Laptop Review: HP Pavilion Gaming 15-ec2004AX

The HP Pavilion Gaming 15-ec2004AX is powered by the AMD Ryzen 5 5600H and Nvidia GTX 1650 Mobilewith 4 GB VRAM and AMD Radeon RX Vega 7. Other key specs include 8GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. The Display here is a 15.6 Inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Panel.

Design and Ports

The HP Pavilion Gaming 15-ec2004AX has a black plastic chassis with a smooth finish and an angular design. The hinge also has an angular design and can be opened with one hand to a maximum angle of 130 degrees however, is a fingerprint magnet. In terms of looks, it has a minimalist look and you won’t feel uncomfortable taking it out in a professional setting. The speaker grill sits above the keyboard with hexagonal patterns which is a nice touch. 

Ports: 

The port selection here is nothing special but it’s nice to have an SD card slot. 

1x USB 3.0 (Type C) | 1x USB 3.0 (Type-A) | 1x USB 2.0 (Type A) | HDMI | Rj- 45 Ethernet Jack | SD Card Reader | 3.5 mm Combo Audio Jack

Keyboard and Trackpad

The HP Pavilion Gaming 15-ec2004AX  has a chicklet style backlit keyboard. The keys have a clear actuation point with a little flex and you will have decent tying experience. The trackpad on the other hand has a smooth matte surface though it lacks a little precision.

Overall Performance

The HP Pavilion Gaming 15-ec2004AX is powered by the Ryzen 5 5600H trades blow with the 10th Gen Intel Core i7 10875H and is significantly more powerful than the 11th Gen intel core i5 11400H and 11300H. The key bottleneck here is the 8GB of single-channel 3200MHz RAM which you can easily upgrade. The GTX 1650Ti, on the other hand, is an entry-level GPU with limited potential for GPU-intensive tasks such as 3D rendering and Gaming. Now compared to the previous GTX 1650Ti is about 10 percent more powerful than GTX 1650 and is about 5 percent slower when compared to GTX 1060.  The 512GB SSD of storage should be enough for an average user however for a power user, fortunately, HP Pavilion Gaming has plenty of options for upgradability.

Display: 144Hz FHD (LG Philips LGD05FE)

The FHD panel on the HP Pavilion Gaming 15-ec2004AX has a 144Hz Refresh rate and doesn’t suffer from and noticeable issues such as backlight bleeding and PWM flickering. The display here has decent color coverage and below-average brightness and suitable for outdoor use.

Display Specs:

• Panel Model Number: LG Philips LGD05FE
• Coverage: 95% sRGB | 61% AdobeRGB 
• Measured Gamma: 2.31;
• Max brightness: 250 Nits;
• Contrast Ratio: 820:1;
• Black on max brightness: 0.42 cd/m2;
• PWM Flickering: No;