HP Pavilion G4: 14-inch Laptop, Netbook Price

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Suprisingly good keyboard
Extremely affordable

Cons

None USB 3.0 Beaver State eSATA
Acceptably WorldBench performance

Our Verdict

Just say no to netbooks with this amazingly affordable, and far more usable general laptop.

Netbook, schmetbook. If you were thinking of going little just because netbooks are cheap, get a load at the HP Pavilion G4 (model 1215dx) instead. At $379 (American Samoa of November 7, 2011), this Superfine Buy-simply, all-purpose laptop with a 14-inch, 1366-by-768-resolution display offers much better all-around performance than a typical netbook in a outlying more usable size up. IT even supports games adequately at low resolution.

A major factor contributing to the G4's low price is its use of AMD's affordable new 1.9GHz A4-3300M C.P.U.. You also get 4GB of DDR3 memory, 512MB of which goes to the integrated Radeon HD 6480G graphics; a 5400-rpm, 320GB Hitachi hard drive; and a Videodisk burner. The unit weighs 4.5 pounds, meaning that it's uncomplicated enough to carry though possibly not truly svelte. Battery life is an acceptable 4 hours, 13 proceedings at the laptop's nonpayment power settings.

The G4 earned a score of only 77 along PCWorld's WorldBench 6 quiz rooms, but subjectively the unit feels quite an spirited. If you don't mind reducing your display to a resolution of 800 away 600 pixels, the system can deliver playable gaming frame rates in the contrabass 30s. Video–even high-bit-rate 1080p–played smoothly, and sound came through the speakers loud and clear. The audio lacked deep of course, but only laptops equipped with united subwoofers can hand over that. The display is bright and realize, simply the viewing angle is only moderately wide-screen.

For the money, you might expect to encounter compromised input biotechnology, only I found that the Chiclet-style keyboard matte quite chip, despite being short-stroke. Though the keys are not sculpted, small Louis Braille-like ticks on the F and J keys help you properly commit your workforce while keeping your eyes trained on the screen.

The touchpad is integrated into the keyboard deck and is delineated visually only by its textured come up. But just as the keys offer tactile clues, a lowercase dimpled chad in the upper near-hired man corner helps you locate the gimmick by palpate alone.

At this price, not surprisingly, you don't get high-speed peripherals: The G4 lacks USB 3.0 or eSATA ports to speed backup chores. You do get three USB 2.0 ports, VGA and HDMI television outputs, however, every bit well as an SD/MMC card referee. Connectivity options include 802.11b/g/n wireless and 10/100 ethernet. The webcam resolve is limited to 640 by 480.

Every bit often happens with budget laptops, the G4 comes well-stocked with we-mercenary-to-be-here apps that vendors use to defray costs–a link to eBay, Wild Tangent Games disguised as HP Games, Zya Music, and Microsoft Office 2010 Starter, to refer few. Happily, it's not hard to Mary Jane them out. Connected the practical side, HP provides playback and burning apps for the Videodisc drive, every bit well as a Webcam utility.

Despite its low WorldBench 6 hit, the Marquee G4 performs adequately in almost every regard, yet besting a number of more than-expensive all-function laptops in gaming. If you can live without the fast peripheral ports, information technology's a good deal. Former G-series models have larger screens but carry similarly impressive bargain prices in their respective categories.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/478042/hp_pavilion_g4_14_inch_laptop_netbook_price.html

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