HP Pavilion Gaming 690-0000 PC Series

HP Pavilion Gaming review 

HP has already had several years of experience with the Pavilion Gaming series, and last year we were pleased that the mid-range gaming solutions of the US company were getting better and better. However, Pavilion Gaming 2017 had its disadvantages such as not so good display quality with low color coverage and presence of the eye-harmful PWM. We hope they have learned from their mistakes and that these issues have been eliminated with the new model.

The good news is that this is not just a refresh, but the changes are fundamental – not only does the new Pavilion Gaming sport a new chassis but now also turns its head to the high-end range thanks to its GTX 1060 Max-Q configurations.

HP Pavilion Gaming 690-0000 PC Series

Power and performance for a premium entertainment, gaming and multitasking experience.
Windows 10 Home or other operating systems available
Powerful graphics

Get lost in fluid gameplay and smooth visuals. With up to NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1060 or AMD® Radeon™ RX 580 discrete graphics, lag and slowdowns are a thing of the past.

High-speed performance

Unleash the full potential of your PC with an either an Intel® Core™ processor1 or an AMD® Ryzen™ processor1 and up to 16 GB of DDR4 RAM.

Bold, standout design

With a distinct angular bezel, brushed finishing, and green LED lighting this desktop is built to make a statement.

HP Pavilion Gaming technical specifications table

CPU Intel Core i7-8750H

GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q (3GB GDDR5)

Display 15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080), 144 Hz, IPS

HDD/SSD 128GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD + 1TB HDD, 7200 rpm

RAM 16GB DDR4, 2666 MHz

Dimensions 365 x 257 x 25.4 mm (14.37" x 10.12" x 1.00")

Weight 2.30 kg (5.1 lbs)

Body material Plastic / Polycarbonate, Aluminum

Design and construction

As we’ve already mentioned, HP Pavilion Gaming 15 2018 looks completely different compared to its predecessor and this is definitely good news in our case. So far, the Pavilion Gaming notebooks looked more like repainted elegant machines, whereas the new model employs a more aggressive appearance with sharp edges and motifs typical of the gaming segment.

The most appealing novelty in the Pavilion Gaming design is the removal of the thick bezels around the screen or replacing them with thinner ones to be more precise – just like Lenovo Legion Y530 and ASUS ROG GL504. This is an amazing trend we have been looking forward to in the past few years. Here’s how it affects the size of the notebook

The thinner bezels make the laptop thinner, although its predecessor outperforms it in all other aspects. Let’s not forget, however, that Pavilion Gaming 15 2018 is far more powerful so the minimal increase in length and thickness is more than justified.

Although the main order of the day for the chassis is plastic, the main panel around the keyboard is metal which enhances the stability of the body when using the computer.

The keyboard features big and comfortable keys – our only complaint is about the arrows and more precisely the Up and Down ones located right next to each other, whereas their total area is equal to the standard one for the other buttons. There is a NumPad that is also comfortable to use. Additionally, the trackpad is quite wide (11.5 cm), making it very convenient to handle and use gestures.

The notebook lid doesn’t attract fingerprints but such easily appear on the Palm rest area so you will have to clean it from time to time, if you insist on cleanness.

Ports

HP Pavilion Gaming 15 2018 is equipped with two USB 3.1 ports, Kensington NanoSaver lock slot, and memory card reader – on the left, plus mic/headphone jack, Ethernet LAN, HDMI 1.4, USB 3.1 Type-A (Sleep & Charge) and USB 3.1 Type-C with DisplayPort 1.2 and support for Sleep & Charge on the right side.

Display quality

HP Pavilion Gaming 15 2018 has a Full HD panel with a model number AUO B156HAN08.2 (AUO82ED). Its diagonal is 15.6-inch  (39.62 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080 p. Also, the screen ratio is 16:9, its pixel density – 142 ppi, and pixel pitch – 0.18 х 0.18 mm. The screen turns into Retina when viewed at distance equal to or greater than 24″  (from this distance one’s eye stops differentiating the separate pixels, and it is normal for looking at a laptop).

The measured maximum brightness of 338 nits in the middle of the screen and 330 nits as an average for the whole area, with a maximum deviation of 5%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen is 7690 K – very close to the optimal for the sRGB standard of 6500K. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 7540K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. In other words the leakage of light from the light source.

The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 73% Brightness (White level = 141 cd/m2, Black level = 0.11 cd/m2).

Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color sensitive work. The contrast ratio is okay – 1260:1 (1060:1 after profiling).

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows Pavilion Gaming 15 2018’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 96% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976 – a prerequisite for a saturated and attractive image.