- The HP Spectre x360 15 inch laptop is
in a class all its own.
Today I'll tell you where it fits in on the laptop spectrum
and whether or not it's worth the money.
Stay tuned.
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Let's talk a little bit about
what this laptop is and what it's not.
15 inch laptops tend to be quad core machines.
This, however, is dual core, so it's best
to think of it as an ultrabook that's in a 15 inch body.
It's very similar to the x360 13 inch.
You're just gaining more screen real estate
with a 4K display and active pen,
as well as a 940MX dedicated GPU, which is a nice bonus.
Alright, let's get into the specifications.
We're talking Intel Core i7, 7500 CPU.
That is Kaby Lake, it's dual core,
it's one of the latest out there.
You can also get up to 16 gigs of RAM,
although there's a configuration
that starts at eight gigs of RAM.
For storage, you're talking
about 256, 512, or one terabyte SSD.
It's a pretty performing SSD but it's a Toshiba one.
It's a little bit older.
I didn't care for the speeds too much of it.
However, you can replace it.
It's a little tricky but it can be done.
When it comes to the display, HP is using a 4K IPS
and that's a little bit different.
Last year they had a 4K option
but they also had a fully HD one as well.
As it turns out, a lot of people prefer 4K and 15 inch
but what they didn't like was the battery life,
and so that's what they addressed this year
with this version.
It has a larger battery, but they kept only the 4K display
so there's no full HD.
I really like the display.
It's very good, the color gamut is great, it's
about 72 percent, and it stay 340 nits for brightness.
I had no issues with it.
It is glossy, so keep that in mind.
It's not too saturated either, which I really like.
This is not like a Samsung OLED display
where it's gonna be really, really contrast-y.
Instead, it's very neutral
and I think it looks really good here.
Another cool feature of this laptop is it comes
with an active stylus.
That's very much like the Surface,
so this is not Bluetooth pen, but N-trig
and in fact it works with the N-trig universal pen
that should be coming out later this year.
It's a very good pen.
I had no issues with it.
It does have two buttons that are configurable.
It's not quite as good as the Surface one,
but it does feel very similar and it's in the box.
That's a cool thing to have.
Let's talk about this GPU.
So what makes this laptop really unique
is it comes with a Nvidia GTX 940MX
with two gigabytes of video memory.
That sounds impressive.
Of course, it's an old GPU
and I want to put this in perspective here.
What it's really doing is giving you a little extra umph
for that 4K display.
Think of it for your browser and office apps.
It's not a gaming laptop.
Sure, it'll help there.
Pinball FX2 plays great, but you really don't want
to use this for a first person shooter.
When it comes to ports, HP did a really good job here.
They give you a little bit of everything.
So you have a classic USB type A for your legacy devices
and thumb drives, you also have a headphone jack,
you have the power button right here,
you can see it flashing to let you know it's in sleep mode,
you have your intake vent for cooling,
this device does have two fans in it,
you have a full SD card reader, so there is your slight
to Apple and your MacBook Pro fans.
Coming to this side, you do get two USB type C ports.
One is full Thunderbolt 3, the other one is just 3.1.
Both do data and power, however only one
of them will do your full display out,
but that's not a big deal either
because they do give you a full HDMI port here
and that's HDMI 2.0.
You also have your secondary vent here
as well as a volume rocker.
When it comes to the design, the 15 inch version very much
resembles the HP Spectre 360 13 inch.
The one difference of course is it now comes
in this ash color along with these sort
of copper gold accents, which look really nice.
It does pick up fingerprints.
It's not too bad.
It's definitely better than the Razer Blade,
which picks up a lot of fingerprints,
but you'll occasionally want to wipe it down.
You do that exclusive Spectre hinge,
which I think looks absolutely fantastic
with the rolled edges here.
It's a really nice design,
but I'll show you there is a price to pay
for having an x360 device in a few moments.
Of course the sides are very clean
and it's very symmetrical with these intake vents.
Looking at the bottom here,
HP did a very good job of keeping things clean.
There are some SEC markings as well, some tiny screws
which blend in very well.
Otherwise, it doesn't really matter.
You can also see this giant intake vent here.
There are two fans on each side.
It does a very good job of keeping this device cool.
In fact, it never really got hot at all.
You also have these rubber feet here which are really nice.
They give you clearance for keeping the device cool.
When it comes to weight, it's a 4.4 pound machine,
which is about two kilograms.
Now it's not the lightest machine out there,
but it's CnC aluminum metal throughout.
In other words, it feels substantial
and feels really good to hold.
It feels like a quality device
and that weight reflects that.
I think HP did a good job here especially
with that larger battery.
Trying to open it one handed,
unfortunately you're gonna struggle there.
You do need to use two hands to keep the base down.
Otherwise, it opens pretty nicely.
Speaking of that hinge, it works very well.
However, there is one issue with it being so heavy
and metal, which is you can kind of do this
and shake it and rock it down.
That's not big deal.
The x360 13 inch doesn't quite do that,
but because of the added weight
and thickness of display and metal, it does.
That may bother some people.
While I'm using it in my lap it's not a problem.
You literally have to shake it but it will do that.
I'm not sure what HP could do there.
After all, this does turn into a full tablet,
so you need to keep it a little bit loose
but unfortunately, that is just one side effect
of having an x360 type device.
One of the most important aspects
of any laptop is the keyboard.
Now I love the x360 13 inch one.
How do I like this?
It's even better.
For one, the keys are darker
so the backlighting has a better color contrast
and just really stands out.
You also talk about 1.5 millimeters of key travel
and HP said they focused a lot of time
and effort here on the force curves.
That's how the key feels as it's bouncing back
and I have to give them credit.
It feels really fantastic.
In fact, it's better than the Surface Book in my opinion,
which feels slightly mushy compared to this.
There's also no flex.
When you put this laptop down on a desk top,
it just feels really good when typing.
I'm gonna rate this as one of my favorite keyboards to date.
Let's talk about that trackpad.
HP has a mixed record here
and this device carries the same flaws
in my opinion as the x360 13 inch.
It's Synaptics'
and the hardware is really, really good here.
It's very wide, it's very smooth,
and I love the feel of it.
The click is also very consistent.
So A plus there.
My issues is still the fact
that they used Synaptics' software, which is getting better
and you can fine tune this to you needs,
and I think most people are gonna be totally fine with this.
I really didn't have any issues with it.
I just prefer Microsoft's precision.
I've been pressuring HP to switch over to that
and I think it may be getting closer.
We'll have to wait and see though for the next version.
Overall, it's a very good trackpad,
but I think they can still do a little bit better.
What about audio?
HP always does a pretty good job here.
They use B&O tuned speakers and you have the same here.
Now there's only two of them.
That differs from the 13 inch, which actually had four.
That's kind of cool 'cause when you flip it to tablet mode,
you have those speakers firing at you.
It doesn't quite do that here but these speakers are bigger
and more powerful than the ones in the 13 inch
and they have their own amplifiers.
They're also upward firing when you're
in laptop position, which, let's be honest,
is how you'll be using these more often.
Overall, they're very good speakers.
I wasn't blown away by them,
but I'm also kind of impressed by them as well.
They're very good and I'm gonna rate them
as one of the better speakers out there.
They did a great job.
Talk about the web camera.
It is a full HD one with dual IR cameras
and a dual microphone array.
That's pretty awesome.
It also means you can use it
for Windows Hello facial recognition.
It's the same one that's found in the 13 inch.
It works very well here.
It's also placed in the top bezel,
which is really good if you're doing a job interview
or just using this for Skype.
So if you're a big fan of using a webcamera,
you'll really like this one.
Alright, let's talk about specifications here.
You get about 4100 GeekBench score, which is really good.
It puts it right up there with the Spectre x360 13 inch
and it's faster than most notebooks out there today,
although it's definitely not in the gaming laptop category.
Looking at 3DMark's Cloud Gate 1.1, which is used
for normal PCs, you get a score of 8,185,
which is better than 28 percent of all the results
and just slightly beats a gaming laptop from 2013.
So overall, pretty good performance.
What about battery life?
We're talking a 79 watt hour battery,
which is an increase over last year's.
That also made the device slightly thicker
and I give HP credit here for doing that.
They wanted to give you a little bit extra battery life
for that 4K display and it works out pretty well.
Now they rate the battery at 12 hours.
That's on a video loopback.
I don't find that too accurate.
In real world usage, you're talking six to eight hours.
Plus, you get fast charge.
So when you use the included 90 watt charger,
you can recharge the battery about 50 percent in 30 minutes.
That's pretty awesome.
Alright, let's bring it all home.
What do I think of this device?
In my opinion, HP knocked it out of the park.
It's very much like the 13 inch.
You're just getting a little bit more stuff here.
The build quality is outstanding,
probably one of the best laptops I've used to date.
What I really like here is the value.
The one we tested here is 1499
and so it's 16 gigs of RAM and 512 gigs of storage.
However, you can drop that down to 1279 and get eight gigs
of RAM and 256 gigabytes of storage.
That's a great value
'cause you're still getting that 4K display.
Don't forget this also turns into a tablet
and comes with that awesome active pen,
so you can use this for Windows Ink
in taking notes, doing whatever you want.
I think this is a great laptop for students and those
in industry and business who need a productivity machine.
Now last year I recommended the Spectre x360 13 inch
as one of my favorite laptops of the year.
All that holds true here for the 15 inch version.
If you're looking for a device in that category,
definitely put it at the top of your list.
If you want the full review of the HP Spectre x360 laptop,
make sure you head to Windows Central
for some high quality photos and my benchmarks.
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Take care everybody.
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