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HP Pavilion Pro 14 review: 90Hz OLED on the low-cost

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July 15, 2022

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HP Pavilion Plus 14

MSRP $850.00

“HP Pavilion Plus 14 offers a 90Hz OLED screen at an unbeatable price.”

Pros

• Spectacular 90Hz OLED display
• Class-leading construct quality
• Excellent keyboard and touchpad
• Solid productivity performance
• Strong value at sale prices

Cons

• Review unit performance limited by throttling
• Poor battery life

HP’s Pavilion line carries its budget to mid-range laptops, and it’s offered some solid options over time. For 2022, the corporate decided to upscale the road with the Pavilion Plus 14, a laptop that’s the thinnest Pavilion yet and the primary with an OLED display. And it’s a 90Hz display, offered at an especially attractive price.

It’s a competitive market, though, and HP has its job cut out.

My review unit is currently on sale at HP.com for $850, down from $1,000. That’s a compelling price for a Twelfth-gen Intel Core i7-12700H CPU and a 14-inch 16:10 2.8K (2880 x 1800) OLED display running at 90Hz. Actually, it’s one in every of the least expensive OLED laptops around, and it’s a step up from most, due to the display’s faster refresh rate. There are other excellent deals available, and when you can get the Pavilion Plus 14 at one in every of its sale prices, you’re getting an impressive laptop for a improbable price.

Design

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

The Pavilion Plus 14 is constructed of all aluminum, and you may tell. The chassis and lid evoke confidence within the laptop’s durability due to a scarcity of twisting, bending, or flexing. The Pavilion Plus 14 is as robust as some laptops I’ve reviewed recently that cost significantly more, resembling the $1,500 MSI Prestige 14. Like that machine, the Pavilion Plus 14 isn’t quite as solid because the Dell XPS 15 or the MacBook Pro, however it’s close, and people two are way more expensive.

Even the Pavilion Plus 14’s hinge is well-designed, allowing the lid to be opened with one hand while holding the display firmly in place. The Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 and Asus Vivobook S 14X retail for around the identical price because the Pavilion Plus 14, and neither are as rigid of their construction.

The laptop’s design is easy and streamlined, with five available colours — Natural Silver, Tranquil Pink, Mineral Silver (dark gray), Warm Gold, and Space Blue. My review unit was the silver model, sporting a minimalist but attractive aesthetic. That’s common amongst laptops today, with few standing out, particularly at budget and mid-range prices. For instance, the Asus Vivobook S 14X is one other similarly priced and conservatively designed laptop.

The Pavilion Plus 14 has been slimmed down in comparison with other Pavilion laptops, coming in at 0.72 inches and three.09 kilos. The plastic display bezels are small for the category, with an 87% screen-to-body ratio that’s higher than most similarly priced laptops. That’s partly due to the switch to a 16:10 display, which makes the laptop narrower than previous Pavilion 14 models and barely deeper. The Vivobook S 14X is wider and deeper while marginally thinner at 0.70 inches and considerably heavier at 3.59 kilos. The Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1 is wider and deeper, again thinner at 0.65 inches and heavier at 3.23 kilos.

There are many ports, with two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 ports, 2 USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, a full-size HDMI 2.1 port, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a microSD card reader. Probably the most significant omission is Thunderbolt 4 support, which isn’t a shock at this price point but still a bit disappointing. Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 provide wireless connectivity.

Price and configurations

As of when this review is being written, most configurations of the Pavilion Plus 14 are heavily discounted. The most effective deal is the entry-level model that’s $550 at Staples (on sale from $780) with a Twelfth-gen Intel Core i5-1240P CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and a 14-inch 2.2K (2240 x 1400) IPS display. The Core i5-1240P is a 28-watt 12-core (4 Performance and eight Efficient) and 16-thread processor running at a max frequency of 4.4GHz.

My review unit retails for $1,000 but is on sale for $850, with a Core i7-12700H (see the performance section), 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and a 14-inch 2.8K OLED display. Spend $1,130 (on sale from $1,310), and also you get an Intel Core i7-1255U CPU, 12GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2050 GPU, and the 14-inch OLED display. Oddly enough, the Core i7-1255U is a 15-watt 10-core (two Performance and eight Efficient), 12-thread CPU. You possibly can mix and match more CPU and GPU options using the configure-to-order tool at HP.com.

The Asus Vivobook S 14X is similarly priced at retail, $1,100 for a Core i7-12700H, 12GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, Intel Iris Xe graphics, and a 14-inch 2.8K OLED display at 120Hz. For $900, you may get a Core i5-12500H, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and the OLED display. One other laptop that’s priced around the identical is the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1, which is $1,050 for a Core i7-1255U, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch Full HD+ (1920 x 1200) display. Although the Pavilion Plus 14’s configuration options are complex and sometimes confusing, the laptop is an incredible value at its various sale prices.

Performance

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

My review unit was built across the Twelfth-gen Intel Core i7-12700H, a 45-watt CPU with 12 cores (4 Performance and eight Efficient) and 16 threads. It’s a processor that we don’t often see in thin-and-light ultrabooks just like the Pavilion Plus 14, which usually equip 28-watt Intel P-Series or 15-watt U-Series CPUs. Also unusual is that the Pavilion Plus 14 is restricted to Intel’s integrated Iris Xe graphics. Normally, the 45-watt CPUs are paired with discrete graphics.

We’ve one comparison machine that also used a Core i7-12700H and Iris Xe graphics, the Asus Vivobook S 14X. our benchmarks, the Pavilion Plus 14 had the same performance. In Geekbench 5, its single-core scores were lower but its multi-core scores were higher. It was essentially tied in our Handbrake test that encodes a 420MB video as H.265, and it was slower in Cinebench R23. Each laptops were below other machines with the identical CPU, resembling the Dell XPS 15, and depending on the benchmark, each were closer to laptops with the 28-watt Core i7-1260P. Unfortunately, the Pavilion Plus 14 wouldn’t complete the PCMark 10 Applications test, which is a superb test of general productivity performance.

One other similarity between the 2 laptops was that each demonstrated significant throttling. I used each laptop’s thermal control utility to check in balanced and performance modes, and I noted that every hit 95 degrees C or higher and throttled in our CPU-intensive benchmarks. That clearly limited their performance. As I identified with the Asus, it’s not that the Pavilion Plus 14 is slow; it’s that it’s not benefiting from the more powerful CPU given its very thin chassis.

The largest difference is that the Pavilion Pro 14 could be configured with the 28-watt Core i5-1240P, which could provide similar performance if it throttles less, and the 15-watt Core i7-1255U, which might presumably offer improved efficiency. And, the HP is significantly inexpensive than the Asus in most of its configurations.

Ultimately, my review unit performed well for an $850 laptop and okay for a retail price of $1,000. It’s going to maintain up with demanding productivity workflows, and it could possibly do some very lightweight creative tasks as well. As I just mentioned, though, the 45-watt CPU is wasted on the skinny chassis, and HP might need been higher off going with the Core i7-1260P.

The Pavilion Plus 14 could be configured with as much as an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2050, but my review unit used Intel Iris Xe graphics. It scored barely below average within the 3DMark Time Spy test, but its Fortnite performance was around average at 15 frames per second (fps) at 1200p and epic graphics. It’s not a gaming laptop unless you limit your library to older titles and eSports games.

Display and audio

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

One of the vital vital recent advances in display technology is the widespread adaptation of OLED panels. They supply brighter and more accurate colours and deeper blacks, making for excellent productivity, creativity, and media consumption displays. If you happen to can get an OLED display for lower than $1,000, that’s a terrific value proposition, and when that display runs at 90Hz, it’s even higher. Higher refresh rates help make Windows 11 a smoother experience, not to say allowing games to run tear-free at higher frame rates (not that we’re frightened about that with integrated graphics).

My review unit was configured with the two.8K (2880 x 1800) 90Hz OLED display, and it was beautiful out of the box. If I’d spent $850 on the laptop, I’d be tickled pink with the intense and accurate colours, inky blacks, and smooth Windows 11 experience.

In line with my colorimeter, HP didn’t cut any corners with the display. Brightness was excellent at 398 nits, well above our threshold of 300 nits for working in all lighting conditions except direct sunlight. Colours were wide at 100% of sRGB and 95% of AdobeRGB, and so they were extremely accurate at a DeltaE of 0.78 (1.0 or less is indistinguishable to the human eye). And, after all, the contrast was extremely deep at 27,830:1, making for inky blacks.

This can be a spectacular display at any price; it’s a steal at $1,000 or less. It’s a display that can please everyone, from productivity employees to creators to hardcore media consumers.

Two downward-firing speakers on the front bottom of the chassis provide the audio, putting out very low volume sound. What they lacked in loudness, the speakers made up for in quality, with clear mids and highs and a surprising amount of bass. You’ll want some headphones for music and serious binging, but for watching a video once in a while, the audio quality is tremendous.

Keyboard, touchpad, and webcam

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

The Pavilion Plus 14 enjoys a nicely sized keyboard with large keycaps, and its switches are light with a precise bottoming motion. It’s almost nearly as good because the keyboard on HP’s Spectre line and has the identical row of navigation keys on the right-hand side. As I used to be writing this review, I discovered the keyboard very comfortable for longer typing sessions.

The touchpad is large and has a smooth surface that makes for precise swiping with support for the total complement of Windows 11 multitouch gestures, due to Microsoft Precision drivers. The buttons are responsive and quiet. You won’t find a greater touchpad on many laptops costing twice as much. The display isn’t touch-enabled, unfortunately.

Windows 11 Hello passwordless support is provided by a fingerprint reader on the palm rest, which isn’t as convenient as those built into the facility button. Nevertheless, it was quick and reliable during my testing.

HP built a 5MP webcam into the Pavilion Plus 14 together with some technology to enhance image quality. The video was smooth and detailed, a lot better than the common, and ok to make for excellent videoconferencing.

Battery life

Mark Coppock/Digital Trends

The Pavilion Plus 14 has 51 watt-hours of battery capability, which is somewhat on the low side for a 14-inch laptop, and my review unit equipped a 45-watt CPU and a power-hungry high-res OLED display. I wasn’t expecting miracles by way of battery life.

I didn’t get any. The Pavilion Plus 14 demonstrated below-average battery life in all our tests, starting with our web browsing test that cycles through a handful of complex web sites, where it hit 4.5 hours. That’s around half of what we wish to see on this test. In our video test that loops a neighborhood Full HD Avengers trailer, the HP managed just 7.5 hours, again well under average. And within the PCMark 10 Applications test that’s one of the best indication of productivity battery life, it hit just 4.75 hours, again significantly lower than average.

Overall, the Pavilion Plus 14 is unlikely to get you thru a full day of productivity tasks. You may be lucky to make it to lunch. The opposite configurations with lower-watt CPUs may do higher, but my review unit configuration will need its charger kept handy.

Our take

The HP Pavilion Plus 14 isn’t the primary thin-and-light laptop I’ve reviewed with a 45-watt CPU and, apparently, thermally limited performance. Nevertheless, it’s way more forgivable at an $850 sale price with a spectacular 90Hz OLED display. The battery life is disappointing, however the construct quality is great, as are the keyboard and touchpad. And as this review is being written, you may buy the Pavilion Plus 14 with a Core i5-1240P CPU and a 2.2K IPS display for as little as $550, which is an amazing value.

The Pavilion Plus 14 is a pretty mid-range laptop even at full retail prices. And I can’t stress enough how nice it’s to get such an incredible OLED display at such a low price.

Are there any alternatives?

There aren’t many laptops in the identical price range offering Twelfth-gen Intel CPUs. I’ve reviewed a few them, and neither offers quite the identical overall value because the Pavilion Plus 14.

Nevertheless, when you can spend a bit more, then Lenovo’s Yoga 9i Gen 7 is a solid option. It has its own incredible OLED display and a shocking latest design, it performs similarly, and it has higher battery life. As a convertible 2-in-1, it offers a more flexible form factor.

You could possibly drop down in display size barely and consider the Apple MacBook Air M2. Even though it’s $1,200 with less RAM at 8GB and storage at 256GB, it is going to be significantly faster and can offer considerably higher battery life. And its display must be greater than ok.

How long will it last?

The Pavilion Plus 14 is exceptionally well-built for a budget to mid-range laptop, and it should last for years of productive service. Its components are modern, although the shortage of Thunderbolt 4 does hold it back. Its industry-standard one-year warranty is okay at these prices.

Must you buy it?

Yes, when you can get it at a sale price. Performance is nice if limited by the skinny chassis, and the construct quality, keyboard, and touchpad are all excellent. Battery life is a disappointment, though, with the review configuration. Other configurations with lower-watt CPUs might last more.

Editors’ Recommendations