There is a feeling as I peruse this section that there is not enough information on the mid range to low end laptops, as I am sure that not all of us are keen on blasting more than RM2500 for an i7 laptop. And judging by the response to the midrange laptop reviews here, I feel that we do need to see what a certain budget can get you on the market today. Not just pricing - heck, you can get those anywhere. But the actual use and feel of the unit themselves, such as the keyboard etc etc.

Without further ado, here is the review on the Pavilion 14-n060TX.

Currently Priced at RM1999 with a two years carry in warranty.

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The midrange laptop fight, which to me is anywhere between RM1600 - RM2500 in pricing is seeing a lot of competitors putting out new laptop models, with Haswell upgrade now going full swing. I have recommended the Acer 473PG in the past, but it does have some gotchas, such as the shallow keyboard feel, no DVD writer and so-so display. HP has suddenly been active in pushing their products on us, giving out good pricing on some models, and today I present to your their 4200U offering, the 14" N060TX.

This is the black color model (there is the white N059TX, the 059 denoting the white), and it comes with the standard Haswell i5-4200U and the NVIDIA 740M with 2GB DDR3 ram.

Essentially, this is the same spec as you would have with the Acer 473PG - so performance wise I don't see any difference between the two in terms of gaming and cpu intensive tasks. Yet. The laptop is so new that HP doesn't even have the driver download pages yet at the time of this writing (which is not really a surprise. They normally do lag in putting up those support pages, since its more detailed than Acer's). Internal wise, it is about the same.

But of course, not all of it.

To clarify - I sell Acers, Asus, HP, Toshiba and Lenovo plus Apple, so any and all comparisons I will make based on and against models coming from the above companies only. I can't compare to Dell or Fujitsu.

The Display
I am a stickler when it comes to laptop displays, mainly because my eyes needs a very high powered spectacles and any quality degradation on the screen really does annoy me to no end. That being said, the display that comes with the N060TX is one of the nice ones to come by, and I have noticed that HP tend to have the better quality screens. It is the same case here, where the color seems more natural as opposed the the muted one on most other models. Colors don't wash out easily as compared to the other models when you view moves around. Of course, being a glossy screen, you can't really use it outside but for all other purposes, HP ranks just below Apple to me in screen quality.

Again, I do hope that they all start using higher resolution screens. 1366x768 still feel so last century, but at least I don't feel like sticking forks in my eye with this one.

The Body
Plastic below. Plastic around the keyboard. Plastic frame around the screen. Metal lid (I think) on the back screen panel. To be fair, around they keyboard, the plastic is structure to give that metal look, but closer inspection reveals plastic. The touchpad is large enough with dot texture on the pad for fiction and it comes with separate left/right mouse keys.

On the right side, you have the DVD writer, 1 standard USB port and the combo audio jack. On the right, you have the power port, kesington lock, Ethernet, heat exhaust, HDMI, 2 USB 3.0 and SD card reader. You would notice that it does not have a VGA port or a Displayport such as the one the 473PG got so you do need to take note on that.

The screen doesn't wobble (wobble means, if you slap your table, and your laptop screen wobble, that is bad. Chief very bad screen wobble is Lenovo.), but it is loose a bit as compared to the Acer, but I have no complaints here. Thanks to the Haswell processor, the laptop is in the thin category, about the same thickness as the Acer 473PG.

Standard webcam on the screen, with dual microphone and 720P resolution. DTS+ sound speakers, which doesn't sound too bad, albeit with not a lot of bass. Guns and Roses Sweet Child sound good on this pair of speakers at their default settings.

The keyboard is the standard Chiclet style with one distinction - better travel as compared to the shallow ones on the Acer 473PG. I got used to it in no time at all and feels as good as the Air in terms of speed and feel. Compared to most other manufacturers, the function keys on the HP is already set to control functions such as brightness and sound volume, not requiring the usual FN + keyboard press. And it does

Another plus is the fact that opening the backplate apparently exposes 2 slots for RAM and memory upgrades, as compared to the soldered ram on the 473PG. I haven't opened the backplate yet - but CPUID report points out the two discreet slots anyway so that is a plus.

All in all, nice, functional design. I like.

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Coming Soon - Performance testing, heat and battery.. Still in the midst of playing around with it..

This post has been edited by mfitri77: Oct 14 2013, 09:27 AM


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nice lappy ^^ body lawa..

nice and look awesome

But gt 740m good or not bro?

From the HP website, the warranty is only 1 year. Your shop selling for RM1,999 too just like on the website? There is three model of the same specs, the 59-61 series, being the 59 the white and the 60 and 61 the black version. What's the difference?

This post has been edited by Michelleng: Oct 15 2013, 05:56 PM

Well, i had been thinking should i get this model or Hp Envy Touchsmart 14 Sleek Book. At last i choose 2nd one, but there is a question i facing now, should i get a screen protector for my lappie? Is it hard to find one which suit to this model? since the screen's edges is a bit round.

it's capable to play at medium setting..if it well optimize maybe can go high witn no AA hehe but it can't handle 1080p gameplay so take note about it

nothing beats inspiron in terms of battery life for this mid range laptop

Nah. I can give lower price than the one on the website. But, COD Seremban.

Believe it or not, the only difference in color. 59 is white, the 60 is black, but all the specs are the same, and I do not have the 61. Need to check on that.

It is all up to how much you would trust how careful you are. We do warn that screen might get scratched, but there is little that we can do, and screen protector manufacturers don't always come up with nice fitting as compared to mobile phones.

Anything with a discrete graphic card will eat battery for breakfast anyway. Runs at least 6 hours wifi + internet browsing. Still in the midst of testing the set I'm using as a demo. So far, so good.

Waiting for the Performance testing, heat and battery ;D

Performance

Intel i5-4200U. NVIDIA 740M. This is among the most popular configuration on the market right now, so the performance of the system here with the same specs is neither better, nor worse. Skyrim and Tomb Raider all can be played with medium graphics settings smoothly on the 720P screen without any noticeable lag, as was the case for Diablo III.

What is different though from the Acer 473PG is the position of the vents. Acer did the smart thing and moved the exhaust vent to the back of the machine, and added an extra fan which took the heat away from the hot processors quickly. The HP still sticks with the left side vent (as the case with most other manufacturers) so the heat during use is vented on the left side of the computer. That meant that during heavy use, the heat coming out from the vent is uncomfortable to the user but the good thing is the vent does do a good job of taking the heat away from the keyboard area. Although there is still heat on the left side of the keyboard area, it is more of the warm/toasty kind rather than the burn your hand kind.

The fan is quite enough at load as to not bother the in game graphics, but those with sensitive ears do hear the droning fan as it works.

The CPU seems to be able to maintain an average 2.1Ghz speed on all 4 threads and the system is still responsive.

With 2 available memory slot, you are able to select your own memory preference, unlike the 473PG that has a soldered ram. The slots are located under a panel, however, should you wish to change the hard drive, that would necessitate opening the whole back panel since the hard drive is not located under the panel. The unit came with 1 slot filled with a 4GB DDR3 1600Mhz low power RAM and adding a second ram bumps the memory performance a bit.
Working with Windows 8 meant that the whole system felt speedy although it does use a standard hard drive with 750GB of storage. In use, there is the HDD lag that one is used to, but it is not that much of a problem.

Battery Life

It’s a 4 cell battery, so don’t expect gaming on the go without being tethered to a wall socket. That said, you do get an average wifi surfing time of about 5-6 hours that I believe you can get more by fiddling with the settings. Then again, not that much of a difference from the Acer at the end of the day, but if you do need the extra hours then this is not the laptop for you.

Value

Again, all boils down to the budget you have. In the case of the 740M, yes, this is one of the cheapest 740M laptops with Haswell processor you can get. Asus has the old K46CB with the old 3rd Gen i5 around this price still, and all the other comparable Lenovo broke the RM2K price barrier already.

Stepping down a notch all goes to the 720M or the AMD 8670M. Both runs almost the same performance numbers but can be bought below RM1700 in price, a good value and come with the OS installed.

This post has been edited by mfitri77: Oct 17 2013, 04:08 PM

Dell 5437 - 14R has similar spec

14.0 inch LED Backlit Display with Truelife and HD resolution (1366 x 768)
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-4200U processor (3M Cache, 1.6 GHz, GT740M 2GB)
500GB 5400RPM
4GB 1 DIMM (1X4GB) DDR3L 1600Mhz
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 740M 2GB DDR3


price almost same

This post has been edited by devour: Oct 17 2013, 04:41 PM

Yep. Running UBUNTU Linux. The HP comes with an actual Windows 8 License.

Nope, this model , 5437-20452G-W8
is with window 8 pre installed

RM2049. http://www.dell.com/my/p/inspiron-14r-5437/fs

yes, u know google now, its with Windows 8 Single Language, English (64bit)

Really? Wow. I mean, I am in the presence of forum master now. I must be an idiot, because apparently I don't know how to Google.

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All jokes aside, Dell used to be good. But you do business in a small town, you tend to pick certain models not only for your convenience but also for your reputation - You do not want problems. We don't exclusively focus on selling online, where you can blow off your customer for weeks or months because in a small town, word tend to go around fast and your reputation could tank very fast and very hard. In the case of Dell, we don't have that support where we do business, so we don't sell Dell.

Which is why I pointed out that when I do reviews, I don't compare with Dell, because I don't sell them. It is in my first post.

i like the fact that this model is kid of thin and it really feels like an ultrabook with light weight also

Dell 5437 - 14r or hp pavilion 14-n060tx better?

mftiri...
u mean this lappy cannot connect to LCD projector eh?