HP’s Pavilion line-up of laptops is associated with all-around consumer offerings for both productivity and looks. It’s not often the most affordable mode on paper but it’s a lot of times preferred for its performance and previous experiences. The Plus 14 is the company’s slimmest Pavilion model (16.5mm) and we tried the silver model, priced just under Rs 80,000. Let’s see where it scores and where it lacks.
What clicks:
Display: The notebook features a 14-inch (2880×1800) LED IPS display (16:10 aspect ratio) that is really nice to work with. The videos come out vivid, text looks sharp, and colors are punchy enough, perhaps better than many of the previous Pavilion series laptops. With its aspect ratio, a lot of content creators might also prefer it for their work. The display has anti-glare coating, and it goes about 300 nits in brightness and is decent enough to be used under direct sunlight.
Design: The Pavilion Plus 14 is made out of recycled aluminum for its lid, keys and bottom part, as per the company. It weighs under 1.5kg and is slim, making it quite suitable for carrying it around for work. The laptop has almost no flex or give-ins in the body – whether the palm rest or the external lid. The matte finish and silver look go well with the overall look and feel of the laptop, not flashy, but a sober-looking thin notebook.
Keyboard: It has nice white LEDs that are just bright enough to go with the all-silver look. The keys are well spaced out and have decent travel and feedback for long and continuous writing. The trackpad is fairly large and tracks clicks and gestures quite well, rarely missing a beat during usage. Although it’s made from plastic, it didn’t feel any cheap or was a let-down in terms of finish.
Overall performance: The notebook is powered by Intel’s 12 Gen 15 (12500H) chip with 16GB of DDR4 RAM (non-upgradable) and Intel Xe graphics to go with a 512GB NVMe M.2 SSD. The laptop is snappy and smooth in daily operations like watching videos while typing out a document with a browser opened in the background. It’s also quick to wake up from sleep mode, something I have seen being an issue on previous Windows 11 laptops in this price range. Gaming wise, it can handle something like GTA V at around 55 FPS at full HD though don’t expect to play it at the highest settings, but the laptop handles it just fine for the given settings. The fingerprint scanner, given on the right hand side of the trackpad (near the sideline), is quite quick and responsive, it’s not as responsive as the one on the recent ASUS laptops, but still not a miss that you wouldn’t want to use it frequently.
What’s just okay:
Battery life: The laptop comes equipped with a 51W battery and a 90W charger in the box that charges over USB type C with support for fast charging. The laptop charges from 1 per cent to full in about 70 minutes and supports power delivery on both its USB type C ports. The laptop lasted around 4.5 hours on a single full charge, with brightness at 70 per cent, WiFi and keyboard LED always on, two web browsers opened, a lot of videos played, some document editing and a bit of local music listening. The battery life is just about okay, it’s not the worst but it’s certainly not the best, but maybe that’s the price you pay for a slim and lightweight profile in the Pavilion Plus 14’s case, but it does charge quite quickly.
Sound: There’s dual downward-facing Bang & Olufsen speakers in place. The speakers aren’t the loudest for watching movies or videos in general but they aren’t too bad either. They have decent bass output as well as clear mids. You can expect to get a decent output when watching alone, but with a 2-3 people and some chatter alongside, or for relying on them for listening to music, you might want to connect an external set of speakers.
What doesn’t click:
Ports: There are 2 USB A 3 ports (one on each side), one microSD card reader, 2 USB type C ports (both on the right side) and a 3.5mm audio jack plus an HDMI 2.0 port but none of the USB type C ports supports thunderbolt and of course there’s no ethernet port given here, either.
The HP Pavilion Plus 14 does several things really well and something that it’s pretty much designed for – a lightweight slim Windows 11 (Home) notebook that has a really nice and sharp display, a good keyboard and trackpad combination and solid design. It could have made for an ideal work-on-the-go laptop for under Rs 80,000, had it delivered a bit more on the battery front, but even then, this is a device worth checking if you want something that is not at all heavy, comfortable to type on, or watch high resolution videos on.
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