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The HP Star Wars Edition 15 notebook is more confusing than Jar-Jar Binks

We make no bones about the fact that we love Star Wars here at htxt.africa. There was a battle in the office as to who would review The Force Awakens and who would be watching it in IMAX 3D.

So it makes sense that we would be smitten with a notebook that is packed to the brim with Star Wars references.

The short answer is that we weren’t but the longer answer that follows explains why.

HP Star Wars Edition 15 notebook: Look into your soul

We don’t often talk about packaging and packing material but the box and foam that the Star Wars Edition notebook ships in is a really good quality. We’ve given HP bonus points for making the foam look like a TIE fighter.

Don't lie to yourself, this foam makes you smile.
Don’t lie to yourself, this foam makes you smile.

The exterior of the notebook is really well done, the print looks like it will last a while and the red accent lighting is a nice touch. There’s also an inscription in Arabesh, we took the time to translate it and we’ll give you infinite geek points if you can as well.

When the notebook is open, this phrase is upside down.
When the notebook is open, this phrase is upside down. Oh, and it doesn’t light up

You’ll find a set of USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, an HDMI connector, a LAN port, SD card reader, Kingston lock, DVD drive and power port on the sides of the notebook.

HP Star Wars Edition 15 notebook: Do or do not, there is no try

Inside the notebook is an Intel Core i5 6200 U CPU with a base clock speed of 2.3GHz, our review sample was running at 2.4GHz. There is also 6GB of DDR3 RAM and a 1TB 7200RPM hard drive.

In a Cinebench R15 benchmark test where the CPU is stressed we got a score of 274cb. To put this into perspective, a gaming notebook clocks in at 702cb. So for twice the price of this notebook you’ll get almost three times the performance.

The GPU here is an Intel HD 520 which is less than ideal for gaming. Clock speeds are rated at 300MHz at the GPU core and 800MHz on the GPU memory.

“Why mention gaming, this isn’t even a gaming notebook”, you might say. Well, to a degree you are correct but let’s think about the average Star Wars fan that uses a PC. Would it be so wrong to assume that they play games now and then? We don’t think so.

And that is where the confusion begins.

This is a pretty good notebook for a working professional. The physical HDD storage aside, the notebook boots quickly and performance when using Office apps, a bit of photo editing and multitasking is good. The glaring problem here is that unless you’re in a creative environment, this notebook is going to stick out like sore thumb.

HP Star Wars Edition 15 notebook: The force is within, the battery

Our marathon battery test which involves a video played on loop continously with Wifi switched on, sound at 50%, battery saver switched off, and screen brightness at 75% gave us 15 minutes shy of four hours which is actually not bad.

Results may vary between users especially in terms of the screen brightness, we found that at 100% the brightness was just about comfortable indoors but struggled in sunlight.

Juicing the battery back up to full again takes just two and a half hours, which is relatively fast. Good work HP.

HP Star Wars Edition 15 notebook: Display

Having a Full HD (1920x1080p) 15 inch display means that at least the image on screen looks good and the fact that its an IPS panel means that viewing angles are as you good as you can get on a notebook these days. As we’ve already mentioned, the display could have been a bit brighter, especially given how badly it suffers outdoors.

Not the brightest display around, especially in sunlight.
Not the brightest display around, especially in sunlight.

The display lid itself  feels very flimsy and bends quite a lot, more than we would like to see at this pricing point. Even when the notebook is closed the lid has way to much give and we were too scared to put it into our notebook backpack for fear of damaging it.

HP Star Wars Edition 15 notebook: Extras

HP has packed a lot of Star Wars content into this notebook. There are custom icons, all six trailers, stills from the original trilogy, the other trilogy and even a few from The Force Awakens. To be honest though, you could just search Google, or YouTube for similar content.

By far the coolest part is the screen savers, you can select lightsaber battles or moments from the Hoth battle.

Sure, this touchpad looks cool but it is so unresponsive it will actually make you want to pull your hair out.
Sure, this touchpad looks cool but it is so unresponsive it will actually make you want to pull your hair out.

Some of the features are bit hit or miss. The custom sounds are extremely confusing. Was that TIE fighter firing a good thing? Was that Kylo Ren lightsaber sound effect supposed to mean my document saved?

You can switch these back in the control panel but we’d prefer it if HP just left notification sounds as they were, for ease of use sakes.

HP Star Wars Edition 15 notebook: The epic conclusion

Our question is, who is this notebook aimed at. Our first thought given the specifications was business people. That said, we can’t see this being pulled out with much confidence at an annual general meeting.

What about the arty types then? We don’t think they’d get a kick out of this either because you can get a Star Wars skin for a Macbook that you might like better.

The only person we can see buying this notebook is a collector. That said though the rate at which technology devalues makes it something we’d rather not spend that amount of money in hopes that one day we get 100 times the worth back.

We’re not going to recommend this notebook, the price is too high for the specs and besides the Star Wars extras it leaves us feeling more like Jar-Jar Binks just had his way with us than the sense that we’ve defeated the Empire.

[su_box title=”Details” box_color=”#f37021″]

Price R12 999

Processor 6th Generation Core i5-6200U @2.3GHz

GPU Intel HD 530

RAM 6 GB DDR3L

Storage 1TB HDD

Interface 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, HDMI, Headphone out/Mic in

Operating System Windows 10

[/su_box]

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