HP’s convertible laptops have been quite popular when it comes to the company’s Spectre series of laptops, but it isn’t quite same when you come lower in the budget Pavilion line. The new Pavilion x360 (ek1009TU) tries to make up for that with a pricing of Rs. 57,990, giving a convertible HP laptop to compete with the likes of Lenovo and ASUS. Let’s try and see what it gets right and what it doesn’t.
What works:
Multimedia: Boasting B&O speakers, these better than what most laptops come at this price point, giving a loud and clear output that you wouldn’t mind using them for watching a movie or TV series all alone in your room. The laptop also handles most video and audio codecs without too much trouble, too. There’s also an SD card slot, so you can transfer your photos or videos without having to fiddle with wires if you use a camera or backup your data on a microSD card.
Display: This laptop features a 14-inch full HD (1920x1080) IPS display that can touch 250nits of peak brightness. It’s a sharp display that renders text well and can handle high resolution videos, providing a wide colour range. The multi-touch display is responsive when put into the convertible mode and usable for several quick tasks such as note-taking, file transfers or even watching a video. A lot of times Windows’ convertible notebooks come with a sluggish touchscreen in place, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.
Performance: This Windows 11 Home laptop boasts of Intel’s i5-1335U chip along Iris Xe Graphics, with a 1TB NvME M.2 SSD and 16GB of DDR4 RAM (2x8GB Samsung RAMs). The device handled day to day tasks of multiple Web browsers, Microsoft Office apps and playing a video alongside without breaking a sweat. Though it can heat up a bit when put on charge, it’s not alarming or very frequent otherwise. Rarely did it show any hiccups in opening or closing of apps and didn’t lag while scrolling within apps such as Mail or Telegram.
Keyboard and fingerprint scanner: This is a nice backlit keyboard with hard tactile keys that require just sufficient pressure and are responsive enough to make it a good experience for long typing sessions. You can switch backlit on or off while the on mode has two modes in terms of brightness (brightest mode seemed to be the best). The fingerprint scanner near the palm rest is also responsive and dependably for everyday use, so much so that I rarely had to use Windows pin to login during my usage.
What doesn’t:
Portability as a convertible: the Pavilion x360 weighs a little over 1.4kg and measures 1.7cm in thickness, and I find it a bit too heavy to be carried around as a convertible. The weight doesn’t really make it a convenient device that you can use while on the go in the convertible mode, while it’s just fine when using as a conventional laptop, sadly, there’s isn’t much going for it as a convertible. Also, its battery life is a little under 7 hours on a full charge in my experience, which isn’t bad, but not that great either if mobility is the headline.
Verdict: The Pavilion x360 is a well built and sturdy laptop that has good performance and multimedia capabilities as a laptop but doesn’t quite have the advantages to be used as a convertible on the go. Looking at its pros and cons, the laptop is still a worthy option as a conventional Windows laptop under Rs. 60,000 but you can look at somewhere else if you’re primarily scouting for a convertible notebook that isn’t heavy on your hands.
