New product evaluation of HP Star 13 Air, a "light" and thin notebook that fills the gap in the market

to buy a thin and light notebook? That must be for a lighter weight, reducing the burden not only mentally, but also at the physical level. No one wants to carry a heavy computer all the time. But in order to be more "light", consumers will undoubtedly need to spend a high price, because the lighter the weight, the more advanced the technology and materials required, and the cost will definitely go up. In the mainstream price range, 1.2KG~1.3KG is very light, but if you want to be below 1KG, there are fewer types of products to choose from, and the price is basically in the five digits. The ideal is very rich and realistic. It's skinny, so let's wash and sleep?

The emergence of the HP Star 13 Air thin and light Ryzen Edition has changed this status quo, allowing consumers to have a lighter choice in the mainstream price segment. At the same time, it is more important in the light and thin notebooks, "ease of use" and "Texture" and other indicators are not left behind at all and even have better performance.

Star 13 Air Lightweight Edition Ryzen Edition

I got this Star 13 Air Lightweight notebook a few weeks ago, and I have been using it as the main office model for the past few weeks, including this one Many articles including the article are written with it. Next, let me talk about how I feel about the use of the Star 13 Air thin and light notebook in the past few weeks.

Its core configuration is:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800U processor

GPU: AMD Radeon Graphics

RAM: 16GB dual-channel DDR4 3200MHz

hard disk: 512GB PCIe SSD

screen: 13.3 inches / 2.5K/16:10/DC dimming

Power supply: 65W

01 is not only light but also unique texture

I have touched a lot of machines below 1KG, but some of them are really light There is nothing else.Mostly for lighter weight, a more comprehensive user experience is sacrificed-although the material is metal, it feels like plastic; while the thickness of the compressor body, the type and number of interfaces have been severely castrated, making it easy to use Greatly decreased. But on the Star 13 Air thin and light notebook, I did not find these problems.

Star 13 Air thin and light notebook Front

Star 13 Air thin and light notebook A, C and D are made of magnesium-aluminum alloy on three sides, which is very textured no matter what it looks or feels. The C surface adopts a 3D integrated molding process, and the rounded corners make the hand feel more delicate. On this basis, the whole machine is only 960g, which is one of the lightest notebooks at present, and the feeling of carrying it on the body is really different.

Star 13 Air thin and light notebook Side

Body A face compared to other HP Star series products, there is not much change in appearance, or simple design with colorful color matching. In addition to the streamer gold color scheme I used, the Star 13 Air is also available in four colors: Moonlight Silver, Rose Gold and Ceramic White. It follows the tradition of colorful color schemes in the HP Star series. There is also a rose gold model that I sent along with this streamer gold model. The color is also very good and it is more suitable for girls. Given that I often go out, in order to avoid awkward glances in the cafe, I still choose streamer gold (actually I prefer rose gold !!!).

streamer gold and rose gold

This light and thin C-side keyboard also keeps the same color as the body, which is highly visually uniform. The keyboard can achieve a keystroke of 1.3mm under the thin and light body, with strong rebound and good typing feel. After replacing the new machine, due to the differences in keyboard layouts of different products, it takes some time to adapt to being able to type smoothly.But after changing to the Star 13 Air thin and light notebook, there is no such feeling at all. This is because the space utilization of the keyboard-especially the horizontal utilization is very full, which makes the area of ​​the keycap relatively large, between the keys The distance is also wider, and the keyboard experience is quite good for this 13-inch notebook with a small body.

Star 13 Air thin and light C-side

and then feel the "small heel" through the side view

In addition, the keyboard has two adjustable backlights, and the bottom right corner is equipped with a fingerprint recognition module. , The hinge is designed with a small heel, which can be tilted to a certain angle after opening the screen, providing a more comfortable typing angle. In general, as a thin and light notebook, the C-side design should have everything.

Star 13 Air’s thin and light notebook’s rich interfaces also surprised me. For an extremely “light” notebook, my inherent impression is that the interfaces and extensions are quite limited, and the ease of use is not satisfactory. But the thin and light Star 13 Air has completely subverted my inherent impression. The left side of the fuselage is equipped with an HDMI 2.0 interface, a USB Type-A 3.2 Gen1 interface, a full-featured Type-C interface and a headset-in-one interface; right The side is equipped with a USB Type-A 3.2 Gen1 interface and a power interface. Among them, the full-featured USB Type-C 3.2 Gen2 interface supports 65W PD fast charging, data transmission and multi-screen display. The number and types of this interface can basically meet the daily work and life needs of office workers. After a few weeks of use, I can no longer rely on various converters and connectors for daily office, conference projection or extended screen.

left side interface

right side interface

02 Do you think this is over? There is also a screen too!

Star 13 Air’s thin and light screen is also worth talking about.It uses a high-definition full screen with a screen ratio of 16:10 and a resolution of 2.5K. DC dimming protects the eyes, suitable for office and study. The screen-to-body ratio reaches 90%, bringing users a more immersive visual enjoyment.

Star 13 Air thin and light front

The measured screen covers a color gamut of 98% Srgb, 76% P3, a maximum brightness of 476 nits, and an average color accuracy of △E=0.76. The color performance is at the mainstream level. It can be regarded as a certain design work, and the high brightness of 400 nits can be seen clearly in the outdoor or high-bright environment. The overall quality of this screen of the Star 13 Air is quite outstanding.

color gamut

brightness

color standard

03 performance test

block _blockquote updated to the latest performance test before

06.1.

As a 960g notebook product, the hardware performance of the Star 13 Air thin and light notebook should not be underestimated. The test machine I got is equipped with AMD Ryzen 7 5800U processor, new Zen3 architecture, 7nm process, eight cores and sixteen threads, basic frequency 1.9GHz, maximum turbo frequency up to 4.4GHz, three-level cache 16MB, TDP 15W.

CPU basic information

In CINEBENCH R15, single-core performance is 216cb,Multi-core performance 1255cb;

in CINEBENCH R20, single-core performance 506cb, multi-core performance 2865cb;

in CINEBENCH R23, single-core performance 1311pts, multi-core performance 7041pts;

CINEBENCH R23

Through the CINEBENCH benchmark test, we can see that whether it is single-core or multi-core results, the R7 5800U of the Star 13 Air is very good, and its performance is the top of the current light and thin books. Level, especially the single-core performance has been greatly improved. For use scenarios such as web browsing and document writing commonly used by thin and light notebook users, this configuration can greatly improve the daily experience of using the machine, supplemented by multi-core and multi-threading, it is no problem to handle some more complicated tasks such as video editing.

At the end of the CPU test section, let’s take a look at the latest CPU performance test CPU Profile of 3DMARK . This test mainly tests the performance of single-thread and multi-thread. Since there are not too many samples, we will only show one here. .

3DMARK CPU Profile

GPU is an AMD Radeon Graphics core graphics card integrated in 5800U, with eight display cores, which is what we often call Vega8, frequency 2000MHz, 512 stream processors.

GPU basic information

In the 3DMARK benchmark test,The Fire Strike project representing DX11 performance has a total score of 2896 points and a GPU score of 3191 points; the Time Spy project representing DX12 performance has a total score of 1160 points and a GPU score of 1017 points.

Fire Strike

Time Spy

For the core graphics card , this performance is considered to be in the middle and upper reaches, and it has good performance for light design and added audio-visual entertainment. It perfectly covers the performance needs of the target population of Star 13 Air.

In terms of the overall performance of the whole machine, the PCMARK 10 Extended mode is used for evaluation: 9626 points are scored in common basic functions including application startup, video conferencing, and web browsing; in productivity projects that include document and table writing Scored 7796 points; scored 5319 points in digital content creation projects including photo editing, video editing, and rendering; scored 2456 points in game projects and 4364 points overall. The overall performance is good, meeting the needs of daily office and light entertainment.

PCMAKR 10 Extended mode test

At the end of this part, let's take a look at the situation of baking machine , using the Stress FPU mode of the AIDA 64 system stability test. After 30 minutes, the CPU power consumption was 15W, the temperature was 62 degrees, and the full core frequency was 2.1GHz~2.2GHz. The thin and light Star 13 Air uses a three-phase motor motor fan, with thinner blades, the air outlet is at the shaft, and the air inlet is under the fuselage. The design of the small heel also increases some air flow.These all help the CPU to run at full TDP 15W, while the temperature is only in the early 60 degrees.

Stress FPU single roast test

From the perspective of the temperature of the CPU during the roasting machine, there is still a large part of the CPU performance release, but the Star 13 Air is a thin and light notebook for daily office use. Computer products do not need to be released so aggressively, what it needs is to maintain a cool surface temperature. Some products completely ignore the product's own positioning and the user's usage scenarios, and adjust the performance too radically. I am very happy that the thin and light instinct of the Star 13 Air has such a performance adjustment, and I really did not feel the phenomenon of excessive surface temperature during my daily use.

04 Storage and endurance test

The test machine I got is configured with 16GB DDR4-3200MHz dual-channel memory and 512GB PCIe SSD. The hard drive model is Western Digital SN530, and the maximum read speed is 2474MB/S. The maximum writing speed is 1805MB/S, which is a medium-grade PCIe 3.0 solid state drive. Such a storage combination is quite abundant for the office crowd.

Western Digital SN530

CDM hard drive test

In terms of battery life, the battery mode is adjusted to the power saving mode when Wi-Fi is connected throughout the entire process and the screen resolution is not reduced. Use PCMARK 10 Hyundai The office mode was tested, and the final result was 9 hours and 3 minutes. With fast charging technology, it can be charged 50% in 30 minutes. The battery life of this Star 13 Air is very good.

PCMARK 10 modern office mode endurance test

05 summary

In mainstream prices,It is difficult for us to find a product that weighs less than 1KG. The Star 13 Air thin and light notebook makes up for the gap in this part of the market, and on this basis, it also makes up for the deficiencies that may appear in the same type of products:

1. Using magnesium Aluminum alloy material, excellent metal texture, no sense of plastic

2. Good keyboard typing experience

3. Rich interfaces and enough quantity to use

Buying advice: After more than a week of experience, the Star 13 Air is a thin and light notebook. It is very suitable for users who do not have a large wallet, travel frequently or work outside the office. If your situation is similar to mine, then you can look forward to this Star 13 Air thin and light notebook.

At present, Star 13 Air is available for pre-sale on e-commerce platforms. The starting price of the Ryzen 5 version is as low as 4,999 yuan. If you are interested in this thin and light notebook of only 960 grams, hurry up and place an order!

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