{"id":21092,"date":"2015-08-30T19:53:53","date_gmt":"2015-08-30T11:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/?p=21092"},"modified":"2018-07-14T16:13:33","modified_gmt":"2018-07-14T08:13:33","slug":"hp-pavilion-15-p257tx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/2015\/08\/30\/hp-pavilion-15-p257tx\/","title":{"rendered":"HP Pavilion 15 p257TX"},"content":{"rendered":"

The wife was musing that she never gets her own new laptop at home. Oh, her workplace provides her a Fujitsu laptop, but it’s a pretty clunky machine that she doesn’t seem to like bringing to and fro work and home. All the home notebooks she’s used – the Dell XPS 16 (fabulous machine with a beautiful display) and the MacBook Pro Retina – had been hand-me downs. Powerful machines yes, with the latter still the most high-spec laptop I’ve (ever) owned. In any case – probably also in part that it’s a month to her birthday – I went about with the usual vigor to find her one such.<\/p>\n

And of requirements: the wife only said she didn’t need it to be mobile. I was already eyeing a beautiful Asus Zenbook UX305<\/a>, solid unibody construction with a bright and good-contrast matte screen, fitted with a 128GB SSD – and all for just $999… and that option was thrown out of the window.<\/p>\n

Her workplace also had a small grant claimable by staff to support them in the purchase of such technological equipment. Since her new notebook was going to mostly sit at home, the other requirements I had in mind were:<\/p>\n

14″ to 15.6″ screen. Has to be full HD – none of that 1366×768 resolutions<\/p>\n

At least 8 GB of RAM<\/p>\n

Preferably non-reflective glossy screen, but even if it’s matte, it needs to offer wide viewing angles<\/p>\n

Preferably an SSD drive<\/p>\n

At least an i5 processor<\/p>\n

Not too cheap looking<\/p>\n

Good warranty terms<\/p>\n

All for under $1.4K<\/p>\n

Of the bunch of requirements, the hardest requirement to meet was really the screen and also the SSD option. Very few notebooks at this price range will offer a large full HD screen with wide viewing angles and an SSD drive to go alongside that. I did think about going for a custom-assembled Aftershock<\/a> notebook that could had been configured within that budget, but that came sans operating system and would require an additional purchase – an expense I was trying to avoid.<\/p>\n

I finally got lucky over the weekend evening when after dinner at Parkway Parade, I chanced across the HP Pavilion 15 at the Best Denki, and of the following specification:<\/p>\n

\"Got
Got it for a lot cheaper than the Recommended Retail Price on the August 2015 HP Retail Guide.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

i7 processor – nice. Upgradeable to Windows 10 – check. 8 GB RAM – check. Dedicated if yesteryear generation GPU – don’t need it. 15.6″ screen – check. FHD matte screen with wide viewing angle – all check. And 3 years warranty – nice! I would have likely shortlisted this model for further consideration – but the notebook also was tagged a promotional price of $1099. That sealed the decision pretty much.<\/p>\n

After spending a day loading up the usual office productivity software and other applications that Ling typically uses, and forced-upgraded it to Windows 10, what I liked of the new HP Pavilion 15 p257TX<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Full HD screen with a decent viewing angle, and good brightness levels to match. The color gamut isn’t quite as wide as the XPS 16 nor the Retina, but it’s still pretty good for a matte screen.<\/p>\n

Comfortably spaced chiclet styled keyboard with a nice tactile and springy touch to its keys.<\/p>\n

Properly placed USB ports: the right USB 2.0 port for the mouse, and two USB 3.0 ports on the left.<\/p>\n

Large trackpad.<\/p>\n

At 2.2 Kg weight, not that heavy for a 15.6″ laptop.<\/p>\n

Attractive-looking design. Not a fingerprint magnet.<\/p>\n

Dirt cheap for what it’s offering.<\/p>\n

And as for the stuff that’s less stellar:<\/p>\n

The 1TB 5400 rpm hard disk is slow. Or maybe it’s just that this is my first notebook in 4 years that’s running off a HDD.<\/p>\n

Hard disk activity lights situated on the right-hand side and away from immediate view.<\/p>\n

Keyboard lid exhibits some flex.<\/p>\n

Thick bezel around the screen.<\/p>\n

Not a backlit keyboard.<\/p>\n

Lots of the usual bloatware, but thankfully – I was able to install all of those I didn’t care for.<\/p>\n

Apart from the slow hard disk, pretty minor annoyances, made even more trivial when one considers the low asking price.<\/p>\n

\"The
The HP Pavilion 15 p257TX.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Slightly
Slightly off-centered keyboard to make way for the numeric keypad.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Spacious
Spacious trackpad, though still not with the same tactile feel of a MacBook.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Two
Two USB ports on the left, alongside a LAN and HDMI port, and air exhaust vents.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Another
Another USB port, and the optical drive.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Attractive
Attractive if somewhat plasticky chassis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The
The Dell XPS 13 is diminutive – while the HP Pavilion 15 is… normal size!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

More notes to come after extended use!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The wife was musing that she never gets her own new laptop at home. Oh, her workplace provides her a Fujitsu laptop, but it’s a pretty clunky machine that she doesn’t seem to like bringing to and fro work and<\/p>\n

Read More HP Pavilion 15 p257TX<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,16],"tags":[643],"class_list":["post-21092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-at-home","category-toys-technology","tag-laptops","wpcat-6-id","wpcat-16-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/blog-2015-photography-P1040496-hp-pavilion15.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}