Our review model, which costs $870 (list; as of 7/24/2012), has a third-generation Intel i5-3317U processor, 4GB of RAM, and two hard drives: a 500GB HDD and a 32GB SSD (the latter is used as a cache for the hard drive to ensure a quick boot-up time and faster application loading). The Envy 4 starts up in 19 seconds, which is pretty quick for the category, though not quite as fast as the Acer Aspire S5 (12.3 seconds) or the Dell XPS 13 (16.9 seconds).

The Envy 4 also features built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, and runs a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium. The Envy 4 does not have a discrete graphics card, and relies on Intel's integrated HD graphics chip for its graphics performance.

In PCWorld's WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, the HP Envy 4 scores 126 out of 100. This means that the Envy 4 is 26 percent faster than our testing model, which has a second-generation Intel i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a discrete Nvidia graphics card. A score of 126 is a good one for the Ultrabook category. We've seen other Ultrabooks score higher--the has a score of 136--but most of the Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks we've looked at so far have scored in the range of 95 to 110.

As you might expect, the Envy 4 pretty much falls flat when it comes to graphics performance, since it has no discrete graphics card, and it can handle only so much gaming (in other words, basically none, though you should be able to play basic RPGs if you absolutely must). In our Crysis 2 graphics tests, the Envy 4 barely managed 22.2 frames per second, and that was at the lowest-quality graphics settings with a screen resolution of 800 by 600 pixels. The Envy 4 performed slightly better in our Dirt 3 graphics test, managing a playable 39.5 fps at the same settings and resolution.