Most mid-range laptops today offer more or less come bundled with similar hardware specifications. Considering the amount of options you have, it becomes very difficult for one to choose a laptop from the lot. In such cases, a laptop’s design and build can prove to be the deciding factor. HP seems to be using the same strategy with their latest set of notebooks, one of which is the HP Pavilion 14-v015tu. With a bright red sporty design, this laptop stands out from its competition. It’s priced just under Rs. 40,000 and for that you not only get a stylish deign but also the latest hardware. A closer look though will tell us if the HP Pavilion 14-v015tu is really worth the money or if it’s only the unique look it has to offer.
Design and Build
The HP Pavilion 14-v015tu has an eye-catching design. Most of its credit goes to the bright red colour of the chassis. It looks vibrant and is probably the first thing that grabs your attention when you take the laptop out of its box. The red colour might not be to everyone’s liking, but it certainly will attract a lot of eyes from the younger crowds. The laptop has a plastic build all around. It has a matte finish on the outside, which looks good but doesn’t feel very strong when you hold it in your hand. The red matte finish extends itself all the way from the lid to the sides, to maintain its trendy look.
On the inside though, things look very different. The keyboard deck sports a grey glossy finish. To our surprise, it goes really well with the red colour extended around its edges. Keys are reasonably large, but they require a lot of pressure and lack a tactile click. It might take little time getting used to the keyboard before you can start using it comfortably. The function keys could also have been made a bit bigger, considering the ample space on the deck.
The trackpad has a decent size. It doesn’t have the split buttons, as seen on other laptops. It’s positioned very close to the edge, which makes it a little difficult to use, when you have the notebook placed on your lap. You also need to apply a lot of pressure when using the buttons. The laptop doesn’t appear and feel too bulky for its size. It weighs nearly 2 kg with the battery attached to the back. Except for a USB port and the headphone jack, all the ports are placed on the left. A Kensington security slot is also included, which is a very useful feature for students. The display hinge is flimsy though.
Features
The HP Pavilion 14-v015tu is a mid-range laptop, so there isn’t anything extraordinary in terms of specifications. The laptop’s powered by Intel’s latest Core i3-4030U, a dual-core processor running at 1.9 GHz. The processor isn’t high-end, but we feel it is sufficient for moderate use. It’s a bit disappointing that the laptop doesn’t come with a dedicated graphic card, instead it has to rely on Intel’s integrated HD Graphics 4400 graphics processor. Apart from playing full HD videos seamlessly, we are only expecting it to run some basic games with ease. Besides that, the laptop comes with 4GB of RAM and a whooping 1TB hard drive, which is quite good compared to other laptops in the same price range.
The 14-inch display has a resolution of 1366 x 768, which is the norm with most laptops today. HP claims to have optimised the screen for Windows 8.1. It looks decent enough for watching movies. In terms of audio, the laptop comes with two speakers, powered by Beats Audio. The speakers are placed in the front, right above the keyboard, so the sound is channelled right at you. There are three USB ports, which is one less than what most laptops in the same price range have to offer. Out of the three, two are USB 3.0 that deliver faster read and write speeds. Rest of the connectivity options are pretty standard. There is one HDMI port, an Ethernet port and an SD card reader. The DVD-RW is placed right next to a Kensington lock slot.
Wireless connectivity includes Wi-Fi 802.11n and Bluetooth 4.0. The laptop comes with a removable 4-cell Lithium-ion battery, which should last you for a good four to five hours on average use. The laptop comes powered with the latest Windows 8.1 operating system. HP has also included their list of software to the mix. The most useful one of the lot is HP Support Assistant. This app helps you to optimise your laptop by organizing various aspects including its battery life, storage space, software updates and multi-media output. We found apps like Connected Photo and Connected Music quite useful as well.
Performance
The first thing we tested on the laptop was its multimedia performance and to be honest, it wasn’t very impressive. The HD display was the disappointment here. Full HD videos looked washed out and dull even with the brightness set to maximum. Viewing angles were very poor as well. The only good thing was that there was no visible stuttering. The audio output is decent enough for the person sitting right in the front of the laptop. However, distortion is quite prominent at high volumes and the bass is quite low. The Beats Audio equaliser doesn’t help much here. We tried changing bass and treble levels while listening to music and found no change in the sound at all, irrelevant if it was on speakers or the headphones.
The on-board camera doesn’t frame much, which makes it very good for making Skype calls. However, the quality isn’t very good. Photos we clicked had plenty of noise, even when shot in well-lit conditions. The only time when the HP Pavilion 14-v015tu really impressed us was while web browsing. We faced no problems even when we had multiple tabs open at the same time. We were playing HD videos on YouTube while playing ‘Hello Run’ game online and were surprised to not find any stuttering at all. To compare its performance with other laptops in its price range, we ran a couple of benchmarks on the HP 14-v015tu. We started off with the CrystalDiskMark benchmark and got decent scores. In the sequential data transfer test, the laptop managed to clock-in a good write speed of 100.9 MB/s and a read speed 103.8 MB/s. The scores were more or less the same compared to what the other notebooks had to offer. We also ran the Resident Evil benchmark to test the gaming performance. The laptop struggled to run the benchmark seamlessly. All throughout the test it managed to maintain a poor frame rate of 6fps. The final score was 1028 with a grade D. It is evident that the HP Pavilion 14-v015tu isn’t equipped for heavy gaming. Of course, for most desktop usage purposes, it’ll do just fine.
Verdict
If you aren’t planning to run heavy games or applications on your laptop, then we believe the HP Pavilion 14-v015tu is a device to consider. It’s more or less perfect for daily use. It does exceptionally well while surfing the net and its multimedia performance isn't that bad either. A better gaming performance would have certainly made it the ideal choice for Rs. 40,000*. On the other hand, its good looks and the lightweight design do make it a good choice for people who travel a lot.
