HP Pavilion Plus 14 laptop review: OLED, 90 Hz, and 12th gen Core H

The Pavilion Plus 14 retains the aluminum look and feel of the original Pavilion 14 despite all the internal changes likely to save on costs. Had HP introduced any significant design improvements, then this Pavilion Plus model would have essentially been an Envy product which is a costlier series from HP. This isn't to say that there are no superficial changes, however, as the Pavilion Plus 14 is visibly flatter around the edges and with a different bottom plate design to cut down on overall thickness by about 0.7 mm.

Chassis rigidity is good around the base with very little flexing. The lid and inner plastic bezels, however, are noticeably more susceptible to twists and damage especially since there is no Gorilla Glass option to reinforce the panel. Build quality is still comparable to the competing Vivobook or IdeaPad series nonetheless.

Port options are mostly the same as on the standard Pavilion 14 but with one big change: HP has dropped the proprietary AC adapter barrel port for a second USB-C port. We expect most if not all non-gaming Pavilion models in the near future to move to USB-C charging as well.

Port positioning may be unfavorable to some users as most of the ports are along the right edge potentially occupying valuable desk space.

Thunderbolt is unfortunately not supported as such a feature is still reserved for higher-end models like the Envy or Spectre for the time being.

The model incorporates a 5 MP webcam unlike the 1 MP webcam on the standard Pavilion 14 for sharper images. There is no privacy shutter or IR sensor for Windows Hello support, however.

There are no extras in the box other than the AC adapter and paperwork. The standard one-year limited manufacturer warranty applies if purchased in the US.

Both the keyboard and clickpad remain identical to the regular Pavilion 14 which is hardly a complaint since we loved the keyboard on the Pavilion 14. When compared to the keyboards on the Asus Vivobook or Lenovo IdeaPad, the keyboard on this Pavilion is surprisingly crisp and with satisfying travel when pressed. Our main complaint continues to be the white backlight which contrasts poorly with the white key caps. We suspect that this won't be an issue on any of the other four color options.

Raw multi-thread performance is about 20 percent slower than expected from a Core i7-12700H laptop. The Dell XPS 17 9720, for example, ships with the same Core i7-12700H CPU and yet it offers 40 to 45 percent faster multi-thread performance even after accounting for any throttling. The deficit is wide enough that even the more power efficient Core i5-1240P is only about 10 to 15 percent slower than our H-series Core i7-powered HP. It's a fast laptop for the size, but it could have certainly been faster given what we've observed on other laptops with the same processor.

Users can configure with the slower Core i5-1240P or Core i7-1255U if desired. The latter in particular is the only SKU with a discrete GeForce RTX 2050 option albeit at the cost of ~40 percent slower multi-thread performance compared to our Core i7-12700H. The Nvidia option is not available on the Core-P or Core-H configurations likely due to thermal limitations.

Running CineBench R15 xT in a loop shows a performance drop of about 10 percent after the initial run as shown by the graph below.