HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch Review: Solid Windows laptop experience

The laptop market has suddenly woken up! What used to be a rather dull and dreary segment has suddenly seen brands putting in extra efforts to bring in innovation across all prices. For less than Rs. 80,000, the laptops you get these days flaunt luxuries such as OLED displays, fast charging batteries, 2K or even 3K displays, and solid build quality. HP is a key player in this space of the laptop market and hence, has come out with a brand-new laptop for those who want a reliable work laptop but with some of those niceties. Meet the HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch laptop.

The HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch starts at Rs. 78,999, which puts it among some very competitive business laptops in this segment. HP takes a lead though as not many laptops in this price segment feature a 12th Get Intel processor. HP takes pride in flaunting these 12th Gen H series processors, along with a couple of extra attention in the world of display and build quality. Is this then the new easy recommendation for those who want a no-nonsense yet feature-rich laptop.

To find out, I have been using the HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch laptop for a few weeks and here is what we figured out.

HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch Design

Other than its Spectre lineup, HP hasn’t been keen on changing the design of its laptops. The Pavilion series has always looked plain and this HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch laptop is no different. This is a simple metal clamshell device with a massive HP logo sitting bang in the centre, and the same grip line running along the edge. Open the lid and the layout is classic HP — neatly laid out keyboard and trackpad.

Despite having all metal build, the HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch weighs 1.4 kilos, which is fairly lightweight. The sides house all the necessary I/O ports, which include 2 X USB-C ports with speeds up to 10GBps, 2 X USB-A ports with 5GBps speeds, 1X HDMI 2.1 port, and 1X 3.5 audio jack. Wireless connectivity includes Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.

HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch Display

As the name suggests, this HP laptop features a 14-inch display. HP is offering a 2.2K resolution LED-backlit IPS LCD display with max brightness rating of 300 nits and an anti-glare coating. The 16:10 aspect ratio makes this a much easier display to get work done, or read long format stories. The panel itself is of good quality, with nice colour reproduction and wide viewing angles. The low Blue light emissions means it is easy to work on this machine for hours. The display bezels are thicker than usual and HP could have done something to trim them. Nonetheless, this is a bright and sharp display that is comfortable to work on.

HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch Performance

This is where HP is capitalising the new Intel 12th Get H Series processors for the HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch laptop. My unit came with the more popular Intel Core i5-12500H processor along with an Intel Iris Xe graphics. This is paired with 16GB RAM and 512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD storage. As standard, you have Windows 11 pre-loaded on this machine.

This configuration is more than enough for most users who seek a laptop for getting done with work. And in my case as well, this setup posed no issues. On a daily basis, the HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch laptop was happy to deal with 12-13 tabs of Google Chrome, MS Word, and WhatsApp Desktop app — all together. This also involved some basic image editing on Pixel as well as Adobe Photoshop.

With Iris Xe graphics at the helm, this HP laptop is obviously not a gaming laptop and hence, it is better to not try gaming on this. HP pre-loads the laptop with a couple of its own apps, most of which are best left unused. However, the HP Palette is a useful touch, offering a couple of nifty mini apps and features to help with connecting your laptop with your smartphone. You can use it to cast your screen on a tablet, laptop or phone, or transfer files between your PC and phone quickly.

HP always excels with its keyboard and the one on the HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch is a great one as usual. The keys have ample travel in them and they offer great feedback. In fact, the keyboard is almost as good as the one one the MacBook Air. The trackpad is decent with its sensitivity and gestures.

Sadly, the speakers on the HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch laptop are best described as average. The stereo speaker setup is loud with decent volume levels but the audio quality has no depth to it. Hence, these speakers are best for quick YouTube sessions instead of using them for long movie sessions.

As part of the biometric verification process, you get a separate fingerprint scanner on the palm rest, which works fine. The 5MP webcam is decent for video calls as long as there’s ample lighting in the room.

HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch Battery

This is where the HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch laptop, just like other Windows laptops selling at this price, falls flat on its face. With a 51 Whr battery at the helm, this HP laptop at most can manage up to 4 hours of stamina on a single charge. This data comes with the display brightness set to 40 percent, Google Chrome multiple tabs, and constant connection to the Wi-Fi network. Despite all the promises made by Intel regarding power efficiency, Windows laptops still struggle to make it past the 5-hour mark. HP on its part could have stuffed at least a bigger 70 Whr battery. Thankfully, a 90W USB-C charger can fill up the battery to 50 percent in 30 minutes.

Verdict

There is no doubt that for a starting price of Rs. 78,990, the HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch is a solid laptop for doing work. Yes, this is an easy Windows laptop to recommend to those who want reliable and well-built laptops for work and productivity. The 16:10 aspect ratio display with 2.2K resolution, the 12th Gen Core i5 processor, and a comfortable keyboard make this HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch laptop a wholesome productivity package. Sadly, the battery life on this Core i5 variant is sub-par, which means you will need to carry the charger with you everywhere. Moreover, HP’s design for its laptop has started looking stale.

On the whole, if you have almost Rs. 80,000 to spend on a Windows laptop, this HP Pavilion Plus 14-inch laptop is an option worth considering. Those looking for better battery life should look at the Apple MacBook Air with the M1 chip.