The chassis remains unchanged from its plastic predecessor save for the color options. In addition to a standard silver finish (dubbed “Natural Silver”), the device is now available with some very bold color options ("Cardinal Red" and "Sport Purple") for an extra $10. Our review unit wears the Sport Purple finish, and the color is striking and definitely sticks out in a crowd. The matte finish is quite prone to nicks and scratches, however; our review unit showed some noticeable wear and tear after a few weeks of use.

Although the chassis is covered in plastic, it remains fairly firm. When the keyboard deck and base are pressed, they do not creak. The center of the lid can be easily depressed (especially when applying pressure to the logo in the middle), but the display housing doesn't flex or twist much at all. The underside remains stable under pressure and shows no major distortion. The keyboard deck is firm as well. Despite constant pressure, the keyboard barely moves, and there is no flex at all while typing. Gaps around the keyboard are visible, but small.

The hinges are sturdy and hold the screen in place while typing with absolutely no wobble. However, if touch input is used, the screen bounces a bit but soon resets itself to the original position. Magnets are used to hold the lid to the base when the notebook is closed or in tablet mode, so two hands are needed to open it. The hinges allow the screen to rotate full-circle, turning the notebook into a tablet. This motion is smooth and easy. 

The device is rather large and very heavy for tablet use; the Inspiron 15 5568 and Yoga 710-15IKB are about 0.23 kg (0.5 lbs) lighter despite being the same size. Our Pavilion is difficult to hold in tablet mode for extended periods of time.

The newer Pavilion x360 is the same size as the older and not significantly different than the other machines. The Dell is slightly larger, although the increase in size is minimal. The Lenovo Yoga 710-14IKB definitely has the smallest footprint of the notebooks but also has a smaller 14-inch screen. 

The SD-card reader is very deep and inserted cards sit flush with the side. Using our Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II Reference-Card, we measured speeds similar to those in our last test. The device still sits above average for its category and handily beats the Dell Inspiron with read and write speeds that are over three times faster.

The Pavilion x360 is equipped with an Intel 802.11 ac 1x1 wireless card with integrated Bluetooth 4.2. Due to compatibility with both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, WiFi connections are rock solid. In our signal test, our device achieves a receiving rate of 344 MBit/s and a sending rate of 309 MBit/s. This is fairly close to the theoretical cap of 433 MBit/s and is more than quick enough for day to day use. Streaming media should be no problem, but large file transfers over wireless connections may take time.

Thanks to the powerful Kaby Lake Core i5 processor, the Pavilion x360 handles general use and office work with aplomb. Anything more demanding, such as photo/video editing or gaming, brings the device to its knees. The weak onboard graphics and slow 5400 RPM storage drive bog the device down in heavier workloads.

The main change in our device is the upgrade to the 7th generation Intel Core i5-7200U processor based on Intel’s 14 nm Kaby Lake architecture. The 15 W chip features two hyperthreaded cores and a 2.5 GHz base clock that can boost up to 3.1 GHz. This is moderately faster than the Skylake equipped Pavilion, which had a 2.3 GHz base / 2.8 GHz boost.

Thanks to the mid-range CPU, the updated device handles most tasks with ease. Typical office work, web browsing, and media are no problem. The processor stays stable at the boost clock of 3.1 GHz under load, with a few temporary drops down to 2.5 GHz. This is the case on battery power as well, although the drops are a bit more frequent. We see a 10-15% improvement over the Skylake version, which also ran smoothly. Rivals keep pace with the Pavilion.

The device is buttery smooth. There are no hiccups in web browsing or productivity software, and the device can multitask easily. Switching to tablet mode happens almost instantly and the screen orientation quickly changes when the device is rotated. In overall performance, our device lags about 10% behind its rivals. The Pavilion’s main weakness is the same as its elder’s; the slow HDD holds it back and apps can take significant time to open. An SSD would pair nicely with the updated processor, but this would require user installation after purchase.

Our model is equipped with a 1 TB HDD from Western Digital. Speeds remain unchanged, and they are slow. While the storage space is generous, the drive is sluggish when compared to the SSDs found in its rivals. Why HP equipped our machine with a slow 5400 RPM HDD is confusing; even other budget machines are typically equipped with speedier 7200 RPM HDDs or low capacity SSDs.

The integrated Intel HD 620 graphics chip is an improvement over last year’s HD 520. The HD 620 has a base clock of 300 MHz and can boost up to 1050 GHz. Like other integrated graphics cards, it shares system memory with other components. Because of this, the Pavilion's GPU performance falls short of devices with graphics cards. Overall, graphics performance is middling, especially when compared to the Yoga 510-15IKB's dedicated Radeon GPU. The HD 620 is enough for multiple monitor support at reasonable resolutions (1920x1080), office work, and pre-rendered media consumption, but not much else.

Games are a weak spot for the Pavilion. The integrated graphics can run older, less demanding titles at low resolutions and minimum graphics settings. Casual games should run smoothly, but modern titles that demand heavier workloads are not playable. The competition gets a major leg up here due to faster DDR4 memory and dedicated graphics cards. 

The fan remains idle and quiet in most workloads. When the machine is stressed, the fan audibly ramps up but is low-pitched and not distracting. Coil whine is absent, and the HDD cannot be heard over ambient sounds. Overall, the laptop is a bit loud for a convertible device when strained, but the fan noise quickly blends into the background. The competition produces much less noise under maximum load.

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

Thanks to Kaby Lake, the laptop doesn't draw much energy at all. On average, our device sips about 7.9 Watts at idle and 25.4 Watts under load. Power draw while idle is about 5-10% higher than the competition, mostly due to the power requirements for the HDD. The SSD in the Lenovo Yoga 710, for instance, requires less wattage when not in use.

Under load, Kaby Lake shows its benefit; the older Skylake model pulls about 17% more power when strained. Our Pavilion also consumes less power under load than the rival devices, which require an additional 20% on average.

The included power adapter is rated at a maximum of 45 Watts, which is more than enough to power and charge the notebook.

The 3-cell 48 Wh battery allows for average runtimes. In our Battery Eater Classic test, the laptop shuts down after 1 hour 44 minutes. In the more realistic WLAN v1.3 test (where the notebook is set under the energy saving profile, the screen is set to 150 cd/m2, and a script opens a new web page every 40 seconds), the Pavilion lasts for 6 hours and 6 minutes, which is somewhat surprising given the 6 hour 41 minute runtime of its predecessor. Multiple runs confirm that the updated Pavilion shuts down at around 6 hours.

These runtimes are disappointing given Kaby Lake’s promised improvements in battery life and power efficiency. The shorter runtime might be due to either different background processes present in our Kaby Lake model or the hard drive, which runs even when the machine idles. The Lenovo Yoga 710-14IKB lasts over 3 hours longer in normal usage despite a similarly sized battery.