HP laptops offer the best value when it comes to decent performance in an office environment. The company has various product lines, including Pavilion, Envy, EliteBook, ProBook, Spectre, Stream, Omen, and Chromebook. Among these, the Pavilion G series is the best in case you are looking for a good looking, no-frills laptop that fits the bill. HP 255 G7 comes with similar traits including high-end components, a sleek design, and delivers value to mindful business users.
The HP 255 G7 features a 15.6-inch wide display along with an FHD screen, Radeon Vega 3 GPU, SSD storage and AMD processor. However, the choice of hardware is no guarantee for an amicable performance, as its specs may not agree with your computing requirements. That’s why is better to know whether a laptop is worth your hard-earned cash before you put your money on it.
Let’s take a peek at its specs, design, display and find out whether or not it can handle office tasks. More importantly, what are its strong and weak points, and where its true strength lies?
Specs sheet
Processor: AMD Ryzen 3 / 2.60 GHz Max. Turbo Speed 3.5GHz
Display: 15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) Resolution
RAM: 8GB Storage: 256GB SSD
Graphics: AMD Radeon Vega 3 On-Board
Battery: 41Wh
Weight: Around 3.96lbs (1.8kg)
Operating System: Windows 10 Home
On paper, this is a device that delivers bang for your buck and carries serious firepower to assist you in office work. So, does this mean it offers the best laptop deal as an office device? Well, that’s a decision that depends entirely on your computing needs, task requirements and budget. Let’s indulge ourselves in reviewing this AMD-powered laptop for a detailed review.
Design
HP 255 G7 features a simple design and made of sturdy plastic, but it isn’t a surprise at this price. The chassis is durable and made of quality material and offers a design that blends well in an office environment. However, the display lid needs improvement as we believe HP could have done better to protect the screen.
HP has kept the design simple and minimalistic; its body is a Gray body and features a few black parts, such as the bezels and keys. It does not offer a premium look, but the plastic panels come with embossed texture. This not only overcomes the shabby plastic feel but also makes the panels grippy. The plastic body has also played its part to keep the weight on the lower side i.e. 3.96lbs (1.8kg).
Display
For a budget office laptop, the 255 G7 has a good display on it, including a 15.6-inch FHD screen. This is everything that you could get in an inexpensive workhorse without breaking the bank. However, we did miss an IPS panel as the laptop features an SVA panel that hurts viewing angles. So, you would have to move and adjust the lid constantly to make the screen readable for people around you.
On the bright side, it comes with anti-glare properties that allow you to use it outside and under sharp light. Additionally, the screen brightness id around 220 nits, but there are enough pixels, as the display offers plenty of space.
Keyboard
We were expecting a decent keyboard with good typing performance on this work laptop and it didn’t disappoint us. There is a full-sized keyboard with a number pad, thanks to its large display and has adequately large keys. Although it is not backlit, it offers an excellent typing experience with sharp accuracy.
Key travel is appropriate, but its keys produce somewhat loud sounds when you are working. In a nutshell, this is a good keyboard to use in office but not for a quiet place, such as a lecture room or a library.
Touchpad
The touchpad features a plastic surface which is no surprise, considering its price and the overall body built. This is a good trackpad which provides enough surface area for smooth surfing and supports multi-finger gestures as well. However, the dedicated buttons on the touchpad also produce a loud sound like the keyboard.
Connectivity
HP 255 G7 comes with a modest selection of ports and features most of them on the left side. It houses a 3.5mm headphone/mic combo jack, two Type-A USB 3.1 Gen. 1 ports, an HDMI output 1.4b, an Ethernet Gigabit port and a power connector. Whereas, its right features an SD card reader, a Type-A USB 2.0, and a Kensington Lock.
There is no DisplayPort or a Type-C USB port, but we were not expecting them either at this price. Coming to the wireless connectivity features, the 255 G7 comes with Bluetooth 4.2 and Realtek RTL8821ce chip WiFi that supports one stream wireless-AC.
Specs and Performance
This is where the 255 G7 really shines, as the specs on this device are amazing. HP has armed it with AMD Ryzen 3 that comes with built-in Radeon Vega 3 GPU, 256GB SSD storage and an 8GB memory. The base clock speed of this CPU is 2.6GHZ, whereas it can deliver a max speed of 3.5GHz.
This is a powerful combination that delivers a compelling performance and is equivalent to a laptop with i5-7200U. This makes it an ideal laptop for office, home use, light media editing and casual gaming. Its specs make it a good choice for programming and development purposes as well as for word processing.
Verdict
Overall, HP 255 G7 delivers real value for money if you are looking for the best laptop deal. It has a large display and is equipped with a high-end CPU that comes with a high-speed SSD and plenty of RAM. On the contrary, its 41WH battery delivers average performance, while the display lacks an IPS panel. Nevertheless, it is an all-rounder laptop if you are willing to ignore these weak points.
