Next time someone is looking for a fairly compact laptop with a premium feel, HP has a good solution. The HP Pavilion Plus 14 has a lot of interesting features but it won’t break the bank. There is a fair deal of competition in this segment but this laptop gets it right in terms of looks, build quality and performance.
The unit is pretty light and has a nice all-metal design. There is little-to-zero flex around the machine, giving it a premium feel. The unit weighs less than 1.4kg, which makes it portable.
The port selection too is perfect for most users. On the left-hand side is a 3.5mm microphone-headphone combo jack and next to that is a legacy USB-A port, which is good to see on a laptop. Many may have old accessories, which can be easily connected. Most of the ports are on the right-hand side. There are two USB Type-C ports (3.2 Gen 2) and they support charging and display out. Next to that is an HDMI 2.1 port supporting resolutions up to 4K@60 and finally a second USB Type-A port. All in all good port selection but there is no SD card reader.
The keyboard offers good clicks and key travel. Plus, the trackpad is large and receptive.
My review unit came with 16GB of DDR5 RAM and being a mid-tier laptop, I didn’t expect anything more than this. For most people, it is going to be enough to do what you need to do with a laptop. Coming to the NVME PCI-e Gen 4 SSD storage, it offers excellent read/write speeds. In the wireless department, you are looking at Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.
Instead of keeping conversations about the battery for the end, you get enough power to see you through the day unless you decide to do a fair bit of gaming. You can easily get around 10 hours of screen-on time and if you are careful with the settings, you can squeeze in at least an extra hour. I had 120Hz refresh rate on for most of the time and also had brightness level turned up.
Screen dazzle
Let’s talk about the display. The 2.8K OLED screen (2,880x1,800) supports 120Hz refresh rate. Needless to say, contrast and brightness levels are quite high and you get excellent coverage of the colour gamut and there is a fair degree of accuracy. The blacks are deep while colours are vibrant, all hallmarks of an OLED display.
The display quality is good enough to get creative work done in Lightroom or Photoshop. Having 120Hz refresh rate means you’re going to get a smooth, fluid experience although you will take a bit of a hit on battery life but the good news is the presence of dynamic refresh rate, which will switch between 60 and 120 or you can run it at 60Hz if the machine is low on power.
It is an HDR display, so watching high-dynamic range content in Netflix, Amazon and YouTube has been good. Videos appear sharp and you will end up spending hours staring at the laptop screen.
Goodies continue to pop up. It’s good to see the 5MP webcam support 1440p video and there is a physical shutter switch above the camera that allows you to turn it off for more security and privacy. For anyone who is still doing a lot of work over Zoom, the webcam is a good option.
The laptop is compact and there is zero flex on the display or the keyboard.
A perfect gear for office-goers
The machine is running 13th Gen Intel Core i7-1355U processor. Be it single-thread or multi-thread performance numbers, you won’t be disappointed. The laptop is aimed at the general crowd, so I am expecting a lot of office-goers to buy this machine. For them, Microsoft Office, browsing and email are important. All of that works smoothly.
You will even find good benchmark scores if you are interested in gaming. The thermals are steady and you will hardly feel the laptop heating up. I found zero thermal throttling and when it comes to the surface temperatures,
Connected with performance is the keyboard. As far as tactility, key travel and overall feedback go, working on the machine over two weeks was a breeze. I found it comfortable while keying in long documents and emails. Also, it helps to have darker grey keys, which improves visibility at night. There is multi-stage backlighting that allows you to work in dark rooms. The touchpad too is a smooth performer.
Users get dual speakers — tuned by B&O — and the overall volume is decent. I would have liked a little bit more bass but that’s more like nitpicking. The microphone is worth a mention because it can effectively tackle background noises.
Overall performance
Think of a day when you have to spend long hours outside and there is a good amount of travelling involved. Being light, you won’t feel the laptop adding extra weight to the bag and the battery easily lasts a day. HP Pavilion Plus 14 is a solid choice for work but you won’t be disappointed when it comes to entertainment.
At a glance
Device: HP Pavilion Plus 14
Price: Upwards of Rs 90,999
High notes
Compact design
Good choice of processor
Webcam perfect for video calls
Excellent display quality
Muffled note
There could have been more bass in the audio department
