HP Pavilion x360 (2023) laptop review: A versatile workbook

There are probably thousands of Windows laptops out there. While most laptops are designed for a wide range of purposes, there is a dearth of devices developed for specific uses cases, such as office tasks, graphic designing, video editing, etc. HP recently launched its Pavilion 14, Pavilion x360, and Pavilion 14 Plus in India. These are compact, touch-enabled Windows 11-powered laptops.

Is the HP Pavilion x360 the right laptop for the modern workforce that seeks portability, performance, and practicality? I have been testing the laptop for the last few weeks, and here are my thoughts on HP’s latest offering and how it stands against the competition.

This is a highly practical notebook, and the I/O is a testament to the same. This machine comprises two USB-A ports, a USB Type-C port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a headphone jack. While the laptop can be charged via the Type-C port using any USB-PD certified charger, the laptop actually ships with a dated but faster barrel-style AC charger.

Touch-enabled display with stylus support

The primary reason that helps differentiate HP’s latest offering from the rest of the competition is its touch display. While there are many Windows laptops with touch input support, I particularly liked the HP Pavilion x360 over the rest due to its compact form factor, and the fact that HP also bundles a stylus in the retail package.

However, this FHD IPS display on this laptop also has a few quirks such as the brightness being limited to 250 nits, and even the colour accuracy isn’t that great with just 45% NTSC gamut coverage. Hence, if you are considering this laptop for tasks like photo or video editing, you also need to consider a brighter and colour-accurate external display. While the touch input gives this laptop some edge over the competition, there are definitely a few downsides.

This is the first laptop that I have tested in this price range with a 5MP web camera. It enables 1080/FHD video recording and conferencing, and for those who are privacy-conscious, the laptop also has a physical camera shutter, which gives additional peace of mind by physically blocking the camera sensor.

I have been testing the Intel Core i5-1335U variant of this laptop, and I am happy to report that the notebook offers good performance and battery life at the same time. The hybrid CPU architecture with P cores and E cores offers the best performance and switches to a stealth mode during normal usage with a total of 10 CPU cores. On top of that, I also didn’t notice any sort of heating or loud fan noise during my testing.

1TB of storage is enough for most users and it offers good read and write speeds, allowing the laptop to quickly load apps and games. However, the choice of 16GB DDR4 RAM is definitely a cost-cutting measure, and most laptops in this price range offer DDR5x or even DDR5 type RAM, which is both faster and more energy-efficient and the 13th Gen Intel chip also supports both DDR4 and DDR5 type-RAM.

This laptop has a 43Wh battery, similar to most laptops in this price range. While the company claims that the device can deliver over 8 hours of backup, in my testing, it did last for around 5 to 6 hours with normal usage, which mostly includes web browsing and video streaming. If you are someone who runs Excel sheets, your usage may vary.

With the Intel network chip, the laptop also offers WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 wireless connectivity features. Lastly, the machine has a built-in fingerprint sensor, which is fast and accurate making authentication easy.