HP Pavilion 15t X7P44AV (7700HQ, FHD, GTX 1050) Laptop Review

We last took a detailed look at the chassis during the review of the HP Pavilion 15t-au100. What we've said then still holds true now: the Pavilion 15 certainly can't deny its budget roots with its run-of-the-mill all-plastic design with the distinctive stripe pattern on the palm rests. The base unit twists fairly easily and flexes when pressure is applied. During our last review, we had suspected that the DVD-RW drive under the left palm rest was mainly responsible for the flexibility particularly in that location. Our review unit lacks an optical drive, however, but still yields to pressure in that area fairly readily.

The bottom of the base unit looks identical to that off the Pavilion 15 UHD T9Y85AV with the Intel Core i7-6700HQ and Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M. The HP Pavilion 15t-au100, by comparison, has one less intake and the exhaust on the rear is not as wide. The dimensions of the notebook are slightly different as well: while the dual-core unit measures 15.06 x 9.56 x 0.89 in, the quad-core notebook measures 15.06 x 9.94 x 0.96 in and is thus both deeper as well as a little thicker. The more upscale - and more expensive Dell XPS 15 2017 9560 is not only slimmer, but also features a much smaller footprint thanks to the InfinityEdge bezel design.

Our review notebook tips the scales at 2258 g, which means it's about 200 g heavier than the dual-core HP Pavilion 15t-au100 with its smaller battery pack. The slim power adapter supplies a healthy 150 W and is - at 428 g (15.1 oz) - substantially lighter than the 530 g (18.7 oz), 120 W unit that shipped with the quad-core Pavilion 15 UHD T9Y85AV.

From a connectivity standpoint, the Pavilion 15t X7P44AV mirrors both the Pavilion 15t-au100 and 15 UHD T9Y85AV, although just like the latter notebook, it lacks an optical drive. Given that this is quite a powerful multimedia laptop, we'd really wish HP had included a USB Type-C port or Thunderbolt 3 to give the user more connectivity options and to make the system a little more future-proof as well.

A jpeg copy tests conducted with our Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II Reference Card shows acceptable real-world transfer rates of around 71 MB/s - on par with or slightly faster than many budget competitors.

The built-in wired and wireless communication modules are once again identical to those HP used for the quad-core predecessor. The resulting transfer rates are similar as well and far exceed the capabilities of the Realtek RTL8723BE Wireless LAN 802.11n module the dual-core HP Pavilion 15t-au100 is equipped with. A test with the review laptop connected to our Linksys EA8500 test router on 802.11ac resulted in average transmit and receive transfer rates of about 532 and 635 Mbps, respectively - quite close to the performance of the Dell XPS 15 with its Killer Wireless 1535 Network Adapter. Apple's MacBook Pro 15 is still significantly faster, however. 

As we've pointed out in the past, HP hasn't designed the Pavilion 15t with end-user maintenance in mind. The internal layout likely hasn't changed, so please check the review of the Pavilion 15 UHD T9Y85AV for details on the subject.

The Pavilion 15t X7P44AV is covered against defects for a period of 12 months. HP offers additional warranties - a 3 year warranty with "Accidental Care w Pickup and Return Support" adds $160 to the price.

Please see our Guarantees, Return Policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

The HP Pavilion 15t X7P44AV comes equipped with a high-end Intel Core i7-7700HQ processor, 16 GB of DDR4-2400 SDRAM, dedicated Nvidia GTX 1050 GPU and a Solid State Drive as the primary storage device. Equipped with such potent hardware, our review notebook should easily be able to keep up with similar multimedia notebooks and outperform those with lower-end CPUs and entry-level graphics card.

Unfortunately, performance takes a hit with the notebook running on battery. A quick check with 3DMark 11 revealed a performance drop of roughly 25 %. While this drop might not matter to all users, it will quite negatively impact the gaming performance on-the-go.

Overall system performance according to PCMark 8 is on par with the larger HP Pavilion 17t-ab200 and only differs by a maximum of one percent. Perceived performance is snappy with fast boot times and next to no lag when starting applications. The MSI PE60 6QE-056XUS with previous-generation i7-6700HQ and GeForce GTX 960M as well as the Dell XPS 15 2017 9560 with quad-core i5 processor and GTX 1050 are roughly 10 - 12 % slower depending on the subtest.

As mentioned in our intro, we had issues with the system stability. PCMark 8 terminated repeatedly and a BOD with the system rebooting immediately afterwards - which is also the reason why the PCMark 8 Work Score is missing from the table below. Update 03/27/2017: as indicated in our intro, a firmware update fixed the stability issues. Unfortunately, the PCMark Work Score is - at only 2880 points - uncharacteristically low given the powerful hardware . Since several reruns provided near-identical results, we've decided to include the result in the table below.

The review notebook comes with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 GPU as the sole dedicated graphics choice. The GTX 1050 with its 4 GB of GDDR5 VRAM (128-bit interface) easily outperforms the more entry-level graphics adapter GeForce 940MX and previous mid-range GPUs like the GTX 960M in the predecessor. The GTX1050 has a performance plus of roughly 30 % compared to the GTX 960M and outpaces the 940MX in the Lenovo IdeaPad 510 or the HP Spectre x360 15-bl002xx by almost 70 % according to the GPU Performance section of the 3DMark 11 benchmark test. The GeForce GTX 1060 with 6 GB GDDR5 VRAM in the Alienware 13 R3 pulls ahead by up to 88 % depending on the synthetic benchmark used.

The gaming performance is solid given that the Pavilion 15t X7P44AV is more of a multimedia notebook than a dedicated gaming rig. Most older titles can be played at the native FHD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and high to very high graphic settings without issues. Somewhat newer or demanding titles require lower resolutions or a reduction in graphics quality to allow for fluent gameplay.

While the notebook doesn't get overly warm when idling, there's still a discernible difference between the left and right palm rest. Under load, the area right to the touchpad reaches an almost uncomfortably, sweat-inducing 38 degrees C - the difference between the left and right palm rest here is almost 20 degrees C. The system's hotspot reaches a fairly modest 42 degrees C and  is located at the right rear corner. The quad-core predecessor had a similar heat signature; the dual-core version and the 17-inch brother are not nearly affected as much. The palm rests of the Dell XPS 15 reach a maximum of 32 degrees with only a couple of degrees difference from left to right - despite the fact that it runs hotter than the Pavilion and reaches 50 degrees C in one area. 

With an idle requirement of about 9 watts, the HP Pavilion's power draw is comparable to similarly-equipped multimedia notebooks. Systems with ULV CPUs (15 W TDP), on the other hand - for example the Lenovo IdeaPad 510-15IKB - need only about half as much. When gaming, the review laptop consumes about 77 W, which happens to be almost identical to the Dell XPS 15 and the larger Pavilion 17t-ab200. At 136 W, the draw at maximum load is also remarkably similar to that of the Dell. The predecessor Pavilion 15 UHD T9Y85AV topped out at 120 W due to the fact that its power adapter was only rated at the same wattage. The Pavilion 17t-ab200 also doesn't exceed 120 W - a somewhat baffling result given the identical hardware.