HP 15

The Intel N100 processor is the story here, and it's not a good one, landing in the 7th percentile of all laptops we track. You get a surprising amount of storage and a touchscreen for as low as $370, which is the only thing keeping this machine relevant. But with only 8GB of RAM and a dim display, this is strictly for undemanding users who live in a single browser tab.

The Intel N100 is a 4-core chip that boosts to 3.4GHz, and in our benchmarks, it's firmly at the bottom of the barrel. We're talking about performance that's best suited for one thing at a time. You can stream a show, type up a document, or browse the web, but trying to do all three at once will make this machine sweat. The integrated Intel UHD Graphics are also a weak spot, scoring a 12.7 out of 100 for gaming, which means you can forget about anything beyond solitaire or very light 2D titles. The 8GB of DDR4 RAM is the bare minimum for Windows 11, and you'll feel it. On the plus side, the 256GB NVMe SSD will at least make booting up and opening apps feel snappy, and the extra 500GB HDD is a nice bonus for storing photos and files that you don't access every day.

Stacked against the competition, the Pavilion 15 is playing a completely different game. The Apple MacBook Air M4 and Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro are in a different stratosphere for performance and screen quality, but they also cost three to four times as much. A more realistic alternative is a refurbished Lenovo Yoga 9i or an ASUS Zenbook S, which will give you a massive jump in CPU and RAM performance for a similar price if you're willing to buy used. Even a base model Microsoft Surface Laptop will run circles around the N100. The Pavilion's only real win here is its out-of-the-box storage capacity and the fact that it's a new, warrantied machine at a rock-bottom price.

Pricing on this model is all over the map, with a spread from $370 to $530 depending on the seller. At the low end, you're getting a lot of hardware for the money, especially with that dual-drive storage setup and the touchscreen. But once you creep past the $450 mark, the value proposition falls apart fast. For that kind of cash, you can start looking at refurbished business laptops with much stronger processors and double the RAM. If you're set on this model, hunt for the deal closer to $370 to make the compromises worth it.

Let's be real, the HP Pavilion Laptop 15 is not going to win any speed races. The Intel N100 processor sits in the 7th percentile of our database, which is a polite way of saying it's one of the slowest chips we track. But for a machine that can be found for as low as $370, it's not trying to be a powerhouse. It's a basic browser, a homework helper, and an email machine, and it leans hard into that identity with a touchscreen and a surprising amount of storage for the price. The 8GB of RAM is a real bottleneck though, landing in the 14th percentile, so don't expect to juggle a dozen Chrome tabs without some stuttering.

Anyone who needs to get real work done should look elsewhere. The CPU is one of the slowest on the market, and the 8GB of RAM will choke on anything beyond basic tasks. If you edit photos, compile code, work with large spreadsheets, or even just keep 20 browser tabs open, this machine will test your patience daily. Students running specialized software or anyone looking to keep this laptop for more than a couple of years should also steer clear, as it's already underpowered for today's web.

The HP Pavilion Laptop 15 is a single-purpose machine for a single-purpose buyer. If your computing life lives entirely in a web browser and you need a new laptop with a warranty for the absolute lowest price possible, the sub-$400 configs are a fair deal. The touchscreen and massive storage are nice perks. But for anyone who multitasks, edits photos, or even just likes to keep more than a few browser tabs open, the weak processor and limited RAM will be a daily frustration. Spend a little more, or buy refurbished, and you'll get a machine that doesn't feel outdated the moment you turn it on.