HP Dragonfly Pro Laptop: 14" FHD+ Touch, Ryzen 7 7736U, 16GB DDR5, 512GB SSD

I recently purchased the HP Dragonfly Pro Laptop, and I have mixed feelings about it. While the 14" FHD+ Touch screen is decent, I've noticed some issues with responsiveness at times, especially when multitasking. The Ryzen 7 7736U processor and 16GB DDR5 RAM should offer solid performance, but I've experienced occasional slowdowns, which is disappointing. Additionally, the 512GB SSD feels a bit limited in terms of storage space, considering the size of modern applications and files. Overall, it's an okay laptop, but I expected better performance for the price.

Not a great deal unless you need a touchscreen or cellular.

There's better buys in this price range, that even the OP himself has posted.

https://slickdeals.net/f/17414508-asus-vivobook-s-15-15-6-3k-oled-120hz-intel-ultra-7-155h-16gb-lpddr5-1tb-ssd-749-at-walmart For $749

The Vivo ^ has a vastly faster CPU with an AI NPU, larger SSD, 3k resolution 400-600nits 120hz OLED screen, better integrated graphics, weighs less while having a 15% larger battery, better I/O (including an actual headphone jack and HDMI)

This is their answer to the X1 Carbon and is one of only a handful of laptops with a 5G radio in it.

I think build quality on this may be be better than that of a Zenbook, don't quote me on that though.

Personally I'd wait for a similar sale on the Intel version (Dragonfly Elite G4) which doesn't have any of the Pro's downsides, is smaller, and has more ports.

It's not. The touchpad is worse too. The Zenbook 14 and 14X are pretty hard to beat in the price class even though the newer ones are a bit less competitive than last year's models. While the dragonfly's are one of the few HP product lines they actually put effort into not having them catastrophically fail, they still just aren't that good compared to many competitors on this front. Motherboard quality and their cooler designs have always been and continue to be HP's biggest pitfalls. The Dragonfly Elite G3/G4 is basically HP's only worthwhile laptop. We will see how the new Transcend 14 holds up over time as that one actually has some potential too as they finally have a decent cooler on a thinner laptop and I don't see any major causes for concern in the motherboard design. The only problem with it externally is that it still has the finger-slicing seams between the panels. At this point, that has to be intentional malice on HP's part considering the Dragonfly Elite's last two generations are actually put together properly not to have those sharp seams.

Edit: Just checke out the new Spectre 14. They actually fixed the knife edges, improved the responsiveness of the keyboard, and switched to a force touch trackpad. Time will tell if they have improved reliability but this is a very positive step for HP. I'd definitely say hold off on this dragonfly as they actually seem to be trying with mldern releases.

This model lacks an audio port. Any reason to pick this over the latest Zenbook for the same price?

That's fair. My experience with Asus laptops has been limited to a Zephyrus G15, which had major quality control issues. I'm also a bit biased against consumer-model x86 laptops in general; my luck with business laptops (which the Dragonflies tend more toward) has been better overall.

SD should start giving out courses on how to compare laptops so that such comments stop.
This is a business laptop which you are comparing with a creator laptop, two totally different classes of laptops. This is more compact with a 14" footprint compared to a much larger 15.6" VivoBook. Despite the VivoBook having a larger batter, this has significantly more runtime which makes sense and is suited for, again, a business laptop as the person would probably be using it on the go and hence might benefit with 5G too, which this laptop has.
While the VivoBook is definitely a great deal and your points stand, it is not at all comparable to this and was unnecessary to mention here. If I was a businessman or corporate, I wouldn't even look at the VivoBook for my needs.

Operating system?