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amazon HP 14-fq1025nr reviews
The HP 14-fq1025nr is a great choice if you want to spend less than $500 on a new Windows laptop. It provides enough power for work and college tasks, despite a few common limitations.
The HP 14-fq1025nr is every inch the same as last year’s HP 14-fq1021nr, only it now comes pre-installed with Windows 11 Home, compared to its predecessor that came with Windows 10 Home, but can also be updated to the operating system’s latest release. As such, both models are entry-level laptops, with an AMD Ryzen 5 5500U processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB solid-state drive – in terms of memory and storage that we consider the norm today – makes this a viable Windows 11 demo if you don’t want to consider a Chromebook.
Like its predecessor, there’s a lot to like about this HP 14 laptop. From affordable prices, and powerful hardware compared to competitors in this category to clean aesthetics, you’re sure to find tremendous value whether buying for college or work. For all of this, it easily makes it to our best laptops under the $500 list, but the excellent Lenovo Flex 5 Notebook remains an Editors’ Choice for budget mid-range laptops.
Specifications
Laptop class: College, Office
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5500U
RAM (as tested): 8GB DD4
Boot disk space (as tested): 256GB SSD
Screen size: 14 inches
Original screen resolution: 1920 x 1080
Panel technology: IPS
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon Graphics
Dimensions: 12.76 x 8.86 x 0.71 inches
Weight: 3.24 pounds
Design And Features
The HP 14 is a beautiful laptop. Despite its mid-range price tag, the matte silver chassis gives it a luxurious look. It’s one of those laptops that’s polished for office use, without the clunky feel you get on some business laptops, such as the Dell Inspiron 3505.
If you’re looking for a machine that can double up for personal and professional use, the HP 14 is the way to go.
What’s more important: it’s portable. While there are lighter laptops in this price range, the HP 14-fq1025nr is very light at 3.24 lbs, compared to 3.97 lbs for the Acer Aspire 5. Plus, it’s impressively compact. You can carry it with one hand to the classroom or meeting room to make calls. Similarly, you can comfortably balance on your lap if you’re on a train.
Like most 14-inch laptops, the HP 14 notebook features a space-saving keyboard without a numeric keypad – but is available on the larger HP Pavilion 15 laptops. That reduces the overall footprint on your desk (or the palm of your hand), thanks to a slim profile that reduces the laptop to just 0.7 inches when closed.
Port selection is standard but is enough to accommodate most (if not all) of your peripherals. Here you’ll get one USB-C port, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI 1.4b, and a headphone/microphone combo as well as an SD card reader. Connect wirelessly via Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2.
Monitors & Speakers
The HP 14-fq1025nr offers a 14-inch Full-HD (1920 x 1080) anti-glare IPS display. It looks plastic, especially with the matte black bezels, but they’re not rough at all. There’s a 720p webcam at the top, with a built-in dual array microphone.
The screen offers good picture quality, and you benefit from the wide viewing angles characteristic of an IPS display. It has a maximum brightness of 238 nits (although HP claims 250 nits on the box). Most cheap laptops only go up to 200 nits, as a cost-cutting story and you only get poor picture quality.
Still, the HP 14 laptop isn’t dull, but you’ll need more if you want to work outside. If you are going to use it indoors or work in the evening, you will not have any problems. The dual speakers on the front of the laptop are clear and crisp, but they’re no match for laptops equipped with HP’s B&O speakers.
With the HP 15 laptop, the company promises smooth all-day performance, making this a solid choice for homework professionals or an affordable laptop alternative to warm up the machine.
Our review unit, the HP 14-fq1025nr is equipped with the aforementioned 2.1GHz AMD Ryzen 5 5500U CPU (6 cores, 12 threads), 8GB memory (on one slot), 256GB SSD, and AMD Radeon graphics. As speculated, this is a silent working horse that won’t overheat, no matter what you throw at it, as long as you don’t include intensive tasks.
As a work laptop, the HP 14 should suffice for word processing, spreadsheet creation, email, and web browsing while listening to Spotify in the background – and it won’t have any trouble. You can also do some photo editing on GIMP, as it allows for some basic modifications like layering the image, cropping, and filling the background.
AMD Radeon graphics cards, on the other hand, aren’t cut for modern AAA games, but you can still play basic games, but anything that requires a dedicated graphics card will be very slow. For the same price, you can check out the Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 with a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card for casual gamers.
Battery life
HP promises up to 9 hours of battery life on the 14-fq1025nr, but you’ll get around 7 hours and 48 minutes in real-world usage – including continuous video playback and web surfing at 150 nits brightness.
Not bad, but we’ve seen budget laptops last longer than that, including the Acer Aspire 5 A515-46-R14K that costs hundreds of dollars less, but up to 10 hours on a single charge.
Conclusion
The HP 14-fq1025nr is a budget laptop that does what it’s supposed to: deliver enough power for online sessions or homework in an attractive and portable package. The Ryzen 5 CPU brutally hurts the Celerons and Pentiums that are still left in the economy aisle, and it comes with a bunch of ports.
Still, we can’t deny the fact that spending $200 or $250 more will get you a more capable laptop – or if you’re lucky enough to have an ultrabook – both make you happier with a nicer screen and keyboard.
where can you get a HP 14-fq1025nr online
HP 14 Laptop, AMD Ryzen 5 5500U, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD Storage, 14-inch Full HD Display, Windows 11 Home, Thin & Portable (14-fq1025nr, 2021) & TI-84 Plus CE Color Graphing Calculator, Infinitely Iris: Buy it now