Introduction
The management behind HP may have hit the headlines a few times in the last few years, but the fact that it is releasing budget laptops once again, under recognisable names, does go some way to showing that it means business once again. Business in an area that it understands and that end users can potentially benefit from.
The HP Pavilion 15 is a straight up proposition – it’s a budget machine designed for everyday computing – that most straightforward of offerings. There is a little bit of a problem here though, as the market for such generic machines is awash with everything from tablets (of all guises) through to Chromebooks and netbooks (which are set to make a comeback), with a big healthy chunk of budget laptops, just like this, jostling for position as well.
The benefits that the likes of the HP Pavilion 15 and the likes of the recently reviewed Lenovo G505 offer over the alternatives is the fact that they run Windows 8 and therefore you can use all the applications that you are used to. And unlike something like HP’s own Pavilion 14 Chromebook or any of the Windows RT tablets, you’re not limited to a tiny subset of apps either, here you can run everything from MS Office through to Photoshop and other high-end tools.
This is budget orientated laptop from the ground up though, and as such sacrifices have had to be made. It certainly isn’t a single machine that will answer every single one of your computer needs. Even so, if you’re looking for a general machine for the home, then there’s nothing wrong with such a goal in the first place.
Before we get on to the details of the specification, it’s worth working out what you need from a general purpose machine like this in the first. What do you need more than anything else? Do you want to be able to play games? To take the machine with you on a commute? Playback HD video? Render movies or 3D scenes? Edit your photographs? Simply surf a bit? Work out what is most important and then you’ll be able to see whether a budget system has what you need.
Specifications
Key to a proposition like the HP Pavilion 15 is the processor at the heart of the machine. This is the second machine we’ve looked at recently that is built around AMD’s A4-5000 APU, with the first being the Lenovo G505. This is an APU as opposed to a CPU, which is AMD’s way of highlighting that it boasts a graphics core inside the chip packaging alongside the more traditional processing core.
On the processor side of things the A4-5000 boasts four logical cores and an operating frequency of 1.5GHz and 2MB of cache to help keep those cores full. These cores can’t really compete with those on offer in Intel’s latest Haswell processors, but the overall chip is notably cheaper than anything that Intel has on offer. At least it is right now, the next take on its Atom processor could turn out to offer serious competition to AMD’s APU.
The graphics processor is officially termed a Radeon HD 8330. The specifications for this core paint a positive enough picture, as it will happily handle the latest games. In theory at least. There are a few problems here though, and they basically come down to silicon – there aren’t enough transistors on the graphics side of things to run such games at the smooth framerates – although more on that shortly.
Alongside this core you’ll find 4GB of DDR3 RAM, frustratingly all on one of the APU’s two channels, so you’re only getting half the memory bandwidth that you should be. The machine is also home a 750GB hard drive, a DVD +RW drive and plenty of USB ports.
The 15.6-inch screen is bright, although as it is a TN panel it does suffer from polarizing when not viewed at the perfect angle. The native resolution of 1366 x 768 should be seen as the bare minimum for laptops these days, and it does mean you won’t be viewing True HD videos on the screen directly, although you can use the integrated HDMI connector to view them on your 1080P television or monitor.
General construction is reasonable, although tapping the chassis does produce hollow rattles especially around the optical drive. The chassis is pleasing enough though, and the metallic red finish does help set the Pavilion 15 out from the crowd. System cooling doesn’t get too loud in use either.
Performance
3DMark
Ice Storm: 26,140
Cloud Gate: 2257
Fire Strike: 321
Cinebench R11.5
OpenGL: 12.17
CPU: 1.31
PCMark08
Home Score: 1540
Work score: 2548
Estimated battery life: 5h 21min 22s
x264 HD Benchmark 4.0
Pass-1: 38.18fps
Pass-2: 8.41fps
Bioshock Infinite
Ultra: 5.18fps
Very low: 22.07fps
Given the similar specifications to the Lenovo G505 that we’ve looked at previously, there’s no surprise that the benchmarks from this machine and the G505 are hard to separate. And by that we mean that there’s not a lot of power going spare here. In fact there’s not enough to do the kind of tasks that you might expect from a modern machine – you’ll be waiting for your videos to output, for you photos to get that final layer of polish and for generally anything that takes serious processing power to do their thing.
As we’ve already pointed out, HP has built the Pavilion 15 around an AMD APU, and as such it boasts a graphics core that will handle the latest DirectX 11 games. Unfortunately this APU lacks the raw silicon to handle the latest games at anything like smooth framerates. At the highest settings you’re looking at single-figure framerates at the screen’s native resolution, which means they’re going to frustrate more than they’re going to entertain.
Of course this is a budget machine, so how does it fare when you knock the settings down a little? Not brilliantly. Even with every setting as low as it will go, you’re still looking at less than 20fps in the vast majority of titles in our suite of games, with minimum framerates struggling to enter double figures – which again means that games are just that little bit too sluggish to be truly great.
There is one key difference using this machine compared to using the Lenovo G505 though, and that difference is that this machine is a lot more responsive. While we were generally waiting for the Lenovo for every simple operation to complete, the HP Pavilion 15 felt snappier and notably more responsive. We did prefer the keyboard on the Lenovo machine though, as it simply feels more responsive and more comfortable to type on.
There is some good news for the HP Pavilion 15 though, and that is that the battery life is incredible. In testing under PCMark08, which stresses the machine’s capabilities in website creation among other things, you’re looking at 5 hours and 22 mins of continued use, which is incredible. When you consider that you should see double this when you’re out and about, then you’re looking at a system that will last a day’s commute easily.
Verdict
Anyone in the market for a budget laptop, either as a general use machine for the family, or as a machine that will handle school work, should certainly consider the likes of the HP Pavilion 15 simply because on the surface it offers such great value for money.
It is worth considering carefully what you want from such a machine before you splash out though, as the range of systems you can get for this sort of money or less defines much of the mainstream market these days – from budget tablets all the way through to full Windows 8 laptops.
We liked
The battery life is nothing to be sniffed at, and while this is a 15.6-inch laptop, and as such intrinsically not the most portable of machines ever invented, the fact that you can expect a full day’s work out of it without much issue is to be commended. Even five hours under heavy load should be applauded, and if you need to travel away from a power connector for long periods, then this alone could well decide things for you.
The general performance of the machine feels responsive. You’re not waiting around for the operating system to complete simple tasks like you are on the Lenovo G505, and while the specification is incredibly similar, HP has tweaked things just enough here to make a difference. The processor and graphics performance aren’t stellar, but if you set your expectations a little lower than normal, you’ll be pleased with what is on offer here.
The general styling is to be commended too. While there’s not a lot of budget for flourishes at this price point, the fact that HP has seen fit to design an interesting looking laptop is great.
We disliked
The screen is bright, but shift your head slightly and you’ll lose colour reproduction and contrast will go out of the window. With the likes of the Apple iPad redefining what we expect from portable devices thanks to their IPS screens, it’s this one aspect that is holding budget laptops back.
The chassis doesn’t feel as solid as plenty of more expensive machines, or indeed as well constructed as Lenovo’s identically-priced G505. There’s a surprising amount of space inside the machine, and when you’re typing on it, the hollow sounds that respond to your working fingers show up the machine for its budget origins.
The fact that HP has populated only one of the machine’s memory channels frustrates, as it does mean that the APU is going to be waiting for data and code unnecessarily. Our advice here is to upgrade the amount of memory the machine has the moment you buy it.
Final verdict
The HP Pavilion 15 isn’t a machine for everyone. In fact we’d suggest that it’s best as a second machine for the home that everyone can grab as needed. Even so, if you’re looking for a straightforward laptop on a tight budget, it does more than its pricing would have you believe. Admittedly you won’t be playing the latest games on it, and anything that is too processor-intensive is going to take a while, but overall it’s not a bad little machine at all.
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