Best Deal Today
Whether you’re talking of high-end workhorses or budget notebooks for daily office/college use, HP has its mitts on both ends of the laptop spectrum. The HP 17-cn3399nr is a budget system featuring an Intel Core i5-1334U processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage, designed to handle daily tasks that an average user may need to complete, whether at school or in a home office.
The 17-inch screen sets it apart from most laptops at this price point, making it a better movie player than most 15-inch laptops out there. Plus, it’s light enough to carry around on a daily commute, so if you’re looking for an affordable big-screen laptop for daily use, this is a good place to start. Although it may not be the most powerful 17-inch laptop available today, a perfect blend of cost and quality makes it a standout model.
About the HP 17-cn3399nr laptop
The specs of our review unit are as follows:
- Processor: Intel Core i5-1334U
- Storage: 512GB NVMe SSD
- Memory: 16GB
- Display: 14-inch 1920×1080 IPS Display
- Operating System: Windows 11 Home
- Weight: 4.6 pounds
- Dimensions: 15.78 x 0.81 x 10.15 inches
Design & Build Quality
The HP Laptop is the company’s budget range of laptops designed for day-to-day use, but even with the low asking prices, HP does a fine job in designing these notebooks. The HP 17-cn3399nr sports a silver exterior with black keyboard keys, a design touch that makes it look better than the black budget laptops you’d ordinarily find out there.
Measuring 15.78 x 0.81 x 10.15 inches and weighing 4.6 pounds, it is in the same ballpark as the Acer Aspire 3 and the Asus VivoBook S14, but the latter is much lighter at only 3.07 pounds.
The bezels surrounding the screen are fairly slim (HP claims a 78% screen-to-body ratio), though the top and bottom borders are thicker to accommodate the webcam and HP logo at the bottom. The webcam has a privacy shutter, as you’d find on the Lenovo ThinkPad and a few other laptops released since late last year.
The HP’s right side is plain except for a single USB port and a charging connector. On the left side, there’s another USB 3.1 Type-A port and one USB 3.1 Type-C port, along with an HDMI video output and an audio jack. Wireless connectivity comes via Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.3, but it is not the newer Wi-Fi 6E.
Display, Keyboard & Touchpad
The HP 17-cn3399nr has a 17.3-inch IPS display with a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080 and uses integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics. Most laptops come with 1080p screens lately, so anything below that would feel like a raw deal, but it’s still usable for watching movies and working on tasks. But with a peak brightness of 250 nits, it doesn’t get as bright as HP’s high-end productivity laptops. Yes, there are better screens out there if you want to spend more, especially if you want to invest in a high-end model like the Gigabyte Aero X16 gaming/creators laptop.
The HP 17-cn3399nr features a great keyboard that is comfortable to use. The keys offer excellent travel — not as good as the Lenovo ThinkPad T490, but still better than most notebooks in this price range. Another exciting feature of this keyboard is that the power switch is situated on the top-right of the keyboard instead of the side of the chassis.
The keycaps are comparable to those on the HP Envy 13, and there is enough space to accommodate a number pad because of the 17-inch profile. The trackpad is a little difficult to use right out of the box, but once you raise the sensitivity level in the settings, it’s simple to use. After reviewing the Asus ZenBook 14, which has the smoothest trackpad, I believe that all other trackpads are inadequate for my needs.
Performance
With a 13th Gen Intel Core i5-1354U processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD storage, the HP 17-cn3399nr is a capable machine that will handle most everyday tasks without a pause – everything from spreadsheets, office documents, movie watching, to school work will be handled fine here.
Intel just released its 14th-generation line of CPUs; we’ve reviewed a couple of gaming and mainstream laptops packing the newer silicones, including the Asus ROG Strix G16, and the experience is nothing short of spectacular. But when shopping on a tight budget, sometimes you’re forced to stick to previous-gen chips.
The Core i5-1354U is still a fantastic mobile processor, which (combined with fast SSD storage and RAM) gives this a snappy feel and helps it keep up easily with day-to-day productivity tasks. In all its worthiness, it doesn’t feel like a lesser desktop replacement laptop.
The HP 17-cn3399nr delivers a 17-inch screen and some capable specs at a very attractive price.
What it doesn’t do, however, is offer much in the way of gaming performance. It relies on integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics, which, while not worse, doesn’t promise much in terms of gaming performance. Again, while it feels perfectly slick on this laptop, you can’t use it as a gaming solution. After all, you’re not buying this HP Laptop for its gaming prowess, so to penalize it based on its lack of a discrete graphics solution doesn’t make much sense.
If you’re looking to buy the HP 17-cn3399nr, you’re most likely not too keen on having a laptop with cutting-edge tech – not at this price point. Still, the idea that this laptop has a premium design and has the power to run most of your daily tasks could supersede any shortcomings it might have.
Talking of day-to-day use, the HP 17 laptop, in all its worth, performs well. As long as you keep your expectations in check and abstain from attempting to run too intensive tasks – such as 3D rendering or playing modern titles – then you should be reasonably happy with the performance of this laptop, considering its price.
Battery Life
On performance, the HP 17-cn3399nr is a laptop that easily punches above its weight. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for its battery life. With reduced brightness up to 50% and PCMark 10’s benchmark that simulates office work, the HP 15 laptop lasts around eight and a half hours, which is practically an hour less than the figure HP quotes.
Compared to the competition, the 17-cn3399nr doesn’t stack up nicely – the Asus ZenBook 14 lasts well over 12 hours, and our favorite Windows machine, Microsoft Surface Laptop 3, makes it to 8 hours 45 minutes.
HP 17-cn3399nr Review: Bottom line
For home-office or college use, the HP 17-cn3399nr is a fine big-screen laptop that’s wallet-friendly and free of any major design or feature faults, but has plenty to offer. If you can grab it for the sale price projected at the time of writing, the deal gets even better.
It’s become increasingly rare to find a 17-inch laptop at this price that gets two of the most important things right: value and performance. The HP 17-cn3399nr does that and does it well. In my book, this blend of wins makes it a stellar productivity and light entertainment laptop that won’t break the bank.
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