Introduction
Laptops have gotten cheap. A few years ago trying to buy a laptop for less than $500 (about £328, AU$703) pretty much limited your options to underpowered Netbooks with poor ergonomics and build quality. Fast forward to the present and the market of super-budget notebooks has exploded with Chromebooks, and more recently with Windows 10 Cloudbooks, well worth their small sticker prices.
Now, the HP Pavilion x2 has entered the scene as the most affordable 2-in-1 laptop that easily transforms between laptop and tablet modes by way of a detachable screen. For $299 (£249, AU$549), this 10-inch hybrid comes outfitted with a moderately powerful Intel Atom processor and a bundled year of Office 365 and OneDrive cloud storage to make up for the device's modicum of memory and drive space. Not only is the HP Pavilion x2 a great deal for a basic Window machine, it's a handy tablet for streaming media.
Design
The HP Pavilion x2 is a lopsided 2-in-1 machine. The tablet end of the device is more than twice as thick and heavy as the keyboard section. Thanks to its unbalanced chassis, the Pavilion is prone to tipping over backwards when you use the device on your lap.
However, the system is much more stable on a desk and this is thanks to the way the 10-inch hybrid rears up onto its rounded posterior. By designing the Pavilion x2 to sit on its half-cylindrical hinge, all of the weight of the components and screen is better distributed while lowering the HP convertible's center of gravity. It's a smart design that also props up the keyboard at a slight ergonomic angle, which in turn absorbs the force of your fingers hitting the keys in a way similar to the Surface Pro 4's keyboard.
The keyboard itself is a bit cramped, but it's the typical trade-off that comes with these miniature notebooks. Although the keyboard nearly spans the entire width of the laptop and offers a decent 1.3mm of travel, the surface area of each key is significantly diminished. Most users without dainty hands will end up sprinkling in typos and extra characters with every keystroke.
Similarly, the trackpad is surprisingly spacious, taking up every bit of remaining space below the keyboard, but it's just not fun to use. The plastic touchpad does a more than serviceable job when you want to move the cursor around, but it does a terrible job registering multi-touch commands. Two-finger scrolling feels especially jittery, making webpages move in odd increments as I move my finger across the surface.
Solidly plastic
Overall, the HP Pavilion x2 is about as plastic as a budget laptop can get. You won't find a single gram of metal on the notebook's exterior save for ports, but the unit feels sturdy enough. Although the hinge creaks ever so slightly when you push back the lid, it does a solid job of keeping the screen locked in position.
What's more, there are strong magnets that keep the display firmly attached to the keyboard base. The connection is so strong that you could shake this device with the screen dangling downwards without worrying about it falling off and crashing onto the ground.
Mini boom
Despite being such a small unit, the Pavilion x2 comes with powerful speakers located on the sides of the tablet's 10.1-inch screen. Tuned by Bang & Olufsen, the tweeters can easily project a song across a room and deliver full-bodied sound without any odd notes of distortion.
Unfortunately, the screen is a little less impressive with a resolution limited to 1,280 x 800, so Netflix streams and other high-resolution content looks a bit fuzzy on this display. But again this device only costs 300 bones and the display panel HP picked for this machine has good color and wide viewing angles.
Specifications and performance
Weighing in at 2.48 pounds (1.12kg) with the keyboard base attached, the Pavilion x2 is shockingly heavy for a 10-inch notebook, especially compared to the 1.96 pound (890g) Asus Chromebook Flip. However, in the world of Windows 10 convertibles, this machine is actually lighter than the 2.82 pound (1.28kg) Acer Aspire 10 E and the 2.61 pounds (1.18kg) Asus Transformer Book TP200SA.
The Pavilion x2's screen by itself also weighs just 1.29 pounds (0.58kg), making this one of the lightest tablet-laptops I've held in a long time. This also means it weighs a tenth of a pound less than the 1.37 pound (0.62kg) Surface 3. The HP hybrid's 0.78-inch (19.81mm) thickness also places it squarely between the thinner TP200 and the chunky Switch 10 E.
Here is the HP Pavilion x2 configuration sent to TechRadar for review:
Spec Sheet
- CPU: 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z3736F (quad-core, 2MB cache, 2.16GHz with Turbo Boost)
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics
- RAM: 2GB DDR3L SDRAM
- Screen: 10.1-inch, 1,280 x 800 WXGA WLED IPS touchscreen display
- Storage: 32GB eMMC
- Ports: 1 x USB 2.0; 1 x micro HDMI; headphone/mic combo jack; microSD card reader
- Connectivity: 802.11b WLAN and Bluetooth
- Camera: HP TrueVision HD Webcam (front-facing) with integrated digital microphone
- Weight: 2.61 pounds (1.12kg)
- Size: 10.39 x 6.81 x 0.78 inches (W x D x H) (264 x 173 x 19.81mm)
The lowest end HP Pavilion x2, which you see above, rings up for $299 or £249. In terms of specs it comes with a faster processor than both Acer ($279/£229/AU$549) and Asus' ($349/£249/AU$498) respective budget convertibles. However, this starter configuration only comes with a paltry amount of memory and storage.
You'll have to fork over $349 to bump up the storage to 64GB, which comes standard on the Australian models for AU$549. Sadly, though, RAM is stuck at 2GB and the only way to add more is cracking open the machine yourself for a DIY upgrade. The good news is every Pavilion x2 comes bundled with a free year of Microsoft Office 365 plus 60 minutes of Skype calling and 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage to sweeten the deal.
Performance
The HP Pavilion x2 isn't your go-to gaming machine, nor is it powerful enough to edit images. But it excels at being a convenient little web browsing companion for watching streaming media – though not at it's sharpest quality thanks to the sub-HD display. What's even more impressive is the long battery life you can stretch out of this 10-inch hybrid laptop.
Benchmarks
Here's how the HP Pavilion x2 performed in our suite of benchmark tests:
- 3DMark: Cloud Gate: 1,152; Sky Diver: 431; Fire Strike: N/A
- GeekBench: 745 (single-core); 2,095 (multi-core)
- PCMark 8 (Home Test): 1,106 points
- PCMark 8 Battery Life: 7 hours and 34 minutes
Based on the Pavilion x2's Cinebench scores, it's a cut above the Acer Switch 10 E and Asus TP200SA in processing power. In real world use, the HP hybrid's higher benchmark scores translate into it being a more reliable system when under a heavy load. You'll be able to open more browser tabs and pile on multitasking without experiencing much slow-down.
That said, this plucky 2-in-1 has it limits. For instance, 1080p video playback proved to be a serious strain on the machine and it was only able to play media for 5 hours and 28 minutes – conversely Asus' Transformer lasted for an additional hour and change.
I was able to get 7 hours of web browsing, word processing and some light chatting out of the Pavilion x2 with regular usage. By comparison, the Switch 10 E lasted just 10 minutes more, and the Asus Transformer got merely two minutes more. Overall, not bad for a mini Windows 10 laptop and very respectable when put side-to-side against some Chromebooks.
Bundled software
Although there is so little storage, there's a ton of software that comes preloaded on the Pavilion x2. The long list of bundled software you'll want to remove pronto includes McAfee Central, Candy Crush, WildTangent Games, TripAdvisor as well as HP's self-branded suite of cloud-connected apps. Other than the HP Support Assistant and the digital manual, you'll basically want to uninstall everything else to squeeze every megabyte you can get out of this system.
Verdict
When it comes to extremely affordable laptops, HP is ahead of the game compared to everyone else. First came the $200 Stream, and now the Pavilion is one of the cheapest convertibles you can pick up for just $299 (£249, AU$549). Economics aside, the Pavilion x2 is a solid Windows machine that offers booming speakers and a charming display.
We liked
You get a lot of bang for your buck with this HP convertible and you can take this point literally with the Pavilion x2's booming sound system. There's also a more than decent screen backing up this machine's surprisingly full-bodied audio experience. It's outfitted with a better performing processor than its contemporaries, while battery life can get you through a seven-hour workday (with lunch break anyway).
We disliked
The HP Pavilion x2 certainly has a few rough edges. For one thing, my particular review unit came loaded with a 32-bit version of Windows, which prohibited me from running certain applications – but HP offers the unit with a 64-bit build of Windows 10 Home. Then there's also the matter of the 93% keyboard that most users with large- to medium-sized hands won't like. Plus, the shoddy trackpad just begs to be replaced by a decent mouse.
Final verdict
This affordable 2-in-1 isn't perfect, but for the price it's a solid package. The punchy speakers and pretty display alone make the HP Pavilion x2 a better Windows 10 tablet than the Asus Transformer Book TP200SA and Acer Switch 10 E. Performance is some of the best we've seen in the budget 2-in-1 laptop space.
Unfortunately, the laptop end of the device has its share of ergonomic issues. However, if you can grit your teeth and bear with the drawbacks, there aren't many better ways to spend 300 bucks on a Windows 10 machine.
from www.techradar.com
