I bought myself this laptop after an endless search on the internet. I was looking for a lightweight laptop with 5+ hours of battery life, i3+ processor, SSD and at least 4 gb of ram.
Here are the specs: http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-x360-13-s150sa-13-3-2-in-1-silver-10137882-pdt.html
The Italian laptop market is definitely missing a solid middle-upmarket, so I had to buy this particular model on eBay from a UK seller. (I paid 580 £ incl. shipping to Italy in January 2016)
The other laptops I had evaluated at the time of my purchase were:
– Asus UX303UA (no SSD in the Italian version)
– Asus UX305FA (one of the bests, but intel core M? srsly?)
– Toshiba Satellite Z30-B-100 (worst screen ever + very loud fan noise)
– HP Envy 13 (too pricey, but soooo light and best materials ever)
I decided to go with the HP Pavilion x360-13-s150sa because it matched all the criteria above (not super light tho).
Let’s start talking about the laptop.
The HP Pavilion x360-13-sa150sa is probably one of the best configurations out there. Unfortunately, this is only sold in the UK, therefore you
most likely
won’t find it in other European countries stores.
Weight: could be lighter, but it’s fair
It weighs 1.62 kg (against the 1.7-1.8 kg of the Italian version). I compared it to a 2015 Macbook Pro Retina and you can’t really feel the difference (ofc you can in terms of materials).
Screen: not enough lit and very glossy
The density of the screen is very good, but the display isn’t so bright. I always keep it at 75%+ even in my office. This is totally NOT suitable for outdoors use, as the reflections will make it impossible to read. I would say this is probably one of the biggest flaws of this laptop.
Battery life: could be longer
The battery lasts about 5-6 hours on Wifi, 75% brightness, normal use (web browsing, listening to music, many opened chrome tabs + document editing). I couldn’t manage to do more than 6 hours 30 mins with it
x360: useless
Talking about the 360 feature, I’d say I only used it once to watch a movie when I was laying in bed. Most of the time you’ll find yourself using it in the regular way. I honestly don’t believe this feature should be driving your purchase.
Touchpad: really bad
The touchpad is probably one thing that irritates me a lot. It’s a lot “clicky” and it won’t often respond to the W10 gestures, especially after putting the laptop in standby mode (it’s a known issue, try googling it). However, I’ve seen worse.
On the contrary, the touchscreen works great! It could also be used with a stylus afaik, but I’m not into illustration, so…. google it.
Keyboard: not backlit, but cool!
I love typing on this machine. Please note that this is not backlit, but it feels comfortable to me
Extra
The camera and the integrated microphone are good enough for videocalls.
I know this review is shit, but I’m very tired. I’ll be posting some pics soon. Do not hesitate to ask me any question, as there are no reviews of this model and I’ll do my best to test out whatever you need.
Issues I’ve had so far
– Cracking / popping sound when using headphones (so high my ears hurt!): I only solved this problem reinstalling Windows 10 and erasing all the drivers, as reinstalling the Realtek drivers when I first got my pc didn’t help. I can still hear some static/white noise, but it’s nothing compared to the initial popping sound (that only occurs when a sound effect is played and then ends)
– Intermittent/ real slow wifi: the Intel Wireless AC-3165 network card is crap. Many people reported this kind of problem. This thread helped me a lot -> https://communities.intel.com/thread/76402
– HDMI audio out problems : when connected to my tv, the audio was still being played from the internal speakers of the laptop. I had to reinstall the Intel Graphics Driver (http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/graphics-drivers/000005656.html)