HP Pavilion Gaming Notebook PC (2018): Playing more than its price

The Pavilion Gaming Laptop is not as aggressive or as sophisticated as HP Omen game line, although it's a bit of a goal. The PC maker presents it as a sturdy and reliable notebook, great for gaming and everyday tasks, and it certainly does.

You will not find the latest Nvidia RTX graphics chips inside, and there are no gambling supplements such as RGB LED keypad illumination or GPU overclocking. You get great multi-tasking and gameplay performance and a design that stands out from the rest. This is a 15.6-inch budget laptop that is not too bright.

Prices start at $ 780 on the HP site with Nvidia's GeForce GTX 1050 2GB (£ 649 UK, AU $ 1,749 in Australia), but I've tested an exclusive configuration at $ 999 worth 39; Amazon with a more powerful 4GB GTX 1050 Ti, which is currently not an option. directly from HP. In general, it's a good deal for what you get in design, specifications and performance. But, depending on what you want personally in a $ 999 gaming laptop, it may not be the best treat right now.

HP Pavilion Gaming Notebook PC (15-c0042nr)

Revised price	$ 999
Display size / resolution	15.6-inch screen, 1920 x 1080 pixels
CPU	Intel Core i7-8750H at 2.2 GHz
Memory	DDR4 Memory 16 GB 2,666 MHz
Graphic	4GB of Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
Storage room	1 TB hard drive, 128 GB SSD
Networking	Wireless 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2
Operating system	Window 10 Home (64 bit)

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This green game glow

As Dell G Series Laptops, this pavilion is relatively thin and lightweight for a budget-conscious gaming laptop and is more angular than the rest of the Pavilion lineup, especially at the back, where ventilation opens beyond the bottom of the lid . Beyond that, the HP logo at the top is slightly tinged with green and the backlit keyboard in acid green color helps to give it a "portable game" look.

If you do not like green, there are also white and purple versions. The first would be a good option if you need your gaming laptop to be less visible in an office environment. Green is pretty, though, and it's a good change from the red generally used on entry-level gaming notebooks. The keys remain easy to read with the backlight off. Even the choice of the font is interesting.

The keyboard is also comfortable to use, with enough travel time to prevent a touch typist like me from feeling tired after daily use. Apart from the WASD keys described, there are no other game features on the keyboard or software to configure macros or anything like that. The touchpad is acceptable for everyday use, if nothing special. It does not have discrete buttons, which I like to have for games where a mouse is not needed.

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Something must give

On gaming laptops under $ 1,000, it is not uncommon for the quality of the display to suffer at a lower price. The 60Hz Full HD panel in this configuration is no different. This is not bad, with good vision and good contrast, but it is not very bright and the color gamut and accuracy are not ideal for content creation. However, HP offers a 144Hz display for better gaming performance or a 4K resolution screen for content creators.