HP Raider HP 15, Core i3-1215U, 16GB, 512GB SSD, Silver

The HP Raider 15 has decent RAM and storage for the price, but the 1366x768 display is one of the worst we've seen, landing in the bottom 6% of all laptops. It's fine for basic office work if you can get it cheap, but at $649 to $659, you're paying too much for a screen that feels ancient. Look for something with a 1080p panel instead.

The Core i3-1215U is a 6-core chip that handles everyday tasks fine. Web browsing, Office apps, video calls, all doable. The 16GB of DDR4 RAM is actually generous for this class of laptop, and it helps keep things smooth when you have a dozen Chrome tabs open. The 512GB NVMe SSD is solid too, sitting right around the middle of the pack in our database. But the integrated Intel UHD Graphics are a weak spot, landing in the bottom third of laptops we've tested. Don't expect to do any photo editing, video work, or gaming beyond Solitaire. The CPU itself is also on the lower end, ranking in the bottom third overall. It's fine for basic productivity, but it'll choke on anything demanding.

Stacked against the competition, the HP Raider 15 doesn't fare well. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition and Apple MacBook Pro M5 are in a completely different league, with far better displays, build quality, and performance. Even the Lenovo Legion 5i and Acer Predator Helios Neo, which are gaming-focused machines, offer dramatically better screens and GPUs for not much more money. The ASUS ProArt PX13 is aimed at creators and has a display that makes this HP look like a calculator screen. The HP's only real advantage is price, and even that isn't compelling enough when you factor in what you're giving up. The screen alone puts it in the bottom 6% of all laptops we've tested, and that's a dealbreaker for most people.

At $649 to $659, this laptop is a tough sell. You're getting 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, which is nice, but the screen is genuinely bad. A 1366x768 panel with 250 nits of brightness and 45% NTSC color coverage is the kind of display that makes everything look washed out and cramped. For the same money, you can often find laptops with 1080p displays and similar specs. The touchscreen is a nice touch, but it doesn't make up for the low resolution. If you can find this on sale for under $500, it becomes more interesting. At full price, you're paying too much for a screen that belongs in a much cheaper machine.

The HP Raider HP 15 is a budget business laptop that tries to punch above its weight with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. Those are decent specs for the price, but the rest of the machine feels like it's stuck in 2015. The 1366x768 display is the big red flag here, and it drags the whole experience down.

This is a laptop for people who need a cheap Windows machine for email, documents, and web browsing. The touchscreen is a nice bonus at this price, but don't expect much else. The Core i3-1215U gets the job done for basic tasks, and the integrated Intel UHD Graphics means gaming is basically off the table.

Skip this if you care about screen quality at all. The 1366x768 panel is genuinely bad, and anyone who spends hours reading documents, spreadsheets, or web pages will feel the eye strain. Also skip it if you need to do any photo editing, video work, or gaming, the integrated graphics simply can't keep up. And if you want a USB-C port that actually does something useful, like charging your laptop or driving a monitor, this isn't the machine for you. Look for a laptop with a 1080p IPS display and a more capable processor instead.

This laptop is for a very specific buyer: someone who needs a cheap Windows machine for basic office work, doesn't care about screen quality, and wants a touchscreen. If that's you, the 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD will serve you well for basic tasks. Everyone else should look elsewhere. The display is simply too bad to recommend this as a daily driver, especially at this price. Students and business users who stare at spreadsheets all day will feel the strain of that low-res panel. It's a functional machine, but it's not a pleasant one.