HP 15.6" Silver

This HP pairs a CPU in the 22nd percentile with RAM in the 14th percentile, making it one of the least capable budget laptops we've seen. Its 672GB of storage is a pleasant surprise, and 16 happy buyers give it a 4.9-star rating. But for $699, you can get far better core performance elsewhere.

The Intel i3-N305 is an 8-core processor built entirely on efficiency cores, and it shows. In our database, it falls into the 22nd percentile, meaning even many older Celeron and Pentium chips outrun it. Multitasking is a struggle. With just 8GB of single-channel RAM (14th percentile), opening more than eight Chrome tabs alongside a document will bring the system to its knees. The integrated Intel UHD Graphics are equally disappointing, scoring a 10.6 out of 100 for gaming, which makes this laptop useless for anything beyond solitaire or streaming video. The 512GB NVMe SSD delivers decent sequential reads, but the CPU bottleneck prevents it from feeling snappy.

Forget the MacBook Pro M5 Pro or ASUS ProArt PX13 here. Those machines exist in a different performance galaxy, with CPUs in the 95th percentile and up. Even when comparing the HP to true budget rivals, the i3-N305's 22nd percentile showing is a letdown. A Lenovo Ideapad 3 with a Ryzen 5 or an Acer Aspire with an i5-1335U will deliver CPU performance 30-40% faster while keeping RAM at 16GB for roughly the same money.

At $699, the HP 15.6" offers a weird trade-off. You're getting a massive storage pool and a docking station that most competitors skip, but the core hardware is painfully weak. Laptops with a Ryzen 5 5500U or Core i5-1235U routinely land in the 50th percentile or higher for CPU and RAM while matching this price. That extra 160GB dock SSD might be tempting if you need cold storage, but for $699 you're sacrificing processor performance that will make every daily task feel sluggish.

The HP 15.6" lands in the 22nd percentile for CPU performance in our database. That's not just below average, it's among the weakest chips we've tested in this category. The 8GB of RAM only makes things worse, sitting in the 14th percentile and guaranteeing stutters if you push past a handful of browser tabs. On the bright side, storage is a genuine highlight. The total 672GB (512GB SSD plus a bundled 160GB dock SSD) puts it in the 61st percentile, which is well above what most budget laptops offer. Buyers seem happy too, with a 4.9-star rating from 16 reviews putting social proof in the 70th percentile. But those warm feelings don't change the fact that the overall Benchmarks score is a limp 37.3 out of 100, dragged down by an abysmal 10.6 for gaming.

Anyone who keeps more than a handful of browser tabs open or uses applications heavier than a basic text editor should look elsewhere. The 22nd percentile CPU and 14th percentile RAM will frustrate students, remote workers, and budget gamers alike. Even casual photo editing or streaming while multitasking is enough to bring this machine to a crawl.

The HP 15.6" only makes sense if you specifically need that 672GB of total storage and a docking station for $699, and if your workflow stays firmly in one or two lightweight apps at a time. For anyone who multitasks, edits photos, or expects a snappy Windows 11 experience, our benchmark data says you should spend the same money on a machine with a stronger CPU and more RAM, even if it means a slightly smaller SSD.