HP Pavilion Gaming 15 (2021) review

[ntab Configuration]
The Pavilion line groups together most of HP’s affordable laptops. Traditionally, Pavilion laptops have pretty good specifications for the price, but they cut corners in other departments like cooling, chassis sturdiness and display quality. Despite these shortcomings, the HP Pavilion Gaming laptops have been popular among budget gamers. Recently, HP released another refresh of its long-standing HP Pavilion Gaming line, this time rocking the 5th generation of Ryzen processors and the reliable GTX 1650 dedicated graphics card. With the launch of the RTX 3050 in spring 2021, is a laptop with a GTX 1650 launched in 2019 still relevant? This review will go over the pros and cons of this laptop and try its best to answer this question. The configuration reviewed here is listed below:

[ntab General overview]

The HP Pavilion Gaming 15 has a pretty basic design. Apart from its cut corners and the big ventilation grills on the back, nothing is screaming “gaming laptop” on it, so it could easily pass as a regular laptop at the office. On the other hand, the build quality is inferior. The all-plastic chassis bends and flexes with every occasion. For example, the laptop lid bends when the user presses the centre area (around the HP logo). There is keyboard deck flex. The keyboard’s keycaps are wobbly and lean left and right when typing. The trackpad has a very floaty feeling to it and flexes even with gentle touches. The whole laptop was designed to be cheap, and it shows. The chassis also has sharp edges, some of them are by design, and some are quality control issues. The areas with sharp edges worth mentioning are the lid and the bottom part of the chassis, where the wrists naturally rest when the user is typing. These edges make the typing experience very uncomfortable after a while.

To expand a bit on the keyboard. The backlit keyboard is serviceable. Yes, the keycaps are shaky, the function keys are way too small, and the WASD keys often get stuck when gaming, but overall, it gets the job done, and it even has a Numpad, which is a big plus.

Another disappointing area is the peripheral port selection. On the left side, it has:

And on the right side, the laptop has:

Regarding this port arrangement, there are three observations necessary here:

1. Below average number of USB type-A ports.

It is clear that HP wanted to reduce the production cost, and since this laptop is meant to be as affordable as possible, this is understandable. However, since this is also a gaming laptop, it is safe to assume that most users will buy extra peripherals (like a gaming keyboard and a gaming mouse), so only two USB ports will quickly fill up. In practice, most users of this laptop will also have to buy an additional USB port hub.

2. Bad placement of ports.

a) The ports that usually have permanent attachments in them (the LAN and video output ports) are poorly placed on the right side of the laptop (instead of the left side or on the back), thus interfering with the mouse area.

b) The ports are too close to one another, and the gaming mouse used for testing had a larger than average USB connection, which blocked the HDMI and LAN ports. The only solutions are to either use the only left-side USB port, buy a different mouse or use a USB hub. Whichever solution is opted for, it is less than ideal.

c) Finally, it seems that none of the USB ports can be used with an aftermarket card reader while the other ports are in use. During testing, the aftermarket card reader could not be used on the laptop’s right side since the only USB type-A port was placed right between the occupied HDMI and LAN ports. There was a similar problem on the left side too, where the only USB type-A port was too close to the charging port, which even though it was placed at an angle, its cable would still interfere with the card reader when in use (see the picture below).

3. The SD card reader.

The built-in SD card reader is an odd addition to this laptop. Gamers would instead trade this SD card reader for another USB Type-A port. But as a content creator, this eliminates the need for an aftermarket card reader to carry around, so it’s a welcome addition. HP likely tried to shoot two birds with one stone, targeting a wider variety of customers in hopes of increasing sales. There was a slight problem with this review unit, though. The card’s lock would physically move whenever the SD card was inserted in the card reader due to the tight space, thus locking the card. Consequently, Windows would refuse to move (the ‘cut’ feature) the content from the card, only copy from it. Eventually, the Noteb review used an aftermarket card reader since the built-in one was pretty useless.

Another fact worth mentioning is the RAM. The unit reviewed here came with two 4GB sticks of RAM, which can be either a positive or negative thing. Since this is an entry-level budget gaming laptop, it is safe to assume that most users won’t have the budget necessary to upgrade the RAM right after purchasing it. On the positive side, having 2 x 4GBof RAM means that the user can benefit from dual-channel RAM and increased performance until they decide to upgrade. On the other hand, if the user chooses to upgrade the RAM to 16 GB, the laptop needs two sticks of 8GB instead of just one stick, increasing the overall upgrade cost.

[ntab Display]
The HP Pavilion Gaming 15 is equipped with the N156HRA-EA1/ CMN1521 IPS panel, the same panel that Acer uses in its Helios lineup. The display has an average peak brightness of 276 measured nits, has a high refresh rate of 144 Hz, which is strange since this display is paired with an entry-level dedicated graphics card, and good viewing angles. Unfortunately, even though HP included an SD card reader for content creators, this laptop is not recommended for photo/video editing. It has a poor colour coverage of only 62.8% sRGB, 43.7% Adobe RGB, and 44.8% DCI P3.

Here is a link to the calibrated display profile of the reviewed unit. Because each display is unique, this profile will not perfectly match other displays of the same model. Still, using this profile should give better overall colours.

sRGB profile and calibration

[ntab Disassembly]

[ntab Benchmarks]

Night Raid

SCORE	24697
Graphics score	32633
Physics score	10387

Fire Strike

SCORE	8093
Graphics score	8622
Physics score	18762
Combined score	3499

Sky Diver

SCORE	22026
Graphics score	24386
Physics score	15048
Combined score	21383

Time Spy

SCORE	3450
Graphics score	3196
Physics score	6285

Orange Room

SCORE	4526
Average frame rate	98.66 fps
Target frame rate	109.00 fps

Cyan room

SCORE	3048
Average frame rate	66.44 fps
Target frame rate	88.90 fps

Blue Room

SCORE	997
Average frame rate	21.73 fps
Target frame rate	109.00 fps

Nvidia DLSS Test

DLSS Off	– fps
DLSS On	– fps

Cinebench R20

Single Core	517 pts
Multi Core	3465

Blender

CPU blend time	4m 43s
GPU blend time	2m 21s

Geekbench 4

Single-core score	Multi-core score
5693	25484

Geekbench 5

Single-core score	Multi-core score
1346	6015

PCMark 10 Web Score 8727 Apps Score 11891 Chat Score 7581 Photo Score 7841 Video Score 4611 Writing Score 7270 Spreadsheet Score 9379 Essentials 9231 Productivity 8474 Digital Content Creation 6329 SCORE 5671

Unigine Superposition benchmark
720p Low	13828
1080p Medium	5989
1080p High	4477
1080p Extreme	1645
4K Optimized	2560
8K Optimized	865

Crystal Disk Mark

[ntab Gaming benchmarks]

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[ntab Temperatures]

The cooling solution of the HP Pavilion Gaming 15 consists of two heat pipes shared between the CPU and the GPU, one large and one average, both placed at the back of the laptop with two fans grouped in the centre of the laptop. Something worth mentioning here is that during testing, the chassis remained cool to the touch even when the internal temperatures were exceeding 100 degrees Celcius. The HP kept the Pavilion’s keys cool by placing the storage unit in the centre of the laptop instead of the CPU or GPU like most other laptop manufacturers. Thus, the internal design of the 2021 HP Pavilion Gaming15 is somewhat atypical by placing all the heat-generating components on the laptop’s right side.

All the tests were performed at an ambient temperature of 26-27° C (78.8-80.6° F).

During the standard 30 minutes AIDA64 stress test (CPU, FPU, cache), the processor reached an average temperature of 95.8 °C (204.4 °F), with a maximum of 101.3 °C (214.3 °F). At these temperatures, the processor managed to keep an average frequency of 3.45 GHz, with occasional dips to as low as 2.52 GHz on some of its cores. Despite the higher-than-average temperatures, the laptop performs well. The average 3.45 GHz speed is noticeably higher than the 3.30 GHz minimum base speed but significantly below its maximum boost speed of 4.20 GHz.

In the combined AIDA64 + Unigine Superposition stress test (which had both the processor and the dedicated graphics card under heavy load for 30 minutes), the processor reached a maximum temperature of 101.6 °C (214.8 °F) and throttled until it settled at a temperature of 96 °C (204.8 °F). The processor kept an average clock speed of 3.21 GHz with occasional dips to as low as 2.17 GHz. The dedicated graphics card maintained an average clock speed of 1449 MHz with a maximum boost of 1785 MHz. Temperature-wise, the video card hovered between 68.8 and 72.4°C (155.8 – 162.3°F). This time, the processor fails to output the marketed performance of at least 3.30 GHz.

Finally, the laptop was tested with the AIDA64 stability test, another combined stress test for the video card and processor. The results were very similar to the previous stress tests. The processor reached a maximum temperature of 100.5 °C (212.9 °F) and throttled until it settled at a temperature of 92.9 °C (199.2 °F). Despite its throttling, the processor still managed to keep an average clock speed of 3.16 GHz with occasional dips to as low as 1.46 GHz. The dedicated graphics card maintained a clock speed of 1767 MHz with a maximum boost of 1785 MHz. Temperature-wise, the video card hovered between 73.1 and 76.5°C (163.5 – 169.7 °F).

After all these tests conducted by the Noteb review team, three things are worth mentioning:

The first thing is that the cooling solution implemented by HP is barely enough. At first, the Pavilion Gaming 15 seemed to keep its ground, but with each subsequent test, it was clear that the laptop struggles with overheating and throttling issues. Thus, buying a more powerful configuration of this laptop is NOT recommended.

Secondly, these are synthetic tests that are meant to push the machine to its limits. During real-life testing, like gaming, the laptop managed to run at lower temperatures and output decent performance. For more detailed game testing results, please check the Noteb Youtube channel.

Thirdly, the Ryzen processors’ thermal limit (105°C) is higher than that of Intel processors(100°C). However, constantly running at these temperatures will likely affect the lifespan of the laptop.

[ntab Noise]
Unfortunately, the user can’t control the fan speed or select a thermal profile. The laptop’s noise increases and decreases with the workload, starting at barely noticeable while idle and getting loud when the fans are at their maximum speed during gaming or other intensive tasks.

The LatencyMon test evaluates if a laptop is suitable for video/audio editing and recording. The machine did not experience any high latency throughout the test, making it ideal for sound recording. The test was run multiple times to eliminate any flukes, and it constantly returned with the same results.

LatencyMon test – WIFI	LatencyMon test – LAN

[ntab Battery life]

Since most laptops are used on battery for mundane office activities and web browsing, the laptop was tested using a simulated continuous web browsing session over WiFi. The browsing session involved checking emails/news, social media and accessing multimedia websites, similar to the behaviour of an average user. The level of brightness was set according to visibility and usability. At 50% brightness, the laptop provided an enjoyable viewing experience. The sound volume was also set to 50%.

With its 50 WHr battery, the laptop lasted 3 hours and 27 minutes. The machine was tested using both Firefox and Edge and yielded similar battery life results regardless of the browser.

Charging the laptop from 5% to 100% took 2 hours.

[ntab Conclusion]

Pros:

• good 1080p gaming performance (on medium-high settings)
• high refresh rate display
• backlit keyboard
• decent speakers
• competitive pricing

Cons:

• low colour coverage display
• poor build quality
• the chassis has sharp edges;
• cramped USB ports;

So, is the HP Pavilion Gaming 15 with a GTX 1650 worth it in 2021? Well, yes and no. At the time of this review (September 2021), the laptop had a console-like price of $700, so yes, price-wise, it was worth it. For the money, you get a Windows machine useable for both work and home, with acceptable performance for medium 1080p gaming. However, if the price goes up by only $100, it will start to get into the price territory of much better built and cooled laptops, like the Lenovo Legion 5. At over $800, the 2021 Pavilion Gaming 15 is an overpriced, poor-quality machine full of shortcomings and questionable lifespan. In conclusion, depending on the prices, this laptop can either be the best value for the money gaming laptop on the market or a total rip-off.

[ntab Videos]