I owned the HP Spectre x360 with the i7-7500U which was a dual core machine. I use my laptops for work, often with several large excel files, word files and other work products open at once. At times, you could definitely see slow downs as the dual cores tried to keep up, even with 16GB of RAM and a fast SSD drive. One of the most obvious slow downs was in web browsers.
I knew that Whiskey Lake CPUs were coming, so I waited for a new HP model. Man, I was not disappointed.
First of all, the machine is beautiful. In a room full of Apple lovers, I pulled out my Poseidon blue and brass accented laptop, and the room was filled with gasps. I plugged in the adapter for HDMI on the gem cut edge and more gasps... Other features everyone is blown away by; hardware kill switch for the cam, the built in privacy screen and the fact that it is a convertible unit with a touch screen.
Overall, this is a solid machine. I leave the thermal setting to "balanced" and the fan rarely comes on when I am working. The quad core handles all applications like a champ and all components work fine - I use a logitech bluetooth mouse and headset and everything is smooth and functional.
The 1920x1080 screen is "ok" - if you are into high res (4K) or viewing a lot of art/pics, etc., you probably want to go for the 4K version (but I think the privacy screen is only on the 1080p unit).
I don't use the pen, but it works. I have the Samsung Note 9 and I don't use the pen on that either.
Battery life is not 22 hours, but for standard use you can expect a full work day. Charging is pretty fast, and the charger is very small compared to the older chargers.
HP machines have a lot of drain in sleep mode, and this machine has the same issue - so if you want the battery to last while you are traveling, you will be using hibernate mode.
Other negatives include mediocre speakers (even though they are Bang & Olufsen) and a small fingerprint reader which is nowhere as good as my phone.
The keyboard is very good with good travel and it is not "clicky" so I can type in meetings without everyone being distracted. The backlight is good but it turns off after 15 or so seconds until you touch it again, and there is not setting to change this. One the silver unit, in bright room light, the backlight is not needed, but because this keyboard is black, it is always needed.
Regarding ports, I wish I had another USB 3, but the two Thunderbolt ports are great - it is very likely you will need a USB / other device hub...I bought the J5create with the HDMI and ethernet and really like it. I am not sure if I will ever use the microSD card port - unfortunately my phone's card is not very easy to pull out, so I will transfer stuff via cable for the most part.
The synaptics mouse pad works fine and is nice and big.
The improved wifi I am excited about, but I have not seen much in the real world in terms of benefit. The antennas seem to be sensitive, and on 5GHz I see full speed at home based on my service (200MB dpwn and 40 up).
Wait for the laptop to be on sale - $1300 is the correct ASP. I am very happy with my purchase!