivity boon, but it's a fun gimmick—and its screen is stunning.

HP failing to provide even one or two specified ports, like a USB-A, an HDMI, and an audio jack that Acer's Chromebook Spin 714 gives you for $270 less, makes it all the more frustrating. Also, beware that such a bright screen might limit this Chromebook's battery life for such a price. If you don't mind buying and carrying dongles, the Dragonfly Pro is one of the fastest and finest Chrome laptops we've seen, but we can't quite put it above the Acer as our latest Editors' Choice award holder.