Given the price range, we can't expect higher-end materials and upscale design elements. The 15z is an all-plastic design which is fairly pleasing to the eye, although it can't deny its budget roots. Our unit features a silver-colored bottom and display lid; the palm rest is smooth semi-black plastic with a subtle, printed wave-shaped pattern. Jet black is the standard color; all other colors  - HP offers natural silver, silk gold, smoke gray, marine blue, and empress red - cost $10 extra. Although the case design of the test candidate at least at a first glance looks similar to other 15-inch Pavilions we've reviewed recently - see for example the HP Pavilion 15t-au100 and the HP Pavilion 15t X7P44AV - the 15z utilizes a different chassis similar to that of the entry-level office notebook HP 15-ba077ng. While the two 15t-models we mentioned come with Intel Core processors (up to the quad-core i7-7700HQ) and dedicated GPUs, the 15z-bw000 is only available with AMD APUs. Key differences in addition to the choice of hardware are the port distribution - which we'll touch upon shortly - as well as the fact that the 15z comes with a removable battery.

The bottom unit is fairly easy to twist and bend and emits creaking sounds when doing so. The display lid flexes even more easily and even moderate pressure causes noticeable ripples and waves on the display surface. Since the bottom is a shell, the only gap to speak of is the area where the keyboard tray insert and the bottom shell meet. We should mention here that the lid of our review unit wouldn't quite lay flat against the bottom unit when closed, with the gap between the lid and the front edge larger towards the middle. While this doesn't impact operation, it still augments the budget status of the notebook. The hinges hold the display reasonably well up to the maximum open angle of about 135 degrees.

Since it's made from plastic, the chassis won't set new records as far as overall dimensions are concerned - the 15z is about the same size as its competitors give or take a few mm - but it is quite light as a result. The review unit tipped the scales at 1.9 kg (~4.2 lbs); the Dell Inspiron 15 5000 with its larger 41 Wh battery is roughly 20 % heavier.

We use a Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II reference card to get an idea how the integrated SD card reader performs. The results are middling with transfer rates of about 34 MB/s according to the utility AS SSD, which likely means that HP uses an USB 2.0 interface. Copying one GB of photos to the hard drive takes about 40 seconds.

Our review notebook comes equipped with an Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 (a/b/g/h/n/ac) with Bluetooth 4.2 on board. With transfer rates of 403 MBit/s and 412 MBit/s for transmit and receive, respectively, the 15z is no slouch when compared to competitors like the Asus X555DA, but the HP Pavilion 15t X7P44AV with the same adapter is substantially faster. During our time with the test unit we experienced no connectivity issues of any kind.

In addition to the WLAN module, the Pavilion 15z is also equipped with a Realtek RTL8168/8111 Gigabit-LAN (10/100/1000 MBit) module.

The shipping carton only contains the laptop and the power adapter in addition to some pamphlets. Our unit shipped with a 3 cell, 31 Wh lithium-ion battery, but HP also sells a 4 cell 41 Wh battery as well. In addition, HP offers many generic accessories ranging from notebook cases and sleeves to external mice and speakers.

Ease of maintenance doesn't seem to be one of HP's main goals when it comes their consumer notebooks and the 15z is no different. Access to the inside requires the disassembly of the bottom shell. After the removal of the battery and several screws (four of which are hidden under the rubber feet), the shell can be pried off with the aid of a plastic spreader or similar tool. Once opened, the user can access the the 2.5-inch HDD slot, the two RAM slots (one slot occupied) as well as the WLAN module and the system fan. Note that while an M.2 2280 hard drive can be selected when configuring the laptop on HP's site, there is no M.2-interface in our review unit, which leaves replacing the HDD with a 2.5-inch SSD as the only option for a storage upgrade.

The Pavilion 15z-bw000 is protected against defects by a standard 12-month warranty. Warranty upgrades (HP calls them "Care Packs") are very reasonably priced: at the time of writing, a 3 year Pickup and Return Support w/Accidental Damage Protection was offered for only $72. Please see our Guarantees, Return policies and Warranties FAQ for country-specific information.

Our test notebook is powered by a quad-core Bristol-Ridge-series A10-9620P APU clocked at 2.5 GHz with up to 3.4 GHz burst frequency according to HP. During our review, the cores ran at up to 3.6 GHz simultaneously for brief periods as long as no load was present. Graphics is courtesy of an integrated AMD Radeon R5 GPU. The ULV chip has a 15 W TDP similar to its Intel Core-i counterparts, but generally can't perform at the same level.

Performance of the APU isn't very impressive. According to the Cinebench benchmark tests, the A10-9620P offers multicore performance at approximately the same level as the Haswell-generation dual-core Intel Core i5-4200U. Singlecore performance trails even more and compares best to a Broadwell i3-5010U, as the i5-4200U is about 20-35 % faster here. A current-generation Kaby Lake i3-7100U manages to outperform the A10-9620 by a healthy 20 % when running Cinbench R15 Single and about 12 % when running R15 Multi. The APU is also affected by throttling when running the CineBench R15 Multi-test in a loop. After the initial high score of 233, the CPU throttles during the subsequent loops and performance declines by about 8 %. 

According to PCMark 8, the Pavilion 15z offers middle-of-the-pack performance when compared to other budget offerings. System with current-generation Intel CPUs, SSDs and dedicated GPUs are up to 60 % faster. Subjectively, the system is held back by the platter-based hard drive with its rather pedestrian performance. Depending on the application, load times of three seconds or more are not unusual.

The IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) has 384 shaders and runs at 758 MHz for the GPU and 933 MHz for the RAM. Unlike the processor-portion of the APU, the performance of the integrated GPU is a little more impressive, as it outperforms a current-generation Intel HD Graphics 620 by 10-20 % depending on the 3DMark benchmark test in question.

The gaming performance follows suit: the Radeon 5 once again outperforms the Intel HD Graphics 620 - used for example in the Acer Aspire E5 with Core i5-7200U CPU - in most cases and enables up to 30-45 % higher frame rates depending on the game. Still, only older games can be played at HD resolution and maximum settings; modern games are out of the question if any other setting than low is used.

The speakers are loud enough and the sound remains undistorted even at high volume levels. Bass is lacking, but the mids are at least well-balanced. The sound is quite tinny, so we recommend external headphones or speakers when listening to music or when watching movies.

Frequency Comparison (Checkbox selectable!)
Graph 1: Pink Noise 100% Vol.; Graph 2: Audio off

During idle, the Pavilion 15z can consume up to 9 W, which is in line with many other laptops, although the Lenovo ThinkPad E570 with i5-7200U and dedicated GPU only requires 7 W. With 3DMark running, the system draws about 35 W, which is still acceptable. Systems with dedicated GPU can consume up to 50 % more. The load maximum of 42 W is slightly more than that of the Acer Aspire E5-774-54HJ with Intel hardware, but we have to consider that the GPU performance of our review unit is slightly higher as well.

Although the power consumption is certainly not out of line, the battery life is dismal by comparison. The culprit: the 3-cell battery only supplies 31 Wh. With a run time of about 3 hours and 45 minutes during our WLAN test - we use a brightness of 150 nits (8/10) and the Balanced profile - the 15z trails most systems except for the Asus X555DA with A10-8700P APU. Even with the larger 41 Wh battery the notebook won't set any longevity records. We expect an increase of a little over one hour - the ThinkPad E570 lasts almost 7 hours and 45 minutes by comparison, which is quite a feat considering its battery also only supplies 41 Wh.