[Honest Review] HP P028TX Laptop Review [Core i3 1.9Ghz, 4GB Ram, 1TB, Nvidia 830m]


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bhvm

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[Honest Review] HP P028TX Laptop Review [Core i3 1.9Ghz, 4GB ram, 1TB HDD, Nvidia 830M 2GB, Beats Audio]

Hello Friends,
I am pleased to present a short review of Budget Gaming Laptop from HP.

Overview-
I am using this as my primary Laptop since 4 months. The Machine is a great one for its price. Especially, With the looks, it appears much more premium than it is.

Design and Looks-
This laptop continues along the lines of my earlier reviewed HP G009AX or G002AX.
HP is making some of the worst designs I've ever seen recently and this laptop is no exception.

>The power and HDD LEDs are off to side rather than upfront.

>There is no Basic LED indicator for Num Lock!!

>NO VGA PORT!

>Whole laptop is made like single piece and Upgrading the HDD , RAM or even CMOS battery needs one to Rip out the Keyboard, Back cover, Top cover, then Motherboard and what not!! Yuk!

>Only one Combo Headphone/Mic port. So those using old fashioned headsets will need to buy new ones.

Really HP?Why did you do this?



Fit and Finish-
Laptop is slimmer than you'd expect. The top of laptop has Rubberized, White Milky finish. Looks very unique. It does not get any Fingerprints either. Open the lid, and you shall be greeted with a very large Touchpad. The keys are finished in White and Rest of the bezel is Matte Aluminum. The display bezel is simple matte Black. Overall the Fit and Finish is Far more better than my previous G009AX.


The Caps lock key has a small indicator built onto the key itself. My Samsung and Acer both missed these. A small LED near charging port is also present (yellow when charging, White when charged). Unfortunately, The LEDs are much to small to clearly be seen in Daylight.

There are a row of function keys with the Fn key combo and also include Media player controls and volume. These keys work directly without pressing FN by default. There is a Card reader upfront.
The touchpad is extra large and supports gestures which actually work. However, The Touch pad is extra sensitive and causes issues when typing. Just one mistaken hit and you will end up typing somewhere else!. Even after 4 months, I have not learned how to type without disturbing the touch pad. Another gripe is uni-piece touch pad without regular Clicky buttons. It is very weird to precisely click or drag with this behavior. Forget trying to Crop Pictures or make other adjustments with this one. It always shifts the “Aim” a few inches off.

Display-
Oh How bored I am with these 1336x768 screens! Even my Rs.16k cellphone now has FULL HD display with IPS quality. The Display is glossy and generic quality.
However keeping in Mind the low price and Low end graphics chips, Half HD display should be OK OK. There’s a 720p webcam (with indicator LED) and Mic above the display for those Skype calls.

Luckily, I have the laptop Hooked to a 24 Inch, FULL HD LED TV set. The HDMI output works wonders, even the sound is carried over the same cable. You get an Option to set TV speakers or Laptop speakers as primary Output source; However you Can't run Both at once.

The Sound form TV speakers is excellent, So is the Display quality. There is a stark difference between the overall color Gamut, Viewing angle, Contrast ratio of Inbuilt display and the LG LED display. The LG LED TV is vastly better than regular laptop displays!


Performance-
Performance is Snappy and boot-up is fast. Running multiple applications alongside poses no problems at all. I am running a dual screen configuration and I can surf and play on both screens no problem.

The RAM is only 4 GB in reality which maybe limiting in the future. Worst part its, RAM is non-Upgradeable so you're stuck for a lifetime. There is only one RAM slot. The Supplied RAM is DDR3-L or Low Voltage type. Thats another hurdle.

However the GPU Nvidia 830m has its dedicated 2GB RAM so its atleast not eating away the Main RAM. However the Inbuilt Intel 4400 seems to be eating about 1GB of main ram. There are no settings to change this.

CPU-
The CPU included here is Intel i3 4030u. Now “U” means its a More of Net-book style ULV processor with TDP of around 15w. The CPU has 2 Cores running at 1.88 GHZ (Advertised 1.9 Ghz). Each core supports HyperThreading so OS appears to notice 4 cores. The cores constantly adjust speeds from 1.1Ghz all the way to 1.88 depending on power and load.

In regular tasks, The CPU feels just as fast as my Earlier AMD A8 Beema 6410 which is a 2Ghz true Quad Core counterpart. And that is not slow at all. In certain Technical Benchmarks, The AMD A8 shows a slightly Higher score, But there is no difference in Practical use.



Gaming-
The star of the show here is Nvidia 830m. Which is a relatively High-end graphics solution for the price. The 830m Takes a very serious jump from its Junior, Having a full 256 Shader cores with turbo support. On the other hand, The Nvidia 820m in most of the competition only Supports 96 Shaders at a Much lower performance.

No Doubt about it, The 830m will zoom past Nvida 820m, 630m, 740m, AMD 8570M and AMD R5 230M based graphics solutions with no sweat!

Most of the Modern games can be enjoyed at highest settings on 720p resolution-
Crysis 2
COD 4, COD MW2, COD MW3, COD black ops
Split second
battlefield bad company 2
Battlefield 3
Left 4 dead 1 & 2
Sniper ghost warrior
NEED for speed (All series)




Accessories-
There are no accessories supplied. Not even a Driver CD. Everything needs to be downloaded (over 1.5 GB) from the HP website (3G rates have just increased) and even then there can be issues. I remember when buying a new laptop 5 years ago means a box or two, full of accessories and over a dozen CDs! Look how the companies are cutting corners. A CD costs what today? 10 rupees?

However, I got a cool looking and very Functional back-pack alongwith.

Ports & Ergonomics-
The laptop comes with the usual bandwagon of HDMI, and USB ports. There are No E-Sata or Express card slots. NO VGA PORT. There are only 3 usb ports out of which , Thankfully, The Left 2 are USB 3.0 Speeds. I would have expected all ports to be 3.0 Speeds for such a large notebook. The USB 3.0 Copy speeds are 65~70 MB/s

For the good things, We have full size keypad with numeric inputs (these are the norm anyways), But arrow keys are too small.

Speakers actually had me stunned. These are among the best speakers in laptop. Total Thumbs up!

HEAT-
Thanks to the Low power 15W Intel ULV CPU, During surfing, the laptop stays cool at about 31~45.C.
After half Hour of COD MW3, I saw temperatures of 72.C on Pirifom Speccy. There is a single fan at the bottom for cooling. I will Strictly suggest going for a Laptop Stand (with fans) when gaming. I am using Zebronics ZEB-1000 With oversized fan for the laptop.

I am pleased to note that overall Temps are about 10.C lower than my AMD based- A8 6410 Laptop. Especially, The Nvidia 830m GPU runs much cooler than AMD 8570m Counterpart, despite the 830m's Superior Performance.

Battery-
The laptop comes with only 4 cell battery which is a tad small for large laptop. Usual 6 cell would have done better. However due to low Consumption Intel ULV 15w CPU, it still gets about 3 hours. Another cost cutting by HP.

I also Miss the settings named AMD power play, that allows you to set your CPU max speed anywhere from 1 Ghz to 2 Ghz on battery mode. It really works and saves battery on My HP G009AX

Software-
The First Time I booted the laptop, It Pissed me with the usual Pre-loaded windows 8.1, Loads of Bloatware and stuff. I took a bold step and simply wiped the HDD Clean of everything. The Factory HDD was Formatted in GPT, which I brought back to MBR and NTFS. After Disabling UFEI from Bios, I was able to “UPGRADE” this beast to windows 7.

BOOM !!

And Boy! I am impressed. If you are running your laptops in Win 8.1, Please do a favor and check performance in Windows 7. Its not only much easy to use, its also much faster. Win 7 was able to install most of the drivers by itself (If Windows update is enabled). Few drivers I was able to get from the laptop retailer (WIFi and BT)

Pricing-

I got the laptop Offline, From a HP Retailer for 38.5k. It may appear that online shops are offering cheaper rates, but there is no support and there are horror stories about HP denying warranty etc on those. Buy from an Authorized store and stay in peace.

Driver Download-
HP Pavilion 15-p028tx Notebook PC Drivers and Downloads | HP® Customer Support


Specs at a Glance-


Product Name HP Pavilion 15-p028tx Notebook PC
Product Number J2C47PA
Microprocessor 1.9 GHz Intel Core i3-4030U with Intel HD Graphics 4400
Microprocessor Cache 3 MB cache
Memory 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3L SDRAM (1 x 4 GB)
Video Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 830M (2 GB DDR3 dedicated)
Display 15.6" diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit (1366 x 768)
Hard Drive 1 TB 5400 rpm SATA
Multimedia Drive SuperMulti DVD burner
Network Card Integrated 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet LAN
Wireless Connectivity 802.11b/g/n (1x1) and Bluetooth 4.0 combo
Sound Beats Audio with 2 speakers
Keyboard Full-size textured island-style with numeric keypad
Pointing Device HP Imagepad with multi-touch gesture support
PC Card Slots 1 multi-format SD media card reader
External Ports 2 USB 3.0
1 HDMI
1 RJ-45
1 headphone/microphone combo
Dimensions 38.45 x 26.02 x 2.39 cm
Weight Starting at 2.27 kg
Power 65 W AC power adapter
4-cell (41 WHr) Li-ion
What's In The Box HP TrueVision HD Webcam (front-facing) with integrated dual array digital microphone
 

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bhvm

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Re: [Honest Review] HP P028TX Laptop Review [Core i3 1.9Ghz, 4GB Ram, 1TB, Nvidia 830

Nothing to report as the laptop is working flawlessly.
I have swapped the DVD for a HDD caddy and added another 1TB SSHD. Now I have setup a RAID of these 2 HDDs. The read speeds fluctuate between 300~500 MB/s!! This is in the league of very high end laptops costing lakhs of Rupees.

The laptop is currently Baking Photo HDRs since 3 days Continuous. The stability is Praise worthy.
 
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bhvm

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Re: [Honest Review] HP P028TX Laptop Review [Core i3 1.9Ghz, 4GB Ram, 1TB, Nvidia 830

Guys updating 2 Years Long term.

1. Laptop is properly Rock solid. It can bake HDRs 3~5 days in a row, no Sweat.
2. Dedicated Nvidia GT830m is a very nice graphics card. The performance is roughly in range of Desktop GTS450. Can play most modern games at medium Settings and 720p
3. Heat is well controlled. Using Zebronics cooling pad.
4. Dual HDD RAID works well. Almost 1600GB occupied now!
5. Running dual display via HDMI cable to a FHD LED TV. The dual productivity is awesome. Sound is taken care of by the TV speakers.
However dual screens confuses some games, causing them to crash.
 

Nairrk

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Hello all.

I am looking for a new Laptop - budget around Rs.30,000

What I want:
iCore cpu 3/ 7th Generation
4GB RAM (min)
1 TB HDD
Full HD Display
DVD Drive (not a must)
Windows 10 (genuine)
MS Office (genuine)
Card reader

Brand preferance: Dell, HP, Lenova

Have shortlisted following models:

Dell 3567 & HP DA 0352TU

Any opinion about these two models or any other suggestions ??
 
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@Nairrk

i3 7th gen is old, 8th gen is currently available and 9th gen is yet to arrive. However, I would strongly suggest you to go for Ryzen 5 2500U laptop. It is a quad core processor with 8 threads whereas i3 is dual core so it will be faster in multi core performance. Integrated graphics (Vega 8) is ~70 percent faster then Intel UHD 620 that is on i3 8145U CPU. I was able to play several AAA games (i.e Just Cause 4) on my brother's Dell laptop (5575). What I cannot believe is, it is actually competing with i7 as per this video!

Anyway, you have following options for ~30k budget:
HP 15q-dy0008AU - Full HD Yes, Windows 10 Home Yes, MS Office No, Card Reader Yes, DVD Drive Yes, M2.0 SSD Slot Yes (Not sure whether it supports nvme, sata or both)
ASUS VivoBook X505ZA - Full HD Yes, Windows 10 Home Yes, MS Office No, Card Reader Yes, DVD Drive No
Acer Aspire 3 A315-41 - Full HD Yes, Windows 10 Home Yes, MS Office No, Card Reader Yes, DVD Drive No, M2.0 SSD Slot Yes (Not sure whether it supports nvme, sata or both)

I have given short specs so do check official and/or store for more details. Make sure you research more on your end before deciding and check Amazon, Flipkart, Paytm Mall for exact pricing. . Also there is upcoming festival sale on both sides so better to wait for it.

p.s I'd avoid Lenovo laptops due to security reasons, especially those that have preinstalled Windows. Also I feel their budget laptop's have average built quality. ASUS, Acer, HP and Dell are all good, though the latter is bit expensive.
 
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bhvm

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Forgot to update the thread. So here's one.
Nothing to report as the laptop is working flawlessly.
I have swapped the DVD for a HDD caddy and added another 1TB SSHD. Now I have setup a RAID of these 2 HDDs. The read speeds fluctuate between 300~500 MB/s!! This is in the league of very high end laptops costing lakhs of Rupees.

The laptop is currently Baking Photo HDRs since 3 days Continuous. The stability is Praise worthy.
This statement was written in 2016.
Its now 2019 and I can just copy-paste the statement as is.

Only qualm is dual 1tb (2TB total) RAID 0 array is practically full. Just 100 GB remaining. It has been about 4 years I have been waiting for decent 4TB HDD for Laptops. But 9.5mm Laptop HDDs have been stuck to just 1~2 TB since 3~4 years now. Which is forever in Computing age. Whats keeping them?
 

Nairrk

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@CRACING - Thanks very much for your suggestions.

In my post, I forgot to mention my usage - I simply want a Laptop for browsing (mainly Forums), Email and other normal usages and I am not at all going to use it for Graphic work or play games.
The models recommended by you are indeed good ones, but seems they are mainly good for Graphic and Games.

When I discussed about my requirement with a friend of mine (software engineer) who suggested that for my work a 7th gen Laptop is sufficient and not to spend more money unless I need it for Graphic works.

Also.I prefer to buy from a computer shop here instead of online purchase and I doubt the models suggested by you available in the shops here.
?
 
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bhvm

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@CRACING - Thanks very much for your suggestions.

In my post, I forgot to mention my usage - I simply want a Laptop for browsing (mainly Forums), Email and other normal usages and I am not at all going to use it for Graphic work or play games.
The models recommended by you are indeed good ones, but seems they are mainly good for Graphic and Games.

When I discussed about my requirement with a friend of mine (software engineer) who suggested that for my work a 7th gen Laptop is sufficient and not to spend more money unless I need it for Graphic works.

Also.I prefer to buy from a computer shop here instead of online purchase and I doubt the models suggested by you available in the shops here.
?
@narrik
The suggestions given by @CRACING are very good.
Even though you don't Game, these days many apps do use the GPU for their work.
Youtube Video acceleration is handled by GPU. Also windows 10 GUI uses the GPU.
AMD is back with a bang these days, giving you not only superior GPU but even great CPU.

https://www.amazon.in/Lenovo-Ideapa...141031&s=computers&smid=A14CZOWI0VEHLG&sr=1-7

This one is very good for its price-
4 USB ports, Gigabit Lan,
Asus Vivobook Ryzen 5 Quad Core - (8 GB/1 TB HDD/Windows 10 Home) X505ZA-EJ274TX505Z Thin and Light Laptop Rs.42990 Price in India - Buy Asus Vivobook Ryzen 5 Quad Core - (8 GB/1 TB HDD/Windows 10 Home) X505ZA-EJ274TX505Z Thin and Light Laptop Grey Metal Online - Asus : Flipkart.com
 
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@CRACING - Thanks very much for your suggestions.

In my post, I forgot to mention my usage - I simply want a Laptop for browsing (mainly Forums), Email and other normal usages and I am not at all going to use it for Graphic work or play games.
The models recommended by you are indeed good ones, but seems they are mainly good for Graphic and Games.

When I discussed about my requirement with a friend of mine (software engineer) who suggested that for my work a 7th gen Laptop is sufficient and not to spend more money unless I need it for Graphic works.

Also.I prefer to buy from a computer shop here instead of online purchase and I doubt the models suggested by you available in the shops here.
?
Sorry if my previous post sounded like GPU is for gaming only but actually it plays major role in day to day usage too. Google chrome, Video Players and Windows 10 UI also very much dependent on GPU. I have tested this on my previous desktop; when I removed the external graphics card, the PC would slow down, even though CPU and RAM are same.

Intel 7th gen is old, not power efficient as newer CPUs, security vulnerabilities like Meltdown and Spectre (Which I have believed are fixed with hit to performance). Honestly, Id avoid Intel CPUs be it any gen.

You can get Ryzen 2500u laptops for around 30k with 4gb RAM which can be upgrade later. HP 15Q-DY0008AU is available for 32k and I'm sure the price will drop by 1k or 2k on festival sales. Same goes with ASUS X505ZA and Acer Aspire 3 A315 41

HP has dvd drive which is hard to find these days, top speakers, built quality feels good (I have checked in local stores) & reliable service center. ASUS design looks good although I don't like white/sliver palmrest, 8 hours of battery backup, USB type C port & service is also good as per my past experience. Acer laptop is decent and I like the large cooling vents behind.

4.5k more for 8GB RAM is too much. Better to go for 4GB variant and upgrade later. Laptop RAM cards cost around 1.5k for 4GB and 2.5k for 8GB, 2400Mhz.
 
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bhvm

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One major issue with HP is they are very much designed to be non-upgradable. I have 3 HPs. Just changing ram or hdd needs Laptop in 100 pieces.
 

Nairrk

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Thanks @CRACING & @bhvm - Yes I got it your explanation.

The prices you have quoted are from online sources, I think? I doubt same price will apply at the shops - their rates always more comparing what we can get from online deals. Also, not sure if they have these models readily available (small town/small showroom - they normally have stocks which are released couple of months back - anyway will check with them).

I am more interested in buying online, but worried about loading the additional software's. If we buy from the shop, they will load all software's so no worry about that.

When we buy online, probably we will get the Laptop with only Windows10 and MS office (if available, on the particular model) pre-loaded. Can we download other software online/free if charge??
 
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One major issue with HP is they are very much designed to be non-upgradable. I have 3 HPs. Just changing ram or hdd needs Laptop in 100 pieces.
Nowadays laptops have no direct access to HDDs or RAMs cards on the bottom, be it any brand. Even the battery pack is fixed inside. This way they are making laptops thin and light weight but we have to suffer when upgrading laptops. [frustration]

The prices you have quoted are from online sources, I think? I doubt same price will apply at the shops - their rates always more comparing what we can get from online deals. Also, not sure if they have these models readily available (small town/small showroom - they normally have stocks which are released couple of months back - anyway will check with them).
Yes, of course the price I have mentioned is from Amazon and/or flipkart and you are right, local shops do sell for high price or won't be having latest models. If you go to reliance digital, they will give you free inkjet printer (Instead of laser) and if we refuse, they won't deduct nor they'll give something else. [roll]

I am more interested in buying online, but worried about loading the additional software's. If we buy from the shop, they will load all software's so no worry about that.
When we buy online, probably we will get the Laptop with only Windows10 and MS office (if available, on the particular model) pre-loaded. Can we download other software online/free if charge??
These days you can get most of the softwares for free online, you just to search and check reviews. Browsers can be downloaded from their website (Chrome or Firefox). If MS office isn't included with laptop and you don't use it much then go for free office suits like Libre office or Open Office, the UI will be little different but you'll get most of the features. If you use Outlook then I'd suggest Thunderbird instead, I'm using it since many years. For video player you can get Potplayer which includes all codecs. For audio player, nothing can beat AIMP. For image viewer I use Faststone, looks light weight but has plenty of features including image rotation, resize, crop & etc. If you want Photoshop then you have to buy it or else try GIMP which is a free software. And finally for security I'd highly recommend Comodo Internet Security and it is available for free on their forum.

Drives will be preinstalled so you don't have it worry but Windows 10 is data hogger especially at the beginning so make sure you have enough data to feed. There tweaks online (i.e O&O Shutup10 to reduce data usage, stop telemetry prevent downloading updates but they don't stay put for long.
 

Nairrk

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If you use Outlook then I'd suggest
Yes, I have been using MS Outlook 2007 for all my email purposes. Though, am not very active in business now-a-days, still receive plenty of email messages daily. This is the main reason I wanted to have MS Office pre-installed Laptop.!!
 

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