HP 14 Ryzen 5 5500U 14-inch(35.6 cm) FHD Laptop with Alexa Built-in(AMD, 8GB/512GB SSD/Windows 10/MS Office/Natural Silver/1.46Kg), 14s-fq1030AU

I received this laptop on 21st April 2021 and i am writing this review after a week's usage.I will break this down into 3 parts which are:1) Specifications2) Real World Performance!3) For whom is it?=>Specifications: How it looks on paper?AMD Ryzen5 5500U built on 7nm technology is a beast and can run through anything you throw at it.It has 6 cores and 12 threads and they are decently clocked. GPU present is AMD Radeon integrated graphics.It comes with 8GB (Micron Technology 3200MHz) SODIMM RAM and out of that 512MB is allocated to VRAM. You can increase the RAM up to 16GB in future with both RAM’s working in dual channel mode.It has PCI Express 4.0 and 512 GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD.For other hardware info: https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c07119618Now if you look at these specs it is definitely a steal deal. No other laptop company is giving you these specs at this cost in India. [₹50,990]=>Real World Use: What things matter in day to day usage?1) Boot time: Try to spell the laptop name along with the model number and it will be up and running. For me it was always less than 20 seconds.2) Battery Life: Normal usage – 6 hours, Intensive usage – 3 hours (These generally vary on what you have installed on your laptop and background processes)3) Multitasking: It can handle your tasks easily and most of the times it will be a cruising experience.4) Display: Here it depends on an individual’s priority. It has a BrightView (glossy) display with 250 nits brightness which is decent for indoor use but it will struggle under sunlight. So, you can either use an anti-glare screen guard for your purpose or make a compromise because of the price.5) Gaming: It can handle casual gaming very well. I played FIFA 19 for a while at low settings and never once it suffered a frame loss. Will update it with more games and cofigurations.6) Portability: It weighs around 1.4 kilograms and is easy to carry around.7) Build Quality: I would say since its lightweight+14inch so a little compromise on build quality should not be a concern. It looks like it’s made of hard plastic but maybe here and there HP might have used some aluminium (or any other alloy). Sometimes when you lift the laptop with a single hand it produces a faint creaking sound. Feels like it’s due to hard plastic but can’t ask more at this price point.8) Ease of Use: It comes with Microsoft office Home and Student 2019, HP Support Assistant, HP PC Hardware Diagnostics & Alexa for romance(lol). So, this gives you a very good platform to work on without any hiccups and still if it’s there (Same old Linux vs Windows thing) then you have enough tools to deal with it.9) HP Hinge: No one talks about it so I brought this up. Most of the HP laptops faced this issue 3-4 years back but now I think its alright. I regularly use HP Zbook as my office laptop and I think this laptop uses the same type of hinge (quality difference is definitely there but Zbook is expensive too). Hinge is not too tight but Ok’ish tight.10) Speakers: They are not adequately loud but produce clear sound with a decent base. If you are using it casually to watch movies/videos in a not so loud room then it will be fine. Dedicated Bluetooth speakers are definitely going to outperform the budget segment laptop speakers. Personal suggestion is to buy one if you are willing to use this laptop to watch movies/videos in a group.11) Heating: Whatever work I have done in last 7 days I did not face any overheating issues (AMD processors are doing a good job here). Fan is silent most of the times. Only when you are running intensive tasks you can hear them gushing air out of the laptop’s fan vent.12) Keyboard: It has a laptop sized backlit chiclet keyboard with two levels of brightness control for the light. Again, I would say it depends on one’s preference and budget.13) Connectivity: It has Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 4.2. For day to day use its Ok but not seamless. I faced some speed drop while being connected to both. When I disconnected the Bluetooth, it was back to normal. I still need to confirm it with other users.14) Zoom/Teams/Skype calls: Haven’t tested the video on live calls which very much depends on how good your internet connectivity is but it has a good camera setup. It is missing physical camera shutter but that’s fine with me.15) Trackpad is not that great but it gets the work done. It would have been better if it had two click buttons. It supports multi touch and gestures.16) After Sales Service: HP has one of the best after sales service so it has to be mentioned. It’s always a plus point.Overall, it is a great laptop and is performing better than what I expected. I tried to keep all relevant points and these points may be updated in future after a long-term use. Do let me know if I missed anything.P.S.: No unboxing video was made by me 😜Just a neutral review with no promotions for either party.=>Is this laptop for you?This is a very subjective question and its answer depends on how you are going to use the laptop.In short here are my views:1) College Students: Considering the fact they need to run various simulation/modelling software along with an added benefit of portability it’s a good option for them. This laptop would be able to handle all of that.2) Business Professionals: Its portability will attract you but if you are looking for durability too, I would suggest you to wait a little and see if there are alternatives. Its not a laptop like ThinkPad which can also be used to play cricket.3) Content Creators: Your first choice would be Apple’s M1 powered devices but if you are on a budget then there is no other laptop near 50K who can compete with them on paper. It has 6 cores and 7nm tech whereas M1 has 8 cores and 5nm tech but the price difference is huge. I know it’s a wrong comparison but still it shows the power of this processor. I would encourage you to get one more 8GB RAM stick at the time of purchase only.4) SDE’s/ML Engineers/Data Scientists: It’s a good laptop for you too. It has expandable RAM capacity and a good processor. It would be able to handle data manipulation, cleaning, etc. well and can run popular software with ease. For those doing intensive tasks like deep learning where high end GPUs are suited, they should definitely give this a rethink. But for that too we have alternatives by using cloud-based processing/computing power. Beginners can manage with 8GB RAM but later on you would need to increase it to 16GB.5) Others: If you don’t need much computation power then go for cheaper laptops, they would also be able to manage your day to day tasks. HP 14s fq1029au is an excellent choice for you.So ending this with just one conclusion….you will not get a better laptop under 51K at this time.

Backlit keyboard ✅Processor speed✅Batter backup windows 10(5-6 hr)✅Built quality ✅Speaker quality ✅Display brightness ✅Value for money✅Hp brand✅

It's been more than 3 years since I've been using this laptop and its performance has been impressive. I only use it for basic stuff like watching videos, performing tasks on MS Office, and other random stuff. I'm satisfied with this purchase. The laptop has not disappointed me and I appreciate HP for this well-built machine.

*First read all points after pressing the buy now tab.1. Many users are telling in reviews that "This product is broken, damaged ,opened, software issues, warranty started one month before , Invoice , (Serial no.) not given in invoice etc.Ans. First of all , after buying any product from Amazon or any online platform .SEARCH first for verified sellers of any brand product on their product Website . ie. Ihave searched Hp website after buying this laptop where i found that the only seller (Appario retail pvt.ltd) is showing as a verified , because 1000 of fraud sellers are Roaming in all online platforms.*Imp>1. If you got some other SSD in place of SAMSUNG then you are ripped. Because in this model (14s fq1030au and 14s 1029au ) hp company is providing samsung ssd.2. if you haven't got any invoice or poduct serial no. in Invoice , then you are buyed from unverified seller. (they can replace anything in product because HP company dosen't sells them product directly and they won't take their service as their responsibility.3. IN MY BUYING EXPERIENCE >*product is well packed, no any damage.* Proper invoice with serial no. is given.*Display is IPS and glossy (not anti-glare).*tiny screen bleeding in left bottom screen (as normal to all laptops).*sound is not loud but very clear voice that makes feel premium.*Use all laptops on table or at solid surface instead of using on bed etc ,For better ventilation.*I'VE brought it from appario retail pvt.ltd.*Very good and sleemless performance.*Body is made up of plastic but of premium quality.** Brought it for 50990/-* If your budget is 50-52k last then buy it without any hesitation .***THANKS ALL**

The processor is great for multi tasking. Although the multi core usage probably comes into play when you are looking to play games that utilises those capabilities.Absolutely brilliant screen resolution and depth.Battery life is ok, you can easily use it for 4-5 hours with 80-85% charge.The track pad is good but could have been better if it had a more smooth feeling.Boots up within 10 seconds, I guess that’s expected from a SSD.Packaging and Shipping was great from Amazon.Overall, great laptop at the price range.

Awesome performance!I did a little bit of light gaming by playing valorant and it runs perfectly, no performance issue observed.High-end software such as matlab runs perfectly without any slow down.Battery life is good. I was able to use it for about 4.5-5 hrs even while running multiple applications together, some casual while others more performance oriented.Display is not anti-glare, so not suitable to use in sunlight. However, viewing angle is decently broad (about 150 degress).It has WiFi 5, however, there are no problems in connectivity.Although I find the camera quality slightly below average, but it's a reasonable compromise for its price (bought it for INR 51k)College students can certainly consider this for a budget laptop with good performance and portability.