HP PAVILION WAVE DESKTOP
Leading the way in a new wave of computing.
Apple’s latest Mac Pro is often ogled and not just because of its high-end components, but because the cylindrical nuclear-reactor-shaped PC is an amazing piece of technical engineering.
Unfortunately, the high price of the Mac Pro has meant that, for most people, it’s just been something to look at, rather than something you could justify actually buying. HP’s new desktop PC is hoping to quench some of that burning desire for a fancy-looking desktop PC that doesn’t cost as much as your average premium gaming desktop. Thanks to HP’s partnership with the design savvy high-end audio brand Bang & Olufsen, this fabric-clad mini tower PC wouldn’t look out of place alongside a desk full of architectural scale models or as the centrepiece of a stylish open-plan living room/office. But its looks aren’t the only thing that’s impressive about the Pavilion Wave — it can also play games... at least a little.
Since the majority of people who saw the Wave without any context believed it to be a speaker, let’s explore the sound first. It’s natural to have high expectations when you consider that B&O are behind the audio, but we’d have to advise restraint since most speakers from B&O fetch a higher price than this mini-PC in its entirety. The sound emanates from the the top of the unit in a 360º vent that makes it exceptionally good at delivering even sound to a whole room if it’s in the centre. Yet this unique ability for playing multidirectional music has some notable limitations when it comes to media playback and gaming, since you loose the directional perception that you get from two speakers.
The Wave also houses an assortment of components that perform exceptionally well for the price, but aren’t from the top-shelf. There’s an Intel Core i5-6400T CPU that can encode video at 10.5fps (a little better than the 8.0fps of ultrabooks like the ASUS Zenbook 3, but less than the 15.1fps from gaming laptops like Dell’s Inspiron Gaming 15). The unit’s 8GB of RAM was less than we were accustomed to, but combined with the AMD Radeon R9 M470 GPU, it allows you to run older games like GRID 2 and Tomb Raider at 1080p at averages of 36.2fps and 39.8fps with the settings turned up to Ultra. You’ll even be able to play newer titles like Batman: Arkham Knight and Far Cry Primal above 30fps if you’re willing to drop the graphics settings to Low or pair back from full-HD resolution. For the most part, we think HP has done a great job of saving on components in ways that minimise compromise, but it’s been some time since we’ve tested a PC without an SSD, so the boot times, transfer speeds and general responsiveness of the OS on the device’s 1TB 7,200rpm HDD seemed sluggish and may leave you wanting an upgrade.
In most other ways, though, the HP Pavilion Wave is as elegant to use as it is to look at — and if the tower came with an SSD rather than an HDD, we’d be inclined to give it full marks.