Let me first say the screen is big. I needed a new computer because the photography application I am using was not working on my 9-year-old computer. I thought about a desktop but then I would either need room under or on top of my desk so I went with an All-in-One. I bought an Open box item which I was nervous about until it came. Yes, the box was slightly messed up and looked like someone had tried the computer because the batteries were in the keyboard and mouse. But it was a big savings doing it this way. The only issue was the batteries were dead for the keyboard. Otherwise, it loaded up fine. The only other thing about the device is the inputs are on the back of the monitor and on the stand. It can make it difficult to get to, if need be, after setup. A plus for me is SD card slot, for my picture upload, is easy to access on the stand.

SUMMARY: There is a LOT to love in this HP - ENVY 34" All-In-One computer including innovative features like wireless phone charging, convenient side stand ports, and a magnetic web cam with eight attachment points. The CPU and Graphics performance will power you through most creative tasks and games in style. The construction is solid and aesthetic. There are ports galore. But for most folks judging value, it’s going to boil down to the high quality, and therefore costly, huge 34” 21:9 ultra-wide screen. You are going to love or hate all that expensive space. PROS: -The Screen: High resolution (5120 x 2160), ultra-wide (34”, 21/9), bright (500 nits), vibrant color accurate, this is not your daddy's cheap build's screen. - Less likely to need 2nd (or 3rd) side monitor. Great for multi-tasking. -i7-11700 Intel CPU, above average benchmarks -Discrete NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1650 graphics (4gb ram). Decent for an all in one. -Wireless charging (phones) built into base -EASY (no tools required) access to ram and storage to make swapping up trivial. -Insanely great number of ports, wide variety, including 2 Thunderport 4's! -Responsive wireless keyboard with decent key travel - Magnetic high resolution web cam with a physical shutter that can be attached to 8 separate points along the screen. - Quick and Easy one cord set up. NEUTRAL: - Bang & Olufsen Dual speakers - expected more given the pedigree. - 16 GB DDR4 Memory. For a power-house CPU and graphics for content creation I will add more. CONS: -The Screen: Most are used to a 16:9 aspect ratio. This is WIDE. Con or Pro for you? - Fan Noise - AA Batteries for the Mouse and Keyboard. No way to connect by standard USB. 1990 wants its design back. - RF Keyboard and mouse cannot be used with other computers, wirelessly keyed to this computer only. THE SCREEN: For me, deciding on this particular computer is mostly about the screen. After all, when you sit down to a computer what is the first thing you see? The screen. And THIS screen is both amazing and controversial. Reviews that say the computer price is high, have not priced out what a 5k/2k 5120 x 2160 ultra-wide screen alone costs ($1000-$1500). The screen is top of the line quality, from its high brightness (500 nits), high resolution (sharp text), and vibrant accurate colors. The only monitor I have seen that competes with it is the LG line (like the new screen from Apple, $1600). BUT it is in that ultra-wide 21:9 aspect ratio (21 represents the width, 9 the height), which means it's really, really, wide. Most of us are used to a 16:9 ratio in our wide screen tv's and monitors (see attached pic), and most games, movies, applications semi-expect that. I found not all games supported the ultra-wide view, but those that did were impressive and meant less people sneaking up from the side. Likewise, some movies are shot in cinematographic format and look great with no 'black bars', but many 16:9 movies will now put the black bars on the side. For productivity, that extra wide screen meant I didn't actually need two side by side screens. I could easily have three browser tabs open side by side, multiple word documents, you get the idea, great for multi-tasking and productivity, especially for content creators. But, make no mistake, I had to look side to side, rotating my head a lot, with such a wide screen. And often that meant what I wanted to work in was dead center with a lot of blank space on the sides. I am still getting used to that, but I can 'see' the advantages to the ultra-wide format. Make sure it's the aspect for you. And not everyone will want to pay the price for high quality (and large size). PERFORMANCE: With the wide screen, I was able to play a game on the left side, work on this review in the middle in MS WORD, and watch you tube on the right while photoshop sat in the background. It only started to thermal throttle when I started pushing around 61 MegaPixel raw files from my Sony A7 rIV. It ran Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop well. It has WIFI 6 for fast wireless connection, I was pushing over 350 Mbps which is as good as I get with any wireless system. GAMING: Work hard to play hard right? It’s a 60hz display, so you know its not for competitive gaming, but gaming enthusiasts. The 4 gb ram on the video card is enough to allow you to run almost all games, though you might have to set the graphics settings to medium for some games. It ran Elden Ring well. So yes, playable for those times you take breaks. BUILD QUALITY: Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but this is one sharp minimalistic design in gun metal grey. The bezels are small. The base is simple and functional with a tube design for lowering and raising and decent tilt. And it is SOLID with very little ‘wiggle’ like you will find in a lot of cheaper screens. Note, the stand cannot be separated from the screen, its permanently attached, and be warned, it is HEAVY, almost 25 pounds so you won’t be casually moving it around from location to location like you might a smaller All-In-One. ACCESSORIES & PORTS: As noted, there are several innovations that are well designed and functional. In the flat of the base is room to lay down your phone for wireless charging. Along the side of the central stand are handy ports so you don’t have to reach behind to the back, a SD card reader for photographers, 2 USB-A ports, and a USB-C port. Speaking of ports, these are in addition to the ethernet port, 2 thunderbolt 4 ports, 4 USB-A ports, HDMI, and headphone jack on the back of the screen. So yeah, you got ports. The included keyboard and mouse are okay. Functional and fit in well with the design look. But you might want to replace them with your favorites. Two things bug me about them, they are powered by regular batteries with no way to wire the devices to the computer for a charge or a connection. They connect to the computer via RF, which normally means a dongle, but in this case, it is built in. One less dongle is great right? Not if you want to use these devices with any other computer. Use them with this computer, or throw them away. I was hoping for more out of the Bang & Olufsen Dual speakers, they are okay for casual use, but are muddy sounding, lack base and just are not great for movies and music. And this is a screen built for watching movies from time to time. This is a common complaint for screens, but given the size and B&O reputation, just think they could have been better. Lost opportunity to wow me like the screen itself does. The web cam is external, magnetically attaching to 8 discrete points along on the screen so you can get the angle you want. Very clever. Its high resolution with 2 microphones for a superior web meeting experience. Finally, it has a manual privacy shutter to cover the lens so you don’t have to worry about who might be watching, no tape over the web cam for you. FAN NOISE: Like most (all?) Intel based computers, this one gets hot, not so much during routine web browsing or even simple game play, but once it starts to heat up, that fan comes on and doesn't seem to want to go off. And unlike desktops that you can move further away, or even docked laptops, this one by default is right in your face with the monitor. It would come on during intensive graphics (photoshop with large RAW files or AAA games). Your tolerance to such will vary, mine is low but for the most part was okay with it. Only annoying at night for me. SHOULD YOU OR SHOULDN’T YOU: It’s great for multi-tasking, works well for content creating, is easy to set up and use, and is a good multi-media entertainment center. The 21:9 ultra-wide screen is a matter of taste. Taking that high quality screen into account, the HP Envy is a good value and I give it five stars. But if you don’t care about color accuracy, just want a machine to play games on, you might want to find something cheaper with a 16:9 aspect ratio because if I was judging on pure CPU and GPU performance alone, I would be giving it 4 stars.

The 34” HP ENVY is an excellent all-in-one computer with an absolutely gorgeous 5k screen and surprisingly good speakers. This particular trim level mates an 11th gen Intel i7 with the NVIDIA GTX1650 graphics card, 16GB RAM, and a speedy 1TB m.2 SSD hard drive. The ultrawide 34” 21:9 ratio screen offers a lot of horizontal real estate and makes for an excellent design and photo editing station. In fact, the star of the show is the non-glare WUHD IPS screen that offers sharp 5k resolution, gorgeous colors, deep black levels, and 500 nits of brightness. It’s an absolute joy to work on, and as a movie lover, 4k movies in full screen 21:9 ratio is an absolute experience. I didn’t even know movies were shot in that format, but Blade Runner 2049 is and yes… do it. Do it now. However, as fantastic as the screen is, it only has a 60hz refresh rate, which would be a letdown for heavy gamers, but then this isn’t the trim level they should get either. The GPU in this model is the NVIDIA GTX1650, which is an upgrade over an internal Intel GPU, but more suited for multimedia and design applications than gaming. It could barely keep up with Need for Speed: Heat on the low graphics setting, but was surprisingly playable with Elden Ring. Scaling the graphics down to 1080p should smooth things out, but it’s hard to not want to play in 5k. There were a few times it froze on me while I was streaming 4k movies, browsing with Chrome, and running updates on Xbox Game Pass. It was fixed with a soft reset, but I think the GTX1650 has a hard time keeping up playing 5k videos and running other memory heavy apps. To be fair, it’s also a lot for a computer to do at once. I’m thinking about upgrading the RAM to 32GB and seeing if that helps. Speaking of multimedia, the sound is tuned by the esteemed Bang & Olufsen and is comparable to good quality tv speakers. There’s no deep low end, but it’s relatively rich, with good midbass, highs, and a nice overall tone. It also gets loud enough for this person who always blasts his music, so it should be respectively loud for most other people as well. HP really went to heart in making the ENVY a true all-in-one package, and it shows. It includes a full size wireless keyboard and mouse that are synced to the computer from the factory, so no pairing is needed. They’re both of good quality, but I wish the keyboard had an adjustable tilt. Nevertheless, the keys have good spacing and feedback, and makes for confident and comfortable typing. HP also includes a nifty magnetic webcam that has mounting spots all around the frame of the monitor. It’s not the greatest cam, but it’s better than most built-in webcams and I’m thankful for the built-in lens cover. It even automatically rotates the image if you’re using the cam sideways, however it'll be a vertical format like you’re recording with a cell phone. Another cool feature is that the base doubles as a wireless charging pad, which has been super convenient for phone and headphone charging. I also love how the monitor to base stem has USB-A, USB-C, and an SD card port that are easy to reach and remain powered, even when the computer is sleeping. There’s also a bunch of ports in the back which makes peripheral expansion easy, but I really, really, really wish there was a video input. The screen is gorgeous and I dearly wish I could plug more things to watch/play on it. It honestly frustrates me that I can’t, but such is life. On the other hand, this has to be the easiest computer ever made in terms of upgrading the RAM and hard drive. There’s two m.2 slots and 2 RAM slots in the rear, which are covered by a magnetic panel that’s easy to pull off (immediate access to the hard drive and RAM in under 5 seconds)! Only one of the m.2 slots is used and I’m happy to report that there are no compatibility problems with adding a Western Digital m.2 card in the unused slot. Overall, if you’re looking for a PC alternative to an iMac, this might be your best bet. This model makes for an excellent multimedia design, photo editing, and general use computer that’s ok for mild gaming. The ultrawide 5120x2160 screen is bright, colorful, gorgeous and a pleasure to use (the black levels are fantastic). The sound is solid and the overall build quality is excellent. The ports are well thought out, the build quality is excellent, it looks and feels like a high end setup and it doesn’t disappoint. I highly recommend the new 34” HP ENVY. PROS - Gorgeous, bright, and colorful 5k (5120x2160) display - 4k movies in full 21:9 is an experience - GTX1650 GPU better than a standard onboard Intel GPU - Good sound quality from speakers - 16GB RAM - Speedy 1TB m.2 hard drive - Incredibly easy to upgrade RAM and hard drive - Two m.2 drive slots - Excellent design, media, office, and general use computer - Great build quality - Beautiful computer setup - Classy design with metal body - Base doubles as a built-in wireless charger - Magnetic webcam isn’t half bad - Base stalk has 2 usb-a, 1 usb-c, and an SD card port - Plenty of rear USB ports - 500 nits brightness - 98% DCI-P3 color spectrum - Included wireless keyboard and mouse are good quality CONS - Entry level NVIDIA GTX graphics card - Screen only 60hz refresh rate - Not wall mountable (cannot remove pedestal) - Not recommended for high end gaming (look for trim level with higher end GPU) - Has frozen up a few times when streaming 4k video and running Chrome and other applications - No video input - Keyboard not height adjustable

Desktop computers have been declining in sales in recent years as people are tending to migrate to laptops and tablets for many of their daily needs. But there are just some things that you really need a much larger screen for. The HP Envy 34 inch all-in-one computer is in an upper-end range of those for consumers. I’ll call it the “HP 34” for short. The HP 34 is for the most part, already assembled out of the box. It’s heavy (you may want to use two people to unbox it), made of a lot of aluminum, and has a very solid base, stand, and of course, the 34 inch monitor already attached. Setup is quick - plug in the power cable, the included magnetic webcam, and turn it on via the tiny power button on the lower-right of the underside of the monitor. It will go through the usual Windows setups, and, IMPORTANT, run all Windows 11 updates as there are quite a few. This may require some manual updates to speed things along, and a few restarts along the way. An hour or so later and I was up to date. The main event on this model is the monitor - 34 inches wide and has a resolution of 5120 x 2160 pixels. It’s bright, colorful, and very sharp. The frames (bezels) on the top and sides are very thin. Via the stand, you can raise or lower the height, and tilt it back and forward some, but sadly, you cannot rotate it to a vertical position which would have been perfect for this type of monitor and certain uses. It’s wide enough that you can view three programs or web pages side-by-side if needed, or use the entire space for something like photo or video editing programs. There is no optical drive (DVD, etc) so any movies you want to watch on it will have to be streamed or you can use an external DVD drive. The back of the monitor has a variety of ports that include an Ethernet port to hard wire it to your router/modem if that’s your preference, a headphone/mic jack, 2 thunderbolt 4 type-C ports, 4 USB ports, the power port, HDMI, and a panel where you can access RAM and Storage should you want to update it later. The stand itself actually also includes a SD memory card reader, a USB-C port and 2 USB-A ports for convenience so you don’t have to reach around back to connect something. The flat base doubles as a wireless charger, so you can sit your phone or other devices on top of it and charge them - convenient, and does a good job keeping my phone topped off while I’m using the computer! The included keyboard is solid, but not “ergo” shaped. The included mouse is kind of cheapish. The dongle that wirelessly connects them to the computer is actually pre-built into the computer itself, so there is no physical dongle for you to plug in. In terms of power, this is on the higher end of consumer machines, but not really quite pro specs out of the box. It has an 11th generation i7 processor, 16 gigs of RAM (I would REALLY have loved to see 32 gigs for this price), a 1 TB solid state hard drive (fast), and a NVIDIA GTX 1650 graphics card with 4 gigs of dedicated graphics memory (I would have loved to see an 8 gig card in here). Wi-Fi 6 is supported. Bang and Olufsen speakers on each side of the monitor are pretty good. You probably won’t throw parties with them, but they are more than good enough for casual entertainment and work use, I think. I used an older Microsoft encoder video program to see how well this setup could handle stress, as that program tends to tax a system more than standard daily-use ones. It captured screen video well and rendered it pretty quickly. I could hear the system kick in midway through and it certainly did need to work on it, but it wasn’t obnoxiously loud. If you are going to go for “pro level” longer video rendering though, you might want to opt for more RAM and a more robust video card. All other tasks have been handled really well and are enjoyable to use on that screen. The included webcam is magnetic and it’s base will stick on a variety of areas around the monitor, or you could stick it off-computer on a metal item too. It’s 16 megapixels and will capture a good enough amount of detail, especially considering most laptop cams are only 720p, but I do notice a bit of a yellowish-green tint to the video depending on lighting (not auto-corrected very well), and some noise appears when the light isn’t the best. Two mics on it picks up sound well. Again, it’s definitely much better than what you see as standard on lesser machines and laptops, but not quite as good perhaps as some other pro models of cams. Ok, so, the HP 34 pushes past $2k, and as such is not within the typical consumer desktop budget for most families. So who should get this? In my opinion, this would be a good computer for content creators on social media, or those who in general need a lot of work space in front of them for photo, casual to mid-range video editing, or those who work from home and need to have multiple screens open at the same time in front of them. For this price, I would really have liked to see a screen that rotates vertically as well as more RAM, and perhaps a slightly beefier video card, though. I still recommend it - it’s well built and the screen will spoil you.

I love this all-in-one system and the huge monitor. It eliminates me having 3 side-by-side monitors. Nice crisp and clear picture too.