Hp Pavilion 156 Laptop - I3 8gb Ram 1tb Hdd Review

Verdict

Pros

• Smart design
• Decent keyboard
• Plenty of performance and decent battery life

Cons

• Low-quality screen
• Hard drive makes it feel slow
• Offers fiddling over cheaper, older machines

Key Specifications

• Review Toll: £399.99
• Dual-core, two.3GHz Intel Core i3-6100U processor
• 8GB RAM
• 1TB hard disk drive
• 9.5-hour claimed battery life
• 15.half-dozen-inch 1366 ten 768 brandish
• DVD/RW bulldoze
• 2x USB3, 1x USB2

What is the HP Pavilion 15-au072sa?

If you're after a large, no-frills laptop then the Pavilion 15-au072sa definitely fits the bill. At the time of writing information technology's available for just £399.99, nonetheless packs in the latest Intel processor technology and has plenty of features.

Specifically, you become a 15.6-inch display with a resolution of 1366 ten 768 pixels, plus a DVD drive, a 1TB hard drive and a claimed 9 hours of battery life. It could be the platonic back-to-school laptop for anyone heading off to university, or for those who but want a cheap laptop that'll last a good few hours abroad from a plug socket.

Information technology'southward not perfect, though; the compromises made for a budget machine are articulate from the outset.

HP Pavilion 15-au072sa – Design and Features

This existence a cheap laptop, you don't go anything as well clever in terms of pattern – it'south non thin or light or made from premium materials. However, the pearlescent white casing and the striped pattern on the inside wait rather fetching, and they're nicely contrasted by the chromed hinges and blackness screen environment.

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White will show the clay more readily than darker alternatives – especially when it comes to finger grime on that keyboard – only it'due south a fact of life that a laptop is only ever as clean as its owner. If you lot make a little effort to give it a wipe downward every one time in a while, there's no reason it shouldn't remain looking overnice for a off-white while.

Build quality is OK for a machine of its calibre. At that place'due south definite flex in the body, but it doesn't protest when picked up past just one corner, which is a classic bespeak of failure for larger laptops like this.

For features, you lot get plenty of connectivity, with iii USB ports (two USB 3.0, one USB two.0), a full-size HDMI, Ethernet network port, an SD card reader and a combination headphone/microphone socket.

Inside you lot too get the latest wireless technologies, with 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2. What's more, y'all get a DVD/RW bulldoze, too. Ever more laptops are ditching optical disc drives these days, so if you yet heed to CDs or scout DVDs, y'all're in luck here.

Crucial to the appeal of this laptop is its CPU, which is of the latest generation of Intel Core i3 chips. The Core i3-6100U isn't the fastest around, simply it should evangelize adept performance while using less power than previous generations, making for longer battery life.

This is all backed up by a perfectly adequate 8GB of RAM and a 1TB hard drive. The hard drive will be slow compared to the SSDs plant in more premium laptops, but it's all yous can wait at this toll and you get plenty of storage space – many SSD-equipped laptops only offering 128GB.

This being a big laptop, in that location'southward plenty of room for a full-size keyboard, including a numpad. It'due south cypher special, merely it offers a generally decent typing feel, with the keys giving a dainty, precise response and there non existence too much flex and wobble as you blazon. My simply slight gripe is that the layout is US-fashion, with a wide Left-Shift, squashed Enter key and a few symbols moved effectually.

If you're used to proper Great britain layouts information technology takes a moment to piece of work out where some keys are, merely if this is your daily machine and so you'll presently get used to information technology. At least it has a '£' symbol, unlike some laptops that transport with actual US layouts.

As for the trackpad, it's perfectly decent. Information technology's dainty and big and has a smoothen-gliding surface. The click action is a chip wishy-washy, simply it's still responsive plenty not to exist an annoyance.

HP Pavilion 15-au072sa – Screen and Audio

The fifteen-au072sa has a modest screen, to put it nicely. Its resolution of 1366 x 768 is low past today's standards, though it does brand for an piece of cake-to-read display that's practiced for those who maybe struggle to see the smaller icons and text on some laptops. It just means you tin't increase that resolution and get a bit more than desktop space when needed, and those with improve vision will crave more pixels.

The quality of the display is besides pretty poor. Information technology's not also bad in terms of looking off-color or grainy or anything quite like that, but viewing angles aren't neat – this is only a TN panel rather than IPS – and its sleeky finish catches reflections.

Straight-on (middle), the screen looks OK, just quality reduces quickly when viewed from an bending

Fire up a movie and it's clear that contrast is pretty depression, too, with everything either looking dark and dingy or washed out and greyness, depending on the angle you're viewing information technology at, with no ability to show vivid whites and deep blacks at the aforementioned time. Indeed, testing with a colorimeter it reported a pathetic 430:1 dissimilarity ratio – less than one-half that of more than premium laptops.

Maximum effulgence is also just 232nits, which is well-nigh 100nits less than the best laptops and by and large makes this display non platonic for use in bright sunlight.

All this said, such poor-quality displays are typical of laptops at this price, so plenty of alternatives fare little better. Yous only need to leap to something like the £479.99 HP x360 15-bk062sa to become a vastly superior screen, though.

As for the speakers hither, they're equally bad. The B&O software trickery can drag a little more than life out of them, but they're just too weak and tinny to be of utilize for anything other than whisper-placidity levels of listening and perhaps cranking the sound for the odd YouTube clip you want to evidence your mates. Give thanks goodness for that headphone jack.

HP Pavilion 15-au072sa – Functioning

The Intel Core i3-6100U processor at the centre of this laptop means it copes admirably with any 24-hour interval-to-day computing tasks. You can happily take loads of tabs open in your browser, have Outlook open up, Spotify running in the background and much more, and it will hardly interruption for thought. Anything a flake tougher, similar gaming or editing video, will benefit from more horsepower, merely otherwise you're proficient to go.

This is reflected in a PCMark viii Dwelling score of 2,464 – plenty of laptops twice the toll score little college – and Geekbench 3 scores of 2,468 (single-thread) and 5,249 (multi-thread).

All the same, that mechanical hard drive does make booting and loading of apps and games much slower than SSD-equipped laptops. Once you're used to the speed of SSDs it'due south hard to go back, but if you're still used to difficult drives it won't be an issue. Plus, if you lot take loads of big files that you don't desire to store in the cloud, its 1TB chapters will be very welcome.

HP Pavilion 15-au072sa – Battery Life

What'south more, yous get that pretty decent performance while also getting good battery life. Y'all won't get close to HP'south claims of ix hours unless yous driblet the screen brightness to stupidly depression levels, but at a sensible level of around 100-150nits (60-80% brightness) this laptop lasted 6 hours and 47 minutes on one charge. Certainly not record breaking, but just well-nigh enough that you could get away with not taking the charger in for lectures for a day.

Should I buy the HP Pavilion 15-au072sa?

This is a perfectly adequate laptop for those on a tight budget who just desire a actually bones device for 24-hour interval-to-24-hour interval computing, and who as well desire the reassurance of decent performance and battery life.

However, it does suffer from the fact that those needs can be met by plenty of other laptops for fifty-fifty less money. A quick browse online reveals plenty of similar machines for £300 or less. They might have an hour shorter battery life and slightly older, slower CPUs or less attractive designs, simply not by much, and they'll still do the job.

Combined with the fact that the HP's display is particularly poor, you have a device that's struggling to ascension to a higher place the crowd. It'southward certainly not a bad machine, but it's not exactly a bargain.

Related: All-time laptops for students

Verdict

A decent enough choice for budget buyers, but cheaper options offering the same basic feel and you only need spend a little more to go a much better screen.

BUY At present: HP Pavilion au072sa from Currys.co.great britain for £399.99

This review unit of measurement was supplied by Currys.

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Used equally our main laptop for the review catamenia

Tested for at least a week

Used consistent benchmarks for fair comparisons with other laptops

Reviewed using respected industry benchmarks and real earth use

Trusted Score

Score in particular

• Performance 7

• Keyboard 7

• Design seven

• Screen Quality 4

• Build Quality 7

• Value vii

• Touchpad 7

• Features 7

• Heat & Noise 7

• Battery Life 8

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