Hp Pavilion 15 Cc563st 156 Laptop Computer Reviews

Verdict

With the first Ice Lake laptops simply effectually the corner and the graphics processor here showing its historic period, it's hard to justify dropping £850 on the HP Pavilion xv. That said, in that location's nothing actually incorrect with this laptop. If the price falls in the coming weeks and months, bargain hunters could brand a killing.

Pros

• Nice keyboard
• Adept speakers
• Well suited for function work

Cons

• Sub-average brandish
• Not fantastic value for coin

Key Specifications

• Review Price: £850
• 15.6-inch Full HD display with IPS
• Intel Core i7-8565U processor
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
• 8GB DDR4-2400MHz RAM
• 256GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD
• Blazon-C USB 3.1 Gen 1, 2 x Type-A USB iii.1 Gen 1, HDMI 1.4; Ethernet, 3.5mm audio jack

What is the HP Pavilion 15?

The HP Pavilion 15 is an affordable laptop that undercuts the bulk of the contest, making it an platonic choice for students and part workers to consider.

In the review unit I've been sent – the HP Pavilion fifteen-cs1506sa – at that place'due south an Intel Core i7-8565U processor sitting under the hood, adjacent to a Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti GPU. This means on newspaper yous should have enough processing power to blast through basic PC tasks and enough GPU grunt to make it a bit of Fortnite, Overwatch and the like on the side – just don't expect to to run these at a high clip with texture packs and settings cranked all the fashion upwardly. There might exist a dedicated graphics menu hither, but a high-cease gaming laptop the HP Pavilion 15 is not.

That said, the cost here is quite attractive – £850 at the time of writing – and means information technology competes straight with the likes of the Acer Nitro 5, which occupies the same toll bracket but features more modernistic 16 Series cards, the Razer Blade Stealth (2019) and not to mention HP's own Envy 13.

Related: All-time Laptop 2019

The HP Pavilion 15 is all correct angles and silver surfaces

HP Pavilion xv design and features – Diamond geezer

The new HP Pavilion 15 is a fairly standard-looking Windows 10 laptop that features the micro-drilled, right-angled-triangles motif seen on other HP laptops such as the HP Envy 13 and the HP EliteBook 1050 G1. On this particular laptop, the interlocking triangles create a slightly retro diamond/elongated Zelda rupee shape.

2 speakers sit behind this triangular weave and, as with many HP laptops, the speakers have been tuned with assist from high-end Danish audio make Blindside & Olufsen.

The HP Pavilion fifteen is a fairly big laptop – measuring 361.6 10 241.half-dozen x 17.9mm – with a full-sized keyboard, number pad, and the 15.6-inch display's 5mm side bezels. In terms of ports, the right-manus side has two Type-A USB 3.1 Gen i ports, a lock slot, and a full-sized SD card reader, while the left-hand side has HDMI 1.4, Ethernet, and Type-C USB 3.ane ports, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack.

As with the HP Envy xiii, Thunderbolt iii technology isn't nowadays here, and so the Type-C USB port will only transfer information at rates of upwardly to 5Gbps (versus up to 40Gbps with Thunderbolt 3), only, and then again, this is an £800 laptop and Thunderbolt 3 remains expensive to implement.

Some other characteristic the HP Pavilion 15 has in common with the HP Envy 13 is that the shape of the case ensures the rear portion of the deck'due south underside – where the air vent is located – is lifted up off the desk slightly when you open the laptop. This is a blueprint feature nosotros've seen on other laptops too – namely the Asus ZenBook range – and looks likely to become a standard feature of all Ultrabooks going forrad.

Weighing just shy of 2kg (one.89kg), the HP Pavilion fifteen is a little heavier than nearly laptops in its category. Nearly lightweight Ultrabooks and notebooks these days are closer to the 1kg mark. While the HP Pavilion xv is heavy by comparison, it'due south still slight and slim enough to carry around all day in your satchel.

Related: All-time Educatee Laptops 2019

Good travel and key action make typing on the HP Pavilion fifteen effortless

HP Pavilion 15 keyboard – How easy is the HP Pavilion 15 to type on?

The HP Pavilion xv is very like shooting fish in a barrel to blazon on. The keys have a good amount of travel – not Lenovo ThinkPad T490 expert but even so deeper and nicer-feeling than most laptops – and gentle underlighting means you can work away tardily at nighttime with ease.

The keycaps experience like to those of the HP Envy 13, but because the HP Pavilion 15' is bigger, there's room for a number pad here. This (sort of) makes upward for the arrow keys being small and hemmed in, and yous could just use number lock and accept the 2, 4, 8, and half-dozen keys double every bit arrow keys – problem solved.

Despite these layout gripes, the Pavilion 15's keyboard is solid. Primal action is nice and snappy, with piffling in the way of wobble from the letter keys. Shift, Caps Lock, Enter and Space Bar – the usual suspects – are all a little more on the wobbly side, but nada here gives me immediate cause for concern. Everything feels sturdy and durable.

The trackpad was less like shooting fish in a barrel to use out of the box, requiring me to whack the sensitivity level all the way upwardly in society to be able to utilize this with any ease. Afterwards reviewing the Asus ZenBook 14, which features the slickest trackpad I've used in contempo months, I recall that all other laptop trackpads are ruined for me.

The keyboard layout here is generally skillful, though having the nav keys squashed in above the number pad is not ideal

HP Pavilion 15 speakers – Are the Bang & Olufsen speakers any good?

The speakers of the HP Pavilion 15 are very good, with just minimal distortion noticeable at maximum book.

Dialogue on streamed Netflix and iPlayer content sounded crisp, as did near of the music I played while working on this review. It passed my Main of Puppets exam – where I stream the archetype Metallica track at 50% volume and note if there's any obvious distortion – with all instruments sounding clear and defined.

Some music, such as solo piano and acoustic guitar – tracks where in that location'southward a lot of resonance – did not sound slap-up at loftier volumes. Steve Howe's Mood for a Day, a recording which seems purpose-built to brand laptop speakers rattle horribly, sounded deadened if pushed beyond 60% book.

Generally speaking though, the speakers are very skilful and a notch above near. Music and dialogue is certainly better than you might expect to hear coming out of an £800 laptop.

HP Pavilion 15 display – Can I apply the HP Pavilion 15 for photo editing?

The HP Pavilion fifteen'southward display is not well suited to photo editing. Low maximum effulgence and poor color gamut coverage mean that I wouldn't recommend this even for the most basic of photo work or digital art. Even if all you're doing is resizing your holiday snaps, if you're after a laptop for any kind of photo work, you'd be amend off picking upwards something like the HP Envy 13 or the Razer Bract Stealth 13 (2019).

I recorded a maximum effulgence of 223.55 nits using an X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter and DisplayCAL 3. That's a poor score and explained why websites, photos, and games looked a little dull and washed out. If a laptop tin't give y'all at least 300 nits of maximum brightness in 2019, yous should reconsider it.

That said, a depression blackness level of 0.15 nits means that contrast is loftier – I recorded an adequate contrast ratio of 1432:i, and while things were a lilliputian on the irksome side, nothing looked excessively murky or washed out.

Colour gamut coverage was poor, however, with simply 61.vii% of the sRGB (Standard RGB) space covered. As the name suggests, sRGB is the standard colour space used by developers, website designers and digital artists, and as such is a expert indicator of how bright and vibrant websites, webcomics, or video game visuals will look on a display. Ideally, a display will requite you 100% sRGB coverage but, in reality, any laptop display which covers fourscore% or above is adept.

The wider Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 colour spaces are more of interest to digital photographers and videographers, and while you won't be doing whatsoever heavy edits in Premiere Pro on the HP Pavilion 15, it's worth mentioning the Adobe and DCI scores are very low – 42.9% and 44.0%, respectively. Again, that'south below par. You should hope for around lxx% coverage of both of these colour spaces.

Past contrast, the HP Green-eyed thirteen covered 69.2% and 71.seven% of the Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 colour gamuts when I tested it.

Related: Intel Ice Lake

If you desire Fortnite to look this pretty on the HP Pavilion 15, y'all tin can expect to prowl at 30fps almost of the time

HP Pavilion 15 gaming – How well does it run Fortnite and Apex Legends?

Using FRAPS to measure game operation, I recorded average frame rates of around 30-40fps and 70-100fps on Fortnite with the graphics settings on Epic and Low respectively, and xx-30fps and 50-60fps on Apex Legends, with textures and shadows dialled all the style upwardly, and all the way down.

While the 60Hz display means you won't be able to capeesh the higher frame rates you can achieve on the HP Pavilion xv, you could e'er hook this upwards to a Total Hard disk drive gaming monitor. HDMI 1.4 is old hat – it'south all nearly HDMI 2.i these days – but it nevertheless supports 1080p video at 144Hz. And so, if you are in the market place for something to play battle royale shooters on, and y'all already own or are thinking about getting a cheap Full Hard disk monitor anyway, you at to the lowest degree have the option of that equally a workaround.

Don't expect AAA titles like Control or The Division ii to run well on this, though. I ran the in-game criterion on Clay Rally – a game from 2015 nosotros nonetheless use in reviews to meet how systems handle older games – and on Ultra settings, I got an average frames per second count of 44.95. I was only able to comfortably clear 60fps here when I dipped the graphics settings down to Medium, where the HP Pavilion 15 gave me 77.92fps on boilerplate, and a maximum fps count of 110.24.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider did non fare and then well. I averaged 29fps and 30fps with the graphics set to High and Medium. Every time I tried to run the benchmark with visuals at the highest settings, the game crashed. In fairness, the HP Pavilion 15, with a graphics card from 2017, can't exist expected to run demanding titles well and it's good enough for boxing royale shooters and older PC games.

You will desire to pick up a gaming mouse though, because when it comes to tense firefights, that trackpad is not your friend.

Related: Best gaming mouse

Ports on the left-paw side of the HP Pavilion 15 from left to correct: HDMI one.4, Ethernet, Blazon-C USB, 3.5mm audio jack

HP Pavilion xv full general performance – What's the HP Pavilion xv similar for basic PC use?

The HP Pavilion fifteen is absolutely fine for everyday PC office piece of work. Despite boilerplate SSD read and write speeds, I did not struggle at any bespeak to get through a day'due south work on this.

While you lot might run into issues loading up multiple photos in Photoshop, GIMP or your freeware photograph editing app of choice, this should not be a large bargain since the screen isn't really upwards to scratch for serious photo work anyway.

I ran PCMark 10, a general performance criterion, and got a consequence of 4220. This is merely shy of the 4500 baseline score PCMark 10 developer UL says indicates a PC is suitable for office work. For what it's worth, in my experience the HP Pavilion xv is fine in this regard and laptops that have returned scores of 4000 and just below have besides been totally capable of running basic PC tasks, for instance browsing the web with several tabs open, discussion processing, e-mail and video calls.

Meanwhile, Geekbench iv spat out scores similar to those I've seen on laptops powered past an Intel Cadre i7-8565U Whiskey Lake processor – 4668 on the single-core examination, and thirteen,081 on the multicore test. I recorded similar scores when I ran the aforementioned test on the Lenovo ThinkPad T490s (4647, 13,742) and Dell XPS thirteen (4281, 14,167). Both of these laptops feature the same Whiskey Lake processor. The HP Envy thirteen model I tested returned like scores, too (4877, 14,509), despite running on a less powerful Core i5 Whiskey Lake CPU.

In plain English language, all of these numbers mean that, yes, the HP Pavilion 15 and its processor are perfectly fine for office work.

I also ran 3DMark'south Burn Strike benchmark, which is designed to exam out the graphics rendering capabilities of a GPU, and got 5948, a fairly average score in this day and age. Nosotros've already established the HP Pavilion 15'southward gaming credentials, and so it's not really worth going around the houses on this.

Finally, the CrystalDiskMark criterion, which tests the read and write speeds of SSDs and hard drives, gave me an OK 1735.8MB/s read score, and a not-so-OK 742.90MB/s write speed. Saving large projects could take a while here, just if you lot're storing well-nigh of your written piece of work in Google Docs or Microsoft OneDrive, this is perhaps less of an issue.

Ports on the right-hand side of the HP Pavilion 15 from left to right: SD card reader, Kensington lock slot, 2 ten Type-A USB ports

HP Pavilion 15 bombardment performance – Will the HP Pavilion 15 run all solar day long?

Broadly speaking, aye. In my experience, I've been able to go shut to eight hours out of the HP Pavilion 15 off the mains, with the display's effulgence locked at 150 nits.

HP's official spec canvas says y'all'll be able to get over xvi hours on this, only in my experience that figure only makes sense if you're really not doing much on the laptop. If you're working – writing, cropping photos, sending and replying to several emails, all with music pumping in the background – yous will be able to comfortably cruise through a working day without having to worry too much virtually reaching for the charger.

That said, running PC Mark 8's Work benchmark, with the brightness pinned to 150 nits until the battery hitting critical levels, gave me a issue of three hours and three minutes, which is far below what I've observed in day-to-twenty-four hours use. I'm not sure why such an atypical outcome was returned, given that nigh Whiskey Lake laptops I've tested volition give you something between eight to xi hours off a unmarried charge. The presence of a dedicated graphics processor is a factor – yous tin can e'er manually disable this via the Nvidia Control Panel if you need to switch to the CPU'due south integrated graphics.

Luckily, you can become the HP Pavilion 15's 68 Wh li-ion battery topped back up to 100% in simply over two hours. Later on half an hour of charging, expect to go xl% in the tank, and 69% after one hr.

Should I buy the HP Pavilion xv?

Given that y'all tin can go the Dell XPS xiii and the HP Green-eyed 13 for not much more money right now, I would advise confronting buying an HP Pavilion 15, unless yous're able to selection ane up in a Black Fri auction with a tidy discount.

Because that it costs £850, and that nosotros'll be seeing laptops like the Acer Swift v – featuring next generation Intel Water ice Lake laptop processors – going on sale very soon for virtually the aforementioned money, it is hard to justify dropping the improve part of a chiliad on this right now.

At that place's cypher terribly wrong with the HP Pavilion 15, only it'south coming to market place with an outdated GPU, a not-terribly-good display and a price that very before long won't be that competitive.

Your options are to either look for the price to fall or pick up an culling: if you want a cheap laptop for under £1000 to do bones PC piece of work, pick up the HP Envy xiii instead. Information technology's smaller, but the overall experience is far better.

If y'all want a cheap laptop for light gaming, get an Acer Nitro v, which is similarly priced and comes with 16 Serial Nvidia graphics options instead of x Series. If yous desire something which straddles both camps, consider a Dell XPS 13 or a Razer Blade Stealth 13 (2019).

Verdict

A decent plenty lifestyle laptop but currently overpriced for what you get.

• Buy Direct from HP

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