HP Pavilion x360 14 delivers Ice Lake power for half the price of MacBook Air

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HP’s new $499 Pavilion x360 14 could be the budget 2-in-1 you’ve been waiting for

HP Pavilion x360 14 2020
(Image credit: HP)

HP is giving its Pavilion x360 14 2-in-1 a refresh for 2020, creating an entry-level model that brings Intel's latest 10th Gen Ice Lake’chips into the mix along with some design tweaks.

Fans of the 2019 Pavilion x360 14 won’t notice a huge change aesthetically. The new 2-in-1 machine has been given a slightly larger trackpad and is slightly slimmer, but little else has changed on the outside. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the 2020 Pavilion x360 14 still comes with a brace of USB Type-A ports, an HDMI connection, USB-C with support for DisplayPort 1.5 and power delivery, as well as a full-sized SD card reader. 

HP made the biggest changes under the chassis. While the previous-edition Pavilion uses Intel’s 10th generation Comet Lake processors, the newer machine will use Ice Lake chips. The Ice Lake CPUs make use of Intel’s new 10-nanometer fabrication node, which in simple terms makes them more power-efficient than the Comet Lake chips that use the 14nm node. 

That means the new Pavilion x360 14 comes with either a Core i3-1005G1 dual-core processor running from 1.2GHz to 3.4GHz, or a Core i5-1035G1, which comes packing four cores and can hit a clock speed of 3.6GHz. On paper, this means the newer machine is a little less powerful overall than its predecessor, but should be more power-efficient and could get much better battery life. The laptop also now supports 4G LTE, which should make it more ideal for getting work done on the go.

One thing to note is that while higher-tier Ice Lake chips get Intel’s new Iris Plus integrated graphics, these lower-end chips still use Intel UHD graphics. That shouldn’t be too big a deal for an affordable 2-in- that’s more likely to be used for basic tasks than for gaming or video rendering. If you want a 2-in-1 with an Iris Plus-equipped chip, then the Microsoft Surface Pro 7 is worth checking out; Apple’s MacBook Air 2020 also includes such chips if you’re a macOS fan. 

Thanks to its Ice Lake chips, the new Pavilion x360 14 supports faster memory than its older sibling, with 8GB DDR4-3200 SDRAM on offer as opposed to DDR4-2666. The system's storage runs up to 1TB of SSD space. 

Both models of the new entry-level Pavilion x360 14 are available today, with the Core i3 model offered in “natural silver” for $499, and the Core i5 machine available in “warm gold” for $749. 

Roland Moore-Colyer
Roland Moore-Colyer

Roland Moore-Colyer a Managing Editor at Tom’s Guide with a focus on news, features and opinion articles. He often writes about gaming, phones, laptops and other bits of hardware; he’s also got an interest in cars. When not at his desk Roland can be found wandering around London, often with a look of curiosity on his face.