This is HP 14, a sub $500 laptop that is powered by the latest AMD Ryzen processor.
It claims to offer blazing performance, great display, fully user upgradeable RAM and SSD
slots, at a very budget price.
So what is the catch?
Keep watching to find out
Let's start with the build quality.
HP 14 is an unapologetic plastic laptop weighing around 3.2 pounds or 1.5 Kilogram.
My review unit is metallic silver in color and sports a sandblasted matte finish.
It's polycarbonate body feels decently rigid, but don't expect the premium look and feel
of an all metal laptop.
I do appreciate it's light weight, which allows one to easily toss this laptop in a backpack
and carry around without issues.
HP 14 has smooth curved edges that not only look good but also feel very comfortable when
holding it.
So you are getting a 14" Full HD IPS display with pretty decent viewing angles.
This is an anti-glare panel that minimizes distracting reflections from ambient lighting.
It's brightness caps out at 250 nits which is nothing spectacular but perfectly adequate
for indoor use.
It's contrast ratio and color reproduction is good enough for media consumption and running
productivity tasks like word processing and web browsing.
But it's 45% NTSC color gamut isn't going to satisfy artists and professionals who need
color accurate displays.
Such folks will be better off hooking an external monitor to this laptop via an HDMI port.
Let's talk about the keyboard.
The keyboard island and the palm rest are both silver in color.
The individual keycaps have a soft matte finish and use black lettering which provides nice
contrast for easy readability.
But unfortunately this keyboard does not offer backlighting which sucks.
It's keys are large in size and nicely balanced.
They are quite responsive and offer decent tactile feedback while typing, so you will
not experience that mushy feeling which plagues other budget laptops.
Moving on to the trackpad, it's fairly large measuring 4.5 by 2.5 inches.
Although it's made from plastic, the surface is pretty smooth for executing gestures like
pinch and zoom, double tap, and various 2 and 3 finger windows 10 gestures.
What HP 14 lacks in build quality, it more than makes up for it in the hardware specs.
This laptop is powered by a 6-core 12-thread AMD Ryzen 5 5500U processor and Radeon 7 integrated
graphics from the renoir family.
Here is a chart showing the Cinebench multi core benchmark where Ryzen 5 5500U easily
beats the latest 11th gen intel core-i5 chip by over 31%.
So that means HP 14 will not break a sweat while doing web-browsing, running typical
office productivity apps, doing software development or watching streaming videos.
This laptop comes with 8GB of DDR4-3200 MHz RAM and 256 GB of PCIe NVMe SSD.
Fortunately both the SSD and RAM are user upgradeable.
In fact, adding a second 8GB RAM stick will enable dual channel memory configuration,
dramatically boosting this laptop's performance, especially during gaming.
So if you plan to play titles like fortnite I highly recommend upgrading the RAM.
I have linked compatible RAM sticks in the video description below.
HP 14 is powered by a 3-cell, 41 Wh Li-ion battery that comes with a 45 W power adapter.
Battery life is pretty impressive and I managed to get around 9 hours of web-surfing and casual
video watching before the battery died.
The included barrel charger does support fast charging and is capable of juicing up the
laptop from 0 to 50% in under 45 minutes.
HP 14 comes with a decent selection of ports.
You are getting 1 USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C port supporting data transfer speeds upto 5 gigabits
per second.
Unfortunately this USB type-C port does not support power delivery.
So that means you cannot charge HP 14 via its USB type C port, so that sucks.
You are getting 2 USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports supporting 5 gbps data transfer speed.
There is 1 Headphone/microphone combo jack and an HDMI port that can drive a 4K monitor
at 60Hz refresh rate.
Wireless connectivity is also pretty good.
You are getting Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 and Bluetooth 5 combo chipset supporting Gigabit wireless
data transfer speeds.
In addition there is a multi-format SD media card reader which is great for transferring
pictures and videos from your camera.
Overall, this is a decent selection of ports but I would have preferred at least 1 more
usb-type C port that supported power delivery and displayport.
Moving on to the webcam, you are getting a 720p HD camera with integrated dual array
mics.
For typical zoom video conference calls they will suffice, but you should upgrade to an
external 1080p USB webcam if you want better looking videos.
Checkout some of these 1080p budget webcams that I have tested here on this channel, they
are linked in the video description below
So here are my final thoughts.
For the price, HP 14 is a clear winner.
You are getting the latest 6-core 12-thread AMD Ryzen processor which delivers kickass
performance and a great battery life, It's 1080p IPS display has wide viewing angle and
uses anti-glare coating to reduce annoying reflections.
Now the keyboard, the trackpad, the webcam and the speakers are OK.
Nothing spectacular, but they will get the job done.
But I really appreciate the 2 user accessible RAM slots that allow adding upto 32GB RAM
making this laptop future proof.
Oh and BTW, this laptop is fully Windows 11 compliant.
So whenever you are ready to upgrade to Microsoft's latest operating system, the laptop will be
ready for you.
Ok, so I will wrap my review by giving HP 14 a big thumbs up.
If you are interested in purchasing this laptop, please check the country specific links that
I have put in the video description below.
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Thanks for watching and I will see you guys in the next one.
Bye!