On Tuesday, HP launched a new line of lightweight consumer laptops, the Pavilion Aero 13.
The latest addition to HP’s affordable home-targeted lineup features a powerful AMD Ryzen 5000 series CPU and a 2.5k resolution display with a 16:10 aspect ratio (2560×1600) and 400 nits of brightness. It weighs less than 1 kg (2.2 lb).
AMD gets a chance to shine
Most of the concrete specs for the Aero 13 series are still missing – all we know, other than the screen specs and weight, is that the Aero 13 starts at $749, and the max CPU spec is Ryzen 7 5800. We’ll wait still on details on what CPU will be in that $749 system, as well as how much RAM and storage to expect.
Somewhat unusual for cheap laptop lines, the Pavilion Aero 13 is an AMD device. According to HP’s initial press release, there will be no Intel options on the higher or lower end of the line.
AMD Senior Vice President Saeid Moshkelani, commenting on AMD’s partnership with HP to produce the Aero 13, said “The HP Pavilion Aero 13 is exclusive to AMD, powered by our highly efficient AMD ‘Zen 3’ core architecture to deliver impressive performance and battery life.”
This is in stark contrast to most competitors in the “small and cheap, but good” laptop space, such as 2020 editions of Acer’s Swift 3 – an inexpensive laptop that offered a blazing-fast Ryzen 7 4700U, but only in select and often difficult configurations. to find. Most of the Swift 3 laptops we’ve seen for sale offer much less attractive Intel CPUs.
We look forward to AMD’s exclusivity on the Aero 13, which will make it easier for consumers to find what they’re looking for — and give AMD a better chance of capturing consumer attention.
Good looks, lightweight, Windows 11 compatibility
Aero 13 will be the first Pavilion laptop with an all-magnesium aluminum alloy chassis and a four-sided narrow bezel. It will be offered in four colors – Pale Rose Gold, Warm Gold, Ceramic White and Natural Silver – with a sustainability-focused design. HP uses post-consumer recycled and ocean-bound plastics, as well as water-based paints (reducing VOC emissions). The Aero is also part of HP Planet Partners, a program designed to streamline and improve resale, recycling and reuse efforts.
That high-quality chassis, which is comparable to that in LG’s ultra-lightweight Gram range, contributes to the Aero 13’s surprisingly low <1 kg (2.1 lb) weight. For comparison: the 2020 Dell XPS 13 and 2019 HP Elite Dragonfly we tested both weighed about 1.2 kg (2.5 lb).
The Aero 13’s screen also stands out in the cheap laptop world: HP lists only one specification, with a brightness of 400 nits (daylight), with an aspect ratio of 16:10, a palette of 100 percent sRGB and a resolution of 2560×1600. Combined with the newer, thinner bezels with a 90 percent screen-to-body ratio, we expect this laptop to look much better than its price tag suggests. HP doesn’t specify the GPU directly, but we broadly expect this lineup to run only on Radeon-integrated GPUs.
We also know that the Aero 13 will offer Wi-Fi 6 networks – although we don’t know which chipset – and that it will offer “up to 10.5 hours of battery life”, although the latter stat is meaningless without context. (OEMs typically assume significant amounts of idle and even intermittent time in battery life estimates.)
HP expects the Aero 13 to be upgradeable to Windows 11 later this year — not exactly a surprise for a 2021-era laptop, but still nice to see as an explicit call.
it comes down to
There’s still a lot we don’t know about Pavilion Aero 13 – what the lower Ryzen CPU will be, how it will be priced in higher-end configurations, how much RAM and storage it will offer, and how the battery will perform in the real world, just to name a few issues, but we already know enough to be excited to test one when they become available.
The all-Ryzen range of the new model should significantly reduce consumer confusion, and the price tag will bring high-end features such as the extremely light weight and bright, high-resolution display within reach of consumers with budget constraints.
Pavilion Aero 13 laptops are expected to be available on HP’s website in July and at “select US retailers” later in the fall.