TEST: HP Pavilion 14 – well-built and stylish laptop

HP’s Pavilion laptops are mostly a safe choice if you want a simple quality computer that does not lack anything important and offers a little nice design in everyday life without costing the shirt. Does the latest version of Pavilion 14 live up to that? The model we tested is sold exclusively in HP’s online store and costs SEK 7,490.

It is an uncomplicated but well-built laptop with a 14-inch screen and thin screen edges on the sides, and a chassis that mixes matte gray aluminum with matte gray plastic in a mostly nice and seamless way. Weighing just over 1.4 kilograms and 1.7 centimeters thick, it is not overly awkward.

The chassis is very stable and the computer is excellently comfortable to work on, with cool surfaces for wrists, nice and well-built and smartly disposed keyboard and a large mouse pad with fine precision. We have a complaint, the backlighting of the keys means that in certain lighting conditions it makes the text on the buttons difficult to read rather than the other way around.

But it’s mostly if you do not actively control and turn it off in those cases. And the fact that the computer has backlit buttons is a plus just that, it is not clear in this price range. You also get a fast and reliable fingerprint reader located to the right in front of the keyboard.

When it comes to external ports, we are not offered any surprises, here is a good set of fast USB ports, two type a and one type c, hdmi port and headphone jack. We had not complained about an extra usb, but since all are usb 3, the type c port has display port support and you charge the battery via a separate connector, it is still clearly approved.

A slightly simpler Ryzen

Pavilion 14 is available with both AMD and Intel processor, but the latest additions for AMD Ryzen. Our model has a Ryzen 5-5500U, 8 gigabytes of RAM and a fast ssd of 512 gigabytes. The 5000 series of Ryzen for laptops is a bit tricky, because some processor models are based on Zen2 architecture and some on newer and better Zen3. The 5500U is one of the Zen2 processors that does not quite reach the same performance peak.

However, it’s still a really fast little processor, basically in the same class as an Intel Core i5 in the 11th generation. A little better on pure multi-wire raw power thanks to its several cores, but marginally behind in single-wire operations. What does it mean in everyday life? Some types of jobs with several demanding processes that take place simultaneously flow extra well. This can apply to everything from Excel to Photoshop.

In short, this is plenty of performance for the money, but nothing unique in the price range. There are faster competitors, but also significantly slower. Whether you enjoy it depends on how you want to work with the computer. If you just surf and email, you can easily do with less.

The monitor has 1080p resolution and is built on an ips panel with a matte image surface, excellent viewing angles and even light distribution and flicker-free light control. However, the black at high brightness is far from ideal, so the total contrast range becomes moderate, and with no more than about 250 cd / m2 in maximum brightness, it can have significant problems when used outdoors. The color gamut is at the lowest level, a noticeable bit below the srgb standard, so it is a better screen for office work than for film.

Good quality most of the time

Other functions and components in the computer in addition to the screen are otherwise really good, but still with little room for improvement. The battery life is well approved, and the fan cooling is pleasantly quiet. The webcam handles light, colors and skin tones excellently, but adds an unusual amount of noise to the image. The speakers deliver clean and nice sound with good optimization for music and media thanks to software from Bang & Olufsen. But only to a certain extent, the effect in the bass tones is never directly powerful.

The computer comes with either Windows 10 or Windows 11 pre-installed “depending on when the product was manufactured” as it says on the store page. However, HP recommends an immediate upgrade if you are getting a Windows 10 device. It is relatively fast and is of course free. One good thing about it is that the bloatware that HP unfortunately throws into the computer does not become as intrusive in Windows 11 as in Windows 10.

But we still bother with pop-ups that want us to sign up for VPN services, renew a trial version of antivirus, and clean advertising links to Amazon and Booking.com. So it will be to clean out some debris immediately after start-up. But there is also some added value here, like a year with 100 gigabytes of Dropbox for free if you register your computer.

Specifications

Product name: HP Pavilion 14
Tested: March 2022
Model number: 14-ec0022no
Manufacturer: HP
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5500U, 2.1 GHz hexa core
Graphics: AMD Radeon Graphics
Memory: 8 GB ddr4
Storage: 512 GB ssd
Screen: 14 inch matte ips, 1920×1080 pixels
Webcam: 720p
Connections: Usb 3 gen 2 type c with display port, 2 usb 3 gen 1 type a, hdmi, headset
Wireless: Wifi 6, bluetooth 5.2
Operating system: Windows 10/11 Home
Other: Fingerprint reader, backlit keyboard, 2 year warranty
Noise level: 0-35 dBa
Battery life: 2h (high load), 13h 30min (low load)
Size: 32.5 x 21.7 x 1.7 cm
Weight: 1.41 kg
Rec. Award: 7,490 kr
Current price: SEK 7,490 at HP

Performance

Cinebench R23, cpu: 6 103 points
Cinebench R23, cpu a core: 1,173 points
Geekbench 5, cpu: 5,330 points
Geekbench 5, cpu and core: 1,144 points
Geekbench 5, graphic: 13 160 points
Disk, reading: 2 486.55 MB / s
Disk, writing972.19 MB / s