HP Pavilion x360 14: Convertible Intel Alder Lake laptop debuts from US$599 with an optional 5G modem

[Redaktion]

HP has introduced an upgraded Pavilion x360 14, now based on Intel's Alder Lake platform. Equipped with Alder Lake-U series processors, the new Pavilion x360 14 also has an optional 5G modem, a 14-inch touchscreen display and B&O-branded speakers, among other features.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Pavilion-x360-14-Convertible-Intel-Alder-Lake-laptop-debuts-from-US-599-with-an-optional-5G-modem.622171.0.html

[mjw149]

I find it fascinating that HP continues Pavilion and Dell continues Inspiron. I imagine it's still profitable to offer entry level Wintel PCs, of course, but Chromebooks have been out a long time now, and so they are developing and producing multiple affordable lines of PCs, more than they have to, while also supporting more and more brands above it: Envy, Spectre, Victus, Z, Omen, EliteBook, ProBook. Surely there are diminishing returns when your own brand isn't as well known as Apple?

I'll add that Microsoft themselves don't bother with this segment, probably due to profitability.

Of course hardware needs a name, but why keep Pavilion, particularly when so many people will have had bad experiences with that name? A no-name number might be more effective. Apple is phenomenally profitable with, what? 4 laptop models? For businesses and for retail customers, of course keep the hardware diversity, but the names and the lineup overlap is clearly unnecessary.

[RobertJasiek]

Apple is phenomenally profitable with, what? 4 laptop models? For businesses and for retail customers, of course keep the hardware diversity

Apple is profitable with notebooks because of these reasons:
- Enough consumers in the Apple ecosystem want to stay there.
- Enough consumers pay Apple's rip-off surcharges and replacements.
- Apple gets some basic aspects right, such as long battery life, low noise, (more often than not) solid build quality, acceptable to desirable design (except for the notch, of course), not too great reflectance.
- Apple cultivates product aspects (such as 16:10 or tiny arrow keys), functions (good for image or media consumption or creation) and services (such as iCloud advertised as useful while hiding its unlawfulness) as a mainstream accepted by enough consumers.

If all Windows manufacturers combined and did an Apple, notebook variety would be killed.

[Dorby]

It's the opposite way around. Chromebooks are mad rip-offs precisely because of existing value brands like Pavilion, VivoBook, and Ideapad 5 dominating the global low-end market.

HP, Lenovo and Asus have consistently done such a great job over many years in this $400-600 price segment that newly entering OEMs like Xiaomi, Huawei, Redmi, and Chromebook manufacturers simply cannot compete on a bigger scale, even if they wanted to.

Apple targets a whole different price point where their products are an absolute bargain compared to the rest of the industry. Let's be honest, if HP had the capacity to make a MacBook Pro, they would be forced to charge x4-10 as much as Apple. Their comparable ZBook laptop that is worse in every aspect compared to the MBP already costs more than x2 as much.

Every year Apple spends more than HP's entire "laptop department" on perfecting just one area of one product, e.g. MacBook Speakers or Apple Pencil. Which is how they came to be the leaders and why their business model is exponentially more successful. But if every other tech company tried to copy exactly what Apple does, the world would be all the lesser for it.

[Barebooh]

I find it fascinating that HP continues Pavilion and Dell continues Inspiron. I imagine it's still profitable to offer entry level Wintel PCs, of course, but Chromebooks have been out a long time now, and so...

You alright there, mate?
P. S.: Pavilion's aren't 'value', and neither is good 2/3 of Inspirons.

[_MT_]

Apple targets a whole different price point where their products are an absolute bargain compared to the rest of the industry. Let's be honest, if HP had the capacity to make a MacBook Pro, they would be forced to charge x4-10 as much as Apple. Their comparable ZBook laptop that is worse in every aspect compared to the MBP already costs more than x2 as much.

Sure, scale helps as engineering is a fixed expense. Therefore, the more units you sell, the more you can spend on engineering. But with the exception of making your own processors, which is primarily funded by iPhones, I don't think there is anything about a MacBook that would be out of reach. I think the biggest problem with companies like Dell is that they have no vision. And I think Apple might be in the same boat without Jobs. Meaning that instead of making a product as someone wishes it to be, you make it to the wishes of the market which completely relies on your understanding of the market and assumes that people know what they want - which they don't as I believe Jobs said. And I think so as well. I think most people don't have many ideas about what could improve their life. And they are too easily distracted by shiny nonsense. For years, we have seen their enterprise offerings getting closer and closer to the consumer offering.

Apple has an advantage of vertical integration and rather closed ecosystem. Within that, there is no competition. On the other hand, you can easily replace one Windows computer with another. Companies might be loyal because they have established relationships, big discounts, preferential treatment, they want a one-stop shop for everything. But they are largely replaceable and therefore competing for the same customers which puts pressure on their costs which then exposes their weaknesses in product planning. All Apple has to do is hook you on one product and not suck too much on the others and you're theirs.

[_MT_]

Microsoft also has this problem. For ages, they feel like "designed by committee" kind of company. Bland. They've got talented people who can come up with interesting ideas but on a whole it's just meh. Like with business laptops, you see things getting worse, pandering to people without imagination. If there is an improvement, it typically fixes a problem they themselves created.

[Xajel]

It seems that HP has fallen to the dark side of soldered RAM on this model, the exact model with 11th gen model came with upgradable RAM.

But thats according to HP's own spec page for this model, I don't know if it was by a mistake or something.