HP announces new Thin & Light Pavilion laptops with bold colors and a budget price

HP is gearing up for summer time and back to school later this fall with numerous new additions and revamps to their budget-friendly Pavilion lineup. Pavilion is below the premium priced Spectre models, but where their price is lower, they gain from the Spectre design aesthetics.

One of HP's more exciting series in the HP Pavilion Thin & Light series, which as you can imagine makes these devices more heavily focused on weight.

The Pavilion Thin & Light series comes in five new colors and two different screen sizes including:

  • 14-inch
  • 15.6-inch

Updated for 2016 this year's models are 11-22 percent thinner and lighter than the previous edition. Weight starts at 3.3 lbs and goes up to 4.26 lbs

  • Up to 6th Generation Intel Core i7 processor10 options with optional NVIDIAGeForce® 940MX or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M or NVIDIA GeForce GTX960M graphics or 7th generation AMD A12-9700P Quad-Core processor11 with optional Radeon R7 Graphics on select models.
  • Up to 16GB of memory and up to 512GB SSD9 or up to 2TB9 for single storage options or dual storage options with up to 2TB9 HDD and 128GB SSD9 on select models.
  • Optical disk drive for select Pavilion models.
  • Edge to edge HD8 or FHD4 IPS displays with optional touch for a more interactive experience on the PC depending on the model.
  • All models support HP Fast Charge with up to 90% charge in 90 minutes when the device is powered off

For those who need even more power HP is also offering 15.6" and 17.3" Pavilion models with starting weights at 4.62lbs and 6.28lbs and24.5mm and 29.9mm thin profiles, respectively with beefier specs including Intel RealSense for Windows Hello and 4K displays.

The laptops come in various colors including Natural Silver, Modern Gold, Dragonfly Blue, Cardinal Red, Sport Purple, Blizzard White and Onyx Black with the new threaded design element on the keyboard for added depth and style.

Pricing for the laptops are as follows:

  • The 14" Pavilion Notebook starts at $539.99
  • The 15.6" Pavilion Notebook starts at $579.99
  • The 17.3" Pavilion Notebook starts at $899.99

You can grab these new HP Pavilion laptops starting in mid-May.

Why we like 'em

Putting aside the PR and spec mumbo jumbo these are some excellent looking laptops. Not only do you get some wild colors, but HP lets you choose whatever specs you want according to your price range. A choice is good, and HP delivers there.

Even though Pavilion is for those on a budget you can tell that HP is now trickling down features from their high-end line to the mid-range, and that is pretty awesome.

The weirdest part is how these Pavilions feel like aluminum but are polycarbonate, which makes them robust and resilient. Neat stuff.

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.