HP is now shipping its third generation Dragonfly Folio to succeed last year’s Snapdragon-powered Elitebook Folio. We praised its performance and versatility especially when compared to its ARM-tethered predecessor, but its low fan noise in particular was just as surprising.
We’re able to measure a maximum fan noise of just 33.4 dB(A) from the Dragonfly Folio G3 when the CPU is at 100 percent utilization compared to well over 40 dB(A) from competing Core U-powered subnotebooks like the Razer Book 13 or Dell Latitude 7330 when all are on the Performance power profile. Since the dB scale is logarithmic, the difference between 34 dB(A) and 40+ dB(A) is immediately noticeable in most office or workplace environments.
Thankfully, the CPU in the HP is not throttled significantly to compensate for the quiet fans. The Core i7-1265U in our unit would perform very closely to the aforementioned Dell Latitude 7330 despite their fan noise differences. Clock rates still fall over time, but certainly not by as much as initially anticipated.
Check out our full review on the Dragonfly Folio G3 to learn more about the model.
| HP Elite Dragonfly Folio 13.5 G3 Iris Xe G7 96EUs, i7-1265U, Samsung PM9A1 MZVL2512HCJQ |
HP Elite Dragonfly G3 Iris Xe G7 96EUs, i7-1265U, Micron 3400 MTFDKBA512TFH 512GB |
Dell Latitude 13 7330 Iris Xe G7 96EUs, i7-1265U, Toshiba KBG40ZNS512G NVMe |
Framework Laptop 13.5 12th Gen Intel Iris Xe G7 96EUs, i7-1260P, WDC PC SN730 SDBPNTY-512G |
Razer Book 13 FHD Iris Xe G7 96EUs, i7-1165G7, Samsung SSD PM981a MZVLB256HBHQ |
Lenovo ThinkPad L13 Gen2-20VH0017GE Iris Xe G7 80EUs, i5-1135G7, Samsung SSD PM981a MZVLB512HBJQ |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| off / environment * |
24.6 |
|||||
| Idle Minimum * |
24.6 |
|||||
| Idle Average * |
24.6 |
|||||
| Idle Maximum * |
24.6 |
|||||
| Load Average * |
27.8 |
|||||
| Witcher 3 beyond * |
33.4 |
|||||
| Maximum Load * |
33.4 |
* … smaller is better
After graduating with a BS in environmental hydrodynamics from the University of California, I studied reactor physics to become licensed by the US NRC to operate nuclear reactors. There’s a striking level of appreciation you gain for everyday consumer electronics after working with modern nuclear reactivity systems astonishingly powered by computers from the 80s. When I’m not managing day-to-day activities and US review articles on Notebookcheck, you can catch me following the eSports scene and the latest gaming news.
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