HP , Celeron N4500, 4GB, 64GB eMMC, Pale Rose Gold

A touchscreen on a potato. The HP 14-dq3280nr is cheap, but the 4GB RAM and 64GB storage make it a frustrating daily driver. Buy a Chromebook instead.

The Intel Celeron N4500 is a 2-core chip that sits right at the 50th percentile for CPUs in our database. That's not a compliment, it's a warning. It'll open a browser and a Word doc, but don't expect to juggle tabs. The real shocker is the 12Wh battery. HP's marketing says 'all-day long' but that's a tiny cell, and with Windows 11 in S Mode chewing through resources, you'll be hunting for an outlet by lunch. The 64GB eMMC storage is also a weak spot, landing in the bottom 4 percent of laptops we've tested. You'll fill that up with Windows updates alone.

Stack this against the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon or Apple MacBook Pro and it's not even a fair fight. Those are premium machines with real CPUs, real RAM, and real storage. The HP 14 is closer in spirit to a Chromebook, but even a cheap Chromebook gives you better battery life and a snappier experience for web-based work. The ASUS Vivobook and Microsoft Surface Laptop also outclass it in every metric that matters. If you need Windows specifically, this is the bottom rung of the ladder.

There's no listed price here, but our data shows this thing sells for USD 260 to USD 320 across US retailers. At USD 260, it's a borderline impulse buy for a kid's first laptop. At USD 320, you're getting fleeced. Newegg has the best deal in our database, so if you must buy this, buy it there. But honestly, a used ThinkPad or a Chromebook at the same price will run circles around this thing.

The HP 14-dq3280nr is a budget laptop that makes one big promise: portability on the cheap. And it sort of delivers, if your definition of 'doing more from anywhere' is checking email and streaming Netflix at 720p. The touchscreen is a nice surprise at this price, but the 4GB of RAM and 64GB eMMC storage feel like specs from 2015, not 2024. This is a machine for very light tasks and very patient people.

If you're a student, a professional, or anyone who needs to run more than a browser tab and a document at the same time, skip this. The 4GB RAM will have you pulling your hair out. Go get a used ThinkPad, a Chromebook, or literally anything with 8GB RAM and an SSD. This HP is for people who check email once a day and nothing else.

Don't buy this unless you have no other choice. The HP 14-dq3280nr is a classic case of a laptop that looks fine on a spec sheet but falls apart in daily use. The 4GB RAM and 64GB eMMC storage are dealbreakers for anyone who wants to do more than one thing at a time. The touchscreen is nice, but it's lipstick on a very slow pig. Save up another hundred bucks and get something with 8GB RAM and an SSD.