2015 HP Pavilion 15t Touch (Skylake!)

A Look at the HP Pavilion 15t Touch (Skylake)

Top View HP Pavilion 15t in Cobalt Blue

Some Specs:
OS: Windows 10 home 64
Processor: Intel I5 6200U @ 2.0GHz
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 520
Ram: 8 G DDR3L 1DIMM
HD: 1TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
Optical: SuperMulti DVD burner
Battery: 4-cell 41WHr (Lasts easy 4hrs)
Wireless: Intel 802.11 ac WLAN with Bluetooth
HD Webcam with dual digital Mikes
Display 15.6in Full HD WLED IPS at
  (1920x1080) Touchscreen
Color: (Optional) Cobalt Blue


A word on those specs...
     I didn't have this thing a week before I had it opened up and added a 2nd stick of RAM making it Run Dual Channel and upping the total to 16 GB. While I had it opened I went ahead and swapped the Big and SLOW 5400 rpm Hard Drive for a smaller and FASTER 250GB Crucial MX200 SSD.
     Once you've used a Solid State Drive you can never go back. Never.

That said, here is a look at the bottom...


Bottom View HP Pavilion 15t

    Anything missing? Yep. No access ports. That is the reason I almost didn't buy this machine. But the price was just too good to pass up. In retrospect, I'm glad I got it because opening it up isn't as hard as it looks. Just takes patience, a Philips, and a credit/debit card to get it open without mangling it.
First, remove Battery
2nd , remove ALL the screws. (16)
3rd, pop off the hinge covers and lift the palmrest from the back by prying the edges with the plastic of your choice. You have the pry the front and sides up. Then once the bottom is free, push it back towards the monitor and it'll pop loose. Then it looks like this...



Internal View HP Pavilion 15t

    Now you have access to everything you can replace. Ram, HD, Wireless card, and that's about it. Processor is soldered on so make sure you get it with the one you want! In this case I got it with the baseline Intel I5. The 6200U here is the bottom of Intel's Low Voltage I5 line. It has 2 cores, 4 threads, and 3MB Cache. It runs at 2.2GHz with a Turbo Boost to 2.7GHz when needed. This processor is only 15W due to 14nm Lithography. For being low end it's extremely quick and easy on the battery. I think for general use you won't have any complaints. Notebookcheck.net has a very good article describing this processors' specs and performance.
Now if you plan to use a laptop for gaming I'd go for an ACTUAL QUAD CORE. You'd want to look at the HQ series if you're sticking with Intel. They have 4 cores and more cache. They also use a lot more watts! Shorter battery life and busier fan, but higher framerates is the reward. Now on another note, here is a look at the keyboard.


Light off...

It's a nice keyboard, easy to use with very positive clicks. Maybe a bit too "clicky". Gets a bit loud when you're typing fast. I use a business version HP laptop at work and the keyboard is absolutely silent. I think I prefer it. But this'll do. Also, I got it with the somewhat spendy backlight option since I often type in low or no light at home. It's cool, useful, 30 bucks, and it looks like this...


Light on:-)





Here are a few more pictures to show other laptop details.




Great Sound!

Exhaust side...

Playa side..



    So far, I've been very happy with this laptop. Goofy Cobalt Blue and all. (It often gets confused with the HP stream because of the color). With the Monitor upgrade, Wifi card upgrade, and keyboard upgrade it was still under $600 on sale; then again the extra 8GB of ram and the Crucial SSD added another $120. However, I was able to take the pokey 1TB HD it came with and put it in a cheap external usb enclosure and now I also have a bonus backup drive as well:-)
  HP's software allows you to save one image of your HD for backup or upgrades. I saved it to a USB key but did not use it when I did the SSD upgrade. I just loaded Windows 10 from Microsoft's website and found the rest of the needed drivers on HP's own very helpful website. No sweat and the bloatware is gone!
  Remember!! if you do the upgrade yourself, be sure to find ALL those screws before you pry the back off. 10 are obvious, but the other 6 not so much. 2 are UNDER the hinge covers, 2 are at about the center UNDER thin plastic plugs, and 2 are BEHIND the DVD drive door. As far as the Ram upgrade goes, 8GB really is the sweet spot. But using only 1 stick causes it to run in single channel mode which can be a significant performance hit. If HP had used two 4GB sticks instead of one 8GB stick I wouldn't have bothered to upgrade the Ram.
    If there are any serious decisions to be made when ordering the laptop it's what screen. I always go for the higher resolution a no brainer at 20 bucks and it just makes the screen more useful. Also, think hard on the processor. A Celeron might be attractive pricewise, but check the benchmarks, they really are very slow. The Pentiums are a bit faster, but lack most of the instructions (MMX, SSE to SSE4, AES, EM64T, etc.) so it can really slow them down as well. The lowest I'd go is an I3. A bit less cache and no turbo boost, but it runs the instructions in hardware like the I5 and I7.
    So if your on the fence about one of these Pavilion Laptops I believe they are worth a whirl. After all HP gives you 30 days to return it if you find it doesn't work for you.