The HP Pavilion 15-n207tu is a well-rounded, albeit basic laptop with the bare essentials required to keep a user happy. The device does have a good screen and great audio, not to mention the decent battery life. However, it's underpowered at this price and we've definitely seen better hardware and more features at the same price, including the likes of the Sony Vaio Fit 15E or the Lenovo Ideapad G500s. We'd only recommend this device if you're a die-hard HP fan.
Design and build
The design of the laptop is fairly unremarkable. It’s an HP laptop and anyone who’s familiar with their designs will immediately recognise this laptop for what it is. The glossy finish is a trademark HP look and other than that, we don’t have much to say. The build is expectedly good, the hinge is sturdy, there’s no creaking anywhere; it’s just a sturdy laptop.
Features and specifications
The laptop is exactly what you’d expect it to be. An i3 powered budget laptop with 4GB of RAM, a 500GB HDD, the usual assortment of connectivity options including HDMI, 2xUSB 3.0 ports and one USB 2.0 port, not to mention a card reader and Ethernet port. You do get an optical drive and a numpad though, which is a big plus in the books of those who need it.
We would have liked to see a touch-screen and an SSD, but it’s a budget laptop, you can’t really expect too much at the price.
Performance
The performance scores are exactly what you would expect from an i3 powered laptop. It scored 2435 in PCMark 8’s Home benchmark, 33836 in 3DMark’s Ice Storm test and a measly 389 in the Fire Strike test.
That’s the ho-hum part. What’s interesting is the fact that this laptop managed to power itself for a good three hours in our (intensive) tests. We would expect the laptop to easily last four hours if you’re a bit careful and tone down the screen brightness considerably.
The laptop’s display does bear mentioning. It’s among the best we’ve seen in recent memory, not the best by much mind you, primarily because of the great contrast ratio (of 97:1). The brightness is low at 70cd/m^2 but it’s still good enough for the average user, and, lest we forget, the viewing angles are quite good.
The speakers are also quite good, being quite loud and audible in a somewhat noisy room. This is good if, say, you’re a college kid who’s entertaining his friends with some movie or something.
Given the specs, you can’t really indulge in heavy gaming, but the i3 CPU means that most day-to-day tasks will run smoothly and the 4GB of RAM will adequately support that.
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HP Pavilion 15-n207tu
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Score
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PCMark 8 Score – Home score
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2435
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PCMark 8 Creative score
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1941
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Ice Storm
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33836
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Cloud Gate
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2983
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Fire Strike
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389
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Peacekeeper
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1634
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Cinebench R11.5
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1.82
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Battery life (minutes)
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189
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Brightness
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70 cd/m^2
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Contrast Ratio
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98:1
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Temperature
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60
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Conclusion
The HP Pavilion 15-n207tu is a well-rounded, albeit basic laptop with the bare essentials required to keep a user happy. The device does have a good screen and great audio, not to mention the decent battery life. However, it’s underpowered at this price and we’ve definitely seen better hardware and more features at the same price, including the likes of the Sony Vaio Fit 15E or the Lenovo Ideapad G500s. We’d only recommend this device if you’re a die-hard HP fan.