HP Notebook 15-Ba021Ax laptops are a decent machine for casual games. But it comes with common problems of AMD-powered machines in good laptops. Altogether, the laptop is quite functional, but there is better Intel equivalent.
HP Notebook 15-ba021ax, Detailed
The HP Notebook 15-ba021ax A 15.6-inch budget is a laptop, and it’s one of its kind, which runs on AMD’s Bristol Ridge processor. This 7th Gen AMD processor has quietly made its way into the world of laptops last year. This is not the fastest chip, but with the price of Rs. 38,690, this AMD A10-9600 P-powered laptop fights with Intel 6th Gen and Seventh General Core i5 and other budget laptops running the I3 processor. So, is the budget offer of Himachal Pradesh good against Intel-operated counterparts? Let’s find out.
Design
As far as seems possible, HP Notebook 15-ba021ax laptops present nothing worth about the home here. It’s a simple design that’s functional but it looks. It is said, the same value is much easier on silver and black eyes than the shiny external links of other laptops in the brackets. The ridiculous top looks unique, but the HP 15-BA 2121 is not an attractive catchy laptop.
On the other hand, the build quality is the best in the series. Although the laptop is made entirely out of the plastic, it looks pretty strong. The structure has a minimal flex, it is also a keyboard deck or the hinge method works well on the display and is sturdy enough to maintain the performance under small instability. It is said that, if you are using a machine in a moving vehicle, the slight twinkle is noticeable.
Display
The HP Notebook 15-ba021ax laptop uses a 15.6 inch backlit LED display panel offering a 1366 x 768-pixel resolution. It is a decent panel for the price of Rs. 38,690 and cooler saturation is comparable to any other budget laptop.
The viewing angles, however, are poor and you won’t be able to enjoy any video content unless you are looking at the display 15.6 inches backlit LED from dead center. There is no light bleed on the display15.6 inch backlit LED. But the poor viewing angles might be a deal breaker for some.
On I / O side, you can find almost everything that a computer in this category expects from a laptop. The left, you get a standard LAN port, two USB ports, an HDMI and a microphone plus headphone jack combo. On the right are a USB 3.0 port, an SD card slot, and a polite DVD writer. Which gradually becomes a rarity on most laptops. This current lineup of ports covers everything with the exception of a one-way port, which could have been a good addition; I just prefer two USB 3.0 ports instead of one.
Keyboard & Touchpad
The keyboard and touchpad layout are again pretty standard. The larger footprint easily accommodates a number pad along with the standard keyboard. The standard Chiclets style keyboard employed here is among the best in terms of typing experience. All keys have good tactile feedback and travel distance is quite decent. Now, don’t expect ThinkPad-like feedback from the keyboard, but it is good enough for the price.
Below the keyboard lies a well-sized touchpad, which has the same finish as the keyboard deck and offers separate left and right mouse buttons. Like the keyboard, it is functional and works of accurately most of a long time. During the review period, I did encounter few ghost cursor movements, but nothing which would break your workflow. Also, the two physical keys are a bit stiff to use in HP Notebook 15-ba021ax, making it tedious if you are working on Excel etc.
Performance
While its name might suggest so, the AMD A10-9600 APU does not have a decal-core package. It’s a simpler quad-core chip that uses the same excavator cores AMD introduced Performance back in 2015. Here, it is paired with 4GB of RAM and 1TB storage. While it seems to be plenty for a budget machine, I was expecting at least 8GB of RAM at its price Rs. 38,690. Specs aside, the performance is somewhat lacking. The quad-core AMD processor is unable to perform at par with the entry level Intel Core i3-7100U we encountered on the Lenovo Idea pad 310.
The CPU not only feels sluggish at times, but there are some serious performance drops that shouldn’t be there. The AMD A10-9600P has a base clock speed of 2.3GHz (as tested), which can boost up to 3.3GHz if a process requires. To stress the processor we used that of Prime95 blend benchmark. While the CPU starts strongly at 2.3GHz, the speed swiftly drops to 1.97GHz within 3-4 minutes.
This will only affect single large processes, such as HD video conversions. However, as far as day-to-day tasks are concerned, the A10 is not a slow processor as it still manages to keep up with multiple browsers, media files, streaming services and other daily apps easily.
Specifications
- Display: 15.6-inch, 1366 x 768p
- CPU: AMD A10-9600 APU
- RAM: 4GB, Max 8GB supported
- Storage: 1TB HDD (5400rpm)
- Battery: 41whr
Finally, I tested some games and this is where I was surprised. The AMD A10 chip has an integrated Radeon R5 GPU. Less demanding titles like Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Extraordinary work well on native settings offer more than 65 FPS.
I was surprised to see the bioscope eternal over 45 fps on medium details. Now, I need to tell that the lower resolution of 1366 x 768 allows the GPU to perform better, but if you are a cash-strapped casual gamer who is in an MOBA game, and then it is appropriate to consider.
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It is notable that if you are ready for 4-5 Kashmir, then you can meet a similar Intel-powered laptop with a discrete GPU, which is similar to the Asus R558UQ, which has its NVIDIA Ge Force GT 940MX GPU IGP Better perform better in gaming than in comparison.
As far as gaming is concerned, unlike its Intel counterparts, this AMD A10 powered HP Notebook 15-ba021ax laptop really is boiled. Internal core temperature was recorded at 75 degree Celsius. What is more about this is that with some browsers running in the background, the core temperature remains at 62-68 degrees Celsius even in the ideal weight?
The laptop keyboard remains warm on the left side of the deck and if you switch to any game. it becomes slightly uncomfortable. That being said, this is not really a new issue with the AMD processor, and should not be there.
Battery Life
The 15W TDP of the AMD chip ensures that power draw is equivalent to 6th yen Intel-powered laptops i3. This being said, due to high heat emissions and the small 41Whr battery life in a good, the laptop barely lasts less than two hours on a single charge.
This is about half of the category average of 4 hours. Moreover, if you are thinking of gaming on the go, you can do that only for about 4 hours before the battery runs out. Overall, I think HP could have packed a bigger battery in this machine. In essence, you will have to carry around the charger in 4 hours all the time.
Bottomline
The HP15-BA021AX is ultimately an agreement and it is difficult to perform better and recommend it on a cooler (instant intent) Intel-powered laptop. It has the power to talk about gaming, but these are limited to casual, non-graphic intensive and very well-customized games. The quality of the build and the I / O support is good for the price
However, sub-parallel battery life and such a good display do not help in its case. You will be better with Lenovo and Asus A555 LD with Adenoid 310.
Keeping aside, AMD has not yet registered its presence in the laptop segment, but it seems that to do this, the next chip in the work line will be handed over, which will be based on AMD’s new Zen architecture.
- Price in India: HP Notebook 15-ba021ax– Rs. 38,690