HP Pavilion g6 15 inch laptop review

The HP Pavilion g6 doesn’t have any ideas beyond its station – it’s a solid, affordable multi-purpose laptop with decent upgrade options. In terms of design, it might not be one of HP’s finest efforts, but it’s no eyesore either.

What we like best

The lid, at first glance, doesn’t look like something you’d expect from a budget laptop – shiny, smooth, with rounded edges and a subtle silver HP logo tucked away in the corner, it might be mistaken for a business device.

The silver keyboard continues the professional look, while the remaining inside surfaces are kept in matte black plastic. The trackpad is integrated very smoothly into the surface and is a joy to use with its distinctive texture and quiet yet distinct buttons.

The HP Pavilion g6 comes with integrated rather than dedicated graphics, so multimedia playback and gaming is limited – although your standard iPlayer/YouTube content should look perfectly fine thanks to the glossy screen. There’s also a rewritable DVD drive.

Performance is satisfactory, but nothing more than that – the processors on offer here are from Intel’s last generation, which helped bring the price down. However, basic office applications and browsing runs smoothly, which makes us think that the HP Pavilion might be a good bet for students. Much more worrying is the battery life, which hovers at around two and a half hours on average.

What we like least

As you might expect from a laptop of this price category, there are some areas that don’t feel particularly sturdy – e.g., there is a bit too much yield if you apply pressure on the lid. Overall, however, the build is just about satisfactory.

The multitouch inclusion is a nice touch but more of a gesture, as it’s not a reliable way of handling your applications: the cursor jumps and freezes unexpectedly.

The HP Pavilion g6 doesn’t come with any of the high-end ports of its more expensive competitors, which means you’ll have to do without USB 3.0 or eSATA, and there is no Bluetooth 3.0 support either.

Compared to the more luxuriously stacked HP Pavilion d6, the g6’s speakers are disappointing too – tinny and lacking in bass as well as dynamics.