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he HP Pavilion Plus 14 is a strange creature. The company’s cheaper computers, like the Envy and Spectre models, have always been in the Pavilion line. HP, on the other hand, has been putting out Pavilions here and there that are solidly in the midrange. Their main selling point is that they are light, not that they are cheap. This is where the new Pavilion Plus fits in. It’s the first Pavilion to have an OLED screen and also the thinnest Pavilion ever made.
With a 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H, 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a 2.8K 90Hz OLED display, my $999.99 (currently $819.99) model is a step up from the $600 Pavilions I’m used to seeing on store shelves. This is definitely no longer a cheap laptop. Even though the Pavilion Plus 14 isn’t the best laptop you can buy for $999 (a price point where the M1 MacBook Air also hangs out) and has some odd flaws left over from its budget roots, it offers a combination of portability, power, and conferencing features that is hard to find for less than $1,000.
HP Pavilion 14 Specifications
| Specification | Description |
|---|---|
| Processor | 11th Gen Intel Core i5 or i7 |
| RAM | Up to 16 GB DDR4 |
| Storage | Up to 512 GB PCIe SSD |
| Display | 14-inch FHD IPS |
| Graphics | Intel Iris Xe or NVIDIA MX450 |
| Battery life | Up to 8 hours |
| Weight | 1.41 kg |
| Operating system | Windows 10 or Windows 11 |
HP Pavilion 14 review (2022): Design
Last but not least, we’ll talk about the ports and connections. For a smaller laptop, there are a lot of ways to connect. On the left side, there is an audio jack and a USB Type-A port. On the right side, there is another USB-A port, a USB Type-C port, an HDMI-out connection, and the power jack. HDMI isn’t often found on laptops this small, and even USB-A isn’t always included. If this is the only PC you’ll ever have, you’re pretty much set. The USB-C port doesn’t work with Thunderbolt, but it can deliver power.
A 720p webcam is also included, but it doesn’t make very good videos. The picture is a little bit grainy, and light sources are easily blown out, but it does the job. In 2022, we’re likely to see more 1080p cameras with better sensors, but not at this price. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth wireless connections are also built into the Pavilion 14. You can buy this laptop from its official website
HP Pavilion 14 review (2022): Keyboard and Touchpad
The HP Pavilion 14 is a cheap laptop that looks and works better than what it costs. At only 3.2 pounds (1.4 kilogrammes), the laptop is light enough to bring to school or work every day. It could also be a good laptop for a home office because it’s easy to hook up to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse at a desk and has a screen that’s big enough to use all day. It’s just a good laptop for everyday use that looks nice.
You can buy the 14-inch laptop already set up, or you can customise it for prices starting at $650. HP has a lot to choose from, like AMD and Intel processors, discrete graphics, and even four different body colours. It gives you a lot of room to find a good balance between your performance needs and your budget. But the Pavilion 14 costs $1,340 even when it is fully loaded. And that’s before any discounts that could make the deal even better.
HP Pavilion 14 review (2022): Display
HP also lets you choose from three different displays. They are all in full HD (1,920×1,080 pixels). My review laptop had the base display, which is fine for general use, just like the rest of the configuration. Rated at 250 nits, it’s not very bright, and the glossy finish isn’t great if you often work near bright windows or lights. You can move up to a touchscreen from this screen. The best option has a brightness rating of 400 nits and a colour range of 100% sRGB. This makes it the best choice if you want to edit photos or videos or just want better colour.
The webcam is one of the few things that can’t be made better. It’s a 720p HD camera, which was common before people spent more time on video calls. It needs a lot of light to take a good picture, though. It would be great if HP had an upgrade for its 5-megapixel webcam. HP does include its Enhanced Lighting app, which turns part of your screen into a ring light to help you look a little better on camera.
HP Pavilion 14 review (2022): Connectivity
In terms of how well it connects to other things, the Pavilion 14 also does a good job. There is a 3.5mm audio jack and a USB-A port on the left side. On the right, you’ll find a slot for a MicroSD card, another USB-A port, a USB-C port, and slots for a power cable and an HDMI cable.
This last one might seem a little old-fashioned now, but you never know when it might be useful. We found it very useful because it was the only way to get Sky Go content onto our smart TV (the Sky Go app doesn’t work with Chromecast, which is a shame).
HP Pavilion 14 review (2022): Graphics
Even so, this device probably doesn’t need a processor from the H-series. It’s not sold as a workstation or a machine for making content, and this model doesn’t have discrete graphics, so it wouldn’t be a good choice for those uses anyway. I probably would have liked it better if HP had used a more efficient chip that could get more out of the battery.
HP Pavilion 14 review (2022): Gaming
The silver keys and dark grey lettering don’t go well together. Backlighting on the keyboard makes it easy to see the keys even when it’s dark. Depending on how the light hits it, the white backlighting on the silver background can be hard to see during the day. In these situations, the backlighting can actually make things worse.
The typical layout without a number block and smaller arrow keys should only be a problem for private users who want to use this device for gaming. If HP had put the power button outside of the keyboard, they could have made the arrow keys bigger.
HP Pavilion 14 review (2022): Performance
The laptop has a 12-core Intel Core i5 (5-12500H) processor that can go up to 4.5GHz and has Intel Turbo Boost technology to give it more power when doing hard tasks. As was said, the processor comes with 16GB of DDR4 RAM and 512GB of SSD storage. The laptop doesn’t have a LAN port, but it does support Wi-Fi 6E. I couldn’t test it, but I like that it’s there.
Now, there are two ways to look at the show. Given how expensive the Pavilion 14 Plus is, its benchmark scores are about average. It got a score of 4,269 on PC Mark 10’s CPU test, which is slightly better than what the Intel Core i3 (1220P)-powered Asus Vivobook 15 (X1502) I reviewed got. Keep in mind that the second one only costs Rs 44,990, which is a lot less than the current HP notebook. Also, the GPU score on the 3D mark was 758, which is, again, not great.
HP Pavilion 14 review (2022): Battery Life
It has a wide range of connections, so you can use it with a lot of different monitors, TVs, headphones, universal chargers, and other things. The battery life is good. Overall, the Pavilion 14 does a good job of letting you use Windows 10 without slowing things down with too much software or annoying quirks.
In short, this laptop is nice and works well. It doesn’t get in the way and lets you do what you want. And for the price, that’s about as fair as it gets.
HP Pavilion 14 review (2022): Heat
The HP Pavillion Laptop 14 is great at keeping most things cool. We opened 35 tabs in Google Chrome, and four of them were playing different YouTube videos. The fans turned on pretty quickly, but it never got too hot to touch.
During our tests, the touchpad reached a temperature of 76.5 degrees Fahrenheit, which is much lower than our comfort threshold of 95 degrees. The average temperature between the G and H keys was 84.5 degrees, and the temperature on the bottom was 101.5 degrees, which is a bit warm and above the 95-degree comfort threshold.
HP Pavilion 14 review (2022): Final Words
The HP Pavilion 14 is a great laptop for people who want to save money but still need something that can handle day-to-day tasks well. Also, it looks great, especially with this pink chassis. Just keep in mind that its battery life isn’t as good as those of its competitors and that the keys don’t light up.
HP Pavilion 14 review: The good and The bad
The Good
- Wide selection of ports
- It runs Windows 11.
The Bad
- Subpar webcam
FAQS
Overall, HP made a good laptop that is easy on the wallet with the Pavilion 14. There are a couple of pretty small problems. The battery doesn’t last long. It lasted 6 hours and 51 minutes when we streamed a movie with the screen brightness at 50% and the volume through earbuds at 50%.
HP’s Pavilion Laptop 14 (2022) is a well-rounded budget model with fast speed and a good set of features for the price. It is a good value and avoids any major problems.