HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop Review

5
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HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop

Credit: News18

Verdict

The visual appearance of the 2021 HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop has changed significantly since its early days, and it now resembles a prosumer model. Many of its physical characteristics were influenced by the Envy and Spectre series but without the use of the same metal elements. The new 16:10 aspect ratio provides a level of professionalism that is lacking in certain rival models, such as the Asus VivoBook S13 and Dell Inspiron 13. For a low price, the HP Pavilion Aero 13 is all about portability, display quality, and processor performance. It’s worth considering over last year’s model just for the weight reductions, especially for travelers and students.

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Pros

  • Even when gaming, the fan noise is relatively low
  • For the price, a high-performance Performance is available
  • Full sRGB 16:10 display
  • Extremely light
  • Inexpensive

Cons

  • It’s a headache to open USB-A covers
  • It’s tough to get rid of the bottom panel
  • At wide angles, hinges feel brittle
  • Wi-Fi 6 performance average
  • There is no shutter on the camera

Among the world of laptop reviews, we don’t talk about HP’s Pavilion brand very often. We tend to focus on flagship goods like HP’s Spectre or Dell’s XPS when it comes to technology. We’ll occasionally go a step lower with a Lenovo Yoga 7 series or an HP Envy. Because the pavilion is more popular, you’ll be quite surprised by how wonderful the HP Pavilion Aero 13 has been.

I’ve already evaluated a couple of Pavilions, the most recent of which is a $700 PC with 4G LTE connectivity. They have a lot of value and are good pcs. The Pavilion Aero is more than adequate. It’s a great HP laptop, and I’d use it as my daily driver, which is something I don’t frequently say about common products.

The Aero trademark comes from the fact that it weighs less than a kilogram. But that’s not all that’s fantastic. It has an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U CPU and 16GB of RAM, so it performs well. It even has a decent FHD display, which surprised me.

HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop

  1. Price and Availability of Hp Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop
  2. Specifications of HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop
  3. Design
  4. Display
  5. Performance
  6. Keyboard and TouchPad: HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop Review
  7. Battery Life
  8. Our Opinion for HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop

Price and Availability of Hp Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop

Only HP is offering the new  HP Pavilion Aero 13 directly through the HP website as of early September 2021. Other stores, including Amazon and Best Buy, are expected to follow suit in the coming months since both are major HP PC sellers. Also, you can see a Full Review of the HP Victus 16.1” Gaming Laptop

You can customize storage, CPU, RAM, display, color options, and more with HP.

The HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop is priced starting at $750, but HP is now offering it for $670. That model comes with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage, as well as a WUXGA non-touch display without backlit keys and a natural silver finish.

The Pavilion Aero 13 costs a relatively reasonable $1,040 when fully loaded. It has a Ryzen 7 5800U CPU, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, backlit keys, a higher-resolution WQXGA non-touch display, and is available in warm gold, ceramic white, or pale rose gold.

The Pavilion Aero 13 is priced at $910 and comes with a Ryzen 7 5800U processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, a non-backlit keyboard, a 1920×1200 display, and a natural silver finish.

Specifications of HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop


Processor NameRyzen 5
Screen Size13.3 inches
OSWindows 10 Home
Processor BrandAMD
Weight1 kg
Hard Disk TechnologySSD
SpeakerAudio by B&O; Dual speakers; HP Audio Boost
Number of USB 3.0 Ports2

HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop

Credit: HP

Design


Design of HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop

Credit: Republic World

The Pavilion Aero 13 is constructed with magnesium-aluminum which is the first in its line and alloy throughout the body. That makes it the lightest consumer laptop HP has ever built, at only 2.18 pounds. The HP Envy 13 is somewhat broader and shallower, with the same 0.67-inch thickness, but it weighs 2.88 pounds. Also, you can see a full review of the Acer Chromebook Spin 713 Price, Specification

The previous-generation Pavilion 13 was bigger in every way, 0.70 inches thicker, and weighed 2.71 pounds despite not being all-metal. Among HP’s slim and light 13.3-inch laptops, the Pavilion Aero 13 stands out.


It also outweighs the best 13-inch laptop on the market, the opulent Dell XPS 13, at least in terms of weight. Even with its own 16:10 display, the laptop is 0.58 inches thick, weighs 2.8 pounds, and is somewhat shallower. When the lid is open, the Pavilion Aero 13’s chin seems bigger because HP incorporated a raise to the hinge that pushes up the keyboard at an angle for improved typing and ventilation. The Asus ZenBook 13 OLED is a more direct rival, with dimensions that are somewhat bigger in width and depth and a weight of 2.5 pounds, but it is just 0.55 inches thick.

Design of HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop

Credit: HP

That lightweight metal alloy comes at a price. While the bottom chassis of the Pavilion Aero 13 gives just slightly when squeezed, the lid is highly flexible. This is because the metal is not only more flexible but also rather thin. The Pavilion Aero 13’s build quality is one area where its cheap pedigree shines through — though it’s not terrible by any means. Even yet, a more expensive laptop like the Dell XPS 13 or HP’s Spectre x360 13 exudes a rock-solid solidity that the Pavilion lacks. Also, you can see a full review of the HP Pavilion 15 Laptop: Affordable and Remarkable

The Asus ZenBook 13 OLED has some give as well, but without comparing them side by side, it’s tough to determine which is more securely made. I’ll point out that the Pavilion Aero 13’s hinge is superb; you can open the lid with one hand, and there’s just a tiny bit of movement while typing.

The Pavilion Aero 13 features a contemporary design that is similar to the Envy series. It has a sleek, minimalist design with crisp lines and angles, and it comes in four colors: Natural Silver, Pale Rose Gold, Warm Gold, and Ceramic White, which is the color of my review unit. Regardless of the color scheme you choose, you’ll get a basic and appealing appearance that isn’t overpowering. It’s also contemporary, due to the slim display bezels that result in a screen-to-body ratio of 90%. The XPS 13 and Spectre x360 13 are more eye-catching laptops, but there’s plenty of place for a laptop that looks this nice without standing out.

Design of HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop

Credit: HP

A full-size HDMI 2.0 port, USB-A port, and USB-C port are located on the left side, while a second USB-A port is located on the right side. That’s fantastic heritage support, however, Thunderbolt isn’t available owing to the AMD chipset. It’s also unfortunate that there’s no SD card reader. Wireless communication is provided through Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.


Display


Display of HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop

Credit: Digit

The Pavilion Aero 13 is equipped with a 13.3-inch 16:10 IPS screen in one of two resolutions, allowing HP to move the taller 16:10 aspect ratio lower under the Pavilion brand. You may pick between Full HD+ and QHD+ screens, which is what my review device had.

I was blown away by the display, which was far superior to what you’d get on a Pavilion or other allegedly inexpensive laptop. Given that this is a $1,000 laptop, a nice display is fair to expect – and HP delivered. The colors that popped without oversaturation and seemed realistic enough for all but the most discriminating creative experts matched my subjective experience, which I’ll explain in a moment. While the contrast was lower than I prefer in terms of absolute numbers, black text nevertheless shone out against white backgrounds, which is crucial for anybody who works with words or figures on a computer screen.


The Pavilion Aero 13’s display, according to my colorimeter, was primarily a high-quality premium display. It was bright, with 437 nits, considerably above our 300-nit threshold and close to the 458 nits of the Dell XPS 13 Full HD+ display. In comparison, the OLED display of the Asus ZenBook 13 produced 397 nits of brightness. Indirect sunlight, any of these screens may be useable, but the Pavilion Aero 13 stands up exceptionally well. One flaw with the Pavilion Aero 13 was its contrast ratio, which was just 830:1 – well below our 1,000:1 criterion for the best screens. The XPS 13 has a significantly superior contrast ratio of 1350:1, whereas the ZenBook 13 OLED had a 396,690:1 contrast ratio.

The color saturation of the Pavilion Aero 13 was somewhat greater than the premium average, at 77 percent AdobeRGB and 99 percent sRGB. The XPS 13 scored 75 percent and 98 %, respectively, while the ZenBook 13 OLED benefited from the display technology once again, scoring 100 percent in both color spaces. The HP’s colors were quite realistic, with a DeltaE of 1.8, compared to 1.36 for the XPS 13 and 0.49 for the ZenBook 13 OLED.

The audio, on the other hand, was not nearly up to par. Although there was no distortion when the volume was increased, it was too low. The mids and highs were clear, but there were no basses, which made the sound flat. It’ll be enough for system noises and the occasional YouTube video, but for binge-watching Netflix or listening to music, you’ll need earbuds or Bluetooth speakers.

Performance


Performance of HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop

Credit: PCWorld

The Pavilion Aero 13 has an AMD Ryzen 7 5800U processor with 8 cores and 16 threads, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB PCIe SSD, promising to be a powerhouse. AMD’s chip outperforms Intel’s 4-core/8-thread Core i7-1185G7, which is the top of the line among Intel’s consumer thin-and-light CPUs, in CPU-intensive activities.

Having extra cores is especially important for someone who will utilize apps that put a lot of strain on the CPU, such as writing software. Video editing stands out, and our benchmarks show that the Pavilion Aero 13 packs a surprising amount of power into such a small frame.


The Pavilion Aero 13 is the fastest laptop in our test group, and it’s neck and neck with other Ryzen 7 5800U-powered laptops like the Asus ZenBook 13 OLED. The HP took the lead in Handbrake with a fantastic score of under two minutes to encode our 420MB test video to H.265 and in Cinebench R23, with the HP taking the lead in both. These tests show how effectively a laptop performs not just in creative jobs like video rendering and display, but also in most tasks that require the CPU to work for longer periods. They demonstrate not only processor performance, but also how effectively the thermal design of a laptop maintains the CPU working at maximum speed.

Similarly, the Asus ZenBook 13 OLED outperformed the competition in Geekbench 5 and the PCMark 10 Complete score, which measure how well a laptop performs in a variety of productivity tasks including online surfing, videoconferencing, and Office programs, as well as multitasking. Because the gap between the two computers was not as significant, it would be reasonable to declare them evenly matched. And, as you can see in the chart below, both laptops outperformed the Intel competitors, scoring well above their respective $1,000 price tags. The Intel processors couldn’t compete in Cinebench R23 except for single-core scores. The discrepancy was evident when the PCMark 10 benchmark was broken down into its Essentials, Productivity, and Content Creation scores.

Benchmark

HP Pavilion Aero 13 Ryzen 7500U
PCMark 8: Home4,512
PCMark 105,758
PCMark 8: Work3,977
PCMark 8: Creative4,360
3DMark: Time Spy1,212
Cinebench1,365/7,115
GeekBench1,427/5,524


Simply said, the Pavilion Aero 13 was outstanding in every way. There aren’t many thin-and-light laptops that can keep up with the CPU-intensive apps described above. During my testing, the Pavilion Aero 13 was lightning fast, handling everything I threw at it without hesitation. Based on performance alone, I can recommend this very light laptop.

However, the Ryzen processors do not outperform the competition in terms of gaming performance. The Pavilion Aero 13 scored the lowest in our comparison group in the 3DMark Time Spy test, and it performed poorly in our test game, Fortnite.


It clocked it at 29 fps at 1080p with high graphics and 15 frames per second with epic graphics enabled. That’s approximately the same as Intel’s Iris Xe integrated graphics, and it’s insufficient for anything except than older games or newer games with the resolution and graphical quality set down.

Keyboard and TouchPad: HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop Review


Keyboard and TouchPad - HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop Review

Credit: Digital Trends

The keyboard on the Pavilion Aero 13 is similar to that on the Spectre and the newest Envy laptops. It features beautiful keycaps and the same row of positional keys on the right side. It doesn’t, however, employ the same technique that I’m used to. There’s enough travel, but it lacks the precise bottoming action and clickiness that HP’s higher-end machines offer.

Among Windows 10 laptops, the Spectre keyboard is my favorite, and the Pavilion Aero 13’s keyboard falls short. Although it outperforms many inexpensive laptops, this is a $1,000 computer, and the keyboard is an afterthought. At the same price, the Asus ZenBook 13 OLED offers a superior keyboard. I should also add that the Pavilion Aero 13’s keyboard is rather noisy, and it isn’t illuminated unless you pay an extra $20 – a letdown given the $1,000 price tag.


The touchpad is superior – it’s 23% bigger than the previous version’s and takes up the majority of the keyboard deck’s available area. It’s larger than the touchpad on the Spectre x360 13, but not quite as large as the one on the Spectre x360 14. Because of its smooth surface and compatibility with Microsoft’s Precision touchpad drivers, Windows 10 multitouch gestures worked flawlessly. There is no touch display option, which is unfortunate because I dislike non-touch displays. However, not everyone feels the same way, so this may not be a deal-breaker for most customers.

A fingerprint reader on the keyboard deck supports Windows 10 Hello, and it worked perfectly. I was able to log in without having to enter my password, which is exactly what you want from the function.


Battery Life

The Pavilion Aero 13 has a battery capacity of 43 watt-hours, which is a little low for a 13-inch laptop. I’ve had varied experiences with Ryzen battery life, so I wasn’t expecting much, especially with the Full HD+ display.

My benchmark testing gave me a lot of hope. In our web-browsing test, the Pavilion Aero 13 lasted 10.5 hours, which is a good result. Even with its OLED display, the Dell XPS 13 Full HD+ lasted 8.5 hours, while the Asus ZenBook 13 OLED lasted 15.7 hours. The Pavilion Aero 13 clocked in at a little over 10.5 hours in our video test, with the XPS 13 clocking in at 12 hours and the ZenBook 13 OLED clocking in at 15.5 hours. Unlike Intel laptops, I’ve observed that Ryzen computers don’t always show as big of a boost in performance from web surfing to the video test.

The Pavilion Aero 13 nearly reached 11.5 hours on the PCMark 10 Applications battery test, a great result that places it towards the top of our database. We didn’t test the ZenBook 13 OLED with this benchmark because the XPS 13 lasted just under 10 hours. In the PCMark 10 Gaming battery test, the Pavilion Aero 13 only lasted 94 minutes, placing it towards the bottom of our database, while the XPS 13 nearly made it to four hours. However, because the PCMark battery test is highly dependent on how aggressively a laptop runs on power, the HP probably ran at full speed while the Dell slowed down during the test.


Overall, the Pavilion Aero 13’s battery lasted all day and then some. You’ll be able to get some work done without having to the plugin in the evening or binge Netflix for a few hours. Given the laptop’s low weight, which is due in part to the reduced battery size, this is a great achievement.

Our Opinion for HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop

With the Pavilion Aero 13, HP added a few premium features into the Pavilion series while raising the price. The Pavilion Aero 13’s all-metal frame and 16:10 display aspect ratio are nice features that help justify its $1,000 price tag. Its performance and battery life were also sufficient to justify the price, even though it was higher than we expected for a computer marketed as a budget choice.

When you consider the Pavilion Aero 13’s incredibly small weight, you have a very attractive 13-inch choice. Even when considering midrange and premium options, anybody searching for a laptop in this class would be satisfied with the Pavilion Aero 13.

How long is it going to last?

The Pavilion Aero 13 has a little flexible lid, but it’s generally a well-built and well-equipped laptop that should survive for years under normal conditions. The one-year warranty is normal but disappointing as always.

Any Alternatives Laptop?

I’ll recommend the HP Envy 13 not because it’s a wonderful option, but because you get a laptop with less horsepower and a 16:9 display for the same $1,000. It emphasizes how aggressively HP is marketing the Pavilion Aero 13 in comparison to the rest of its portfolio.

The Asus ZenBook 13 OLED, which costs $1,000, is a more affordable option. It has the same CPU as the previous model, but with a bigger 1TB SSD and an OLED display.

Finally, you might go with the Dell XPS 13, which is pricier but more luxurious. You’ll receive a higher-quality construction, a somewhat better display, and a more attractive appearance.


Conclusion

The Aero 13 is what Bumblebee is to movies in terms of laptops. Every Transformers film before to that 2018 release had been a disaster. Then, apparently out of nowhere, a spin-off appears, prompting you to wonder whether the franchise may be revived. I’m not suggesting Bumblebee was perfect cinema, and the Aero 13, like that film, has flaws. Despite these flaws, there isn’t a better laptop available for around $700.

Fast performance from AMD Ryzen Processor, a featherweight magnesium alloy chassis, and a bright and colorful 13.3-inch display are all highlights of this notebook. There’s also a large number of connectors and a fingerprint sensor for quick login. My list of “wants” for the future iteration includes a bigger glass touchpad, an IR camera, and quad speakers.

I try to approach each review with an open mind, but after reading “Pavilion” on the box, my expectations for the Aero 13 were admittedly low. That’s because “quick performance,” “beautiful display,” and “portable” are rarely used to describe HP’s budget-to-midrange Pavilion laptops. As a result, the Aero 13 is a milestone incident for a long-running but underappreciated laptop series. I can only hope that future Pavilion laptops come up to the potential demonstrated by this exceptional notebook.

Reviews
  • HP Pavilion Aero 13 Laptop
4.6

Summary

The Pavilion Aero 13 is constructed with magnesium-aluminum which is the first in its line and alloy throughout the body. That makes it the lightest consumer laptop HP has ever built, at only 2.18 pounds.

5 COMMENTS

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