Oh boy! I first came across this HP 255 G5 15.6-inch laptop while looking for good laptops for our 350 dollar laptops page. After having a quick look over it I decided it needs a full review. The performance more than demands it.
The problem is that this laptop is present on many different stores under various vague names like “premium business laptop” or “newest HP laptop” without a model number. How is anyone going to know what they are buying? Fast forward many hours of searching later and I finally have a laptop model I can review. Let’s see in more detail what we have here.
The exterior
I probably invested more hours in this review than was initially intended but I think it is good that you are well informed before buying something without knowing what it is. So let’s see about this HP 255 G5 in the Y1V07UT#ABA specification.
The HP 255 G5 is part of HP’s value line of laptops and comes with a basic black finish. The top cover features horizontal black lines on a dark grey background. In the middle of the cover there is a shiny black HP logo.
The black theme continues on the inside where we find the 15.6-inch LED-backlit screen. It has a 1366 x 768 pixel resolution that is on paar with most other laptops in this range. The screen is enclosed by a large matte black border containing the built in webcam and microphone above the screen. This HP 255 G5 doesn’t get dual microphones. On the middle of the bottom border we find another silver HP logo.
The palmrest is a black on black arrangement continuing with the overall design. The HP 255 G5 comes with a full sized keyboard with numerical pad and a generously sized off center touchpad. The touchpad has visible left and right click buttons, also in back. As a small design queue the palmest features a set of black shiny horizontal lines running from one side to the other. They are closer together at the middle of the touchpad and slowly fade away as they move further away.
The built in stereo speakers are located underneath the body. This usually leads to muffled sound when using the laptop on your lap. It also leads to poor quality sound.
The connectivity
Because the HP 255 G5 is a budget laptop it was pretty hard to find decent information on it. According to HPs main website this laptop features the following connectivity:
- the left side of the body features the power connector plug, VGA-out, Ethernet LAN port, HDMI-out, two USB-2.0-ports, and the headphones/microphone combo-jack.
- the right side of the body features the Kensington-lock-port, the built in DVD-writter, one USB 3.0 port and the card reader.
- on the inside we find the latest in wireless connectivity with Wireless WiFi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2.
The performance
While the HP 225 G5 15.6-inch laptop comes in various versions of its basic configuration, the performance of the Y1V07UT#ABA specification is the main reason why I decided this laptop needs a full review. Compared with anything in the 350 dollar range this is the only laptop that comes with a 128 GB SSD. It’s not much but it makes this laptop unbelievably responsive and it also improves its battery life. If storage space is a concern for you, you may need to get an external HDD or upgrade the SSD at a later date.
It comes with a quad core AMD A6-7310 APU processor running at 2Ghz. The performance of this CPU is similar to an ULV Intel Core i3. This means that it is enough for most casual and business users. It has enough power to run any office application very well.
The AMD A6 APU comes with a Radeon R4 integrated graphics card. In typical fashion this graphics card is more powerful than the equivalent Intel variant. The performance isn’t very spectacular but it can run previous generation games very well. Have a look at someone playing Bioshock Infinity on it:
This processor is paired with 8GB of DDR3L RAM that is more than enough to have multiple memory intensive applications open at the same time. You can keep Word, Excel, Outlook open while you browse the web or have a conversation over skype with a client.
The HP 255 G5 comes with a 4-cell 41Wh battery good for up to 7 hours according to HP. In this case I tend to believe this figure because we are talking about an SSD powered laptop with a large battery.
Based on the available performance and storage capabilities this laptop in the Y1V07UT#ABA is the perfect business laptop. It has enough RAM and processing power to run everything. It has good battery life and thanks to that SSD it is very responsive. The low storage shouldn’t be an issue in a business environment where everything is stored on the network.
