- Laptops are rarely stunning, but the HP Spectre
for 2017 is just that.
Today I'll tell you what's good about it, and what's not.
Stay tuned.
(percussive music)
When it comes to PC laptops, there are plenty of options
on the market.
The HP Spectre's been out for a few years now,
and it's always been pushing design in terms of thinness
and extreme lightness, and I've actually never used one,
I've only seen them in stores.
I've used the x360, which is a new version of that too,
and we'll be reviewing that in a couple weeks,
but for now let's take a look at the Spectre.
It's for those who really want an ultra-thin,
ultra-light laptop.
HP has done some cool stuff with it this year,
and I think it makes it a contender for one
of the best laptops of 2017.
Alright, let's talk about the design of the HP Spectre.
It is one of the thinnest, in fact what they call
the thinnest touch laptop on the market today.
It is 10.4 millimeters thin.
It's absolutely stunning looking, in my opinion.
Now this is the white ceramic version.
I was actually very excited HP sent me this version
because it's the one I wanted.
But if you are offended by white laptops, I know some
people just do not like this, don't worry, they do make it
in dark ash as well, which is basically a dark black
color with gold accents.
So you do have options if you don't like this.
Now this is a new material, as I mentioned, ceramic,
so it's the first time they're using this.
It's nice and matte, and I think it absolutely looks great.
It's very thin, but it's also very strong.
Coming around to the edges here and you can see
I just love the angles that they've done here on the design.
It's very grippable and just feels really nice and smooth.
It's all metal, of course, and it has a nice gold trim
that goes all the way around.
Let's talk a little bit about the ports here
on the back of the device.
Now there is no USB Type A port, and while that's
usually kind of a shame, at least in this case
the device is literally too thin to put it on there.
So that's a perfectly legit reason not to have a port.
They do have an adapter for you, so you will have to
do dongle life if you're going to get this laptop.
Let's talk about what we have, though.
We do get two USB Type C Thunderbolt 3 ports on the back,
and yes you can connect this up to an eTPU
like the Razer Core and use it for gaming.
I absolutely love that.
You also have a third USB Type C port, that's 3.1
non-Thunderbolt, and you use that with the charger.
I should mention the charger in the box is 65 watt,
which means you can, in theory, get a larger USB
Type C charger that goes up to around 100 watts
if you really want to boost it and charge it that way.
There is a small LED as well that will turn on to let
you know it is being charged.
Nice little touch there.
Now the battery is pretty good on this.
For charging in about 30 minutes you can do a 50% charge,
so that's because it has a USB Fast Charge on there
and that's a great design, too.
Coming to the left rear we also have the 3 1/2 millimeter
headset jack along with the nice Spectre logo.
And that's it.
That's all we got for ports, that's all there is for room.
Turn to the bottom, it's a very clean design.
We have rubber feet here to keep it from sliding around.
This is the intake vent for the fan, as well as the
exhaust here on the back.
Very clean design, very quiet for those fans.
This is running an Intel eighth-generation processor.
We'll talk about that a little bit more later.
Opening up the device,
and it is absolutely gorgeous-looking.
Let's talk about this display first.
It is 13.3 inches.
You have two options available: full HD, or 4K.
I think 4K's absolutely ridiculous, but hey,
you know it's better to have that option than not.
Now this is a full HD version.
It is touch screen, which is really nice.
That's a change.
Before this device never had a touch screen
and now it does.
It also has Gorilla Glass on top of it.
This is one of the best displays I have seen.
The color accuracy is very good, whites look good,
it's so vibrant and sharp.
In fact, this is only full HD, but our videographer
didn't believe it.
He actually had to look it up just to confirm
it was full HD.
This is just one of those displays that's just
really, really nice.
I can't imagine how good 4K looks, but you're going to,
of course, pay for that both literally and in battery use,
so just be careful.
Now let's talk a little bit about the bezels here.
Microthin bezels, very thin-looking, and they did manage
to squeeze in a Windows Hello facial recognition camera
so good on HP.
And they keep the camera on top, unlike Dell.
The facial recognition camera works awesome.
I've had no issues with it.
HP's borrowing technology here from Microsoft with its
Instant Resume, so when you turn this device on
it resumes very quickly.
It's something Dell really hasn't figured out yet.
Now you do have a larger bezel here at the bottom,
that's to raise the display up,
so otherwise it would be too low.
Now there is some bounce here as you can see.
It's not a big deal in my opinion when using it,
but just be aware there is a little bit of bounce.
That's because the entire display is based
on these two hinges.
There's nothing connecting it.
That's a really amazing design in my opinion,
that all the wiring goes through these hinges.
They're very proud of that, and I think it just looks
absolutely fantastic.
Now let's talk about the deck here.
So another change this year is they put the speakers
here in the back and they're top-firing, so that's
a really cool design.
HP's doing that across their laptops.
I think it's really smart.
First of all, top-firing speakers, way better than
on the bottom, there's just not argument there.
The other cool thing is, because they're placed up here,
it's gonna reverberate off the display,
so it actually kind of faces you, and that's just
a cool design, I think.
They get very loud, they don't really distort either.
You can change it for music or movies, or customize it,
and I think it's a really nice choice.
You also have the fan vent here so you're going to get
some cooling from the processor here as well.
Never gets too hot, and you can hear the fan if it's
going to do like say a Windows update, but it's a very
quiet system otherwise.
Now you do have the power button over here, slightly raised.
Just really nice there on the top deck,
and then let's go to this keyboard.
I believe it's a 1.3 millimeter travel.
This is one of the best keyboards I've ever used.
If you've seen my reviews, I keep saying how HP
really does a great job with their keyboards,
and this is testament to that.
I absolutely love this keyboard.
I think it's really, really fantastic.
The backlighting is also awesome on it.
It just pops out really well, and it's so good
at night time, so they did put the home row key
here on the side, that is another change they're doing
across most of their devices.
I'm totally fine with that as well.
Some people don't like having Home next to Backspace,
but the Backspace, in my opinion, is big enough
that I don't have a issue with it.
Okay, let's talk about the trackpad.
I'm usually very pick about these,
and this is a really nice design.
It's still elongated.
I wish it was a little bit taller, but it's not a big deal.
It's very smooth and feels nice.
The clicking is good too on it, really no complaints.
It is, however, using Synaptics drivers,
and they're not terrible, don't get me wrong.
I would not say this device is bad because of the trackpad.
I'm just saying it could be better had they used Precision.
HP uses Precision in their EliteBook series for business,
but for the consumer market, they're still sticking
with Synaptics, and that's going to be the one thing
that tells me that this is not the most perfect laptop,
and it really drives me nuts, 'cause had they used
Precision drivers, this would be, in my opinion,
one of the most perfect ultrabooks on the market.
It's still a very good trackpad.
Don't get me wrong, you'll get used to Synaptics,
I'm just being a snob here with Precision,
but seriously HP, just put Precision on here.
Just do it, thanks.
Okay, let's talk a little bit about specifications.
We are running the Intel eighth-generation processors here.
There are two options.
You get a Core i5-8250U, or the Core i7-8550U.
That's the same that's found in the Dell XPS 13.
Now it's not quite as good as Surface Book 2,
which is running 8650U, but this goes up to 4GHz
for Turbo Boost, and it's really good performance.
Now this is a quad-core processor, one of the first
that are in the ultrabook lines.
It is still, however, 15 watts and not the 45 watt
quad-core processors found in larger laptops.
That means you'll get very good performance here
for regular apps, but you're not going to get
gaming level performance, so just keep that in mind.
A quad-core only comes into effect when you're doing
like photo editing, video editing, running Excel,
or doing tasks that require a lot of heaving lifting
from the processor.
In terms of normal, everyday use, it's faster than
last year's model, but it's not going to be
a crazy difference.
Still, I had no complaints about using it.
In fact, one of the best benefits here is going to be
battery life.
Now they are stating 11 hours here.
It's a little bit below that.
It's more around seven or eight hours, but considering
how thin this device is at 10.4 millimeters,
and it weighs only 2.45 pounds, or 1.1 kilograms,
I think that's a fair tradeoff in terms of battery
and performance.
I really didn't have any complaints.
Plus, you get that fast charging.
Now when it comes to RAM and storage, you get eight
or 16 gigabytes.
It's very good RAM, too, I had no issues there.
For storage, you get 256, 512, or one terabyte
which is pretty awesome.
That is SSD M.2, so you're going to get
a Samsung drive here.
Very good performance.
Again, no complaints.
I think all the options here are very good.
It's what you expect from a premium ultrabook in 2017.
Okay, let's talk a little bit about pricing here.
We start at 1299, that's for the Core i5, eight gigabytes,
and 256 storage.
That's actually the same price as Surface laptop,
but where the difference is is going to be the processor.
This is eighth-generation versus seventh.
The real value, though, comes in for the Core i7 model,
so it's an extra 100 bucks for HP, but the Surface laptop
now starts at 1599.
So you only save a couple hundred bucks there.
HP also lets you customize a lot more.
You can do eight or 16 gigs, 256, 512 or 1 terabyte,
so you get a lot more choice there.
You can also pick that 4K display for an extra 150 bucks.
Overall though, the HP's going to be a better value
compared to Surface laptop.
Okay, let's bring it all in.
I absolutely love this laptop, in case you couldn't tell
from the rest of this review.
It is just a beautiful design.
I haven't seen anything this thin, light, and just
elegant looking.
It almost doesn't look like a laptop.
Or rather, I should say, this looks like what
I would envision a laptop looks in the future
when you would see it in a movie, and someone would
just make up something.
I think they just did an outstanding design here.
The ports I'm totally find with.
Again, USB Type C, you're committing to that dongle life
if you're going to be getting this, but it's not like
they could've put a USB Type A, so they're, I think,
forgiven for that.
It's just a tradeoff.
Now there is no pen support here, and you're not
going to be able to flip this around to be a tablet.
Again, they have the Spectre X360 for that design.
So you're getting a traditional laptop here,
and a lot of people are totally fine with that.
And you do get benefits here.
It is just a beautiful design, it's very light,
and it's thin.
Battery life is very good in my opinion,
seven to eight hours.
It's not incredible.
You definitely get laptops with better battery life.
The Dell XPW 13 is a good example, but you're trading off
here for something that is stupidly thin.
It's 10.4 millimeters, folks.
This thing is just crazy.
It's got a very good keyboard.
Trackpad is not my favorite.
I'm going to keep harping on you, HP.
Please, just put Precision drivers on this thing.
It's be absolutely perfect.
Otherwise, the display is also amazing.
I would stick with the full HD version.
Honestly, it's full HD but it looks like it could be QHD.
It's just a very good display, but if you want that 4K
panel, go for it.
Just know you're going to take a battery life hit.
Overall though, the HP Spectre I think is one of best
ultrabooks you can get on the market today.
So there's a quick review.
The new HP Spectre for 2017.
If you want more information about this device,
make sure you click the link in the description below.
If you like this video, give us a thumbs up,
and don't forget to subscribe.
Thanks for watching.
Take care, everybody.
We'll be taking a look at the Spectre X360
in the coming weeks, but for now, let's take a look
at this baby.
It is one of the, oh (bleep) why'd I say baby?
(laughing)
Shut up, pause it.
I can do this in one take, I know I can.