The HP Pavilion Plus 14 will definitely be on your radar when looking for your next lightweight and powerful laptop. But did he deserve to be there?
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Our full review
HP Pavilion Plus 14-EH0001NF
Gaming PC, creative PC, office PC… Laptops that are as light as they are powerful, with the best screens and components. We can’t help but look for the best of everything, but it’s impossible to find it: you’ll have to balance each aspect to find the perfect compromise.
Also, if you’re looking for an ultrabook that’s also capable of playing the latest video games, finding a laptop like the HP Pavilion Plus 14 with a graphics card might be tempting. Let’s see what he has in his belly.
DESIGN
HP, or Hewlett Packard for the old ones at the back of the room, is in a strange position in the market in terms of design. On the one hand, it owns the Spectre brand often at the forefront of modern lines. And on the other… There is Pavilion. This category of which our product is a part, which seems to be locked in the same lines since the early 2010s and has never really evolved. This is the remark that we make naturally by taking the computer in hand.
Source: Frandroid – Chloé Pertuis
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Because yes, the HP Pavilion Plus 14 is “light”… Like an ultrabook from the beginning of the previous decade, 1.4 kilos when many are now close to the kilo or even go below this bar. It has the lines of the copy of a MacBook from the 2010s, with a slightly rounded light gray metal body (but not too much either) whose inspiration leans towards the unibody but whose construction is not. And it has the same dimensions besides, at 31.35 x 22.42 x 1.84 cm, when the finesse has also become very accessible in the meantime.
All this does not mean that the formula no longer works. On the contrary: the HP Pavilion Plus 14 remains a very well-built laptop, easily transportable everywhere, and that will never shock the eye of the onlooker passing by. Like Dell, HP is actually still very influenced by its place in the B2B market where originality is not really appropriate, but this very pragmatic side could be an advantage for some users.
KEYBOARD AND TOUCHPAD
Perhaps it is precisely this experience in B2B that allows HP to integrate here a keyboard that is instinctively perfect. The keys are well spaced, have a deeper activation distance than most references on the market and a very satisfactory bounce. We can also count on some navigation shortcuts dragged to the right side of this configuration.
The touchpad is superbly centered at the bottom of the device, and is diagonally wide enough to be constantly comfortable. Only, its plastic coating is quite disappointing considering that on this tariff category, glass coatings are legion. The same goes for the integration of its fingerprint scanner, placed below the arrow keys and not integrated into any start button like other competitors. Again signs of a lack of evolution in the manufacturer’s designs.
CONNECTION
On the left of the device, there is a combo jack, a USB A 3.1 5 Gb/s port and a micro SD card reader. On the right, there is a second USB A port with the same specifications, an HDMI 2.1 port and two USB C 3.2 Gen 2 ports at 10 Gb/s supporting Power Delivery and DisplayPort 1.4.
A connector that on paper is not so bad, but remains disappointing by noting the forgetting of an increasingly important standard that is nevertheless technically supported by the configuration of the device. Yes, we’re talking about Thunderbolt, which should be integrated on all Intel configurations sold at four digits these days.
WEBCAM AND AUDIO
The five-megapixel webcam doesn’t really have much more to offer than the market average, namely a rather dull and poorly defined image, nibbled away by noise. Enough to do videoconferencing, and nothing more.
No pleasant surprises on the audio setup either. The speakers are once again located below the device, in the exact place where the laptop (emphasis on “lap”) rests on your legs that block the audio output as a result. The speakers themselves have nothing notable, since always lacking general definition to be really satisfying. They will do the trick for social media videos, in short.
SCREEN
The HP Pavilion Plus 14 is equipped with a 14-inch OLED panel in 2880 x 1800 pixel definition, or a 2.8k screen with a 16:10 ratio. This one supports a refresh rate of 90Hz, but is not tactile and is not anti-reflective.
Under our probe and with the DisplayCal software, we can observe that the panel covers 168% of the sRGB space, 119% of the DCI P3 space and 116% of the Adobe RGB at the factory. The maximum brightness is measured at 416 cd/m² in HDR mode, which is quite correct for this HDR-compatible configuration up to 500 cd/m², although it would have benefited from the support of an anti-glare treatment to further optimize the readability of the screen.
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The overall colorimetry isn’t impressive, but isn’t bad either. We can count on an average color temperature of 6200K, slightly very warm compared to the 6500K sought, and an average Delta E00 of 2.65 slightly far from the 1.5 sought in our test, but not bad.
We appreciate whatever happens to see a screen with brightness greater than 300 cd / m², the average observed when manufacturers seek to save money on their panels, and a refresh rate of 90Hz competitive in this sector.
SOFTWARE
The manufacturer HP never deprives itself of integrating a lot of adware into its formula, and has not held back on the Pavilion Plus 14. We are always greeted by the heartbreaking McAfee and its treacherous practices, as the bonus of regular notifications for signing up for ExpressVPN or creating Dropbox storage.
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PERFORMANCE
The HP Pavilion Plus 14-eh0001nf we’re testing here is equipped with the 12th Gen Intel Core i7 1255U, a 10-core, 12-thread SoC backed by 16GB of DDR4-3200MHz RAM and 1TB of PCIe Gen 3 x4 storage. We also have here an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2050 with 4GB of GDDR6 TGP of only 35W.
Yes: even if the SoC is new, it is not supported by state-of-the-art hardware. Whether it’s DDR4 RAM at 3200 MHz, PCIe Gen 3 storage or this mobile RTX 2050 GPU that is not particularly useful on this configuration, this Pavilion Plus 14 gives a bit of the feeling of being a potpourri of components ordered wholesale by the manufacturer the year before.
GENERAL BENCHMARKS
Side benchmarks, no bad surprise on this Intel i7-1255U, which offers us a score of 6805 points in multi core and 1712 points in single core on Cinebench R23. We have seen this SoC pushed to better scores, but these results remain average. This is further underscored by its score of 5641 on PC Mark 10, which highlights that the HP Pavilion Plus 14 is fighting in the same category as its rivals.
The GeForce RTX 2050 also displays performance a bit disappointing, but not surprising. With a score of 1595 on Time Spy Extreme, we can’t really say that it will be able to support a big player over the next few years, but it will launch popular competitive free-to-play without problems in 1080p.
COOLING AND NOISE
The HP Pavilion Plus 14 has at least one advantage: it controls its heating rather well. If it still reaches 40 ° C on its lower hull when pushed thoroughly, it remains very discreet and does not take off to other skies. On this aspect, it remains an ultrabook.
AUTONOMY
The HP Pavilion Plus 14 features a built-in 51Wh battery and is compatible with the DisplayPort standard and therefore charges through the USB-C port. It is compatible with a power supply up to 90W, whose charger is supplied in the box.
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The autonomy of the device is surely one of the most disappointing elements of its configuration. Since it presents itself as an ultrabook, it is expected to have the longevity of an ultrabook; This is not the case. On advanced office use, we can only count on it for 3 or 4 hours.
By really giving it every chance, by activating the energy saving mode and with limited backlighting, we turn around 6 hours on average. Without even going as far as the MacBook records, laptops in the Windows universe today easily reach ten hours. The HP Pavilion Plus 14 is far too limited on this point.
PRICING AND AVAILABILITY
The HP Pavilion Plus 14-eh0001nf is now available in France. Our test configuration is sold at 1,599 euros on the manufacturer’s official website.
OUR OPINION ON THE HP PAVILION PLUS 14
Design
The HP Pavilion Plus 14 doesn’t have a bad design, but it’s terribly dated. The absence of Thunderbolt is a real disappointment.
Screen
If this HP does not have the best colorimetry, it makes the effort to be competitive by integrating a 90Hz compatible OLED panel rather bright.
Photo
The image quality given by the webcam is poor.
Performance
A SoC that appears to be recent, but surrounded by components that are now dated. The RTX 2050 seems to be here to support two profiles that won’t be satisfied by the rest of the PC: gamers and creatives alike have better options.
Software
Minimum service on the side of interesting software, and a good dose of adware that does not hesitate to send notifications.
Autonomy
Use of the USB-C Power Delivery standard, yes, but for a battery life of 4/5 hours that is difficult to see on an ultrabook format.
Final score of the test
Medium
A good screen does not save this HP Pavilion Plus 14 from a terrible lack of direction. Is it a PC for gamers on the road? All components will quickly run out of steam in the race for power in the coming years. For creatives? The screen is pretty good, but doesn’t cover the needs of this category of user. Hard workers on the go who want to be entertained in the evening? With 5 hours of autonomy, working efficiently in a nomadic way will be complicated.
All that remains is a simple observation: the HP Pavilion Plus 14 exists mainly to use the stock of components already integrated into other devices. And by this fact, it is not addressed to anyone and therefore cannot be decently advised in the face of alternatives that really target their audience.
