HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000) review – it’s difficult to cope with the high expectations

So, the HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000) is not exactly a budget offering. Instead, as of lately, the Pavilion brand is closing the gap to its more premium cousins – the Envy and the Spectre, both in terms of price and what it actually offers. Now, the series includes the latest Ice Lake processors from Intel, including the flagship for the series – Core i7-1065G7.

Ultimately, this gives you the option of a great integrated graphics solution in the form of the Iris Plus G7. However, should you need slightly more edge in GPU intensive software and games, you can have the blessing of some CUDA cores inside either the GeForce MX250 or the more affordable MX130 – both equipped with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

Additionally, we are expecting a good performance from the 14-inch 1080p IPS display, as the 15-inch version of the notebook provided quite the sRGB color coverage, and reasonably accurate colors, thanks to our Gaming and Web design profile.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-pavilion-14-14-ce3000/

Contents


Specs Sheet

HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000) - Specs

  • BOE BO0868
  • Color accuracy  4.3  3.7
  • HDD/SSD
  • up to 1000GB SSD + up to 1000GB HDD
  • RAM
  • up to 16GB
  • OS
  • Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, No OS
  • Battery
  • 41Wh, 3-cell
  • Dimensions
  • 326.8 x 225.5 x 17.9 mm (12.87" x 8.88" x 0.70")
  • Weight
  • 1.60 kg (3.5 lbs)
  • Ports and connectivity
  • 2x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • 1x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps)
  • HDMI
  • 1.4b
  • Card reader
  • Multi Format SD
  • Ethernet LAN
  • 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Audio jack
  • 3.5 mm combo
  • Features
  • Fingerprint reader
  • optional
  • Web camera
  • FHD IR
  • Backlit keyboard
  • optional
  • Microphone
  • Dual-Array Digital Microphone
  • Speakers
  • 2x Speakers, Bang & Olufsen
  • Optical drive
  • Security Lock slot

What’s in the box?

Inside the package, we found a 65Wh power brick, some paper manuals, and the laptop, itself – nothing but the standard.

Design and construction

Similarly to its 15-inch sibling, the Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000) features an aluminum lid, as well as an all-plastic body. In terms of size and measurements, the laptop may seem a little heavy, when compared to some of its competitors (especially if you consider the new Swift 3 notebooks). The exact weight of the device is 1.60kg, while its profile sits at 17.9mm. Strength-wise, the laptop is pretty sturdy, although there is some noticeable bend when you push it harder – especially in twist motions.

If you want a laptop, whose lid is easy to open with a single hand – this one is not for you. However, the side bezels are pretty thin, and while the top bezel is quite bulky, we can answer its begging of forgiveness, because of the HD camera, situated there.

By the way, the Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000) uses its lid as leverage to lift the backside of the base off the ground. This gives the fans a lot more breathing space and a somewhat better ergonomics for typing.

Speaking of which, the keyboard is decently sized, it has an optional backlight, clicky feedback but a slightly shorter travel than what we’ve liked to see. Additionally, the spacing between the keys is good, and perhaps if it wasn’t for the weird “Up” and “Down” arrow keys, it would be perfect. Then, there is the touchpad. It has decent size for a Windows device, but some people might find the aspect ratio a little weird – for us, it was fine. The clicking mechanism is fine, and although the tracking was good, we felt that the dpi was a little too low with this one.

In addition to the keyboard and the touchpad, the base is also home to the Bang & Olufsen branded speakers – you can clearly see the 3D grill above the keyboard. This leaves the bottom plate with only a ventilation grill, while the hot air is exhausted from in between the lid and the base.

Ports

On the left side of the notebook, you can see a pair of USB Type-A 3.1 (Gen. 1) ports, an audio jack, and an SD card reader. Then, on the right, you will see the power plug, an RJ-45 connector, an HDMI 1.4b port, as well as a USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 1) port, which looks like an only data throughput port.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

Some typical HP shenanigans going on here. At first, you’ll see only three Phillips-head screws. However, there are two more, hidden beneath the back feet. Thankfully, the rubber feet are easy to detach with a plastic tool. After you locate and remove the screws, you can start prying the bottom plate with a guitar pick.

Here, we can see an interesting cooling solution with two heat pipes, a long heat sink, and two small fans.

Memory-wise, there is one RAM SODIMM slot, which supports up to 16GB of DDR4 memory. In terms of storage, there is a 2.5-inch SATA drive bay, as well as an M.2 NVMe slot.

Lastly, the battery seems to be on the small side, with 41.7Wh of capacity.


Display quality

HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000) is equipped with a Full HD IPS display – BOE BOE0868. Its diagonal size is 14.0 inches (35.56 cm). The screen ratio is 16:9 and the resolution is 1920 x 1080p which translates into a pixel density of 157 PPI. The pixel pitch is – 0.161 х 0.161 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from further than 22 inches (55 cm). From this distance, the individual pixels become indistinguishable for the average human eye.

Viewing angles are comfortable. We offer images to evaluate quality.

The maximum measured brightness is 276 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 261 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 14%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6780K (average) – a little colder than the optimal 6500K for sRGB.

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 74% Brightness (White level = 141 cd/m2, Black level = 0.1 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 (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is good – 1100:1 (1070:1 after profiling).

Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to 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 HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000)’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers just 53% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 28 ms.


PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000)’s screen is PWM-adjusted throughout all brightness levels. In addition to that, the flickerings are with a pretty low frequency, which is quite a disadvantage.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin, and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000)’s display has a budget-level IPS panel. It has a Full HD resolution, good contrast ratio, and comfortable viewing angles. However, it covers only 53% of sRGB and it uses PWM with a low frequency throughout all brightness levels, except the maximum.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000) configurations with 14.0″ BOE BOE0868 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


Sound

Well, the situation with the sound isn’t any better. Despite the Bang & Olufsen badge, we monitored deviations throughout the entire frequency range.


Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-pavilion-14-ce3000-laptop-pc-series/29133449

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with.

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.


CPU options

HP has provided the users of the Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000) with three CPU choices. All of them are part of the Ice Lake family and they include the Core i3-1005G1, the Core i5-1035G1, as well as the flagship fo the lineup – the Core i7-1065G7.


GPU options

As of the graphics cards, you have two different integrated GPU options. The more budget options would come with the Intel UHD Graphics, while the flagship is, of course, the Iris Plus G7. Additionally, you can pick the device with the NVIDIA GeForce MX130, and we’ve seen some options, coming with the GeForce MX250.


Gaming tests

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS79 fps37 fps– fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i5-1035G1 (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000)2.91 GHz (B+191%) @ 92°C1.82 GHz (B+82%) @ 73°C1.49 GHz (B+49%) @ 65°C
Dell Vostro 15 35912.09 GHz (B+109%) @ 75°C2.09 GHz (B+109%) @ 84°C1.77 GHz (B+77%) @ 85°C
Acer Aspire 5 (A515-55)1.98 GHz (B+98%) @ 79°C1.68 GHz (B+68%) @ 79°C1.52 GHz (B+52%) @ 79°C
Acer Swift 5 Pro (SF514-54GT)2.88 GHz (B+188%) @ 80°C1.62 GHz (B+62%) @ 64°C1.65 GHz (B+65%) @ 67°C
HP 340S G72.71 GHz (B+171%) @ 92°C2.42 GHz (B+142%) @ 93°C1.77 GHz (B+77%) @ 72°C
Dell Inspiron 55932.53 GHz (B+153%) @ 99°C2.14 GHz (B+114%) @ 94°C1.88 GHz (B+88%) @ 87°C
Dell Inspiron 17 37932.75 GHz (B+175%) @ 98°C1.97 GHz (B+97%) @ 91°C1.79 GHz (B+79%) @ 89°C

In the first part of our test, the Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000) was able to maintain quite a high power limit (39W), hence, the clock speed was nearly 3.00 GHz. Then, as the power has levelled to 15W, the temperatures went down to 65C on the package. However, there is a caviat to the story – the fan noise – more on that in a moment.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce MX130GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)
HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000)1176 MHz @ 85°C1150 MHz @ 90°C
ASUS X5071006 MHz @ 81°C980 MHz @ 81°C
Dell Inspiron 14 5482 2-in-1993 MHz @ 69°C901 MHz @ 69°C

At 30W, the GeForce MX130 isn’t the most energy-efficient graphics solution in 2020. Especially, considering that it is pretty much a rebranded GeForce 940MX. Clearly, you can see that the cooling of today’s device has some trouble dealing with it, as the temperatures we got were the worrying 90C.

Comfort during full load

Not only was the device too hot on the inside, but we also measured a temperature of above 50C on the keyboard. Interestingly, the right side was too warm to handle for a long period of time, while the left side was pretty cool. However, all of this is overshadowed by the loud noise coming from the fans – we’ve seen gaming laptops produce less noise than this fella. Moreover, there is a specific vibration, when the fans are spinning, and you can clearly feel it resonating throughout the chassis.


Verdict

Sadly, the stylish look of the notebook and the somewhat powerful hardware inside was overshadowed by the cooling issues. Interestingly, at first, the cooling solution looked like it can do the job perfectly – there are two fans inside, cooling a pair of heat pipes, via a pretty large heat sink. However, the fans, which are on the small side, by the way, happened to produce too much noise and even some vibrations. Certainly, it makes it less comfortable for the user, especially when playing games for a long period of time.

Now, if you get this notebook with the sole purpose of daily driving it, without playing any games, whatsoever, things go a slightly different path. The laptop has a comfortable keyboard, a decently populated I/O with an SD card reader, an HDMI connector, an Ethernet port, and a whole load of USB configurations (including USB Type-C). Additionally, the look of the device is super sleek, and it is relatively sturdy, although we found the base to feature more keyboard flex than what we would have wanted.

HP Pavilion 14 (14-ce3000)’s display has a budget-level IPS panel (BOE BOE0868). It has a Full HD resolution, good contrast ratio, and comfortable viewing angles. However, it covers only 53% of sRGB and it uses PWM with a low frequency throughout all brightness levels, except for the maximum (our Gaming and Web design profile deals with the issue).

Sadly, the battery life is poor, as well. It was only a couple of days ago when we had the chance to review the HP 470 G7, which has a similar battery size to this notebook. While it wasn’t a banger with its almost 7 hours of battery life, we had high hopes that a laptop with a smaller screen (and presumably more efficient hardware) would perform far better. Unfortunately, it performed worse. We got around 6 hours of Web browsing and no more than 5 hours and 20 minutes of video playback.

At the end of the day, a laptop of the rank of the VivoBook S14 S433 would certainly be a better choice.

Pros

  • Stylish design with a leverage system
  • Nice performance/efficiency ratio
  • Good contrast ratio and comfortable viewing angles (BOE NV140FHM-N49)
  • MicroSD card reader on board
  • Great upgradability


Cons

  • Lacks Thunderbolt connection
  • Covers only 54% of sRGB (BOE NV140FHM-N49)
  • Uses aggressive PWM to adjust its brightness levels (our Gaming and Web design profile fixes that)
  • Mediocre battery life
  • Gets very hot under combined load
  • Our unit experienced some vibration issues from the fans

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-pavilion-14-14-ce3000/

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D Jindal
D Jindal
3 years ago

I bought a new HP Pavilion14-ce3006TU laptop from Flipkart but not very happy with 2 things. Not sure, if this is routine and should be ignored. Laptop gets heated fairly quickly and then fan makes a lot of noise. Secondly, BIOS start-up has happened thrice since I have bought this laptop…not sure why ? Pls advise