HP Pavilion 14 x360 Review

PROS

• Convenient form factor
• Efficient chip delivers good battery life
• Decent connectivity options
• Sturdy build, despite the use of recycled metal throughout

CONS

• A bit on the heavier side
• Struggles to justify its price tag
• Poor display performance
• Trackpad starts discoloring with light use

Technical Specifications

• Screen: 14-inch FHD IPS LCD 16:9 panel, 1920x1080 resolution, up to 250 nits peak brightness

• CPU: Intel Core i5 1335U 4.6GHz, 10 cores, 12 threads (up to Core i7)

• GPU: Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics with Unified Memory Architecture (UMA)

• RAM: Up to 16GB DDR4 at 3,200MHz

• Storage: Up to 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD

• Battery: 43WHr, 3 cell Li-ion, 65W charging

• I/O ports: 1x USB-C 10Gbps (with DisplayPort 1.4, USB PD support), 2x USB 3.0 Type-A, 1x HDMI 2.1, 3.5mm Combo Audio Jack, SD card reader

Buying a laptop is easy, but finding the one that ticks all the right boxes is an arduous task. If you're in the market for a compact workhorse you can travel with, you're probably looking for a sub-16-inch flyweight laptop with decent performance, USB-C power delivery support, and the flexibility to let you unwind with some Netflix. Many 2-in-1 laptops fit the bill but the new HP Pavilion x360 convertible is cut out from the rest, and for all the good reasons. However, we found a few concerns in our review unit worth Rs. 83,999 during our extensive testing. Here's what you should know before spending your dough on this new HP notebook.

Designed for sustainability, but without compromise

Our review unit of the HP Pavilion x360 finished in a stunning shade of rose gold featured good internal specifications, but the packaging is still quite barebones. Besides the notebook, its power cord, and the usual documentation, there's nothing additional thrown in to wow the buyer, which isn't entirely a bad thing. HP's whole idea with the notebook is to be more sustainable, and that shows in the box contents and minimal use of plastic packaging.

The brand claims all the metal on the laptop is also recycled from scrap. However, it isn't a detriment to the build quality. The chassis is sturdy and twists only a little when forced. We cannot operate the hinge with one hand, but that bodes well for the display's stability. It doesn't flop around even on the metro or moving car. On a desk, the hinge digs into the table, providing a gentle inclination to the keyboard and additional clearance underneath for the cooling fans to breathe. This is a versatile design, which we appreciated more in tablet and tent mode.

The intake grills provided underneath the laptop seem inadequate at first glance, but we only heard the fans spool up under the heaviest of workloads. HP provided exhaust venting along the sides, instead of under the hinges like the Asus Vivobook S14 Flip we reviewed recently. HP's design decision keeps the laptop running cool even in tent and tablet mode - a rare feat among 2-in-1s.

The HP Pavilion 14 x360 also features a large trackpad, a body-color fingerprint reader in a convenient location below the keyboard, and adequate I/O ports for most people. There's an SD card reader as well - a feature our YouTube team would greatly appreciate. If the onboard capabilities don't suffice, power users are free to expand compatibility using the USB-C port, which supports DisplayPort 1.4, USB power delivery, and your standard high-speed USB transfers as well.

The laptop resists fingerprints on almost all surfaces, except for the touchscreen, which seems to lack an oleophobic coating. We also noticed a visible discoloration on the trackpad, which could be a demerit for heavy users. On the bright side, we commend HP for integrating the fingerprint scanner neatly into the chassis, separate from the power button, and in a convenient location. The sensor didn't fail even once during testing; however software seems to disable it in tent and tablet mode, but that's a relatively minor gripe.

On the go, you won't have troubles with video conferences and media consumption either, although we recommend carrying wired/ wireless earbuds along, if possible. The HP Pavilion 14 x360 has two downward-firing speakers, which are aimed right at you in tent mode. They have full-bodied mid-range, but attempts to recreate low-frequency notes just quake the trackpad and do little else. The high end is imperceptible or distorted at high volume. Laptop speakers are limited by design, but we have seen better at this price point. Thankfully, the built-in microphone is brilliant, and video conferencing was a non-issue.

A display we wish we could look past

In a laptop, the display is arguably the most important component, because we use it all the time that we are interacting with the computer. With the HP Pavilion 14 x360, you get a 14-inch 1080p IPS LCD display with 250 nits of peak brightness and touch input support. Slim black borders surround this panel on the sides, but the bottom bezel is pretty chunky, like the upper one housing the webcam. It doesn't detract from the user experience, but the panel itself is quite a letdown.

The resolution is adequate for the 14-inch size and you can enjoy all the benefits of an IPS panel including wide viewing angles and decent color reproduction. However, the display is hamstrung by its poor peak brightness. Even with the brightness cranked all the way up, we struggled to combat the glossy display's glare in bright indoor and conventional outdoor lighting scenarios. Reducing brightness to optimize the battery life was further detrimental to usability outdoors.

On the bright side, the touchscreen display is easy to use and all the corners are within reach. 45% of the NTSC color gamut coverage is nothing to shout home about, but it isn't grossly off the mark. Just make sure you don't use this laptop for color-critical work like photo editing or video color grading. Using the HDMI output and the USB-C port, you can always hook up calibrated external displays if the need arises. On the average Netflix episode, we would be hard-pressed to tell this laptop's display apart from any other panel available in this price range.

Stylus, keyboard, and webcam: Workhorse-grade

Besides the touchscreen display, almost all your interaction with the HP Pavilion 14 x360 would be through the keyboard, trackpad, and stylus. A good keyboard is integral to a good typing experience, and HP doesn't falter here.

You get centered legends on the keys with three-level adjustable backlighting. The keys are color-matched to the body and arranged in a neat 65% layout. This means there are dedicated keys for Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down. You get a full-size number row as well, making the HP notebook feel complete even without a numpad built into the trackpad. The Function row above it is uniquely customized as well, with dedicated shortcuts for the Windows Emoji menu, media controls, etc.

However, the Alt keys flanking the downsized spacebar are larger than usual, and we inadvertently hit Alt several times instead of Space. We would've also liked to see full-size arrow keys accompanied by a smaller Right Shift key. There's no deck flex though, and the keyboard feels high-end to type on, replete with LED indicators for the Mute key and Capslock.

If you prefer touch input over everything else, HP also ships a stylus along with the laptop. It snaps effortlessly to the right-hand side of the display with powerful magnets. The stylus takes two hours to charge via the neatly concealed USB-C, and lasts two weeks before you need to recharge. Three interchangeable tips come standard. The palm rejection is impeccable, and holding the metallic pen-like body feels natural. Jotting down notes on the laptop is a breeze too - HP also includes a few note-taking apps of its own.

The integrated 5MP webcam is suitable for the occasional video conference, delivering decent details and clarity in bright indoor or outdoor lighting. However, image quality plummets rapidly in low light and high-contrast situations. HP has tried to offset the hardware limitations with software utilities like a simulated ring light utility for video calls - quite the gimmick with a relatively dim 250 nits display. Moreover, the simulated lighting is an overlay, obscuring important meeting controls if configured incorrectly. On the bright side, the laptop neatly integrates a physical shutter door into the upper bezel.

The trackpad is great for mousing around on the screen. We had to crank up the pointer speed a bit, but it was smooth sailing after that. There's no horizontal and vertical shortcuts for scrolling on the right and bottom peripheries, but all Windows 11 swipe gestures are supported. The click buttons under the trackpad are nice and muted as well, but our biggest gripe is the visible discoloration of the body colored trackpad, even with light use.

All things considered though, the HP Pavilion 14 x360 has a decent input device arsenal, and you shouldn't miss any features while travelling with this laptop. It is well-rounded for most purposes.

Effortless multitasking, no questions asked

Performance is arguably the most important part of a PC, and the HP Pavilion doesn't disappoint in our testing, at least by notebook standards. Our review unit came equipped with a 13th generation Intel Core i5 1335U processor packing 10 cores and 12 threads capped at 4.6GHz. Two of these are performance cores while the other eight are classified as efficiency cores, capped at a lower clock speed. A superior configuration is available with a 13th generation Intel Core i7, but it trades 1TB of solid state storage for 512GB.

The configuration also includes 16GB of installed memory, comprising two Samsung-made 8GB DDR4 sticks clocked at 3,200MHz. This means you will have to remove at least one of the installed memory sticks to upgrade in the future.

The machine doesn't have a dedicated GPU, and uses Intel Iris Xe graphics from the CPU. Right off the bat, the lack of a discrete GPU classified this as a productivity-centric machine instead of a portable gaming rig. You can still get away with a decent experience on lightweight titles like Rocket League and older Call of Duty games.

Although the new chip is still based on the 10nm process node, Intel has made a few efficiency improvements with Raptor Lake this year compared to 12th generation processors seen on similar laptops selling for slightly cheaper. We put this HP convertible through its paces in our standardized testing process to see if you should shell out that extra moolah for the 13th gen Intel chip.

In a five-pass 8GB read/write test on the 1TB Intel SSD operating at PCIe Gen 3 speeds, we found most scores comparable to the flagship Samsung 970 Evo SSD. In real-world usage, single large-size file transfers were speedy but multiple smaller files of the same size took a little longer - typical behavior. File transfers and app loading times shouldn't be an issue on the HP Pavilion 14 x360. However, our recorded boot time was disappointingly slow for a brand-new laptop. The HP Pavilion 14 x360 took 22 seconds to boot into an operable state.

For CPU testing, we used Geekbench 6's multi-parameter test. This comprehensive benchmark evaluates the CPU's performance handling short bursts of the most common tasks a user would throw at it. The HP performs well here, with scores incrementally better than last year's 12th generation processors with similar specifications.

Next, we subject the notebook to an extended duration CPU render torture test using Cinebench R23. This acclaimed benchmark shows how the CPU performs under a heavy load over an extended duration. Multi-core processors have an advantage here, but their limited thermal headroom hamstrings notebook CPUs. Once heat-soaked, we noticed the system thermal throttling to preserve system integrity.

On battery, test results are even worse than the numbers you see here. We tweaked the power plan to prefer performance, but still noticed a slight reduction in benchmark scores for the HP Pavilion 14 x360, because the processor is throttled to extend battery life. When plugged in, the Cinebench scores remain a far cry from the equivalent desktop processor, so you're getting what you pay for here. You'll be fine surfing the web, streaming shows, and playing games occasionally, but a desktop would be better suited for intensive workloads.

Survives a workday's battery

Portability is up there among the top reasons people buy laptops over desktops, making it a critical component to the overall user experience. HP has some fun battery wizardry going on with the Pavilion 14 x360. It packs a 43Wh Lithium-ion battery split into three cells. The provided adapter recharges them in around a couple of hours at 65W, if you continue using the laptop while charging. Charging is slightly faster if you don't use the laptop when it's plugged in.

Since the HP Pavilion 14 x360 supports USB-C Power Delivery, it is the ideal travel companion. You could carry one charger, like a OnePlus Warp Charge 65W adapter and a USB-C cable for your laptop, and your phone.

In our testing, a full charge gave us four hours of screen-on time when consuming media, and slightly longer when casually browsing the web. However, this dropped to just two hours and 36 minutes under intensive workloads. HP claims a battery life of 8.75 hours, but that seems very optimistic, even if all the software restrictions were to be enabled.

In all, we have seen better batteries with larger capacities and faster charging support in this segment. That doesn't mean to say the HP Pavilion 14 x360 is a poor performer. It should be adequate for most people planning to get work done on flights, or for the office. During a typical workday, we only had to recharge it once and still had surplus juice left for the next morning.

Software: Hawking wares like no tomorrow

One would presume software is quite standardized on most laptops, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Our little HP is no different. It ships with Windows 11 Home pre-installed along with few essential apps, and its fair share of bloatware.

Setup after first boot was quick and easy, but we missed any convenient apps to move files over from an older computer. Later, we found HP QuickDrop installed on the machine which should've been baked into the setup process. The desktop was clean and devoid of icons, but the Start menu told a completely different story. HP silently bundles helpful software like Alexa and Microsoft Office (Home & Student 2021) activated and ready to go. There's a decent assortment of stylus-friendly programs from HP as well.

However, there's disturbing amounts of bloatware as well, such as the Adobe Offers app, Agoda, a Dropbox Promo app, the redundant Energy Star app ClipChamp video editor, WildTangent Games, and HP's own Omen Gaming hub.

We also found Microsoft 365 pre-installed despite an Office license being included. More worryingly, the notebook also has ExpressVPN, the infamously untrustworthy LastPass password manager and a 30-day trial of McAfee LiveSafe pre-installed. We strongly dislike brands forcing their choice of antivirus softwares VPN providers, and password managers on the customer, especially when they are trial versions and the products have a track record of recent and serious security breaches.

All these software inconveniences are fixable if you spend a few minutes spamming the Uninstall button in the Control Panel, but it is still something the average user could have avoided if HP was diligent. Instead of preloading bloat to slow down new machines, the company should switch to prompts advising about the usefulness of certain types of software. HP can integrate such suggestions into a system management utility without much effort.

Should you buy the HP Pavilion x360 2-in-1?

The HP Pavilion 14 x360 is a versatile 14-incher with an eclectic mix of features, but unlike some headgear, laptops aren't a one-size-fits-all purchase. From our testing and the time we spent daily-driving this machine, we would say this is the ideal companion for businesspeople and productivity enthusiasts who multitask, and are frequently on the move. We could also recommend this for students and coders, provided they temper their expectations from the speakers and display for media consumption.

Despite the presence of a stylus, we wouldn't recommend this laptop for photographers, graphic designers, digital artists, and anyone else involved in color-sensitive work. The display fell short of our expectations, and although quite accurate, the stylus is only good for taking notes.

This is a great future-proof purchase if you upgrade laptops every few years because it comes with Intel's latest 13th generation notebook processors. The dual RAM slot availability further means upgrading individual components down the road shouldn't be too challenging. For its asking price of up to Rs. 93,999, the HP Pavilion 14 x360 offers good value if it suits your requirements.