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MagyarHP 15-g005ng Notebook Review
For the original German review, see here.
HP adds a new model to its low-budget laptop range dubbed HP 15-g005ng. The product line has not been given its own name like Compaq or Pavilion - with exception of the number 15. An AMD Beema APU clocks inside the laptop. Read in our report whether HP provides a decent laptop for a low price.
HP's 15 is available for below 400 Euros (~516), and consequently all laptops from this price range are contenders for HP's laptop. There are plenty of them, such as the Acer Extensa 2510-34Z4 (Core i3-4030U, HD Graphics 4400) and Lenovo IdeaPad G50-45 (AMD A6-6310, Radeon R4 (Beema)). We just recently tested both laptops.
Case & Connectivity
The casing of HP's 15 is completely made of black plastic. The base unit's upper side features a glossy surface; the other casing's parts are comprised of matte, roughened plastic. There is no maintenance cover, and the battery can be removed. The base unit generally makes a good impression considering its price level. It does not exhibit any special weaknesses in build or stability. The base unit can be warped a bit too much for our taste. The lid does not make quite as good of an impression. It can be warped to a much stronger extent, which leads to image distortions. These are also seen when pressure is applied to the lid's back.
The buyer is not spoiled with a generous supply of interfaces. The most necessary ports are installed, but there is no VGA-out. Furthermore, HP only treats owners of this laptop to a Fast Ethernet port. Gigabit Ethernet should be standard nowadays.
HP's 15 is shipped with Windows 8.1 (64-bit) preloaded. A Windows DVD is not included. HP also provides drivers for Windows 7 on its website. However, not all necessary drivers are available. For example, the APU driver and USB 3.0 driver are not listed, and they would have to be downloaded separately from AMD's website.
Input Devices
An unlit chiclet keyboard is installed in HP's laptop. The level, lightly roughened keys have a short drop. Although the pressure point is palpable, it could be a bit crisper. The keyboard only yields slightly in the number pad's area when typing on it. It will not satisfy prolific writers, but it will suffice for home use. HP uses a multi-touchpad as a mouse replacement. It has a surface area of approximately 11 x 5.4 cm, and thus has enough room for using gestures. The pad has a roughened surface that does not prevent fingers from gliding. The sleek mouse keys feature a clearly audible and palpable pressure point alongside a short drop.
Display
HP's 15 sports a glare-type, 15.6-inch screen with a native resolution of 1366x768 pixels. The screen's brightness of 200.8 cd/m² is not really impressive. However, this rate corresponds to the laptop's price level. Both the contrast of 618:1 and black level of 0.33 cd/m² are very pleasing, in return.
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Brightness Distribution: 88 %
Center on Battery: 204 cd/m²
Contrast: 618:1 (Black: 0.33 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 11.56 | 0.5-29.43 Ø4.95
ΔE Greyscale 13 | 0.5-98 Ø5.2
40% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 1.6.3 3D)
43.8% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
63.7% sRGB (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
42.39% Display P3 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
Gamma: 2.78
The screen's color reproduction also corresponds to the laptop's price level. The average DeltaE 2000 shift in state of delivery is 11.56. The target range is a DeltaE 2000 rate of less than 3. Beyond that, the screen has a visible bluish cast.
The basic TN screen in HP's laptop can only offer limited viewing angles. This was also expected in view of the laptop's price level. It is only difficult to use outdoors. The low brightness alongside the screen's glare surface greatly thwarts any such plans.
Performance
HP's 15-g005ng is a basic office laptop that is configured with AMD's new Beema APU. The APU provides more than enough performance for common applications from the office and Internet fields. Rendering videos is no issue either. Hewlett Packard offers many other models within its HP 15 line - with both Intel and AMD innards.
Processor
An A8-6410 APU (Beema) from AMD clocks inside HP's laptop. The APU features a quad-core processor that operates with a base speed of 2 GHz. Its speed can be increased up to 2.4 GHz via Turbo. The APU's TDP of 15 watts is on par with Intel's Haswell ULV processors.
We could retrieve the APU's full power in AC mode. The processor performed the single-thread tests of the Cinebench benchmarks with 2.4 GHz, and it ran the multi-thread tests with 2 to 2.2 GHz. The APU processed the tests in battery mode only marginally slower (single: 2 to 2.4 GHz; multi: 1.8 to 2 GHz).
The multi-thread performance of AMD's processor is on par with those from Intel's Haswell Core i3 processors, such as the Core i3-4030U. The single-thread performance is more relevant in routine use, and the Core i3 still has the lead here. Nevertheless, AMD basically has an alternative for a Core i3 processor in its lineup.
System Performance
HP's 15 operates smoothly, and we did not experience problems. The laptop achieved good scores in the PCMark benchmarks. They are roughly on par with those of a Core i3 laptop, such as the Extensa 2510.
| PCMark 8 Home Score Accelerated v2 | 1967 points | |
| PCMark 8 Creative Score Accelerated v2 | 2087 points | |
| PCMark 8 Work Score Accelerated v2 | 2834 points | |
Help | ||
Storage Devices
HP installs a hard drive from Hitachi's Travelstar Z5K500 line in the laptop. It does its job inconspicuously with a speed of 5400 revolutions per minute and has a capacity of 500 GB. It can score with overall good transfer rates that correspond to the standards of a modern 5400 rpm hard drive.
Graphics Card
The Radeon R5 (Beema) graphics core is responsible for video output. It supports DirectX 11.2 and clocks with a speed of up to 800 MHz. Performance records should not be expected from the GPU. Its performance is located in the lower half of the performance chart. The scores achieved in the 3DMark benchmarks show that it is positioned between Intel's HD Graphics 4400 and HD Graphics 4600 cores.
| 3DMark 11 Performance | 831 points | |
| 3DMark Ice Storm Standard Score | 32088 points | |
| 3DMark Cloud Gate Standard Score | 2882 points | |
| 3DMark Fire Strike Score | 517 points | |
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Gaming Performance
The APU in HP's laptop is not really suitable for computer games. A few titles can be played smoothly in a low resolution and low quality settings. Games with a low hardware requirement allow for a bit more. For example, Counter Strike: Global Offensive and the different parts of the FIFA series are among them. Higher frame rates can be extracted from Intel GPUs and higher-performance AMD GPUs by installing a second working memory module. The memory then operates in dual-channel mode and the GPU can be used better. The frame rates increase by an average of 20%. This option is not available in HP's 15 because the laptop only has one memory bank, and the memory controller only support single-channel mode.
| low | med. | high | ultra | |
| Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (2010) | 35.7 | 26.5 | 17.6 | |
| Dirt 3 (2011) | 56.4 | 31.8 | 23.3 | |
| Deus Ex Human Revolution (2011) | 40.4 | 19.4 | ||
| Sleeping Dogs (2012) | 28.2 | 20.6 | 9.6 | |
| Dishonored (2012) | 26.4 | 20.3 | 18.6 | |
| Medal of Honor: Warfighter (2012) | 20.1 | 13.8 | 11.3 | |
| Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (2012) | 31.8 | 22.8 | 11.3 | |
| Assassin´s Creed III (2012) | 10.5 | 10 | ||
| Dead Space 3 (2013) | 44.1 | 20.9 | 17.1 | |
| Tomb Raider (2013) | 34 | 17.8 | 11.9 | |
| GRID 2 (2013) | 42.4 | 23.8 | 18.7 | |
| Splinter Cell: Blacklist (2013) | 21.4 | 15.7 | 5.3 | |
| The Bureau: XCOM Declassified (2013) | 19.1 | 12.4 | 8.8 | |
| Total War: Rome II (2013) | 22.3 | 18.2 | 15.5 | |
| F1 2013 (2013) | 35 | 26 | 22 | |
| Batman: Arkham Origins (2013) | 26 | 15 | 10 | |
| Battlefield 4 (2013) | 21.3 | 15.5 | 10.4 | |
| Sims 4 (2014) | 57.9 | 25.2 |
Emissions
System Noise
HP's 15 operates quietly over the entire load range. The noise level only increased to 31.1 dB(A) even during the stress test (via Prime95 and Furmark). The CPU's and GPU's throttling are noticed here. The noise level climbed to 34.4 dB(A) when only Prime95 ran. This is also a good rate. Both the IdeaPad and Extensa also always operate quietly.
Noise Level
| Idle |
| 30.7 / 30.7 / 30.7 dB(A) |
| HDD |
| 31.7 dB(A) |
| DVD |
| 36.6 / dB(A) |
| Load |
| 30.8 / 31.1 dB(A) |
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30 dB silent 40 dB(A) audible 50 dB(A) loud |
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min:  , med:  , max:  Voltcraft sl-320 (15 cm distance) | ||
Temperature
Not only does HP's laptop run quietly, it virtually does not heat up at all. 30 °C was not surpassed anywhere in idle mode. The temperatures during the stress test ranged clearly below 40 °C. It looks similar in the IdeaPad and Extensa.
The CPU performed the stress test (Prime95 and Furmark run for at least one hour) with 1.4 GHz in AC mode. The graphics core clocked with full speed (800 MHz). The CPU's speed was 1.2 GHz when we ran the stress test in battery mode, and the GPU clocked with 400 to 500 MHz. The CPU's temperature settled to approximately 66 °C in the stress test (AC mode).
(+) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 35.8 °C / 96 F, compared to the average of 34.3 °C / 94 F, ranging from 21.2 to 62.5 °C for the class Office.
(+) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 38 °C / 100 F, compared to the average of 36.7 °C / 98 F
(+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 27.9 °C / 82 F, compared to the device average of 29.5 °C / 85 F.
(+) The palmrests and touchpad are reaching skin temperature as a maximum (35 °C / 95 F) and are therefore not hot.
(-) The average temperature of the palmrest area of similar devices was 27.7 °C / 81.9 F (-7.3 °C / -13.1 F).
Speakers
The stereo speakers have found a place on the casing's front underside in HP's laptop. They produce an overall decent and rich sound. They naturally cannot offer real bass. The sound can be influenced via the preloaded "DTS Sound" software.
Energy Management
Power Consumption
HP's laptop does not show a notably large or small energy hunger. The power consumption remained below 10 watts in idle mode. In total, the power consumption of HP's laptop is on par with laptops based on a Core i3 Haswell ULV processor.
| Off / Standby | 0 / 0.1 Watt |
| Idle | 5 / 7.2 / 8.2 Watt |
| Load |
19.8 / 25.8 Watt |
   
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Battery Runtime
Verdict
Office, Internet, video playback - those are, roughly speaking, the application fields that HP's 15-g005ng can manage. The installed APU provides enough power to mingle in these fields. The laptop always operates quietly, and does not get particularly warm. Furthermore, it can offer good battery runtimes. Therefore, it is suitable as a browsing station on the couch at home. The installed screen will not win any awards, but it can attract attention with its very decent contrast rate. We have had more expensive laptops with worse screens. Users who value longer battery runtimes and/or a matte screen should turn to the Extensa 2510-34Z4. We also liked the keyboard in Acer's laptop much better.
