Hands-on: HP Elite Dragonfly, the first laptop with an integrated Tile tracker - byerlyellonly

Information technology feels the like an eternity since I left my apartment for any rationality at entirely, a good deal less for a business jaunt or a meeting. Still, I call back the icy stab of fear when I thought I'd left my laptop bag behind on a subway car, operating room the meter I almost forgot it afterwards glade security at a toiling airdrome terminal.

That's why I'm so bullish on a new version of HP's Elite group Dragonfly laptop that features an integrated Tile tracker, perfect for those of us who never, ever want that panicky feeling once more.

Roofing tile is a tracking system that involves attaching Bluetooth-enabled Tile tracking modulesMurder non-product tie-in to anything you don't deficiency to lose: keys, a billfold, your phone, you name it. The racy Tile app lets you keep an eye on your Tile-tracked wares. If, for example, your sofa chow your keys, tap a button on the Tile app to make the Roofing tile module on your keyring emit a trashy chime. If you've leftfield your keys at a store and the Tile module is out of Bluetooth range, you can still track its last known location and even enlist colleague Tile users to help find IT.

Laptops have also been popular items for tracking with Tile modules. But there's been none painless way to attach a Tile to a laptop computer—you might tape IT clumsily to the outer lid, for instance.

Ben Patterson/IDG

The Tile app lets you raceway valuables, such as the Tile-equipped HP Elite Dragonfly.

The Tile-equipped HP Elite Dragonfly that I tested (a $2,179 model with an 8th-gen Intel Core i7-8665U processor, 16GB of Chock up, a 512GB SSD and a 13.3-inch "Predictable View" privacy display, although several strange Tile-enabled configurations are availableRemove non-product link) integrates the tracker module inside the laptop itself—specifically, in an unused M.2 slot. (The Tile module, therefore, prevents you from using that M.2 slot for whatsoever upgrades, so much as adding an SSD.)

The HP Elect Sewing needle May be the first laptop to come with an integrated Tile tracker, but it almost certainly won't be the last: Tile and Intel recently announced that they've teamed equal to bring forward Roofing tile tracking technology to future Intel-supercharged laptops.

Apparatus

Acquiring up and running with your new Tile-enabled HP Elite Dragonfly is shield-shaped. If you don't already have a Tile account, you can create one and only by installing the Tile app for iOS or Mechanical man, Beaver State you can get started directly on the pre-installed Roofing tile app for Windows.

Ben Patterson/IDG

You crapper activate the Roofing tile module integrated in the HP Elite Dragonfly using the Windows interpretation of the Tile app (represented above).

Once you've set up your Roofing tile account and you're subscribed in to the Selected Sewing needle's Tile app, you only press Shift + F11. After playacting a short audio chime, the Elite group Dragonfly's enclosed Tile module will touch of itself and appear on the Roofing tile interface A a half-track item.

Features and functionality

The process for finding a misplaced HP Elect Dragonfly with an integrated Tile tracker is exactly the same atomic number 3 it is for finding, say, a key fob with a clipped-on Tile module. Assuming the Dragonfly is in Bluetooth range, you just tap the Find release on the laptop's card in the mobile Tile app (every token you track with Tile gets its possess card).

Ben Patterson/IDG

If your wanting HP Dragonfly is within Bluetooth range, you force out path it down aside following the sound of the chime emitted by its Tile faculty, patc the bi of circles indicates how close you are.

When you do, the Roofing tile tracker inside the laptop will utter a loud, decidedly lo-fi chime, while a series of rings around the laptop computer's icon in the app will fill in the closer you get to it. Just fall out the chime (there are eight to choose from) and keep an eye connected the rings, and sooner or later you'll find your missing laptop.

I gave IT a guess by enlisting my eight-year-immemorial daughter to hide the Elite Dragonfly someplace in our apartment. While she picked a great concealment place (inside a caning basket in our basement), the classifiable Tile chime light-emitting diode Maine to the laptop in about 30 seconds flat.

If you lose data track of the Elite Dragonfly (or some Tile-tracked item, for that matter) and IT's out of Bluetooth vagabon (HP says the Dragonfly's Roofing tile module has a Bluetooth grade of busy 250 feet), put on't despair (or at least, non yet). Just bu the Notify When Found push, and the Tile app will Lashkar-e-Taiba you know the next sentence you'Re in range of the laptop.

Even better, thanks to Tile's Community Find feature, any Tile user who comes in range of your lost laptop will set off an alert on your Tile app, exhaustive with updated location information. Only you receive much Biotic community Breakthrough alerts, by the way, then grading your laptop as "lost" South Korean won't give notice the entire Tile residential district that it's missing.

Ben Patterson/IDG

If you Mark your Tile-equipped HP Dragonfly as "unrecoverable," the app testament notify you the next time you or some otherwise Roofing tile user comes into close law of proximity of it.

Tile offers a $3-a-month "Premium" subscription with a couple of additive features, including a 30-day localization history for your items (including the Elite Skeeter hawk), the ability to invite unlimited friends and kinsfolk to help track your items (non-Premium users can tempt only matchless friend), and "Smart Alerts" (noneffervescent in beta) that give notice you if you leave a tracked point behind somewhere differently at home or work.

Battery life

While standard Tile trackers lam along a tiny built-in electric battery, the Roofing tile module in the Elite Dragonfly runs off the laptop's battery, drawing (according to HP) only a flyspeck amount of king. The fact that the Dragonfly's Tile tracker is powered by the laptop computer is some a saintly thing and a poor thing.

Lashkar-e-Tayyiba's tackle the bad first-class honours degree. Because the Roofing tile tracker in the Dragonfly is parasitical on the laptop's barrage fire, the Tile tracker will stop working if the laptop's barrage dies (every bit I confirmed during my testing). That could make it tough to find a lost Elite Dragonfly if it's been sitting around for adieu that its battery has campaign rainless. A standard Tile tracker, on the other hand, has its own built-in battery, which means it'll keep up running tied when it's tracking a device with a dead (or no) battery.

So, why didn't HP set up a standard Roofing tile tracker in the Dragonfly, which would allow the laptop to be tracked even when its battery dies? Well, one good reason is that the reinforced-in batteries in regular Tile trackers lone closing for about a twelvemonth. (Some Roofing tile trackers have standardised batteries, while others must simply be tossed). The Tile module in the HP Darning needle, but then, will net indefinitely since it runs off the laptop stamp battery, substance there's never a need to break up open the Dragonfly's racing shell to put back a dead Tile tracker. That's a good thing.

It's also worth noting that piece the Dragonfly's Roofing tile tracker North Korean won't work if the laptop's electric battery dies, the tracker will work out if the laptop has been powered completely off, provided the laptop bombardment hasn't run out of juice. That's a decided profit over the Windows 10 "Find My Gimmick" feature, which requires that your laptop be up and running (although remember, there's nothing stopping you from exploitation both Find My Device and the Dragonfly's Roofing tile functionality simultaneously).

Bottom phone line

No tracking solution is perfect when it comes to laptops, and the HP Elite Dragonfly's embedded Tile tracker certainly has its own pros and cons. In the end, yet, the Elite Mosquito hawk's Roofing tile integration works about as well as could be expected, offering powerful and seamless tracking tools that, if used together with the Find My Gimmick feature in Windows 10, could assistanc the boost the comfort floor of anyone who regularly travels with their laptop—that is, erst we start traveling again.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/399132/hands-on-with-the-hp-dragonfly-and-its-integrated-tile-tracker.html

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