HP 15-AY103DX: A Budget-friendly Laptop with Promising Performance

Budget-friendly laptops are getting better tech specs nowadays. Users with low or moderate usage usually prefer not spending too much on their purchase. In less than $500, they can bring home a decent laptop perfect for their work. Priced around $400, HP 15-AY103DX is one such affordable laptop with promising tech specs and performance carrying great value for money.

Design and Build Quality

In terms of ‘design,’ this HP laptop has nothing new to take a note of. It carries a simple design we usually see on a laptop. Although not an ‘eye-candy,’ its all-black body with a black HP logo at the back provides a decent look and feel.

The build quality part is more promising, however. HP 15-AY103DX features a tough build able to handle all that ‘abuse’ while traveling. Its hinges feel tight but not too tight to make it hard while opening/closing the lid. The full-size ‘island-style’ keyboard with numeric keys feels perfectly in place, and the trackpad is smooth to operate.

HP has fit almost all ports on the left-hand side where two USB, one HDMI, and an Ethernet ports are available. A headphone jack, power-in port, and the air vent are also on the left. A DVD burner, multimedia card reader and another USB port sit on the right side of this 15.6-inch laptop.

Tech Specs and Performance

Here comes the best part about HP 15-AY103DX 15.6-inch laptop. It packs some latest tech specs to impress users with its performance.

This affordable HP laptop carries the latest 7th generation Intel Core i5 7200-U 2.5GHz processor which is an exciting surprise given its price tag. With a powerful processor, this HP laptop features 8GB DDR4-2133 MHz RAM. Both processor and RAM make a great team to provide blazing-fast performance.

For storage, HP has packed a 1TB HDD with 5400 rpm. 1TB storage is more than enough for an average user. The 5400 rpm mechanical hard drive is fast enough to execute file operations quickly. But again, this is not SSD so don’t expect the same performance from it.

The 15.6-inch ‘TruBrite’ LED display of this budget-friendly laptop features a touchscreen. It carries a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels – a resolution which feels just about right at this price. Graphics output on this 15.6-inch screen is enhanced with Intel HD 620 integrated graphics. While the end result is not the crispiest, it does its job pretty well.

Combining everything with 64-bit Windows 10 Home running as the operating system, HP 15-AY103DX outputs some really promising performance overall. The 3-cell, 31 Wh Li-ion battery is able to keep this laptop powered for about 5 hours – which of course, depends on the usage.

Ports and Connectivity

HP 15-AY103DX 15.6-inch laptop carries one USB 3.1 Gen 1 port (data transfer only), two USB 2.0 ports and an HDMI port. A DVD read/write combo is also present, so is a multimedia card reader and a headphone/microphone combo.

For connectivity, this HP laptop has a 1 RJ-45 port (10/100 Mbps) and 802.11b/g/n WiFi. Bluetooth capability is surprisingly missing.

It must be noted that HP could provide faster and better connectivity options. 802.11ac is becoming the new standard in WiFi, and many users could see 802.11 b/g/n WiFi as a disadvantage. This could have been solved by integrating a faster Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps) port. And of course, including Bluetooth would have been a good idea, too.

HP 15-AY103DX: Overall Impressions

With the latest Intel processor, enough RAM, and plenty of storage, this 15.6-inch laptop from HP outputs some really impressive end-results. At a price tag that doesn’t put a big hole in the pocket, this budget-friendly laptop is fast, features a solid build and provides great value for money.

Given the price, tech specs, and performance, HP 15-AY103DX can be recommended to students, home users, and at offices where the primary use is word processing, web browsing, emailing etc.

Related: Looking for a laptop with similar specs at a little lower price tag? Check out the review of HP 15-ay191ms