By Abhik Sengupta: Buying a premium productivity-focused laptop, especially in India, can get tricky. On one hand, there are loads of value for money and good-looking notebooks from Xiaomi and Realme in the Rs 50,000 bracket. If your budget is higher, Apple’s premium and capable M1-series laptops are available for over Rs 90,000, but on a good day, you can buy a MacBook for roughly Rs 80,000 during an online sale event. Then, there are laptops such as HP’s new Pavilion Plus 14, which looks good in terms of design and specifications, but the Rs 81,999 pricing may make some customers hesitate.
This is why I was keen to test the new Pavilion Plus 14, which makes no compromises build-wise. The laptop fully features a metal body that feels premium and increases its durability. It is also the rarest Windows-running notebook that allows users to flip open the lid with one hand. However, internally, the specifications are modest for this price. It comes with a 12th-Gen Intel Core i5 CPU paired with Iris Xe graphics. Thankfully, memory-wise, this high price tag brings 16GB of DDR4 RAM and 512GB of SSD storage.
But a pertinent question remains: Is the HP Pavilion Plus 14 worth Rs 80,000, and should you consider buying it? Here’s a long-term review.
HP Pavilion Plus 14 design and display
Starting with the design, I can confidently say that HP has made no compromises in the build quality, and its premium metal finish justifies the premium price tag – to an extent. The laptop is sleek and highly portable. There’s a metal finish almost everywhere and I thoroughly liked its natural silver aluminum color, which is much better than the traditional black shade.
In my six-week review, I carried the Pavilion Plus 14’s to numerous places, and the weight didn’t bother me. In fact, I carried the laptop during a recent international trip, and believe me, every gram in your luggage at that point counts. Even then, the Pavilion Plus 14 easily fits in my backpack without taking up too much space and adding substantially to the overall weight.
HP has also added support for charging via a USB-C port. It essentially means you can skip the proprietary charger in the bag, which often increases the weight. I hardly carried the bundled 90W charger to work as well. Instead, I kept my Android phone’s Type-C cable and adapter, which were more than sufficient.
Physical connectivity options include two USB-A ports, two USB-C ports, a 3.5 audio jack, and an HDMI port. There’s also a slot for an SD card reader, which I quite like and helped me substantially to transfer files from the GoPro Hero 11 to the laptop during my trip. On a side note, you can also check my review of Hero 11 if you’re an upcoming creator/influencer.
As the name suggests, the HP Pavilion Plus 14 sports a 14-inch screen. The IPS display offers a 2.2K (2240 x 1400 pixels) resolution with 300 nits of brightness, 100 per cent sRGB colors, and anti-glare tech support. On paper, the display specifications look modest, and most users will be satisfied with the quality. If your priority is a laptop for movie consumption, the HP Pavilion 14 Plus is not the best companion. In that case, Asus has a bunch of notebooks under Rs 60,000 with OLED displays that offer a much richer viewing experience. On the flip side, those laptops feature a sub-standard build quality.
That being said, the display on the Pavilion 14 Plus isn’t poor, and it offers decent brightness and response. I compared its display against the mini-LED screen on the iPad Pro 12 (2022). The differences are stark, but a brighter screen could’ve provided HP with some edge.
However, the dual speakers tuned by Bang and Olufsen on the Pavilion are dreadful. In my test, the speakers failed to offer loudness and adequate bass. In other words, the Pavilion 14 Plus display for work is sufficient. For watching movies without headphones – poor.
HP Pavilion Plus 14 performance
When you’re spending Rs 80,000 on a laptop, customers won’t want any compromises with the processor and storage. On that front, the HP Pavilion Plus 14 checks crucial boxes. But there’s a big problem too, and more on that later.
The laptop comes with a 12-core Intel Core i5 (5-12500H) processor, clocking at up to 4.5GHz with Intel Turbo Boost technology to offer extra juice during demanding tasks. As mentioned, the processor comes paired with 16GB of DDR4 RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. There’s no LAN port on the laptop, but there’s support for Wi-Fi 6E, which I couldn’t test, although I do like the addition.
Now, there are two sides to the performance. In terms of benchmark, the Pavilion 14 Plus’ scores are average, given the high price tag. On PC Mark 10’s CPU test, it scored 4,269, which is mildly better than the Intel Core i3 (1220P)-powered Asus Vivobook 15 (X1502) scored in my review. Mind you, the latter costs Rs 44,990, which is much more affordable than the current HP notebook. Similarly, the GPU score on the 3D mark came to be 758 – again, average at best.
However, the 16GB RAM gives the HP Pavilion 14 Plus an edge over rivals within and below the price range. For everyday work, the laptop runs without any stutters or heating issues.
Switching between multiple Chrome tabs and folders also did not cause any trouble either. I even like the keyboard and trackpad on the HP Pavilion Plus 14, as the two offer good feedback and finish. The trackpad includes a fingerprint reader, which functions smoothly. In fact, I like the fingerprint scanner much better than the ones on some affordable Asus and Dell laptops, thanks to its responsiveness.
Since the laptop is focused on productivity, gaming is doable but not ideal. On one hand, it has enough juice to run Age of Empires 5. However, if you want to play action titles like Apex Legends, look for a laptop with a better GPU and display with a high refresh rate. Running spreadsheet apps also wasn’t a problem. I do feel that one should get a laptop with a 15 or 16-inch display if they want the best Excel or Google Sheet experience.
HP Pavilion Plus 14 battery
Performance-wise, the HP Pavillion 14 Plus managed to get the job done, but all that gets shadowed by poor battery life. With regular usage (80 per cent brightness, 50 per cent audio levels), the laptop offers just 4.5 hours of battery life. If the brightness is increased to the maximum, the battery life gets poorer. And if we lower the setting, the Pavilion 14 Plus offers up to 5 hours of backup, which is again not acceptable.
With the bundled 90W USB-C charger, it takes roughly 1-1.30 hours to charge the 51Wh battery. Therefore, it forgets super-fast charging.
HP Pavilion Plus 14 verdict
I began this review by saying that buying a premium laptop in India can be very tricky, and the HP Pavilion 14 Plus is one of those tricky notebooks to recommend. In terms of build, I do not have any complaints, and it could even be a good alternative for MacBooks – purely based on design.
It can also handle daily tasks like web browsing, watching movies, video calling, and light gaming without much stutter, but the poor battery life makes the experience loathsome. And beyond all this, the Rs 80,000 is simply perplexing and personally, dissuades me from buying it. However, if the price drops to Rs 55,000 — it could be a good buy, and HP could consider pricing it aggressively.
Just to be clear, the mediocrity of this laptop does not mean that HP falls short of ideas. The company still owns a large market share in India, and the new laptops in its Envy and Omen portfolio are very capable. But the Pavilion is what attracts the masses, and HP should consider making it feature-packed yet affordable.
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