Hp laptops pavilion: HP® Pavilion Laptops

Sep 20, 2023 alexxlab

HP Pavilion Laptop 14 (2022) Review

In a sea of budget laptops defined by the slightest of spec variants, it’s difficult to stand out. The 2022 edition of the HP Pavilion Laptop 14 we just tested (starts at $449.99; $799.99 as tested) does enough to poke its head above the crowd, with a low starting price, lots of configuration options, and a well-executed build shared across all models. It features a full suite of ports, commendable overall performance, respectable battery life, and a comfortable keyboard and touchpad. There’s not a lot to find fault with, especially if you can find our specific test model (14t-dv2097nr) at its sub-$600 Cyber Monday sale price (projected by HP at the time of writing). While the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14 and the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 are our current top picks in this class, consider the Pavilion Laptop 14 for a late-2022 budget-laptop buy, especially if you can snag it well below list price.

A Slim and Sleek Budget Build

HP’s Pavilion design won’t turn too many heads, but it’s still a decent-looking laptop at this price. The all-silver look is more interesting than all-black laptops, particularly in budget-friendly systems. There are other color options if you configure your own model on HP’s site, though, including ceramic white, pink, and gold (each for a $15 upcharge).

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Naturally, the chassis is plastic, so it doesn’t feel as high-quality as laptops that cost over $1,000, but that is to be expected. There is some noticeable flex if you push around the keyboard and touchpad, but nothing that should disrupt or concern you through normal use.

In terms of chassis size, this 14-incher is pretty portable at 0.67 by 12.8 by 8.53 inches (HWD) and 3.11 pounds. Plenty of ultraportable laptops these days come in under 3 pounds, but the difference between this and those is negligible, and those tend to be pricier systems.

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(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

All this adds up to a laptop that’s easy to carry under your arm, and will fit in any bag without weighing you down. It’s almost exactly the same size as the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14 (0.78 by 12.76 by 8.49 inches, 3.1 pounds), one of our recent favorite budget laptops. The Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2, the most premium option in this tier, comes in at 0.62 by 10.95 by 8.12 inches and 2.48 pounds.

This laptop’s 14-inch size refers to the display (measured diagonally), which in this case is a full HD resolution (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) IPS panel. The quality is decent for an affordable system, though the maximum brightness (rated at 250 nits) is not so illuminating. If you’re looking at the configurable version on HP’s site, you can upgrade to a touch option, or a brighter 400-nit option.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

I touched on the build quality, but how does it feel to use? The touchpad is about average among all laptops, but above average for laptops at this price. It’s plastic but doesn’t feel chintzy, pans smoothly, and responds well. The keyboard is a positive surprise, too—not the most satisfying I’ve used, but with a pleasant bounce. Our expectations are generally lower below $1,000, and while there is a little deck flex if you’re pounding away on the keys, that’s about it for build compromises.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Finally, for the physical design, we come to the ports and connectivity. For a smaller laptop, connectivity is admirably varied. The left edge is home to an audio jack and a USB Type-A port, while the right flank holds another USB-A port, a USB Type-C port, an HDMI-out connection, and the power jack. HDMI in particular is rare for laptops this size, and even USB-A isn’t a given these days. If this will be your one and only PC, you’re pretty well covered. The USB-C connection doesn’t support Thunderbolt, but does offer power delivery.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Also included is a 720p webcam, which produces so-so video quality. The image is rather grainy, and light sources get blown out easily, but it gets the job done. We’re seeing more 1080p cameras with better sensors in 2022, but generally not at this price. The Pavilion 14 also features Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth wireless connectivity.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Component Choices: 12th Gen Intel and More

HP’s Pavilion 14 is quite configurable. In addition to those other color options mentioned above, there are several component choices. The base model starts at $449.99 for a Core i3-1215U, 8GB of memory, a 256GB solid-state drive, and our same display.

Beyond that, you can jump up to a Core i5 or Core i7 processor, paired with a low-end Nvidia GeForce MX550 GPU (instead of the default integrated graphics), 12GB or 16GB of RAM, a 512GB or 1TB SSD, and the other display options.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

This model (14t-dv2097nr) of the Pavilion 14 is fair for the price, and arguably well rounded. For a $799.99 list price, you receive an Intel Core i5-1235U with integrated Iris Xe graphics, 16GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. What’s better, at the time of writing, there is a sizably discounted Cyber Monday sale price expected to hit for this system: $549.99. If you can grab that deal, or find it for a similar price in the future, it’s a very appealing value.

These processors, while Intel’s latest mobile generation, are still U-Series chips, so the performance ceiling is limited. CPUs with the U designation in their name are for smaller, power-limited machines, but still plenty capable of everyday tasks. Similarly, integrated graphics solutions (which is all you’ll really find at this size and price) are serviceable for some light gaming and movie watching, but not much else. Let’s put this all to the test with our benchmark suite.

Testing the 2022 HP Pavilion Laptop 14: A Competent Cruiser

We’ll pit the Pavilion 14 against the following laptops, which are relevant competitors with similar prices and/or components…

Lenovo’s IdeaPad 3 14 ($519 as tested) and the IdeaPad Flex 5i 14-Inch ($799 as tested) are comparably priced, equipped, and sized, making for ideal points of reference. The Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 ($799.99 as tested) is perhaps the best-designed laptop in this space, while the Acer Chromebook Spin 714 ($729 as tested) is a comparable Chromebook alternative. (It will not be able to run all of the following Windows-based tests.)

Productivity Tests

Our first-line test for laptops is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet work, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10’s Full System Drive test to assess the load time and throughput of a laptop’s boot drive.

Three other benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).

Our final productivity test is workstation maker Puget Systems’ PugetBench for Photoshop, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s famous image editor to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks.

If you’re choosing from among this group, it’s a pretty even field, with little performance variance. Looking at the Pavilion 14 on its own, you can expect it to handle any everyday home and office tasks without much difficulty. I didn’t experience any slowdown through normal use, and the scores show general proficiency. For example, 4,000 points on PCMark 10 is our baseline for competency on everyday productivity tasks, and the Pavilion 14 cruises over that mark. If you’re seeking a general-use laptop (and don’t expect outstanding media creation or editing speeds), this HP will fit the bill.

Graphics and Gaming Tests

We test Windows PCs’ graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We also try two OpenGL benchmarks from the cross-platform GFXBench, run offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions.

Integrated graphics—that is, the graphics tasks are handled by the CPU’s own onboard graphics cores rather than a dedicated GPU—have come a long way, but can still only do so much. None of these machines even approaches the graphics performance of gaming or media-creation laptops with discrete GPUs.

That means you can expect the Pavilion 14 (and the rest of these laptops) to do some light-to-moderate gaming at best, and you shouldn’t rely on them for any hobbyist or pro-grade graphics-based tasks. Read our separate integrated graphics testing piece to learn what to expect from such solutions, and their limits.

Battery and Display Tests

We test laptops’ battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100% until the system quits. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

To further evaluate laptop displays, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen’s color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

The battery life is acceptable, taken against a tight field here. The battery life can be a bit longer or shorter than this depending on what you’re using the laptop for, but generally, it should last you through the day. For a portable system, that’s a major deciding factor.

The display color coverage and brightness results are underwhelming but, as you can see, are also par for the course for this tier of machine. The display is fine for casual use, and acceptably bright at maximum brightness settings; it’s just that—as with performance—this is another reason not to use the HP Pavilion Laptop 14 as a content-creation or media-editing device.

Verdict: A Budget Laptop With a Lot to Like

For a wallet-friendly laptop, the 2022 HP Pavilion Laptop 14 (dv2097nr model) is free of any major design or feature faults, and has plenty to offer. If you can grab it for the sale price projected at the time of writing, the deal grows even sweeter.

Quite a few budget-friendly laptops have passed through PC Labs (we’ve named several in this review—the Lenovo IdeaPad 3 14 and Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 are our favorites), but this stands just above most of the pack. This edition of the Pavilion Laptop 14 doesn’t do anything exceptional enough to earn an Editors’ Choice award, but it leaves us little to complain about, and it should be on your list of considerations for budget-laptop shopping. It’s all in the sale timing.

HP Pavilion Laptop 14 (2022)

Pros

Intel 12th Gen CPUs deliver acceptable all-around performance
Affordable price with plenty of configuration options
Wide selection of ports

The Bottom Line

A solid value that dodges any significant pitfalls, HP’s Pavilion Laptop 14 (2022) is a well-rounded budget model with peppy performance and a decent feature set for the money.

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HP Pavilion 14 (2022) Review: Build Your Own Budget Laptop

$550 at HP

Don’t like

Flex in keyboard deck, lid
Battery life might disappoint

The HP Pavilion 14 is a budget laptop that looks and performs above its price. At 3.2 pounds (1.4 kilograms), the laptop can easily be a daily carry for school or work. It could also be a good home office laptop that can be easily connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse at a desk, but also has a screen that’s comfortably large enough for full-time use. It’s just a solid everyday laptop with a clean design.

The 14-inch laptop is available preconfigured or can be customized with prices starting at $650. HP offers a variety of options including AMD and Intel processors, discrete graphics and even a choice of four body colors. It gives you a lot of room to find a balance between your budget and performance needs. But even maxed out, the Pavilion 14 is $1,340. And that’s before any discounts to sweeten the deal. (Read on for more pricing details, including international prices.)

Josh Goldman/CNET

The preconfigured model I tested is normally $800, which isn’t bad for a 14-inch 1080p laptop with a 12th-gen Intel Core i5 CPU, 16GB of memory and a 256GB SSD. But at the time of this review, this combination is only $550. The HP Pavilion 14 is also available in the UK and Australia with AMD processors with prices starting at £630 and AU$1,499 — those are marked down also, to £400 and AU$1,199.

It’s not unusual for certain models and configurations to cycle on and off sale. So if you can afford to wait for a discount, it’s definitely worth it because it can be significant. HP will also discounts on the Intel and AMD customizable versions on occasion, so you can choose the exact specs you want.

HP Pavilion 14 (2022)

Price as reviewed	$800
Display size/resolution	14-inch 1,920 x 1,080 display
CPU	1.3GHz Intel Core i5-1235U
Memory	16GB DDR4 3,200MHz RAM
Graphics	128MB Intel Iris Xe Graphics
Storage	256GB PCIe M.2 SSD
Ports	USB-C (10Gbps), USB-A (x2, 5Gbps), HDMI 2. 1, combo audio jack
Networking	MediaTek Wi-Fi 6 MT7921 (2×2) and Bluetooth 5.2 combo
Operating system	Windows 11 Home

The component choices include two AMD processors and three Intel chips up to a Core i7-1255U. With the Intel model, you can add an entry-level 2GB Nvidia GeForce MX550 graphics processor for low-res gaming and simple content creation. The Pavilion 14 can also be set up with 8GB, 12GB or 16GB of memory and up to a 1TB solid-state drive. What’s nice is neither the memory nor storage is soldered onto the motherboard, and it’s easy enough to get inside the laptop so you can potentially add more RAM or a larger, faster SSD later if you start with a less expensive build.

The laptop’s power adapter uses a barrel connector, but you can also use the USB-C port for charging.

Josh Goldman/CNET

HP also offers a choice of three displays. All of them are full HD (1,920×1,080 pixels). My review laptop had the base display, which, like the rest of the configuration, is fine for general use. It’s not especially bright — it’s rated at 250 nits — and the glossy coating isn’t ideal if you regularly work near bright windows or lights. From this display, you can step up to a touchscreen. The top option has a rated brightness of 400 nits and a 100% sRGB color range, making it the best choice if you’ll be editing photos or videos or want better color in general.

The Pavilion 14 has a comfortable backlit keyboard.

Josh Goldman/CNET

One of the few things that can’t be upgraded is the webcam. It’s a 720p HD camera that was standard before everyone started spending more time on video calls and it really requires plenty of light for a decent picture. It would be nice if an upgrade to HP’s 5-megapixel webcam were available. HP does include its Enhanced Lighting app that turns part of your display into a ring light to help you look a little better on camera.

If the webcam is important to you, consider the Pavilion 14 Plus. It’s a little more expensive but adds the 5-megapixel webcam for sharper, more detailed videos, a second USB-C port and a microSD card slot, a fingerprint reader, higher-performance processors and graphics and an OLED display option.

The Pavilion 14 has a metal lid and the body is made from metal and plastics including recycled ocean-bound plastic.

Josh Goldman/CNET

Overall, HP put together a solid budget-friendly laptop with the Pavilion 14. There are a couple of relatively minor shortcomings. Battery life isn’t great. It hit 6 hours, 51 minutes on our streaming video rundown test with the display at 50% brightness and volume through earbuds at 50%. Also, there is flex in the lid and keyboard deck. It’s particularly noticeable in the center of the keyboard and when you press on the touchpad. It just makes this nice-looking laptop feel cheaper.

Otherwise, given its price, the HP Pavilion 14 is a highly likable laptop. If longer battery life is important and you don’t mind going smaller, strongly consider the Pavilion Aero 13. It’s also well priced and lasted for more than 10 hours in our tests, plus it only weighs 2 pounds. Outside of HP, consider the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i. This two-in-one is slightly more expensive but outperformed the Pavilion 14, has longer battery life and has features like a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port, an SD card reader, a 1080p webcam with a privacy shutter and a fingerprint reader.

Geekbench 5 (multicore)

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i 8239Acer Aspire 5 A515-57 7254HP Pavilion 14 7034Dell Inspiron 14 7420 2-in-1 6317HP Laptop 17 5880