HP Pavilion x360 review: Excellent battery life, great performance and loud speakers make it worth it

Rating: ****

Price: Rs 72,291

Specifications: 14-inch full HD touchscreen, 7th generation Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 8GB SSD + 1TB HDD, 2 x USB 3.0 ports, HDMI out, USB Type-C, SD card reader, HD webcam, dual speakers, 3-cell battery, Windows 10, 1.72kg

Pros: Sleek metal unibody, bright and responsive display, excellent battery life, good performance, loud speaker output

Cons: 5,400 rpm HDD is bottleneck for performance, comes with ugly brick adapter


It’s easy to see the appeal of hybrid laptops. They’re laptops built for the kind of work that we do today and they can straddle the rigors of both work and play. Typically, they include a touchscreen that can swivel all the way around. This means you can use it like a laptop or tablet with other modes inbetween. The Pavilion x360 is the latest offering from HP with a 360 rotating screen.

For the Pavilion x360, HP has used stainless steel hinges which are sealed to protect against dust. They say that it improves longevity of the rotating mechanism and we also noticed that there’s less wobble on the screen while typing – a common issue with this type of notebook.

You can place the screen at any angle and even rotate it to a full 360 degrees to use it as a touchscreen tablet. The all metal unibody design is gorgeous. The tapered design makes it easy to carry and hold. The HP logo is embossed on the lid while the palm rest has a brushed metal finish – it looks every bit the premium notebook.

What we did not like was the huge, brick-like power adapter that HP includes with the x360 – it ruins both the portability and the premium appearance.

On the left side of the Pavilion x360 is the power button with indication light, heat vents and volume buttons. The right side has 2 x USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI out, a USB Type-C port and an SD card reader – it would have been great if HP had included a USB to Ethernet or a USB Type-C to Type-A adapter in the box. You might need these. The keyboard has large keys and is very comfortable to type on. We liked that the keyboard is backlit by default, but you can only switch the backlit on or off – no brightness control is available. The single piece trackpad responds quite well. We were particularly impressed by the sound quality from the Bang & Olufsen tuned speakers.



Despite the slim design of the machine, the speakers are surprisingly loud – good enough to use as a music player in a small room.

As for the screen, you get a 14-inch antiglare touchscreen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels which keeps everything pinsharp. The touchscreen works well and HP even bundles an ActivePen that works seamlessly with Windows Ink. We had a professional designer try it out and he loved the fluidity and accuracy of the pen. That being said, screen brightness could have been better.

Specifications includes a 7th generation Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, a Geforce 940 graphics card and 1TB HDD with 8GB flash storage for the OS. While there are no issues with day-to-day performance and basic games like Counterstrike GO, we think that the 5,400 rpm HDD is a big bottleneck.


The 14-inch antiglare touchscreen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels keeps everything pinsharp. (Image: hpshopping.in)

The operating system boots up fast because it loads from flash storage while other programs like Photoshop take much longer. Data transfer speeds will also be lower than a machine that uses flash based storage. In a nutshell, power users will likely not be satisfied with these speeds. HP should offer the option to get it with an SSD.

Battery life is pretty good — we regularly managed between 6 to 7 hours from a full charge. Overall, the HP Pavilion X360 is a good option if you are looking for a premium convertible notebook. For about the same price, you can also consider the Lenovo Yoga 520 that has similar features and specifications but includes 256GB of flash-based storage instead of a HDD.