The company’s top-tier laptop, the HP Pavilion Plus 14, combines productivity and enjoyment. It offers an all-metal construction, a sharp screen, high-end speakers, and the newest mobile Intel 12th-generation CPUs. Additionally, HP claims that the Pavilion Plus 14 is the slimmest Pavilion laptop company has ever made, which appeals to people who frequently carry their laptops around. Is this the right laptop for your future job? Learn more from this review.
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HP Pavilion Plus 14 Review: Design
In that, the models in this product line are often dependable and economical but a little bit uninteresting and low-end, HP’s Pavilion brand could be compared to a Honda or Toyota of computers. However, HP also has a history of breaking barriers, and for years, it has been providing Pavilion with high-end PC features. The Pavilion Plus 14 is perhaps possibly the greatest illustration yet, even though it is not the first to benefit from this method (see also the HP Pavilion Aero 13 from last year).
So, yes, a Pavilion it is. If you exclude the display bezel and, I assume, the keyboard keys, it is likewise (semi) entirely constructed of recycled aluminum. It is the thinnest Pavilion ever, measuring 18.4 mm at its thickest point in the back and 16.5 mm in the front. It is smaller than its non-Plus predecessor, but because of its 16:10 display and narrower bezels, it boasts a greater screen-to-body ratio. Additionally, it is the first Pavilion to offer an OLED display option.
Space Blue, Warming Gold, Mineral Silver (dark gray), Tranquil Pink, and Nature Silver (light gray) are the reportedly available colors for the Pavilion Plus 14, but good luck locating the eye-catching ones. According to what I hear, the majority of clients in the United States will be offered plain Natural Silver, at least initially. This is the item that is being reviewed. It’s a shame because some of those other hues seem amazing.
HP Pavilion Plus 14 Review: Performance
There are five stated color options for the Pavilion Plus 14: Space Blue, Warm Gold, Mineral Silver (dark gray), Tranquil Pink, & Natural Silver (light gray), but good luck locating one of these. The 12th-generation Intel Core i7-12700H, a 45-watt processor with 12 cores (four Performance and eight Efficient) and 16 threads, powered my review device. In thin-and-light ultrabooks like the Pavilion Plus 14, which normally come with 28-watt Intel P-Series or 15-watt U-Series CPUs, we don’t often see processors like this one. The Pavilion Plus 14’s use of Intel’s integrated Iris Xe graphics is also noteworthy. Discrete graphics are typically combined with the 45-watt CPUs.
So, yes, a Pavilion it is. If you exclude the display bezel and, I assume, the keyboard keys, it is likewise (semi) entirely constructed of recycled aluminum. It is the thinnest Pavilion ever, measuring 16.5 mm tow and 18.4 mm at its thickest at the back.
The Asus Vivobook S 14X, one of our comparative devices, likewise employed a Core i7-12700H processor with Iris Xe graphics. When compared to our benchmarks, the Pavilion Plus 14 performed similarly. The multi-core results in Geekbench 5 were greater than the single-core scores, which were lower. In our Handbrake test, which encodes a 420MB video as H.265, it was essentially tied, but Cinebench R23 was slower.
Depending on the benchmark, both laptops were closer to those with the 28-watt Core i7-1260P than other computers with the same CPU, like the Dell XPS 15. Unfortunately, the PCMark 10 Applications test, which is a reliable indicator of general productivity performance, would not be completed by the Pavilion Plus 14. The fascinating ones.
According to what I hear, the majority of clients in the United States will be offered plain Natural Silver, at least initially. This is the item that is being reviewed. It’s a shame because some of those other hues seem amazing. Ahead of the front. It is smaller than its non-Plus predecessor, but because of its 16:10 display and narrower bezels, it boasts a greater screen-to-body ratio. Additionally, it is the first Pavilion to offer an OLED display option.
HP Pavilion Plus 14 Review: Battery life
A 14-inch laptop like the Pavilion Plus 14 has a battery capacity of 51 watt-hours, which is a little on the low side considering my review unit had a 45-watt CPU and a power-hungry high-res OLED display. I didn’t anticipate the battery life to be miraculous.
In all of our testing, the Pavilion Plus 14’s battery life fell below average, peaking at 4.5 hours in our web browsing test, which cycles through a number of intricate websites. In this test, that is about half of what we prefer to see. The HP only lasted 7.5 hours in our video test, which loops a local Full HD Avengers trailer, which is significantly less than average. Furthermore, it only lasted 4.75 hours in the PCMark 10 Applications test, which is the best measure of a device’s productivity battery life, which is significantly less than the industry standard.
Overall, you probably won’t be able to complete a full day’s worth of productive chores on the Pavilion Plus 14. If you’re lucky, you’ll make it to lunch. The other configurations with lower-watt CPUs might perform better, but the charger for my review unit arrangement needs to be close by.
HP Pavilion Plus 14 Review: Price and configurations
The Pavilion Plus 14 is currently available in the majority of configurations at steep discounts. The entry-level model with a 12th-generation Core i5-1240P CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 256Gigabyte SSD, and a 14-inch 2.2K (2240 x 1400) IPS display is the best price for $550 at Staples (on sale from $780). A 12-core (four Performance and eight Efficient) and 16-thread processor with a maximum frequency of 4.4GHz, the Core i5-1240P consumes 28 watts of power.
The retail cost of the Asus Vivobook S 14X is $1,100 and includes a Core i7-12700H processor, 12GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, Intel Iris Xe graphics, and a 14-inch 2.8K OLED display operating at 120Hz. A Core i5-12500H, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and an OLED display are all available for $900. The Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1, which costs $1,050 and comes with a Core i7-1255U, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch Full HD+ (1920 x 1200) display, is another laptop that is priced similarly. The Pavilion Plus 14 is a fantastic value at its various sale prices, despite the setup options being complicated and occasionally perplexing.
Conclusion
With the Pavilion Plus 14, HP did so much right, and the pricing is difficult to contest. However, the appalling battery life and an overwhelming amount of crappy software could be a concern. You’ll adore the PC’s 16:10 display—which can be had in OLED if you want that—impressive performance, webcam, and Windows Hello capabilities if you can get beyond those drawbacks. And considering that some of the HP-bundled apps are actually useful, you might even benefit from them. The Pavilion sacrifice is ultimately about saving money by putting up with a few inconveniences. And I anticipate that a lot of people will be content to accept this compromise.
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