HP Pavilion 15-R231cy Review

$324.00 SEE AT AMAZON

Michael C. Smith

June 14, 2024

195 Views

7.2 Total Score

GOOD

The HP Pavilion 15-r231cy M4C20UA is a solid 15.6-inch mainstream laptop, with a large touch screen that works decently with the installed Win 8, and even better with the new Windows 10 interface.

PROS

Good application performance
Decent battery runtimes
Low power consumption

CONS

No VGA out
Only Fast Ethernet
Glossy case

The HP Pavilion 15-r231cy M4C20UA is a mainstream touchscreen laptop with a large 15.6-inch screen that is tested, certified and refurbished by HP to be just like a brand new, offered with a 90 day warranty, plus all the accessories. With a quad core Intel Pentium N3540 processor at 2.16GHz to 2.66GHz speed with turbo boost function, 4GB DDR3L SDRAM on a single DIMM, 1TB Serial ATA hard drive at 5400rpm rotating speed and 64-bit Windows 8.1 operating system which you can easily upgrade to Windows 10 for free.

The Pavilion r231cy model is purple and you have three other colors to choose from for the exact same computer: Red- r227cy, black- 15-r231cy and silver- 15-r231cy.

Design

The Pavilion 15-r231cy is beautiful laptop, with a decent set of specs when compared to its rivals. It comes in at comes in at 1.01 by 14.88 by 10.20 cm (HWD), and weighs in at just over 5.3 pounds – average weight and thickness (not super slim or lightweight since the touch display laptops tend to weigh more). It’s still a full sized laptop overall, thanks to its 15.6-inch HD WLED-backlit touchscreen, which has a 1,366 by 768 resolution, good for 720p HD videos.

The keyboard dons an island style design, a 10-key numpad and a large trackpad with left and right click buttons which supports multiple gestures with no on and off button. The chiclet-style keyboard isn’t backlit, but it comes with a full numeric keypad, a luxury afforded by the laptop’s full-size chassis. Front facing HP TrueVision high definition webcam is a reasonable one and has a built-in digital microphone for chatting live on Skype with family and friends.

Connectivity

Connectivity options are the Multimedia Drive SuperMulti DVD burner, Network Card 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connector, 802.11b/g/n wireless (Bluetooth is not mentioned), Multi-format Digital Media Card Reader for SD cards, a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port, 2 x USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI output, a Headphone-out and microphone-in combo jack and 45W AC power adapter.

Performance

The Pavilion 15-r231cy comes with a 2.16GHz Intel Pentium N3540 Processor (with Turbo Boost up to 2.66GHz), 4GB of memory on a single DIMM, and integrated HD (Ivy Bridge) graphics with up to 2GB shared memory. The combo is somewhat capable for your daily computing needs and multimedia tasks, especially when compared to midrange Intel systems like the Samsung Series 3 NP305E5A-A03US and the Lenovo IdeaPad N581.

The 15-r231cy still doesn’t have the power to play modern games smoothly at native resolution but for older titles id does play fluently; for that you’ll need a more performance oriented system like the ASUS K501LX-EB71.

Battery Life

The 15-r231cy’s 3-cell 31WHr 2.8Ah lithium ion polymer battery that is not particularly large but good enough for an average battery life as the May 2014 release Haswell Pentium N3540 is quite a power efficient processor with a Thermal Design Power- TDP of just 7.5 watts while offering a mid-range power and speed with a Passmark benchmark score of just over 2000 as of this moment- is much better than the previous generation Intel Atom’s. Contrast this with HP ENVY m6-1125dxwith almost six hours or the Samsung Series 3 with over five hours.

Verdict

The HP Pavilion 15-r231cy M4C20UA is a solid 15.6-inch mainstream laptop, with a large touch screen that works decently with the installed Win 8, and even better with the new Windows 10 interface. That said, the system’s components make it appealing, especially the 4GB RAM that is quite sufficient for this level and we particularly love the massive 1TB hard drive for those who need to stash lots of music, photos, or videos on their computer hard drive.

Although they would have opted for faster 7200rpm instead of the 5400rpm, but really you can’t get such at this low price range; while keeping in mind that this is a touchscreen laptop with a decent set of specs and features. For that, we do think this is value for money and the HP Pavilion 15-r231cy indeed deserves a spot somewhere in your shopping list if you’re on a budget and something we can call a step in the right direction.

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