Living with the HP Dragonfly Pro
Freelancers make up a larger part of the economy than ever, so I was intrigued by HP's new Dragonfly Pro laptop. It is being marketed as designed specifically for freelancers with improved audio and video controls and dedicated support for that market. It's an interesting concept, and the machine does have several nice features, including impressive performance and a particularly good built-in webcam. Unfortunately, to my mind, the execution falls a bit short of the concept, with a few issues that take away from the overall experience of using the machine.
Measuring 0.72 by 12.4 by 8.8 inches (HWD) and weighing 3.4 pounds (just over 4 pounds with the included 96-watt charger), the Dragonfly Pro is neither the lightest nor the heaviest 14-inch notebook I've seen lately. It has a good, solid feel with an aluminum base. The model I used had a professional-looking black color; it is also available in white.
It has a 14-inch 1920-by-1200 IPS display in the 16:10 ratio that is now commonplace on high-end laptops, and the screen seemed bright at 400 nits. Just as importantly, it comes with a touch screen standard, which I find very convenient. The display looks quite nice, though it does not support pen input, and there are no options for higher-resolution displays or for HP's excellent privacy screens.
The Dragonfly Pro has a large, responsive haptic trackpad. But it doesn't have much in the way of ports, only two USB-C ports on the left and one on the right, which makes it convenient to plug in from either side. There's no USB-A, no HDMI, not even an audio jack. While you can get USB-C port dongles for any of those functions, that is awkward.
The backlit keyboard is decent if not exceptional, and stands out for having four
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