Creative director Dan Ahwa road-tests the latest HP ENVY laptop designed on the Intel® Evo™ platform surrounded by the natural beauty of Uluru, and discovers technology that supports and empowers the reality of our hybrid work lives today.
The journey from Auckland to Uluru is no mean feat. There’s the car ride to the airport followed by a three-and-a-half hour pit stop to Sydney; then another three-hour plane ride from Sydney to Uluru’s Conellan airport followed by a bus ride to our base at premium resort Sails in the Desert.
The spirit of the Anangu people, the traditional custodians of Uluru is felt, dating back more than 60,000 years, their way of life has been vital to the stories that have played out.
It’s a contrast then for this creative soul to enter sacred land with a view to the future, as I spend the best part of a week equipped with a piece of technology that will help me make this travel memory even more vivid when I relay the story to my grandkids one day.
During a recent trip there, I ventured on a 300km bus ride from Uluru to King’s Canyon / Watarrka National Park which took another three hours. This was then followed by several hundred steps and a 45-minute hike to reach its peak, where at the top I was able to survey the red arid desert land below. If you ever get the chance to do the hike, you’ll pass by a piece of iconic pop-culture history too — Priscilla’s Crack is named after a scene from the 1994 film Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Directors and photographers have all been spellbound and drawn to the unique visual landscape, and one of the few places on our itinerary where photography permissions were less strict.
As I reached the top, the breath-taking scene prompted me to pause and appreciate the significant natural wonder of the land, a place that the Luritja Aboriginal people have called home for more than 20,000 years.
Even at this most extreme of natural environments, I still had to ensure I was available for my colleagues back in Auckland with deadlines to check in and stories to continue filing.
We’ve become attuned to the concept of hybrid working. You can be anywhere in the world and still get on top of work deadlines but technology must also move with the times and the way we work now - even if you’re in the middle of the desert.
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We can all remember the rise in connecting over video calls as we navigated lockdown life with a sense of uncertainty about the future. As we segued into the possibility of some sense of normality we agreed that our lives would never quite be the same again. Still half working from home and half back at the office even by June this year, I personally have found the flexibility and option of changing your working environment helpful.
So it came as a welcome exploration for me to learn about how a tech giant like HP has considered the way we work now with its latest suite of laptops.
Armed with an HP ENVY 13″ Laptop in a sleek silver made from recycled aluminium, and keycaps made from post-consumer recycled materials, I was able to photograph my surroundings with the approval of local guides, upload them from my phone, file and edit them from the top of the peak with ease, and even email a couple of scenic images to my friends along the way.
Visually, one of the key things that helped me create the type of content I love is the 4K OLED display which means a pristine state-of-the-art, natural viewing experience that knows how to handle the nuances required for darkness and lighting precision.
For someone visual like myself, this is ideal for looking at page proofs or the quality of photographs on screen. The richer contrast and enhanced colour depth display images and videos in incredibly accurate colours. Looking at a video or image on the HP ENVY screen, I was immersed in the colours and textures, the image of the canyon taken only a second earlier rendered almost life-like as soon as I downloaded it on screen.
As you open the laptop, it only takes a second for it to wake up - perfect for when you’re on the go, and you’ll soon learn how fast the technology performs with responsive and intelligently managed connections from Intel. These include 3x faster internet with reliable and intelligently managed connections via its Wi‑Fi 6/6E (Gig+)3 technology and Intel® Connectivity Performance Suite.
Experience the power of a processor designed for real-world multitasking with the revolutionary design of 12th Gen Intel® Core™ processors that distributes performance when you need it at any given time, allowing you to feel confident when it comes to using your laptop for video calls, creating content, browsing and connecting all at once. This level of multi-tasking is perfect for me, allowing me everything at my fingertips to get what I need done in a short amount of time, so that I can truly focus on creating strong content.
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Advertise with NZME.The screen also reacts to where you are at any given time. Autoframe video which keeps you centre, in focus and can detect when another person is in the background/frame — issues many of us encountered over the past couple of years that have hindered our creativity have all been addressed with this new laptop. A poorly performing webcam can hinder our creativity and on the HP ENVY, I was happy to see a 5mp camera capability that automatically adjusts to the lighting environment and keeps you in the frame when you move.
Supporting this is the quality of sound too — with the HP Dynamic Voice Leveling capability, I’m able to feel confident about my communication over video anytime, anyplace with bi-directional AI noise reduction, beamforming mics, and quad speakers — all elements that make communicating over video much more sophisticated, because let’s face it — we all needed this technology to improve.
The convertible screen was another design feat that left me impressed, malleable in any situation you might find yourself in — in my case, lying on my stomach under a tree at a watering hole for a bit of respite from the heat. Here I was able to take my time working on another project with the use of touch display. I could write notes about my surroundings with my rechargeable HP pen.
And we all know too well that wherever you are, decent battery life is important when you’re on the move so the anxiety of not having a fully charged battery has also been given a look at with all-day one-charge sustainability. There’s also the simplicity of one cable to connect to multiple 4K monitors, transfer files and charge your PC with Thunderbolt™ 4 technology.
With all these capabilities in mind, as someone who is tasked daily with creating insightful, beautiful content that our audiences enjoy, one of the key things we always like to say is that you’ve also got to be present in the world you’re living in. So my creative bursts on screen were kept to a minimum with the knowledge I had a device that could support me whenever I needed - creative inspiration can strike at any given moment (and thankfully the HP Envy switches on in a second, another key drawcard).
Most of us will know of stories from the past couple of years of people embarking on career pivots, realising life is too short to be doing something that doesn’t excite you every day. New Zealanders have always been curious and connected to the world given our geographical isolation, and devices like this remind us of the power of harnessing that curiosity and bridging worlds — whether it’s for work, embarking on a side hustle, or simply creating more time for our creative pursuits.
Browse the HP Envy range at HP.com.
