HP Pavilion x360 Convertible Notebook Review

The all new 13.3” HP Pavilion x360 comes with a refined new metallic finish design and four seamless modes for ultimate flexibility that provides a smoother experience in an ultra-portable form factor. The Pavilion x360 comes with 6th Gen i5 processor, Full-HD Display and a 360 degrees display rotation option, unique and fluid geared hinge and solid battery life to enhance the user experience. The convertible laptop is also available in i3 processor that comes at lower price.

Design

The x360 has got the same design treatment like HP Envy and Spectre series and is not heavy despite packing a 13.3 inches display. The natural silver model we received is sleek and stylish and has stunning looks. The power button is moved to side which we liked very much. Just move the upper flap to make it like a tent that allows for easy viewing of slideshows or consuming multimedia. The interior has dark grey finish on the palm rest that looks great and you also get all grey keyboard with button less trackpad that does looks premium. The hinge is durable and keyboard has very little flex. Overall the built quality is solid.

The left side houses power button, kensigton lock, USB 2.0 port, volume up/down, SD card reader. On the right side it houses 3.5mm jack, 2 USB 3.0 ports, one HDMi port, Ethernet port and a Home Button to use in tablet mode.

The HP x360 convertible laptop packs a couple of hinges that allows you to rotate the screen upto 360 degrees.

The stand mode is useful for watching videos or playing touch based games. The Tent mode is useful for mobile users for delivering presentations. Both of these modes are more powerful when you are constrained by space.

Performance

The sixth generation Intel i5 processor with base clock speed upto 2.3GHz coupled with 4GB RAM did put up some great numbers in our benchmark tests.

In PC Mark 8 Work test suite that comprises of web browsing, writing, video chat and spreadsheet test, it scored 4590. In Creative test suite that measures system’s ability to perform a series of multimedia and tasks it scored. In 3D Mark that measures graphic power it scored 47248 thus can handle jobs that require medium graphic capability and one can also enjoy light to medium gaming.

Apart from benchmarks we also ran basic productivity apps and they all worked fine without any lag. You can even edit 1080p videos or push the processor to some high end tasks and it would not come to a crawl.

The Intel HD graphics delivered smooth performance for light to medium duty apps. The Full HD display provides great colors and plenty of detail too. Text was sharp and images looked bright and full of vibrancy. Side to side viewing angles are accurate. The panel is glossy so we recommend you not to use it under direct sunlight or just below a light source, as it works likes a mirror and you will hardly be able to see anything. Touch screen performance was quick and smooth and scroll and multi-touch gesture response was breeze.

The full size keyboard is well placed with great tactile feedback and key travel. I was able to type fast and efficiently which I really enjoyed. The trackpad is solid too and clicking and multi-touch gestures were smooth. However we did feel a slight lag sometimes when using 2 fingers for gesture.

Two bottom faced speakers by Bang and Olufsen are loud and sound quality is pretty impressive and the  convertible laptop outperforms every other laptop when it comes to sound in this price range.  From games to music everything sounded great you won't be needing to invest in a pair of bluetooth speakers.

It also features a B&O Play software that has a graphic equalizer with sliders for Music, Voice and Movie, which lets you tune in the sound coming from the speakers.

The 3 cell 48Wh battery delivered approximately 8 hours 30 minutes of juice which is great for laptop this size with screen brightness set to 50%, that too with basic apps like youtube, web browsing, word processing or with some other mixed video services.