HP Pavilion Plus 14 MSRP $850.00 Score Details DT Recommended Product “HP Pavilion Plus 14 offers a 90Hz OLED screen at an unbeatable price.” Pros Cons HP’s Pavilion line carries its budget to mid-range laptops, and it’s offered some solid options over the years. For 2022, the company decided to upscale the line with the Pavilion Plus 14, a laptop that’s the thinnest Pavilion yet and the first with an OLED display. And it’s a 90Hz display, offered at an extremely attractive price.
The Pavilion Plus 14 has been slimmed down compared to other Pavilion laptops, coming in at 0.72 inches and 3.09 pounds. The plastic display bezels are small for the class, with an 87% screen-to-body ratio that’s higher than most similarly priced laptops. That’s partly thanks to the switch to a 16:10 display, which makes the laptop narrower than previous Pavilion 14 models and slightly deeper. The Vivobook S 14X is wider and deeper while marginally thinner at 0.
The Asus Vivobook S 14X is similarly priced at retail, $1,100 for a Core i7-12700H, 12GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, Intel Iris Xe graphics, and a 14-inch 2.8K OLED display at 120Hz. For $900, you can get a Core i5-12500H, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and the OLED display. Another laptop that’s priced around the same is the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1, which is $1,050 for a Core i7-1255U, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch Full HD+ display.
The biggest difference is that the Pavilion Pro 14 can be configured with the 28-watt Core i5-1240P, which could provide similar performance if it throttles less, and the 15-watt Core i7-1255U, which would presumably offer improved efficiency. And, the HP is significantly less expensive than the Asus in most of its configurations.
My review unit was configured with the 2.8K 90Hz OLED display, and it was beautiful out of the box. If I’d spent $850 on the laptop, I’d be tickled pink with the bright and accurate colors, inky blacks, and smooth Windows 11 experience. Keyboard, touchpad, and webcam The Pavilion Plus 14 enjoys a nicely sized keyboard with large keycaps, and its switches are light with a precise bottoming action. It’s almost as good as the keyboard on HP’s Spectre line and has the same row of navigation keys on the right-hand side. As I was writing this review, I found the keyboard very comfortable for longer typing sessions.
Battery life The Pavilion Plus 14 has 51 watt-hours of battery capacity, which is a little on the low side for a 14-inch laptop, and my review unit equipped a 45-watt CPU and a power-hungry high-res OLED display. I wasn’t expecting miracles in terms of battery life.