Hp Pavilion 15t Touchscreen Intel Core I7 - 4gb Graphics - 1080p Review
Our Verdict
The HP Pavilion 15 carries a fair amount of power and a sharp display in its handsome slimline shell. It's not perfect, but information technology'southward a hard worker.
For
- Decent touchscreen
- Plenty of processor heft
- Stylish design
Confronting
- Disappointing battery
- No detached graphics
TechRadar Verdict
The HP Pavilion xv carries a fair amount of power and a precipitous display in its handsome slimline shell. It'due south non perfect, but information technology's a hard worker.
Pros
- +
Decent touchscreen
- +
Plenty of processor heft
- +
Stylish design
Cons
- -
Disappointing battery
- -
No detached graphics
Two-infinitesimal review
The Pavilion line has always represented HP's consumer mid-range marque, and this 15-incher slots right in; it's a not-quite-ultrabook laptop that truly has a lot going for it. The model nosotros accept here is absolutely bursting with high-spec hardware, from 16GB RAM to a speedy 512GB SSD, from a touch-screen xv.3-inch FHD display to a fourth-gen AMD Ryzen 7 processor.
For the near part it absolutely rocks those components, getting results which, while not quite reaching as high as the lofty mark gear up past the acme terminate of Intel's 11th-gen mobile processors, are truly creditable.
All of those guts are packed (literally to the bespeak of bursting) into a handsome and defiantly attractive case, a slim-plenty course which looks pricier than it is, and given more enough ports to brand this fully useful no matter what yous might accept in store for information technology.
There'south a full-size keyboard which feels great to type on, and a large trackpad that didn't allow u.s.a. down. When it comes to day-to-day desktop work, whether information technology's coincidental photograph editing, spider web browsing, or 'working' in front of a pic or two, this has what it takes, and doesn't get likewise hot (or, crucially, too loud) when doing it.
But, of course, nosotros're looking at a $849 (£850, around AU$1,000) laptop hither, and for all its power HP is not known for having the power to pull off miracles. Corners accept been cut, though they've been sensibly chosen and are likely to exist features you can alive without.
In that location's no keyboard backlight, for instance, and likewise-braced as the case may be information technology's entirely plastic. In that location'southward too nothing in the fashion of discrete graphics, then the HP Pavilion 15 is forced to rely on the marginally-better-than-average integrated processor in the Ryzen SoC, something which volition likely put off those looking at this equally a full-on entertainment laptop or those with specific use cases for creative work.
If you're happy with its limits, we can run into no reason not to opt for the HP Pavilion fifteen. It meets the expectations of its price point perfectly, slotting in adjacent to machines like the Lenovo Thinkbook 15 perfectly. It doesn't feel compromised - at least until y'all try to launch a game, or spend a long time off-grid reliant on its rather limited battery - and it doesn't look compromised either. If your limits match the HP Pavilion 15'south limits, this is a winner.
Cost and availability
Spec Sheet
Here is the HP Pavilion 15-eh0014na configuration sent to TechRadar for review:
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 4700U (two.0 GHz base of operations clock, up to 4.1 GHz max boost clock, 8 MB L3 cache, 8 cores)
Graphics: AMD Radeon Graphics (7-core, 1600MHz)
RAM: 16GB DDR4 (3200MHz)
Screen: xv.six-inch, 1920 ten 1080 IPS with touch screen
Storage: 512GB SSD
Ports: i 10 USB Type-C (10Gbps, power delivery, DisplayPort i.4, HP Sleep and Charge), 2x USB Type-A (5Gbps), 1x HDMI 2.0, 1x combo jack
Connectivity: Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2x2) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 combo
Photographic camera: HP Wide Vision 720p photographic camera
Weight: 3.9 pounds (1.75kg)
Size: 14.17 ten 9.ii 10 0.7 inches (36 x 23.4 x 1.8 cm; West x D x H)
The HP Pavilion 15-eh0014na reviewed here - known likewise as the eh0015cl - is the large blood brother of the HP Pavilion fifteen family, and as such commands ane of the highest prices of HP's mid-range line. That'southward non to say it's supremely expensive; in the US it tin can exist found for $849.99, while HP'south United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland store stocks it for £850. In Australia yous'll need to settle for the eh0065AU, which omits the touchscreen found hither and switches out the 512GB SSD for a 1TB version; information technology'southward slightly more centre-watering at AU$ii,199, too.
Dial things down in the Pavilion line and you can cutting that price significantly; when y'all're going for a mid-range car, cutting downward things like storage space makes sense, and you may be able to get away with 8GB RAM - though we'd certainly recommend sticking to 16GB if y'all can afford it.
If yous do a spec-past-spec comparison to, say, HP'southward sleek but premium Envy series, this certainly looks like a better deal, though the Pavilion's lack of discrete graphics means it can do slightly less in the workplace and certainly doesn't have the wide-reaching home potential of the Green-eyed.
A more accurate comparing might be something like the Acer Swift iii, which packs hardware on a reasonably like (if slightly less powerful) level and touches the same ground in terms of price, also: information technology's lighter than this, and smaller too, but we recollect it falls into pretty much the same niche.
Design
The Ultrabook category is a tough one to define. If yous take the discussion to mean 'any laptop with the advent of being slim' then this absolutely slots in at that place. The HP Pavilion fifteen- (2021) looks admittedly fantastic for its price point, with HP trimming things dorsum a long way.
The screen, for instance, is plenty thin (though made a little bulkier past the subtle protective black rim around the edges) and far stiffer than we'd typically look for a plastic-cased laptop. It'southward clearly well-braced inside, because information technology doesn't have the do good of a glass front to offer information technology actress rigidity.
This does make using the touchscreen a little sticker than the same experience on a drinking glass panel, but that'southward a simple concession that is easily made to hit a toll point. The base is similarly svelte-looking, with clever angles used to hide its slightly bulbous abdomen.
Which does bring usa to the other potential significant of the word Ultrabook, which nosotros'd say was 'any thin and light laptop' - accent on the actual thinness and lightness, rather than the implied. It's close, but the HP Pavilion xv doesn't really authorize. Sure, we've seen bulkier machines out there, and we've seen heavier, but the 15-eh0014na does not slot into either niche exactly. Information technology's not a one-hander similar the LG Gram, nor is it sliver-thin like the MacBook Air. It'due south subtly dense in its own special manner.
If we were to guess, information technology seems HP may even take found a little problem fitting these Ryzen 7 internals into the chassis. In that location's a very slight crash-land to the base of operations; we weren't sure whether it was a trick of the eye having stared at this thing for then long, but a straight edge placed on the rear department reveals that it is indeed slightly bowed. Non something we're deducting any points for, just information technology's an artful speedbump.
Crammed in it may be, but poorly designed it is not. There'south a decent, if non over-generous, amount of port provision, with a USB Blazon-A socket on each side of the machine, a multi-function Type-C connector on the left, a full-size HDMI output and a built-in microSD reader.
The keyboard sports a total-width tenkey layout which is natural to become used to, and it features minimal flex and decent key travel - we were certainly comfortable, though you may struggle in low light because there's no backlighting on offer. Below it, in that location's a decent-sized multi-impact trackpad with a convincing click to it, forth with a fingerprint reader on the wrist remainder.
Performance
Benchmarks
Here's how the HP Pavilion fifteen-eh0014na performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
3DMark: Sky Diver: 10,443; Fire Strike: 2,792; Time Spy: 1,080
Cinebench CPU: two,883 points
GeekBench 5: one,095 (unmarried-core); 4,722 (multi-core)
PCMark 10 (Domicile Exam): 5,095 points
PCMark 10 Bombardment Life: half dozen hours and 33 minutes
Battery Life (techradar motion picture examination): half dozen hours and fifteen minutes
Things are tricky in the laptop market. AMD and Intel are at their traditional loggerheads, and they're playing a game of leapfrog; where the Ryzen 4000-series CPU in this machine may, a few months ago, have been the crown jewel of laptop chips, Intel's 11th-gen processors accept at present come along and outsparkled information technology.
The easy conclusion to describe, given that this motorcar can't quite lucifer its rival's criterion scores in some departments, would be that this is poor, but that'south far from the case. The Ryzen seven 4700U is still a fantastic mobile processor, i which (in conjunction with its fast storage and generous RAM supply) gives this a perfectly snappy experience and helps information technology keep up easily with day-to-day desktop tasks. This definitely doesn't experience like a lesser laptop.
What it can't do, though, is offer much in the way of gaming performance. Y'all're reliant on the integrated Radeon Graphics solution here which, while non absolutely useless, scores benchmark results in the region of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M, a carte du jour outset launched in 2015. It can cope with esports titles provided they're dialled down a piffling, but anything more significant will be too much of an ask. Again, though, things experience perfectly slick on the desktop. This isn't sold on its gaming potential, so to penalise it for lacking a discrete graphics solution wouldn't make much sense.
As it is, the package here is plenty to provide more adequate power without requiring too much in the way of cooling or compromise. This merely refuses to get also hot - fifty-fifty when nosotros were really hammering the SoC with benchmarks, the fans rarely ramped upward. When they did, they were entirely endurable, and the solid B&O tuned sound system managed to drown them out. We're not over-keep on the down-firing speakers (there has to exist a meliorate way) just this works hard.
The screen is decent, though unspectacular. It tops out at i,920x1,080, giving it enough pixel density that things don't appear obviously grainy to the center, and is highly reflective - something which helps to bolster the somewhat disappointing dissimilarity of its IPS console, but which also means this isn't fun to utilise if you accept a window behind you lot. We've mentioned the sticky touchscreen functioning; although we've seen bigger fingerprint magnets, it'll be handy to take a microfiber cloth on hand if you're poking at this console regularly.
Battery life
At that place'due south no two means near it: the HP Pavilion fifteen's battery life is a big disappointment. Given its weight nosotros were expecting this to take a beefy enough battery to terminal at least a full day'due south piece of work; equally information technology is, you'd have your work cut out to tease 8 hours out of it. Our flick examination didn't get far past the six hour marking, and PCMark's battery exam managed half an hour more than.
Sure, information technology's non the worst - the brief batteries of sure gaming laptops tin surrender the ghost subsequently a couple of hours, and this is far better than that - but information technology's extra evidence that HP may accept run out of infinite within the HP Pavilion 15's chassis, or at least cutting one fiddling corner too many. Thankfully it does quick-charge, happily reaching half capacity in around one-half an hour.
Buy information technology if...
Don't purchase it if...
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Source: https://www.techradar.com/reviews/hp-pavilion-15-2021