When it comes to the best laptops for writers, the HP Notebook 15-AY011NR stands out for its minimalist design and sturdy built that responds accordingly to a user’s grueling writing and editing sessions. And the fact that this notebook doesn’t break your bank while rolling out well-rounded features is just an added advantage that one cannot ignore. For mid-range laptops available in the market, this notebook boasts of power packed and feature loaded performance that a lot of similar counterparts lack or provide at a higher price. In this guide, we are going to review this amazing notebook. Before we start the review, let’s have a look at its pros and cons.
The Pros
- Sharp 1080p display
- 1TB hard drive
- Long battery life
- Affordable price point
- Available in multiple colors
- Separate Numeric Pad
The Cons
- Tad bit slow
- Plastic body
- Lots of bloatware
- No touchscreen
- No backlit keyboard
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Bottom Line
A genuine HP Notebook 15-AY011NR review won’t be complete without praising its 15.6-inch full HD screen. The battery life is a plus for the student and professionals who are looking to put long hours of work. But its keyboard makes it comfortable to work on it. Laptop stereos are not something companies care much about, and this laptop is not any different either. With touch screens are becoming the must-have item among the millennial, this notebook not offering the same does raise some flags, but it surely isn’t a deal breaker.
Contents
The HP 15.6” Notebook 15-AY011NR Review At a Glance
Design and Configuration
The HP Notebook 15-AY011NR comes in a plastic body, but design wise it is super attractive; thanks to its diamond-textured pattern that attributes towards its contemporary look. It is easy to carry around which makes it ideal for office and home use. The Notebook’s top lid features the HP logo in black and silver. The deck comes in a variety of colors including white, purple, blue and red. The HP Notebook 15-AY011NR comes with a 15.6-inch screen which in itself is a feat for a mid-range system because this is the screen size where many premium range laptops hover.
It is really amazing that this notebook is powered by Intel Core i5 6th generation processor. With 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD storage, you really can’t go wrong with investing in this sleek beauty. One can easily store all their documents and media files in it without worrying about memory running out. It weighs just around 4.8-pounds and operates beautifully on Windows 10 operating system. Comparatively speaking, the Dell Inspiron 15 5000 weighs around 5.4-pounds which makes it heavier than the HP Notebook; it is also costlier among the duo.
The swanky Notebook is also backed by Intel HD 520 graphics which attributes towards its 1080p display. The full HD display is a feature that used to be limited to pricy laptops but not anymore. The screen comes in a 1920*1080p resolution which is ideal for streaming 1080p HD videos. Streaming HD videos online in this resolution do drain out the battery a bit, but it isn’t a compromise to worry about when we think about the picture quality we are going to get.
The costlier midrange systems like the Acer Aspire R14 R3-471T-77HT are known for eschewing optical drive, but the HP Notebook 15-AY011NR comes saddled with one. It does not offer the wide viewing angles of an IPS display, but the picture quality is still super sharp and can be viewed comfortably from most angles. The lack of IPS display easily gets overshadowed by its HD graphics.
The display doesn’t support touchscreen functionality. But given that it comes with pre-installed Windows 10 which has reduced dependency on touch-based navigation, the lack of touch support doesn’t become an issue and in fact, attributes a lot towards the system’s reduced price. A touchscreen-enabled alternative could be Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga 15, but then again you would be spending a lot more than what you would spend on this simple Notebook.
Memory and Connectivity: One of the reasons the HP Notebook 15-AY011NR ranks high in laptops for writers listings is because of the availability of the system’s 8GB RAM locked on a single DIMM which is also expandable to 16 GB. The spacious 1TB HDD rotates at 5,400 RPM, which makes it a tad bit slower.
Of course, you can swipe the hard drive for SSD or opt for an alternative of the same model, HP Notebook 15-AY011NR which comes with a 128GB Solid State Drive. But factually speaking, the 1TB hard drive is more than enough for a single user; you need not expand it in future.
The Notebook comes with a variety of porting options with 6-numbers of useful ports including one USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI port, an Ethernet port, and an earphone jack. That in itself is higher than other same range laptops in the market. Further, it also posses Bluetooth 4.0 compatibility and an SD card slot for card reading requirements.
How many times have we lost our precious data because a pen drive has got corrupted or caught a virus? The HP Notebook 15-AY011NR also features a DVD burner, though it is not a feature in demand in 2019, it comes handy for students and professionals who still prefer to save or carry their work on a DVD.
Video and Audio
The HP Notebook 15-AY011NR comes with a 720p webcam. The video it captures is fairly clear and ideal for video calls and web conferences, but given the system has tad bit slower hard disk, the later should be avoided on a professional level.
The audio quality is pretty good for the price point it is offered at. The music and vocals are quite clear to listen in general, but the clarity does suffer a bit on full blast as the bass is pretty much non-existent. The audio also gets muffled a bit when the Notebook isn’t placed on a flat surface.
Battery Life
With 1080P HD display, the performances of many laptops suffer in the long run, but the HP Notebook 15-AY011NR’s productivity doesn’t get hampered with the same. Even with continuous streaming over Wi-Fi, the Notebook performed well at 5 hours and 51 minutes of running. For mid-range laptops, the battery life surpasses that of its counterparts like Toshiba Satellite L55-C5340 which fell fairly short at 5 hours and 15 minutes. The laptop doesn’t heat up on continuous use either and stays cool throughout a work session.
General Performance and Productivity: With a dual-core 2.3GHz Intel Core i5 processor (turbo up to 2.8GHz), 8GB system memory and an integrated Intel HD 520 graphics card, this laptop is surely feature loaded. Generally speaking, the 1TB hard drive is more than enough for students and professionals who use a laptop for writing, gaming, browsing and other sorts of project works.
The gaming experience isn’t something out of the charts, basically because of the lack of a dedicated graphics card, but still, you can enjoy casual games on the go without much hassle. From counter strike to Mario, GTA and Lara Croft, everything can be played well on this laptop.
Additional Specs to Look Out For
Coming to the next part of the review is additional specs of 15.6-inch notebook, while it lacks a certain range of features, that doesn’t necessarily factor into its performance in general. It is still a snag worthy laptop that can handle all the major computer-oriented tasks without rolling out any faults. The HD display is its biggest selling point and might be the reason why it surpasses many big name laptops in the ranking. Besides the usual requisites of a laptop, it also boasts of following extra features that will surely force you to give a thought or two into buying this beauty.
- The Notebook comes with a well-designed keyboard and full numeric pad. The keyboard lacks backlighting though.
- The 4.8 x 1.7-inch touchpad is built right into the deck and well responsive.
- Gestures on touchpad work smoothly without any overwriting and clicking.
- The Notebook comes with many preinstalled software.
- It comes with 25GB of free Dropbox storage which is a mega advantage for professional looking to save their data on the cloud to be accessed anywhere, anytime.
- HP offers some of its own software as well – the HP Recovery Manager and HP Recovery Media Creation come free and is ideal for back up and restoring purpose.
- The HP 15.6-inhc Notebook 15-AY011NR comes with a 1-year limited warranty as well.
Conclusion
Concluding the review, this 15.6-inch desktop replacement notebook doesn’t boast of cutting edge features, but it brings in traditional and trusted features into games that attribute towards its superb performance. With a speedy processor and full HD display, you get more than you can bargain for at the price range.
While it doesn’t have a touchscreen functionality or backlit keyboard, it is still a modest option for students, homemakers and non-technical professionals who are looking for a budget option to handle day-to-day computing tasks.
Even for mid-range laptops, the HP Notebook 15-AY011NR is priced towards the lower end and comes with well-rounded features, which makes it an ideal option for buyers looking to buy their first laptop.
