- So you want a Surface Pro, but you don't love the price.
Well, HP has a solution for you with the Spectre x2.
Today I'm going to tell you what's good
about it, and also what's bad.
Stay tuned.
So here it is, the Spectre x2,
now make no mistake, this is a Surface Pro clone, 100%.
But that's all right, HP has definitely used
their own design language here,
and I really, really like it.
So you have this dark ash color,
along with the copper on the kickstand,
which is a nice two-tone look.
They've been using it in the Spectre series
for a while now, and I really, really like it.
This kickstand's also pretty cool.
It's a U-style kickstand, so it just pops out like this.
And it can go up to 165 degrees,
just like the new Surface Pro.
It's made from stainless steel, copper-plated,
it looks really, really nice.
Now HP said that they did this design,
so that didn't really have to really dig
into the chassis of this thing,
so they could put a little bit bigger battery in there,
along with some other components
and I think it works very well.
It gives it it's own design language
that's distinct from Surface,
but at the same time, it's very functional.
The device itself is very clean looking.
In fact, it's slightly more clean that the Surface Pro.
You got more rounded edges on it.
Let's take a look on top here.
You have very rounded edges,
along with this radial vent,
it only takes about 20% of the entire device,
versus Surface Pro, which goes around to the sides as well.
On top here, you do have the power button.
It's a little hard to press, but that's okay.
You're not going to accidentally
turn on this device while it's in your bag,
which is really nice.
Coming along to the right hand side,
you have the volume buttons up and down
along with one of two USB Type-C ports.
Now that is USB Type-C 3.1, which we need
to give out about five gigabits per second
for data transfer, power, and display out.
It is not Thunderbolt 3, and in fact
this device does not have Thunderbolt 3.
You also have over here the nice Bang and Olufsen logo,
which some people don't like advertising on their device,
but I think this actually looks pretty classy here.
You have a little notch here for the kickstand as well,
which is really nice for pulling it out.
Coming to the bottom you have standard
pin connectors here for the keyboard.
Now in case you're wondering you cannot
use the Surface Pro keyboard with this,
nor could you use this keyboard with the Surface Pro,
it is all proprietary so, coming out to the other side here,
you have the other USB Type-C port,
same as the other style, you can use
this for charging, display, or a data,
you also have a little tiny LED there for when
plugged in it tells you if it's charging or not.
Now there is no USB Type-A but they do give you,
yes a dongle in the box so you can use this
to connect to your Type-A peripherals.
You also have a Micro SD slot there.
Now you do need a little pen thing to open it up,
so you won't be hot swapping the SD card on the go
with this device, not without some trouble.
And finally you have the headphone jack placed
in the upper left hand quarter just like Surface Pro.
Other than that though the device is very clean.
I just love the way it feels.
There's no creaking to it, it's a very solid build,
very light too and thin, in fact it's slightly thinner
than the Surface Pro but not by much.
Turning to the display you have a 3000 by 2000 display
resolution, which is of course thee by two aspect ratio,
so it's the same as the Surface Pro,
but that resolution is 9% higher than the Surface Pro.
Will you notice it?
Not really, but when was the last time someone
complained about a display being too sharp,
not at all so it looks really nice.
HP has done a great job with their display technology
in their recent devices, same here,
it's just very easy to look at
and it gets about 450 nits for brightness,
which isn't the brightest in the world,
but most laptops in the 300 range,
so definitely pretty decent.
It is glossy of course but not
too glossy, overall very good.
Turning to the top here you do have a full HD webcam
which works pretty well along with Windows Hello
for facial recognition and the Surface Pro is slightly
faster because Microsoft has tweaked their system to be so,
but the HP1 overall works very well and is very similar
to all other Windows Hello devices on the market.
For speakers you have two up here, they're both
front-facing which is really nice.
Once again, placed right where the Surface Pro's are,
now these are tuned by Bang and Olufsun,
which of course HP has a good relationship with.
They're pretty good speakers, they definitely sound
great for voice and music, it does lack richness
in bass though, obviously that's pretty
hard to do in a device this thin,
but overall they're okay speakers.
I would say above average but not my favorite on the market.
For bezels, they are definitely slightly thicker
than the Surface Pro but that's okay
because you get to hold this like a tablet,
so I don't really have any issues there.
Now compared to the last Spectre x2 from 2015,
they've had significant reduction in those bezel sizes,
so overall, pretty decent.
For the keyboard HP has done another outstanding job,
now if you had issues with the Alcantara keyboard
for Surface Pro, you get all metal here,
which is really nice, now I have no issues with Alcantara,
it's been lasting fine with no issues,
but obviously metal no problem there for lasting
a long time, very, very solid, no flex to it whatsoever,
moreover the keys have one and a half millimeter
of key travel, which is higher than the 1.3 millimeter
in a Surface Pro, generally speaking,
one and a half millimeter is the sweet spot for typing.
One of my favorite keyboards, just a solid, solid
experience and definitely recommended.
Also has back-lighting on it, just one stage,
so it's on or off, it's not the best the world
but it gets the job done.
I really don't have any issue with it.
When it comes to the trackpad, HP is still using their
elongated design here, which I don't mind actually.
It's very smooth and it's glass and overall
it feels very well and has a decent click to it.
However, it is using Elan drivers, not my favorite
in the world as you probably know, I like Precision.
I don't know why HP just won't use Precision
in there consumer line, I keep bugging them about it
and I'm going to continue to.
It's a good trackpad, it can be better, that's all I know.
Let's talk a little bit more about the specifications.
So this is running an Intel core i7 7560u.
Now I haven't really seen that kind of processor before.
It is tuned slightly slower than a Surface Pro,
so that's because there's about three point eight
gigahertz at turbo versus four,
will you notice that in real life, probably not.
It's a very good processor but performance
is not quite as good as the Surface Pro at i7,
in fact it's only marginally better than the Surface Pro
at i5 so just keep that in mind for performance.
However, I will say HP has done something different,
which it has two fans on the inside for cooling it.
The idea there is two fans can run slower
and keep the device cooler versus one large fan,
which would be louder, so overall for quietness
it never really gets above 40 decibels.
It does come on a little bit often than I would like,
but it's a pretty quiet fan and it's
right up there with Surface Pro.
Alright, when it comes to the thermals,
HP is doing some interesting things here.
Let's say you happen to run the CPU for 100%
for 30 minutes straight and really you won't do
that very often, the back of this device gets really hot.
It hits 127 degrees Fahrenheit, or 53 degrees Celsius.
Now that's good and bad because it's running hotter
but can run at a higher clock speed for a longer duration
compared to say Surface Pro, at the same time,
it gets pretty hot, so if you really wanna push this thing,
use it for gaming or anything else,
this will actually run at a higher clock speed
for a longer duration, but for every day usage,
the Surface Pro is actually faster.
Now when it comes to storage, you have plenty
of options as well, you have 128, 256, 512,
or even one terabyte PCIe NVMe storage.
However this device here actually has 360 gigabytes,
which is again another option,
I actually really like that number,
it fits nicely between 256 and 512.
Now this SSD is Intel, which we haven't seen very often,
usually they are Toshiba or Samsung.
The read speeds are really nice on it,
you get about 1250 megabits per second,
and there write speeds are about 500
to 600 megabits per second, so not as good
for writing, but for consumers you really want
that fast read speeds and you get that here.
We don't talk about it very often but turning
to the back here you have a 13 megapixel rear camera,
and it's actually pretty solid,
it's about on average of a mediocre smart phone,
and while you won't use it very often,
it's definitely nice to have it.
I was pretty pleasantly surprised
with the quality of shots it took.
In the box HP throws in this really nice pen,
it's Intrigue with 1024 levels of pressure.
Now it's not nearly as good as the new Surface pen
with the Surface Pro but that's okay,
it's about on the same level as the Surface Pro 4's pen,
which I really don't have too many complaints about.
If you're going to be using this for note taking
or basic drawing, it's a really nice pen.
And now you're not going to get advanced tilt support,
or you're not gonna have that zero latency
that's with the new Surface Pro, but that's okay.
It's a very good pen, it's free in the box
and overall I really have no issues with it.
Alright, so far, so good with the HP Spectre x2,
now compared to Surface Pro, I have to admit,
the Surface Pro is actually better in almost
every single way, whether it's that pen,
the audio, or battery life, for instance,
the battery life on a Spectre x2, is about six,
six and a half hours, that's not terrible
but it's definitely below average for 2017.
Now the Spectre x2 does have USB Type-C charging,
so you can plug it in for about 30 minutes
and get about 50% battery back,
so that is pretty clever as well.
But the real strength here of the Spectre x-2 is simple,
it's value, for about 1200 dollars you can get
a core i7, 256 gigs of storage, and 16 gigs of RAM,
now that's about 1800 dollars for the same
configuration with Surface Pro.
Don't forget, Surface Pro you still have to buy
that keyboard and pen which knocks up that price
to 1800 dollars, for 1200 though,
you get everything in one package here.
600 dollars folks, is not insignificant.
That's a big deal for a lot of people.
Now it's not wasted with Surface Pro,
like I said that device is actually better in a lot of ways
and may justify that 600 dollars for some.
For others though, this is a perfectly fine device.
I have not fatal flaws with the HP Spectre x2
and for 1200 dollars I think it's a fantastic experience.
So that's my full review of the HP Spectre x2.
Now if you want more information about this device,
make sure you head to Windows Central to read
my full review, where I have all the benchmarks listed.
And if you like this review give us a thumbs up
and don't forget to subscribe.
Thanks for watching, take care everybody.
With 256 gigs of storage and 16 gigs of RAM,
that's compared to, spitting.
Should I do that over again?