HP Pavilion Plus 14 laptop review: OLED, 90 Hz, and 12th gen Core H

[Redaktion]

The "Plus" doesn't mean plus-size. HP's latest Pavilion laptop adds a host of high-end features and performance upgrades that could have easily belonged to an Envy or Spectre model. Does the Pavilion Plus 14 cut any corners?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Pavilion-Plus-14-laptop-review-OLED-90-Hz-and-12th-gen-Core-H.635546.0.html

[Daves_K]

Nice laptop, especially for the price.  But it's a shame they decided to only put in a 51 wh size battery which is undersized to power an "H" series processor and a 3k 90hz OLED display.  No wonder the battery life is subpar.

[Lorry]

It is incredibly strange to see that laptop OEMs are opting for power hungry H, HS, and P series CPUs on thin/light devices for no apparent reason. Almost like they all want to participate in their silly contest of "my multi-core benchmark numbers are higher than yours", or something like that.

Asus ZenBook 14 UM3402 is a prime example that handles power efficiency correctly.
https://shop.asus.com/us/90nb0w95-m006s0-zenbook-14-oled-um3402-amd-ryzen-5000-series.html

By pairing "Ryzen U-series CPU + 75Wh battery" in a small 1.3 kg body, this laptop manages 8-10 hours even while having the same demanding 2.8K resolution screen on board. All of that is on an affordable starting price of 750 USD.

I'd like to understand why in 2022 we are not seeing dozens of laptops just like ZenBook UM3402 when power efficient U-series chips are in abundance from both Intel and AMD. But instead getting into this weird trend of producing more "H-series ultrabooks" like Pavilion Plus 14 that has extremely poor battery life, overheating thermals, and loud fan noise.

I do not think it is by coincidence that HP, Lenovo, Asus, Dell, MSI and Acer all unanimously and suddenly decided to go down this path this year. There must be some sort of an agenda, somewhere.

[NikoB]

Well, let's analyze the "new" series by bones...

The first thing that immediately catches your eye is again problems with strong noise even with a light load (up to 25-30% load for all cores). CO is disgustingly configured for such dimensions and weight from the factory. Lenovo engineers did not understand what is important for the consumer - the absence of noise when the load on the cores is in the region of 20-30%. Are you afraid that at higher temperatures in surfing and office, the series will not withstand the 2-year warranty in the mass case? Temperatures under high load, judging by the measurements, are simply monstrous (66C!!!) - you can almost fry scrambled eggs on the body this series. However, the laptop is noisy. How so, Lenovo? Or high noise or high temperatures...

The second thing that catches your eye is the not quite honest 165Hz panel (G2G is too large - 14ns instead of 6ns, as it should be on B2W). The contrast is not the worst, but only 1200:1 is low (however, as promised in psref). 1500:1 is much more pleasant (the main thing is not to spoil the series with a vile flickering AMOLED with a low resource vs IPS). It is also immediately clear that the brightness spread is too large (15% is bad), i.e. black and white stability is not very good, Lenovo needs to work with panel suppliers, as Apple does hard.

Well, the key failure is again in AIDA64 Ray Trace 64 - a shameful 5760 parrots, instead of 6977 parrots in a 14 "(!) ultrabook from HP (see the adjacent review - notebookcheck.net/HP-Pavilion-Plus-14-laptop-review-OLED-90 -Hz-and-12th-gen-Core-H.635546.0.html) which even has PL1 only 45W for exactly the same 12700H, instead of 100W for L5Pro and ridiculous DDR4 3200 memory, instead of DDR5 4800 for L5Pro! How so Lenovo?! Lose as much as 18% of the performance of the 12700 with a 55W advantage! The shame with system tuning (BIOS, microcode) is obvious.
It can also be seen well that the memory is configured disgustingly in terms of timings. Too low speeds for a typical DD5 4800! Although they are still higher than DDR4 3200! By the way, for a gaming and creative series, memory with XMP could be set to 5200, or even 5400 and of course it should definitely smash the 12700H with a 45W PL1 in an HP ultrabook from new review in the AIDA64 Ray-Trace64 test!
I don't even discuss DPC Latency, anyway, it depends on a bunch of manufacturers and their responsible writing of code / firmware - but in reality, who is in the woods and who is firewood ... M$ generally scored on everything, making users alpha testers...

The quality of the speakers should be tightened up with a 16-inch case - look how Asus is almost always in the lead here...

Autonomy in the Intel series with such a power naturally fell below the plinth. AMD will do better, but there will be no TB4.0 and eGPU options for AMD... At the same time, I note once again that the greedy people at Lenovo cut the second TB4.0 port, which was in the 2021 series L5Pro... What's wrong? Left 2 and above only for premium series? Ugly...

Well, you need to technically do something with 1kg of PSU. Why then the low weight of the case (and even with such a shameful autonomy for 2022? Do not forget that the battery immediately turns the laptop into a pumpkin by speed) Then install heavier radiators and let the weight be like that of the Dell G5+, which does not include coolers at all up to 75C on the processor and is silent like smartphones and tablets in surfing and office.

Well, in general, I would not call the 2022 series successful. Neither you silent surfing and office, nor you the outstanding performance of hardware. Yes, and the panel is so-so for 2022 (in 2021 it was good, yes). It's time to install 3840x2400@120Hz, as HP install in the Omen series back in 2021 (only 3840x2160@120Hz 16:9). Matrices 4k @ 120Hz already exist. It would be time. It's especially funny that the laptop is allegedly as "gaming series", but it's clearly hard for it to use 2560x1600 above 60fps in games 2020-2022. And the 3840x2400 panel easily allows you to reduce the resolution to 1920x1200 without any loss of sharpness (4 pixel to 1) and play calmly at high fps. Isn't that clear to Lenovo marketers yet? Engineers understand this, but they have long been forced people and do not have the right to vote...

Well, bring the keyboard to mind! Make the Fx buttons full-sized like on desktop keyboards, and by slightly shrinking the frames (or slightly enlarging the case, which is even better for cooling), you can make the numeric keypad the same size as the main one. This will draw even more attention to the series of people who take it for work, and not for games only, as a true all-rounder. Order an exclusive model, and the rest will be forced to follow in your wake.

Well, bring the keyboard to mind! Make the Fx buttons full-sized like on desktop keyboards, and by slightly shrinking the frames (or slightly enlarging the case, which is even better for cooling), you can make the numeric keypad the same size as the main one. This will draw even more attention to the series of people who take it for work, and not for games only, as a true all-rounder. Order an exclusive model, and the rest will be forced to follow in your wake. Lenovo, you haven't lost your "drive" yet, but your competitors don't sleep...

Lenovo, you haven't lost your "drive" yet, but your competitors don't sleep...

[NikoB]

Sorry, I mistakenly inserted a comment instead of a topic on Legion 5 Pro 2022 here, on the other hand, it will be useful for readers of reviews to read about how the 12700H with 45W PL1 tears to pieces exactly the same 12700H in L5Pro but with 100W PL1 and DDR5 4800 memory (although and shitty tuned) compared to DDR4 3200 in this laptop from HP. This is how miracles happen...