After a five-year run with an old Intel Core i3 HP Pavilion All-in-One Desktop PC, it was time for an upgrade. The new HP Pavilion d0230z includes a solid chassis, AMD Ryzen 4800H chipset, and a 27-inch touch screen to deliver a home base station that tackles work, communication, and even 60FPS gaming.
The HP Pavilion d0230z includes a premium matte white chassis that looks fantastic in any living space. It sports geometric vents on the sides, a diamond-cut speaker grill at the bottom, and a wide rectangle base to stabilize the 27-inch FHD WLED backlit touch screen monitor. The monitor at 250 nits is plenty bright and framed by micro-edge bezels to maintain clean lines. A pop-up 5MP privacy camera, with serviceable quality, can be pulled up or tucked away when not in use. The included matte white wireless keyboard and wireless mouse match the computer with impressive build quality. The keyboard is weighted and has low-travel keys that are easy to type on, while the mouse is comfortable and connects via Bluetooth to eliminate the USB dongle.
Storage includes a 256GB SSD and a secondary 1TB hard drive. A copy of Windows 10 Home 64 is installed on the SSD to allow the PC to boot in less than five seconds. In addition, the included Realtek Wi-Fi 5 chipset was quick for browsing and streaming.
The back includes a bulk of PC ports including an HDMI-out, HDMI-in, 3 USB-A, 1 USB-C, Gigabit Ethernet, SD card reader. The right margin includes a more convenient USB-A port and a headphone jack. An optical drive is not included.
The d0230z is one of the few all-in-one PCs to utilize the new AMD Ryzen 7 4800H chipset. Designed for laptops, the AMD Ryzen 7 4800H includes a 2.9Ghz base clock to 4.3Ghz max boost clock, 8MB L3 cache, 8 cores, and 16 threads. With an integrated 7 GPU cores at 1600 Mhz, the Ryzen 7 4800H rips through productivity, video editing, 4K streaming, and even core gaming without the need for a discrete graphics card.
To test the integrated AMD Radeon graphics, we ran Resident Evil 2, a photo-realistic graphics intensive survival horror title. At 80 percent image quality and low graphics settings, we obtained a stable 60 frames-per-second fidelity, an impressive feat for an integrated graphics solution. In addition, CS: Go ran at a solid 50 to 60 frames per second on medium to high settings. Because the GPU is built into the AMD Ryzen 7 4800H, the energy efficient 45W chipset kept temperatures low and didn’t trigger any extra fan noise.
The speaker, tuned by Bang & Olufsen, is excellent. The speaker grill, covered with a light grey diamond-cut mesh, has great low levels for movies and games, in addition to clear mids and highs. Audio by B&O was the previous solution in older HP Pavilion that was replaced, and keeping with the experts at the division was a solid choice.
The HP Pavilion d0230z is a top-tier all-in-one desktop PC at a mid-range price. The internal specs have enough power for most users, including video editors and gamers, all in a sleek chassis with minimal clutter.
The PC sells at $1,199.99 but was discounted to $999.99 when purchased direct from HP.
