Thanks to the advancements on both hardware and software, we’ve been able to get more interesting products every new year. Tablets have earned their place on our lives, and unique machines that rely more on internet connection than local storage seem more and more compelling every time.
In this review of the HP 14-an013nr we find ourselves with one of such products. This is a very unique laptop that makes some interesting decisions with an incredibly low price. Keep reading to find out why, and if this is what you’ve been looking for.
Pros: amazing Full HD display, lightweight design, extended connectivity, solid battery life, low price point, 4 GB of RAM.Cons: 32 GB of SSD storage (upgradable vía an SD card)
14 inch Full HD Screen and a decent design
On first glance we have a very modest design of a plastic body mixed with greys and blacks and a brushed aluminum-like pattern. Fortunately we also find a one-piece hinge for the screen, instead of the two-piece most machines on this price range use. This tends to have better durability overall.
The secret weapon, and probably the laptop’s best feature, is without a doubt the screen. We’re looking at a 14 inch panel with 1080p Full HD resolution, which is an incredibly high spec for the price. As if that weren’t enough, it’s an IPS panel, so viewing angles won’t be a problem.
We cannot stress enough how good of a screen this is for the price, so if that’s your primary concern, don’t go looking anywhere else.
Overall Perfmance and multitasking
On the processing department, HP chose an AMD E2-7110 QC. This is a CPU for mobile entry-level machines with four cores clocked at 1.8 GHz. As such, it’s suited for light tasks like web surfing, office work and video playback, though more demanding software will not work as efficiently.
On the memory side, the HP 14-an013nr sports 4 GB of DDR3L-SDRAM (1600 Mhz) available, which might sound like too little, but considering this laptop is made mostly for web applications (as most cloudbooks), it makes a little sense. Having too many tabs open at the same time won’t be the best experience, but otherwise it won’t be a problem.
What games can I play?
This review of the HP 14-an013nr should go without saying: this is not a machine made for gaming. Classic, years-old titles should run OK, as well as some modern 2-D games, but modern titles are definitely a no in this case. If you’re looking to game, you should look somewhere else.
Quite a good Battery life
HP includes a 31Wh 3 cell battery with this one, and also claims the laptop can last up to 5 hours and 15 minutes. That’s a pretty decent average for battery life thanks to lower consumption components, so you know you can expect good performance on that department.
Extended Connectivity and ULTRA FAST storage
If the first secret weapon from this laptop was the screen, the second one would be the connectivity. First, we have two USB 2.0 ports coupled with one USB 3.0. Then we continue with not only VGA connection, but also a full-sized HDMI port for external displays. To close the deal we have an Ethernet port, the obligatory audio jack and an SD card reader.
That last one is especially crucial for this machine, since it comes with just 32 GB of storage on a solid state drive. At first this might look like an odd choice, but it makes sense with what we said before: a focus on web processing and faster performance than mechanical hard drives. That one extra SD card will surely help a lot though, since you can buy one with as much as 128GB for a reasonable price.
What’s the verdict on this laptop?
To some consumers, this might be an odd machine to buy. To those of us who know what we want, on the other hand, all we can see is not only a very interesting breed of laptop, but also a very compelling one. This is Windows’ answer to Chromebooks, and we can’t help but fall in love with the screen and connectivity than no laptop on this range can ever match.
Low storage can be a hassle, but not one you can’t fix very easily (and cheaply). For those consumers who know what they want, it will be very hard to go wrong with this one.