Review: HP Pavilion Power 15 Gaming Laptop

We’ve reviewed HP’s high-end Omen gaming laptops in the past, and while the devices are certainly impressive, it’s natural to wonder what the brand has in store for the ones who are more budget-conscious. So today we bring you the HP Pavilion Power, the entry-level gaming laptop that comes with everything you’d want in a gaming laptop, except the label.

Tech Specs

The HP Pavilion Power comes with an Intel Core i7-7700 HQ Kaby Lake processor along with a Geforce GTX 1050 GPU with 4GB VRAM and 8GB DDR4 RAM. For storage there is a 128GB SSD for the OS while a secondary 1TB HDD takes care of the rest of your needs. The display is a Full HD 1920 x 1080 IPS panel.

Now, this is probably the most premium looking non-premium laptop in the gaming segment, and we absolutely love the design. Instead of going for the usual black and red combination, HP has set the Pavilion Power apart from its mainstream gaming range by giving it green highlights in a sea of black. A glossy logo sits in the middle on the lid, while two rubber grips are provided at the base of the lid as opening the laptop would put it in contact with the surface. While it does make for a slick look, it might be a bit dodgy in the long run as the grips can come out due to wear and tear. Still, the build quality is quite solid and the laptop is light as well, weighing only about 2.27 kg.

On the connectivity front, the laptop has all the options you can expect. The left side has two USB 3.0 ports along with a 3.5mm audio jack, while the right side houses the LAN port, one HDMI port, one more USB 3.0 port, one USB Type-C port and the SD Card Reader. The inclusion of a Type-C port comes as a pleasant surprise as a lot of entry level devices tend to overlook it, but one complaint that I continue to have is that three USB ports don’t seem enough, especially in a gaming laptop.

Opening the laptop, you can find the full-sized QWERTY keyboard sitting amidst a brushed metallic finish. The keys, including the power button are backlit with green LEDs which looks quite amazing, especially when you’re working in a low-light area. The Up and Down keys are squished together like the standard Pavilion keyboard design, but apart from that, the keyboard is quite comfortable to use and the keys are well-spaced. The trackpad looks great as well, with a metallic green outline and doesn’t offer any reason to complain.

Performance and Benchmarks

Now, as the Pavilion Power comes with a GTX 1050, you can’t expect to run all the games at the highest settings, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a power house. With some level of tweaking, you should be able to achieve playable framerates in most of the recent titles. Take a look at the numbers.

Running Rise of the Tomb Raider on the High preset, we were able to obtain an average framerate of 44.87 FPS on DX11, which dropped a little to 42.24 FPS on DX12. A similar drop in performance was observed in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, where the laptop was able to achieve an average of 36.7 FPS on DX11, which came down to 32.2 FPS on DX12 on the Medium preset.

Ashes of the Singularity showed similar results too, running on the Standard preset. We observed an average framerate of 36.4 FPS on DX11 and 34.4 FPS on DX12. Testing GTA V with most settings on Very High, we were able to hit an average framerate of 52.87 FPS. In general, the laptop performs quite well and makes a great choice for college students and the working gamers, who need to use the same device for work and play.

The display in the Pavilion Power is not the best we’ve seen, but it does the job. Moreover, it’s one of the fewer laptops in the price range that actually offers an IPS panel, which is always an advantage. Contrast and viewing angles are quite decent, though the display could use a little more brightness as even at the max brightness it seems a little dull, especially if you’re working in a well-lit area. The laptop doesn’t heat up a lot either, and the maximum temperature we observed was around 79-80C and didn’t cause any discomfort. The B&O speakers are impressive too, and make your multimedia experience quite enjoyable. Whether it’s watching your favourite movies or blasting through hordes of enemies, the sound is crisp and clear.

Battery life isn’t the best thing about gaming laptops, but the Pavilion Power offers one of the better options. We were able to squeeze about 4.5 hours of normal usage (including internet and multimedia playback), which should be enough to last you through any presentation you might need to give at work or school. For gaming, you’ll mostly have the laptop plugged in, so that shouldn’t be an issue at all.

The Verdict

Starting at INR 72,853/- (HP), the HP Pavilion Power 15 laptops are an incredible choice for gamers who are budget conscious and need to work and play on the same device. The review model we received, costs INR 89,852 (HP). It’s simple, sleek and sexy, and gets the job done just right. We would’ve loved to see a model in the series with a GTX 1050Ti as that would hit the sweet spot in terms of gaming, but for that we have the Omen series.

Register with us for the best in gaming, and join us for video game discussions on our forums.