*Attractive design*360-degree swivel*Decent keyboard
HP introduced Pavilion X360 laptop at the MWC in February. and now, it has brought the device to the Indian market. Taking a cue from the likes of Lenovo Yoga, the laptop can swivel 360-degrees and be turned into a tablet. However, unlike other convertibles, HP is targeting the mid-range segment with the device by pricing it at Rs 39,990. Is the Pavilion X360 the affordable convertible we've been waiting for? We try to find out in our review.
Build and design
HP Pavilion X360 is a very good-looking device though it's on the heavier side at 1.4Kg. We were enchanted by its 'brilliant red' colour outer shell that has a satin sparkle texture and a soft matter finish that helps protect against fingerprints. The silver coloured metallic HP logo sits right in the middle.
The hinge as well as the bottom shell sport the same design. Lift the laptop's lid and you'll see the its 11.6-inch touch-enabled display surrounded by a black bezel that sports a glossy finish with the rest of the frame also sporting black colour, albeit with matte finish.
The Keyboard panel on the other hand, looks stunning with its brushed aluminium finish, featuring an island/chiclet style black coloured keyboard. The keyboard features special keys for controlling screen brightness, volume and music playback.
The trackpad also sports a metallic finish. We found the keyboard to be pretty good, although not as swift as the ones featured in some high-end devices. Your typing speed would, of course, improve as you spend more time with the device. To our disappointment, the keyboard is not backlit.
The trackpad, which HP likes to call Imagepad, offers multi-touch gesture support and is pretty smooth when it comes to scrolling or navigating through the screen. The wrist rest offers good support and makes the experience even better.
The hinge sports the Beats Audio branding.
HP Pavilion X360 offers a large number of connectivity ports. On the right side of the keyboard panel, you'll see an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, a USB 3.0 port, a USB port 2.0 and an SD card reader, in addition to a charging port.
The left edge sports a USB 2.0 port and an earphone jack along with a volume rocker key (which comes handy in tablet mode) and a power button. The two speakers are located at the bottom. Overall, the Pavilion X360 is a very well-built device and exudes a premium feel.
The 360-degree hinge
Thanks to its 360-degree hinge, the device can be used in multiple modes. It can serve as a conventional clam-shell notebook, used as a video player in the stand mode with the keyboard acting as a base, and act like a photo frame or recipe book, placed in the tent mode. You can fold it a full 360-degree and make it into a tablet as well. The keyboard is automatically disabled as you turn the display an angle more than 180-degree.
While the hinge works flawlessly and never feels flimsy, the tablet's base panel is a bit heavy and adds to the bulk when you're carrying it around as a tablet. Also, when you fold it 360-degree, the display doesn't clasp with the base panel and since the base panel is longer than the display panel, it sticks out and doesn't look appealing. HP says that it's intentional as the speakers are located at the base. We feel that the placement could have been different to take care of aesthetics.
This really spoils the remotest possibility of someone mistaking the device for a tablet. The added width worsens things further. The device is good for use as a laptop or a stand, but we'd certainly not prefer using it as a tablet.
Having said that, the Pavilion X360 scores when it comes to build and design, and is one of the most attractive devices available in the market.
Display
HP Pavilion X360 comes with an 11.6-inch anti-glare LED backlit touch screen (1366X768p). For a device which is designed to be used as a tablet in addition to a notebook, the X360's screen is disappointing. While we're okay with HP putting a low resolution,720p panel as it's a mid-range device, the display isn't bright enough and colours appear washed out. Viewing angles are also not that wide. The display is one of the weaker points of the device.
Software
Our review unit came with 64-bit Windows 8.1 and we updated it to Update 1, the latest version of the OS that features power and search buttons, ability to pin Modern UI apps to the taskbar, and boot directly to Desktop, among others.
Windows 8.1 Update 1 offers a better desktop experience and streamlines Modern/ Windows 8 apps with desktop apps.
HP also bundles additional software with the laptop, including CyberLink YouCam and PowerDVD, Adobe Shockwave Player, HP Connected Music, HP Support apps, McAfee LiveSafe, HP CoolSense, HP ProtectSmart, Skype, Amazon Kindle and 7-Zip among other HP apps and casual games. These apps can be easily uninstalled if you don't require these.
Performance
HP Pavilion X360 is powered by a 2.16GHz Intel Pentium N3520 quad-core processor with 4GB RAM. The processor has the same architecture that has the Bay Trail Atom chip which is not very powerful. In terms of performance, the laptop is good for moderate use and for web browsing, casual games and multimedia, and for apps like office suites, and simple imaging editors, among others. If you open too many tabs and multitask between many apps, the laptop becomes sluggish. Don't even think about playing graphics-intensive 3D games.
Having said that, the laptop runs Modern UI apps without any problems.
The X360 doesn't offer good battery life. In our tests, the laptop lasted about 4-4.5 hours while using Microsoft Word, a picture editor, a music streaming service and playing some YouTube videos, keeping the screen at full brightness. In our video look test, it lasted about 3.5 hours.
While we don't endorse benchmarks, the Pavilion X360 scored 1040 in PCMark8 (Creative conventional) and 1277 in PCMark 8 (Home conventional) tests, and 442 in Novabench. The Pavilion X360 scored 1435 in Cloudgate 1.1 and 16,612 in Icestorm 1.2 tests of 3DMark.
The laptop has an HD front webcam which is good for video chats. The BeatsAudio speakers are not that great as they lack loudness and bass though the sound output is good in terms of clarity.
Overall, the device doesn't boast of high-end performance but is well-suited for day-to-day tasks.
Verdict
HP Pavilion X360 is a good-looking Windows convertible let down by its sub-par display and underwhelming performance. It doesn't offer a good tablet experience due to its bulk which makes it difficult to lug around and due to its unwieldy shape.
At a starting price of Rs 39,990, we'd not recommend buying the device unless you really want the 360-degree swivel feature. You can get a more powerful touch-enabled notebook in the same price range minus the multimode feature.
You can also look at HP Pavilion X2 which comes with a removable display panel for use as a tablet, and more powerful hardware. It costs about Rs 10,000 more, but will offer better portability. If your budget is less, then the Lenovo Ideapad Flex 10 is another option.
Build and design
HP Pavilion X360 is a very good-looking device though it's on the heavier side at 1.4Kg. We were enchanted by its 'brilliant red' colour outer shell that has a satin sparkle texture and a soft matter finish that helps protect against fingerprints. The silver coloured metallic HP logo sits right in the middle.
The hinge as well as the bottom shell sport the same design. Lift the laptop's lid and you'll see the its 11.6-inch touch-enabled display surrounded by a black bezel that sports a glossy finish with the rest of the frame also sporting black colour, albeit with matte finish.
The Keyboard panel on the other hand, looks stunning with its brushed aluminium finish, featuring an island/chiclet style black coloured keyboard. The keyboard features special keys for controlling screen brightness, volume and music playback.
The trackpad also sports a metallic finish. We found the keyboard to be pretty good, although not as swift as the ones featured in some high-end devices. Your typing speed would, of course, improve as you spend more time with the device. To our disappointment, the keyboard is not backlit.
The trackpad, which HP likes to call Imagepad, offers multi-touch gesture support and is pretty smooth when it comes to scrolling or navigating through the screen. The wrist rest offers good support and makes the experience even better.
The hinge sports the Beats Audio branding.
HP Pavilion X360 offers a large number of connectivity ports. On the right side of the keyboard panel, you'll see an Ethernet port, an HDMI port, a USB 3.0 port, a USB port 2.0 and an SD card reader, in addition to a charging port.
The left edge sports a USB 2.0 port and an earphone jack along with a volume rocker key (which comes handy in tablet mode) and a power button. The two speakers are located at the bottom. Overall, the Pavilion X360 is a very well-built device and exudes a premium feel.
The 360-degree hinge
Thanks to its 360-degree hinge, the device can be used in multiple modes. It can serve as a conventional clam-shell notebook, used as a video player in the stand mode with the keyboard acting as a base, and act like a photo frame or recipe book, placed in the tent mode. You can fold it a full 360-degree and make it into a tablet as well. The keyboard is automatically disabled as you turn the display an angle more than 180-degree.
While the hinge works flawlessly and never feels flimsy, the tablet's base panel is a bit heavy and adds to the bulk when you're carrying it around as a tablet. Also, when you fold it 360-degree, the display doesn't clasp with the base panel and since the base panel is longer than the display panel, it sticks out and doesn't look appealing. HP says that it's intentional as the speakers are located at the base. We feel that the placement could have been different to take care of aesthetics.
This really spoils the remotest possibility of someone mistaking the device for a tablet. The added width worsens things further. The device is good for use as a laptop or a stand, but we'd certainly not prefer using it as a tablet.
Having said that, the Pavilion X360 scores when it comes to build and design, and is one of the most attractive devices available in the market.
Display
HP Pavilion X360 comes with an 11.6-inch anti-glare LED backlit touch screen (1366X768p). For a device which is designed to be used as a tablet in addition to a notebook, the X360's screen is disappointing. While we're okay with HP putting a low resolution,720p panel as it's a mid-range device, the display isn't bright enough and colours appear washed out. Viewing angles are also not that wide. The display is one of the weaker points of the device.
Software
Our review unit came with 64-bit Windows 8.1 and we updated it to Update 1, the latest version of the OS that features power and search buttons, ability to pin Modern UI apps to the taskbar, and boot directly to Desktop, among others.
Windows 8.1 Update 1 offers a better desktop experience and streamlines Modern/ Windows 8 apps with desktop apps.
HP also bundles additional software with the laptop, including CyberLink YouCam and PowerDVD, Adobe Shockwave Player, HP Connected Music, HP Support apps, McAfee LiveSafe, HP CoolSense, HP ProtectSmart, Skype, Amazon Kindle and 7-Zip among other HP apps and casual games. These apps can be easily uninstalled if you don't require these.
Performance
HP Pavilion X360 is powered by a 2.16GHz Intel Pentium N3520 quad-core processor with 4GB RAM. The processor has the same architecture that has the Bay Trail Atom chip which is not very powerful. In terms of performance, the laptop is good for moderate use and for web browsing, casual games and multimedia, and for apps like office suites, and simple imaging editors, among others. If you open too many tabs and multitask between many apps, the laptop becomes sluggish. Don't even think about playing graphics-intensive 3D games.
Having said that, the laptop runs Modern UI apps without any problems.
The X360 doesn't offer good battery life. In our tests, the laptop lasted about 4-4.5 hours while using Microsoft Word, a picture editor, a music streaming service and playing some YouTube videos, keeping the screen at full brightness. In our video look test, it lasted about 3.5 hours.
While we don't endorse benchmarks, the Pavilion X360 scored 1040 in PCMark8 (Creative conventional) and 1277 in PCMark 8 (Home conventional) tests, and 442 in Novabench. The Pavilion X360 scored 1435 in Cloudgate 1.1 and 16,612 in Icestorm 1.2 tests of 3DMark.
The laptop has an HD front webcam which is good for video chats. The BeatsAudio speakers are not that great as they lack loudness and bass though the sound output is good in terms of clarity.
Overall, the device doesn't boast of high-end performance but is well-suited for day-to-day tasks.
Verdict
HP Pavilion X360 is a good-looking Windows convertible let down by its sub-par display and underwhelming performance. It doesn't offer a good tablet experience due to its bulk which makes it difficult to lug around and due to its unwieldy shape.
At a starting price of Rs 39,990, we'd not recommend buying the device unless you really want the 360-degree swivel feature. You can get a more powerful touch-enabled notebook in the same price range minus the multimode feature.
You can also look at HP Pavilion X2 which comes with a removable display panel for use as a tablet, and more powerful hardware. It costs about Rs 10,000 more, but will offer better portability. If your budget is less, then the Lenovo Ideapad Flex 10 is another option.
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