Fast, excellent battery life, fully packed. Redefines what a Budget Laptop can be! Definite Buy!
REDEFINES BUDGET LAPTOPSReview Date: May 24, 2022VERDICT: DEFINITE BUY.SUMMARY: Score: 9.0/10.Back with HP after 14 years and loving it!This is an excellent laptop that redefines what budget laptops offer. Looks, features, performance and battery life- all at a different level. Rivals laptops that retailed at 50k just a few months back. This is only the 3rd time in 20 years that something has felt like a REAL upgrade in technology (first was Ahtlon 64, next was affordable SSDs, and now this).Additionally, nowadays, you get Windows and Office free for the device’s life. Solid hardware specs and useful software pre-loaded means a complete laptop that does not need any user expertise in upgrading.USAGE: 3 daysPROCESSES FOLLOWED: 3 full battery cycles, debloating (McAfee, LastPass, some MS games), some power management tweaksREVIEW:Key Laptop components reviewed below with Pros and Cons of each. CASE AND BUILD: 9/10Full plastic. Compact but chunky. Lid is plain. Keyboard panel is brushed finish. Bottom is matte plastic.PROS: Looks good. Compact but chunky. Comfortable to hold.CONS: Plain lid attracts dust and fingerprints. LID: 9/10Black matte finish on the inside. Hinge is firm. No wobble. Opens to approx. 115 deg.PROS: Seems reliable enough.CONS: Single hinge design forces keyboard down, reducing area available for trackpad. KEYBOARD: 9/10Backlit (2 levels). Separate paging keys. Lights for Caps Lock and Audio Off (no idea why).PROS: Keys slightly scalloped, offering good hold. Separate paging keys are a life saver when working in Excel. Two Stage backlight. Tactile (but little mushy). Give it 1-2 days to break in.CONS: Slightly noisy when typing fast. No dedicated function keys for Mic Off/ Sleep. Power button is recessed, causing some misses when pressing. TRACKPAD: 7/10Area seems 16+:9 (like current smartphones). Slightly rough texture. Slight rattle when tapping. But way more reliable and smooth than Asus’ touchpads.PROs: Smooth and accurate tracking.CONs: Tapping is very uncomfortable (due to the clattering noise)- so dragging may not be comfortable. SCREEN: 9/10Glossy screen. Gives sharp text and good contrast. Can use 14” at 100% scaling (or for older guys) 115%.PROs: Bright. Excellent contrast. Text is sharp and readable.CONs: Contrast and colour balance drop off below 80% brightness. PORTS: 8/101 SD Card reader (full size), 1x HDMI, 2xUSB3-A, 1xUSB-C, 1×3.5mm.PROs: Strong suite of ports.CONs: All (except SD Card) are on the right side. Using a mouse is a pain. UPGRADABILITY: 9/10PROs: 2 separate RAM slots (have not opened, checked from reviews).CONs: At least 4 screws are located under the 2 rubber pads. Not user upgradeable. SOFTWARE: 10/10Windows 11 Home. System Encryption is available. Office H&S 2021 for life. A few bloatware- McAfee, LastPass and some Windows games. Easy to uninstall. PERFORMANCE: 10/10The Ryzen 3 5300U is freakishly fast! Cannot believe this level of performance at ₹40k. Launching apps, multi-tasking, etc.- all effortless.PROs: Super-powerful CPU. Stays cool. Also easy to control turbo in Windows 11 (unlike Ryzen 3 3250U)- setting Max CPU level at 99% limits speed to 2.6GHz. Under normal usage (setting up laptop, indexing, etc.) in peak Delhi summer in non-AC room, CPU temp was 45-55 deg C (Asus’ Ryzen 3 3250 model runs at 80+ deg C). Keyboard stays cool.CONs: Fan response seems slow. Stays quiet for some time, suddenly ramps up to a single speed for some minutes and slows down again. Small distraction. BATTERY: 10/10Battery is rated at 41.050Wh. Max was at 41.005Wh. Battery is the older higher voltage kind (11-13V), compared to the newer 8V ones. But my experience with older batteries has been much better. The newer ones dropped off faster after about 3 years. And usage of the same components would help HP keep costs in check. So no complaints.PROs: Excellent battery life. With some basic tweaks, power usage in normal situations is between 3-5W, giving a battery backup of 8Hrs-10+Hrs. I don’t think you can ask for anything more. Compare this with Asus’ Ryzen 3 3250U model where I had to do N things to get heat and battery backup to acceptable levels. I did not have to do anything special here.CONs: Imagine what would happen if HP gave a 56Whr battery- who needs a MacBook?COMPARED TO ASUS:Asus has been the leader in laptop innovations- bringing in Full HD and dual storage to budget laptops. I have 2 Asus systems. But of late they have started skimping in important areas- Semi-passive cooling leads to higher temperatures and frequent throttling of CPUs even in normal usages. Keyboards become uncomfortably hot. Screens are matte (useful), but have very low contrast (text is harder to read when documents are zoomed out). HDD installation kits are cheap and flimsy. I’ve seen in 2 cases where the cheap cable causes data transfer errors and Windows crashes as well (for the record, I have Windows 10/11 in 4 PCs from 1st Gen Intel to 7th Gen- and there was not a single crash in any of them).When I bought a new Asus Vivobook a few months back, it was a big disappointment. I felt like I was back in the Windows XP days when I used to spend hours trying to get things to work. This HP has been a very good experience. Fully specced, well configured and works as it should.

Best laptop
This laptop is very powerfull to perform gaming , browsing and other work.Overall it is a good product

Defective laptop and useless HP support !
Defective laptop delivered. My laptop has a certain problem that it doesn’t stay connected to any network (wifi, hotspot), which means I can’t work on this laptop at all! The HP support is mostly non-responsive. They sent a Service Engineer who couldn’t fix the issue, and I’m waiting for further updates from them. My support ticket is open for 12 days now and I don’t see any urgency or ownership from HP side to take care of the issue in my laptop!

Best in segment
Great gadget, go for it.