HP’s New Pavilions Bring Premium PC Features to the Masses
- Paul Thurrott
- Apr 13, 2017
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Today, HP announced a new lineup of Pavilion laptops and convertibles that bring premium features from its Envy and Spectre products to the masses: Starting prices range from $350 to $700, depending on the model.
“Our latest Pavilion is a convertible that offers features typically reserved for our premium products, including pen for those who want to draw or take notes directly on the screen,” HP vice president Kevin Frost in a prepared statement. “So students and aspiring digital creators can interact and create on our PCs in new and unique ways.”
These PCs seem to hit a nice sweet spot of value and price. And as some of you may recall, I recently wrote about my issues with overly expensive devices in Let’s Talk About Smartphone Pricing (Premium). That article obviously focuses on smartphones, but I did mention the following:
“Looking around my home office, I see several premium PCs waiting to be reviewed. And I will get to them, dutifully, as I should. But I also know that most of the people reading this site—myself include—either couldn’t afford to pay the prices that these PCs command or simply never would do so regardless. For most people, a less expensive PC would do very nicely.”
Perhaps one of these is such a PC. So I’ll reach out to HP about doing a possible review.
For now, however, here’s an overview of the announcement: HP has revved its Pavilion laptop and Pavilion x360 convertible PC lines with new designs and some features that were previously reserved for its premium PC products, including premium materials, USB-C connectivity, and active pen support.
Likewise, each features 7th generation Intel Core i3-i7 processors, dual SSD/HDD storage options on select models, a choice of AMD Radeon or NVIDIA GeForce discrete graphics, all-day battery life (up to 10 hours) with HP Fast Charge on select models, an HP Wide Vision camera or optional IR camera with Windows Hello support, HP Audio Boost and Bang & Olufsen tuned sound, and unique color options.
The Pavilion laptops come in 14- ($699 and up), 15- ($599 and up), and 17-inch ($629 and up) versions, while the convertible Pavilion x360 comes in 11- ($349 and up), 14- ($449 and up), and 15-inch ($579 and up) versions. (I know some of those prices don’t make sense; that’s what the HP spec sheet says.)
I hope to have more to say about these devices soon.
Conversation 14 comments
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Bats
<p>The use of the word "premium" is way overused. Anyone can go into Best Buy and see the tables of laptops and desktops that are all premium. Not one can be called "non-premium" or "cheap." Then you can go to the table on the far side of section and see the computers that contain AMD chips along with Intel Atoms, Celerons, and Pentiums. </p><p><br></p><p>If HP is bringing these so-called "premium" features into the Pavillion line, that means they were able to find a low cost "cheap" parts to build them into their low end machines. Make no mistake, Pavillions are the low end computers. </p><p><br></p><p>I bought 2 Pavillion laptops in 2004 and 2007 (or somewhere in that time frame.) Those laptops had built in cameras, harmon kardon and JBL speakers, lightscribe drive, and so on….At that time, they were "premium" features as well. </p><p><br></p><p>FYI, the HP Pavillion dv9000t still runs today.</p>