HP Pavilion vs MSI Prestige

Sometimes when I boot it, it lasts for around 30 mins or so. But what baffles me the most is that even when it is being plugged inside the electric socket, sometimes it doesn't even stay for up to 10 mins before going off. If I turn it on again, it stays on for a few minutes still. I seriously doubt if the battery is the problem.

Well, YES and NO. If you've bought a 'regular' Pavilion and use it for office/productivity work, there won't be any heating issues. But if you jam a powerful 4GB GPU into it and start playing games like Arkham Knight or The Witcher, it will overheat.

That's not because the HP is bad. It's because the Pavilion is fundamentally a capable and attractive value-for-money multi-tasker, not an all-out gamer like the MSI. If overheating is a concern of yours, look for dedicated gaming brands like MSI or ASUS ROG. HP and Lenovo and Dell all have sporty, powerful models in the their Pavilion, Ideapad and Inspiron lines, and they all overheat because they were not originally designed to cope with this much GPU power. When gaming you will feel the heat. But for regular multimedia use overheating isn't going to be problem.

This doesn't disqualify these brands as gaming platforms by any means. I happen to own a Lenovo Y50 (early Ideapad) with a 4GB GTX card. It works great and has never let me down, but when playing games it overheats so much I can't use it as an actual laptop. That's OK, because I prefer an external monitor anyway.

I hope I haven't scared you off the HP - I still think it's the better option for you. But now you know.

Cheers,
GreyCatz.

Thanks for the links; the tear-down pictures are very illustrative. Yes, Omen is HP's 'gaming brand', and if you could find a similar tear-down of an Omen we might see some difference in heat pipe design. At least I hope so, because the data sheets are virtually identical, as you pointed out.

In addition to specialized design, dedicated gaming machines also feature factory-installed software designed specifically to enhance, tweak and protect the hardware, beginning with the UEFI. This includes overclocking, voltage adjustment and overheating measures. These features are generally not available in Pavilions or Ideapads or Inspirons. Even if you download such apps, the fundamental architecture of a Pavilion, say, may not be able to cope with adjustments to e.g. voltage settings.

If you were to play AAA titles on the 01 HP for a prolonged period of time (3-4 hours every day), I strongly suspect that it will affect the internals adversely in a matter of months. Again, despite its powerful GPU, you're not really supposed to do that with this Pavilion. To sustain this level of gaming, you'll need a dedicated gaming laptop. But if you want a good multi-tasker that will also play AAA titles every now and then, the 01 HP will do just that.

GreyCatz.

I can only agree that the 01 HP will suit your needs better (primarily because of the the IPS screen) and the GPU power, well, you never know when it'll come in handy.

As for the HP Omen: WARNING! You're headed for a hornet's nest of passionate debate and flamewars. But here's the gist of it:

Manufacturers are free to call their products pretty much whatever they like, and HP, Lenovo and Dell like to gain a foothold in the gaming community and compete with MSI and ASUS ROG. But they use different approaches:

Dell has bought a separate company, Alienware, and tries to increase sales that way. Yet, they also market some of their 'regular' Inspirons as gaming machines, but they are really just business machines with a powerful GPU slapped on. For some reason, every time someone mentions Alienware on this forum, everybody else just laughs or blasts the poster.

HP has created a sub-division called Omen, and apparently thinks that's enough. As you noticed yourself, there's really no internal difference between the Pavilion and the Omen, except the price. Mention Omen, and you'll get almost the same treatment as an Alienware poster.

And Lenovo simply tries to pass off their Ideapads as gaming machines without even bothering to tart them up. And the result is predictable enough: Nobody ever mentions Lenovo in the same sentence as MSI or ASUS ROG.

Best regards,
GreyCatz.

The reason I'm going on about IPS is that on a mobile device (laptop or smartphone), viewing angles are crucial. Imagine you could only look at your smartphone from 1 angle and that you couldn't move your hand or your head while doing so. That's a TN panel. Fortunately, all smartphones have IPS panels, otherwise nobody would buy them.

IPS is a complex and expensive technology and it only gets more expensive the larger the screen. This is why on laptops you can still find TN panels - to keep the retail price down.

TN panels offer a very limited viewing range, but they are also much cheaper to produce. Because the TN technology is fundamentally simpler, it's also easier to produce sharper screens with faster response times (1 - 2 ms) using fewer viewing angles. On a monitor sitting on a table, the TN limitation is therefore less relevant, because you don't typically move the monitor or yourself that much. This is why gamers like TN panels - for the sharpness/crispness and the low response times.


GigaByte, ASUS's ROG line (Republic of Gamers) and MSI enjoy widespread respect in the gaming community. In contrast, Dell's Alienware brand is widely vilified for reasons I can't explain. Acer's Predator line tries hard to win favour through generous specs and affordable prices.

Then there are niche brands like Sager/Clevo from Taiwan and boutique brands like CyberPower from USA, XMG from Germany and DreamMachine from Poland. I can't offer any useful opinion on these brands. If I had to buy a gaming machine today, I'd probably go for an XMG.

Pheew... Over and out for now.
GreyCatz.

About heating issues with HP Pavilion? Never heard of it, really. But what exactly can be done to avert this? Thanks.