The HP Pavilion Beats Edition is one of the most unique laptops released in the last couple years. It’s an excellent product from HP with black and red polished surface similar to a pair of the Red Beats Solar HD. The back of the cover is made of metal, and all other parts have a beautiful matte-black finish.
The HP Pavilion Beats Edition cannot be described as thin or light compared with the Dell XPS 13 laptops or Lenovo Yoga 2-in-1s. HP Pavilion Beat Edition is a sharp-looking black and red 15-inch laptop with a hybrid hard drive, a very cool red-backlit keyboard, and a subwoofer. It also has a standard keyboard with 10 numeric keypad as well as a track pad with a Beats logo on the back of the lid.
Other features of the HP laptop include; hard-disk indicator and power status LED indicator and a battery life of about 4 hours. The HP Pavilion Beats Edition is not recommended for gamers but it can still be used for light games. With a low price of about $1,049, HP Pavilion Beat Edition is probably the first laptop to consider when in need of a laptop.
DESIGN
The HP Pavilion Beats Edition is a 15” laptop designed with an attractive shiny red and black plastic surface which makes its panel highly reflective. Its components includes an AC charging port, HDMI, Headphone/microphone combo jack, USB 2.0, 2 x USB 3.0, LAN, USB card reader, DVD drive, security lock, hard-disk LED indicator and power status LED indicator.
Another pleasing designed of the HP notebook is its screen’s matte finish with antiglare which does not allow for colors and contrast as eye-catching as you would find with a glossy screen. HP Pavilion Beat Edition is designed with two speakers augmented by a subwoofer, a rarity in a 14-inch laptop. The keyboard is standard with 10 numeric keypad as well as a track pad with a Beats logo on it and the B-button on the keyboard is replaced with Beats logo.
HP pavilion Beats Edition comes with Windows 8.1 64-bit Edition operating system, the battery life is decent and lasts for 4 to 5 hours.
DISPLAY AND GRAPHICS
HP 15-inch display has a resolution of 1,600 x 900 pixels. It’s much better compared with 1,366 x 768 pixels you’ll get on most 14- and 15-inch laptops. It is awesome for running basic productivity apps like Microsoft word, Netflix especially with its integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics. It also allows for HD streaming and online gaming. The color and contrast ratio on this device is about average and it comes with a multi-touch touch pad which enables the use of two fingers on the track pad. The graphics on the Pavilion Beats Edition graphics is perfect for watching movies and editing photos and videos. The Adobe sRGB scores 66% and Adobe RGB scores 50%, angle of view performance on the laptop is poor.
PERFORMANCE
HP Pavilion Beat Edition performed well, beating other similarly priced midsize systems in both multitasking and single-app tests with the following features;
Processor – 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-2450M
Operating system – Windows 8.1 Home Premium (64-bit)
Screen size (diagonal) – 15.6 inches
Graphics Intel – HD3000
Memory Speed – 1600 MHz
Resolution – 1,600 x 900 (HD)
Sound – Stereo speakers, subwoofer, stereo microphone
Hard drive – 5400 rpm, HDD, 1 TB
RAM – 8 GB (1 x 8 GB)
Connectivity – HDMI, Headphone/microphone combo jack, USB 2.0, 2 x USB 3.0, LAN
Networking – Bluetooth, Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n
Color – silver ash, twinkle black cover with linear texture, vibrant red
Weight – 5.97 lbs
Pros
Multi-touch touch pad
Red back-lit on the keyboard
Two Beat audio speakers
Microsoft Windows 8.1
Hard-disk LED indicator
Power status LED indicator
Cons
Poor color and contrast ratio
Angle of view performance on the laptop is poor
Difficult to the laptop with one hand
Heavier than the weight of comparison PCs
Not suitable for gaming
CONCLUSION
The HP Pavilion Beats Edition is an excellent computer with features you won’t find on any other mid-price, midsize laptops. The installation of an additional RAM and solid state hard drive significantly enhances the performance of the laptop. What more, the graphics, display and keyboard performance are superb and despite the poor angle of view, the laptop is worth saving for.
