HP is introducing what the company says is its lightest consumer laptop, weighing less than 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) and featuring a magnesium-aluminum chassis and narrow bezels around all sides of the display for a compact design.
The new HP Pavilion Aero 13 is also a reasonably affordable laptop. It’s available now for $750 and up.
HP’s Pavilion line of computers typically focuses on value-oriented products rather than the premium materials and features typically found on the pricier HP Envy and Spectre line of devices. But the Pavilion Aero 13 sort of bucks that trend, not only with its thin and light design, but also with support for features including a high-resolution display and speedy storage.
The HP Pavilion Aero 13 has a 13.3 inch display with a 16:10 aspect ratio and it comes with a choice of 1920 x 1200 pixel or 2560 x 1600 pixel IPS LCD display panels. Both support up to 400-nits of brightness and 100% sRGB color gamut, and both have slim bezels around the edges.
An entry-level model configuration has an AMD Ryzen 5 5600U processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of PCIe NVMe solid state storage, but the laptop is also available with up to a Ryzen 7 5800U processor, 16GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage.
The laptop has a 43 Wh battery that HP says should provide up to 10.5 hours of battery life, but I suspect you should probably put an emphasis on “up to.” While AMD’s Ryzen 5000U processors are fairly efficient, I wouldn’t expect miracles from a battery that size, but it would have been difficult for HP to put a much larger one into a 2.2 pound notebook.
Another thing that helps keep the starting price low is that some features that are typically standard on pricier notebooks are only optional with the Pavilion Aero 13. For example, the starting price covers a wireless card with support for WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2 and a standard keyboard. But you’ll have to pay extra if you want backlit keys and/or a WiFi6/Bluetooth 4.2 card.
Like most AMD-powered laptops, there’s also no Thunderbolt port. Instead, the notebook has a single 10 Gbps USB Type-C port, two 5 Gbps USB Type-A ports, a microSD card reader, and HDMI and headset jacks. The notebook comes with a 65 watt power adapter.
The HP Pavilion Aero 13 measures 11.7″ x 8.2″ x 0.7″ and HP offers four color options: “pale rose gold,” “warm gold,” “ceramic white,” and “natural silver.” The laptop’s design also incorporates post-consumer recycled and ocean-bound plastics.
This article was originally published June 29, 2021 and last updated Aug 3, 2021.Â