Customer Ratings & Reviews

======= Summary ======= The HP Spectre x360 - with its fantastic design, build quality, ergonomics, bright display, performance, and long battery life - is an All-Around Winner~! This is the BEST laptop I’ve ever used. HP FTW~!! _______ Pro's: 1. Bright, crisp, & responsive 1080P touch-screen (1-Watt, 400-nits). 2. Relatively light (~2.9 lbs) and thin (~14mm) for a 360-degrees convertible laptop. 3. Tent and Tablet modes are useful and nice to have. 4. Pen support. 5. Excellent keyboard and touchpad. 6. Great design & excellent build materials and quality. 7. Good selection of ports - both USB Type C & USB Type A. No need for dongles~! 8. Excellent performance from the Intel Core i7, SSD drive, and 8GB of RAM. 9. SSD is upgradeable (NVME M.2). 10. Fantastic battery life. 11. Great cooling design = quiet operation. ________ Neutral: 1. Fingerprint magnet on this dark surface material. ________ Cons: 1. No Microsoft Precision Touchpad driver. But there is a workaround... ==== Design & Build Quality ==== The HP Spectre x360’s new Gem-Cut design language is sleek, modern-looking, unique, and very pleasing to my eyes. It reeks premiumness and feels great in the hands as well. It feels dense, high-quality, and solid as a tank. Love it~!! HP did an ingenious job by placing the power button on the top-left corner of the laptop base and the charging port on the top-right corner. Not only is this an excellent use of space, it is also very practical by avoiding clutter with other accessories and preventing accidental power-on and power-off. Brilliant~! Other thoughtful & smart design decisions include the user-facing speakers located right above the keyboard area as well as the fingerprint scanner located right below the arrow keys. As a result of its placement, any music and videos you watch and hear will sound louder, more detailed, and fuller. The fingerprint scanner worked very well and I was easily & quickly able to log-in to my Windows account. The touchscreen worked accurately and in a very responsive fashion allowing the switch to Tent or Tablet Mode to be seamless and frustration-free. The only thing I can complain about, and it is a small First-World complaint, is its tendency to easily show fingerprint smudges and marks. With that said, I have owned several darker laptops before in the past and I’m used to cleaning it up frequently. 10 out of 10~! ==== Display ==== The special Intel-developed 1-Watt 1080P display, which can still get as bright as 400 nits, is crisp, has great color accuracy and contrast, and is a pleasure to stare at. For peace of mind, it is good to know that HP is using the protective and durable Corning Gorilla Glass on it. Touch functionality worked flawlessly as did writing with the HP pen. 10 out of 10. ==== Speakers ==== The sound on this thin & light ultrabook from its quad-speaker configuration is great. Bass, of course, is weak but that is normal for a thin ultrabook. The intelligent placement of the speakers above the keyboard area results in sound that is direct-facing, loud, crisp, and more fuller-sounding compared to laptops that have their speakers underneath. 10 out of 10~! ==== Network & Connectivity Options ==== The excellent Intel Wireless-AC 9560 802.11AC Gigabit Wifi is inside the Spectre x360 and it performed very well in my home network. Also included in the Intel package is Bluetooth 5.0 which is forward-looking and up-to-date. I experienced no connectivity or connection speed issues. Everything was peachy. 10 out of 10~! ==== Ports ==== I absolutely LOVE not having to use a dongle on the x360 to plug in my USB flash drives~! My older HP Spectre 13 laptop from 2017 had no USB Type A ports and it has been a frustrating and annoying affair on a consistent basis. That’s why I chose the x360 this time around for its better port selection. With one USB Type A port, two USB Type C Thunderbolt ports (40Gbps), a headphone jack, and a microSD card reader, I’m set and satisfied. 10 out of 10~! ==== Performance ==== With an 8th-Gen Intel Core i7 Whiskey Lake quad-core CPU, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and a Western Digital SN720 NVME SSD, the x360 performed fantastically at everything I demanded of it - Chrome browsing with >25 tabs, photo & video editing with Cyberlink PowerDirector, and general multi-tasking. On Geekbench 4.3.3, the x360 scored 4775 Single-core and 12,789 Multi-core. On CrystalDiskMark 6.0.2, I got 3023.4 MB/s Sequential Read and 1615.8 MB/s Sequential Write. I only wish the storage size was bigger, like 512GB. I’m planning on upgrading to the new Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB NVME SSD in the near future. 10 out of 10. ==== Keyboard & TouchPad ==== Typing on the keyboard is a delightful and supremely pleasant experience. HP, very wisely, is NOT following the design decisions of Apple Macbooks & certain Dell XPS line of laptops and is instead using a very comfortable, responsive, and tactile keyboard mechanism with great key travel. As a result, the keys have good spring, great damping, and are very quiet in operation. I absolutely adore this keyboard. The same cannot be said, however, of the touchpad. HP, for some reason unknown to me, is STILL not using the excellent Microsoft Precision Touchpad drivers. Instead, HP is using Synaptics drivers which is vastly inferior in functionality and custom gesture support. So I did what I did with my older 2017 HP Spectre 13 laptop. After uninstalling the Synaptic touchpad driver from Device Manager, I manually installed the Microsoft Precision Touchpad driver from the Lenovo website. The specific driver version I used was 19.3.4.111 and it is for the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen6 laptop model. If you Google it, you should still be able to find that older driver. To prevent Windows Update from automatically updating the Lenovo Precision driver to the newest non-Precision HP Synaptics driver, I used the Microsoft “wushowhide.diagcab” utility to hide the Synaptics driver update. With the Precision Driver installed, I was back to creating my own custom three- and four-finger gestures and getting tremendous pleasure using the touchpad. HP seriously needs to terminate whatever agreement they have with Synaptics and start installing Microsoft Precision drivers in their Spectre laptop lines ASAP. 9 out of 10. ==== Battery Life ==== This is the best battery life I’ve ever experienced from any laptop I’ve owned & used throughout the years. I didn’t achieve the crazy 22-hour battery life that HP is marketing but got about 8 hours out of it with brightness set to 100%. Fantastic...Simply fantastic. 10 out of 10. ==== Software ==== The Spectre x360 came loaded with Windows 10 1803 which I promptly upgraded to 1809. There was the usual assortment of bloatware from both Microsoft and its third-party partners. I counted 10 third-party apps, 17 HP apps, and some Microsoft apps such as Xbox and Skype. Removing them, as is usual for Windows 10, is easy to do from Settings. I found some of HP’s apps to be genuinely useful such as the HP Support Assistant (firmware & driver updates), HP Audio Control (speaker sound effects & equalizer), and HP Command Center (setting laptop thermal profiles). 10 out of 10. ==== Upgradeability ==== The Spectre x360, being a thin & light ultrabook, doesn’t offer meaningful upgrade options except for the NVME SSD drive. So one needs to be thoughtful about their current and future computing needs and select the components wisely. With my particular model, I feel confidently fine with the Core i7 CPU with 8GB of RAM. I just need bigger storage down the line (at least 1TB SSD). 9 out of 10. ==== My Verdict ==== The HP Spectre x360 with its Gem-Cut design is an excellent laptop that gets almost everything right. Fantastic build materials and quality, great-looking design, slim & lightweight form-factor, superb keyboard, excellent touchscreen display with pen support, flexible viewing options (e.g., Tent Mode), and all-day battery life. The only subpar area is the lack of the Microsoft Precision Touchpad driver which, fortunately, can be “fixed” by installing the Lenovo Precision Touchpad driver. All in all, HP has crafted a fantastic and unique laptop that I thoroughly enjoy using. It is a very delightful machine.

This laptop is absolutely great! My boyfriend had picked it out for me based off a few requirements and price range and I couldn’t be happier. Only reason I gave 4 stars is because these last 2 days the Mac A bug program that comes with the laptop to prevent bugs and viruses actually caused my laptop to freeze twice but after a few minutes it started to work again. However the screen display is gorgeous and I’ve gotten many compliments of people saying the computer reminds them of a little diamond. Plus the computer actually came with a case for it and the pen which was super nice. Overall this laptop is wayyyy better than any of the apple computers which have outdated technology! Oh and one more thing the laptop has a night light setting on it which is a blue light filter so it won’t hinder you going to sleep at night witch is a nice touch to the finger print scanner and the pen.

Pros Light and powerful Thin Convertible to tablet, easel, or tent Bright screen Very good off angle viewing Feels more sturdy than previous generations Speakers are loud Fan rarely runs and is quiet Can last through a workday on battery for most Fast processor and hard drive Keyboard feels good and is responsive Trackpad is smooth most of the time Has both USB-A and USB-C/Thunderbolt Includes Windows Hello using cameras and fingerprint reader Windows Hello camera is near instant Uses USB-C charger Has hardware switch to disable camera Attractive design and finish Three levels of keyboard backlight Fast Wi-Fi Sturdy chassis with little flex Includes active stylus Includes laptop sleeve Cons Can run through battery quicker than expected in heavy use Mouse sometimes acts as if click lock is on when it is disabled Finish seems as if it will wear quickly Finish is a fingerprint magnet Gestures randomly stop working requiring restart Hinge moves too easily allowing screen to change angle Top and bottom screen bezels are massive Tablet mode is awkward with keyboard on the back Webcam is blurry except in bright rooms close up Speakers distort at high volume Windows Hello Camera sometimes fails requiring restart Myriad of HP programs are complicated and feels like bloatware Not long ago saying you had a Windows laptop was synonymous for a poor quality, poor battery life, heavy laptop. Thankfully for fans of Windows the competition keeps getting better. The HP Spectre X360 is the latest generation of HP’s high-end convertible laptops Ultrabooks. Previous generations received good reviews but were marred by flimsy chassis and dim screen. Design The 2018 version of the Spectre X360 feels very sturdy with little flex. The screen takes a good amount of force to distort. The decorative grill at the base of the screen feels very sturdy and doesn’t flex like as it would in previous generations. The edge is chamfered on the top and bottom with a cooper finish that HP likens to a gem. It gives more a sense of thinness and does have an attractive look. Long term durability from drops might be a concern with the force concentrated to a smaller edge but of course dropping a laptop often ends in damage. The back corners of the base have a 45-degree angle allowing access to the power button on one side, regardless of mode, and a USB-C charging port which is also accessible regardless of mode. The finish is called dark ash which is a fancy word for dark brown. The copper and dark brown colors compliment each other well although it lends itself to showing every fingerprint. A fingerprint scanner is at the bottom right of the keyboard and a Windows Hello camera is above the screen. For those concerned with privacy there is a hardware switch on the right edge of the base to disable the webcam Ports The left side has a single USB-A port. On the right is angled USB-C/Thunderport port intended for charging, an additional USB-C/Thunderbolt port, headphone jack, and microSD slot. Angling the charging USB port is a nice touch for those who are right handed using a mouse as it helps keep down the clutter. However; with every other port on the right side it might get a big cluttered if you are using a mouse on the right side too. Display The display is a 13” full HD display which one source reports as 650nits. Without a way to measure it is hard to say but the display can get very bright. There should be no problems seeing the screen even in brightly lit rooms and possible some outdoor use. Glare is present as the screen isn’t anti-glare but overall it is manageable and allows more contrast. Off angle viewing is very good with minimal color shift for the class but glare does become much more evident. The FHD display is good for a more affordable price, battery life, and laptop use. If you have good eyes and are using it in tablet mode close up the pixels are detectable and text is less sharp but overall clarity is still acceptable. If there was any criticism of the display it would be the hinge and the huge bezels. It is very easy to open but the loose hinge can mean that the screen can change angle during use due to movements. It’s a tradeoff as you wouldn’t want to make it hard to open but you may find yourself periodically readjusting it. As for the bezels, it’s hard to say HP’s motivation on this but the bottom bezel is a massive 1” and the top is a solid 3/4”. It’s not a deal breaker but just feels excessive in 2018. Performance This laptop is surprisingly fast between the Core i7 and the, assumed, NVME SSD. CrystalDiskMark clocked in read speeds over 3000MBps and write speeds nearing 1600MBps. At no point did the laptop ever feel sluggish. In fact, it is very surprising how quickly it responds to most requests. Even during heavy usage, the fan rarely kicks on and is nearly silent. Heat is manageable, and the fan settings can be adjusted further if needed in the HP Command Center. Opening Word seems nearly instantaneous and using the integrated Windows Hello Webcam logs in so fast it might make you question if your computer was locked. The integrated fingerprint scanner is slower but that seems more to do with the sensor than the speed of the system. Battery life In the default settings in HP Command Center the system tries to dynamically figure out what performance works best for your needs. On this setting, it leans heavily towards performance, leading to about 7-8 hours of usage. If you change the settings to more battery efficient the system still feels very snappy during standard office use with the processor throttled down and fan usage is avoided at all costs. In this setting, the battery lasted much longer. On this mode it consumed approximately 1% every 10 minutes which could potentially mean battery life in the 15-16 hour range. Battery tests are highly subjective overall but unless you are a heavy power user this system should last you through a workday without a problem. Even if you do need a charge, the USB-C based charge means you can use a phone charger to top off. This is probably part of the reason the included carrying sleeve has no place for a charger. Keyboard and Trackpad For the size of the laptop, the keyboard is quite spacious and doesn’t feel like a sacrifice. Key travel is very good and ends with a soft, distinct thump at the bottom. No hint of lag could be detected as even fast typing faithfully caught each keystroke. The movement feels more like a scissor key than a chicklet style. The keyboard is backlit with options for off, low, and high brightness. Key contrast is good with the white letters on the dark background and the backlight distinctly shines through the letters to light them up instead of just around the keys like some. The trackpad is a little less refined. It is very large as most newer laptops favor this design and is usually good. The movement is less natural than some other high end Windows laptops and periodically decides to act as if click lock is turned on causing you to drag items across the screen unintentionally. It seems HP has the sensitivity too high where it detects your finger above the trackpad when not actually on it. Hopefully HP will refine the sensitivity soon as the use is otherwise very good. This seems more of a need for a drive update as the system also stopped responding to gestures requiring a restart to fix. Thankfully restarts only take a few seconds so it is only a minor hassle. Webcam The webcam is thankfully at the top of the screen so no Skype sessions filming your nose. It works extremely fast for logging in with Windows Hello but, unsurprisingly isn’t intended for taking photos. Skype video is a bit dark and blurry unless you are in a very bright room close to the screen. It’s perfectly acceptable for its intended use. On one occasion Windows Hello stopped working until a quick restart so it seems some more driver refinement is still needed. Speakers The speakers are surprisingly loud. You can easily play music or dialog and hear it across the room. In fact, music at full volume close is uncomfortably loud. The speaker range is lacking in bass as are most thin devices in the category. At full volume the speakers begin to distort with highs becoming uncomfortable harsh. Fortunately, in most cases turning it up to max volume is unnecessary. At lower volumes the range is very respectable for such a device. Software HP has never known for being lean on the software front adding lots of bloat to their system. In this case the only third part application, outside the ones that come on every Windows 10 system, is McAfee trial. The rest of the included software are HP utilities. The number of utilities seems excessive and complicated but, in most cases, you will rarely need to access them. That said, some refinement and simplification of the myriad of included HP utilities could really improve the overall experience. Final thoughts Although tablet usage is a bit awkward with a keyboard on the back, thickness for a tablet, and large bezels the overall package still feels very high quality. There are certainly design compromises, but it seems HP understands most people use it as a laptop first and the least number of compromises are in that mode. Disregarding the convertible capabilities this is one compelling laptop. The extra modes are just a bonus. Some 13” laptops feel small in use, but HP has done a nice job making a small laptop feel large in use. If you are in the market for a Windows Ultrabook, the Spectre X360 2018 edition should be on your short list.

Just bought this laptop for the remainder of my education. It's beautiful, practical, fast, and comes with every single feature I was looking for. Some of these features included the fingerprint recognition, the 4k touchscreen, a 2 in 1 design, backlit keyboard, headphone jack... My only complaint is that I attempted to play a video game on it but the laptop overheated and shut down twice until it was able to cool itself down enough. Kind of disappointing with an i7 processor! However, I didn't purchase a gaming laptop for games, I purchased this laptop to power through a science major and into law school. In that case, I'm grateful I traded my old one in for this one as it fulfills all my required needs, being so convenient and it looks sharp too.

The Spectre x360 is almost as premium as it looks. It’s got a fantastic look and build, specs that are just right, and it runs for hours. The amount of bloat that comes preinstalled is a little appalling, but otherwise this is an excellent laptop. I think the design of this laptop is going to be a bit polarizing. I’m personally a big fan of the dark gray color with the copper accents. The angles on the sides are a bit odd, but I do like them. It feels like the designers tried really hard to give the Spectre a ‘premium’ look and people who prefer a more understated look may find it a bit gawdy, but I think it looks great. The one thing I didn’t like so much was size of the bezels around the screen; it feels like there’s a lot of extra space that’s could be used by a screen with a slightly taller aspect ratio – maybe 16:10 instead of 16:9. The build feels very solid; nothing creaks or flexes, the hinges are solid, and I don’t feel any gaps running my fingers around it. The specs feel just right to me. With a quad-core i7-8565U, 8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, and 802.11ac with Bluetooth 5. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like any of the internals are upgradeable, so that’s something to consider before going with this configuration. The screen is 1080p and it looks good; I do wish it was a little bit higher, but it’s plenty sharp on the 13” screen. There’s a good mix of ports too with 2 USB-C and 1 USB-A port (no dongle required!). I’ve been happy with the performance so far. My previous laptop had a dual-core Y-series i7 and I definitely notice the difference with the quad-core U-series. Everything loads quickly and transitions and animations are smooth throughout. Battery life is also excellent; HP quotes 22.5 hours of ‘mixed usage’ and I’m getting more like 14-16 hours, but it’s the best I’ve ever experienced and I can confidently say that I could take this out for the day without my charger. The backlit keyboard is good; the keys have decent travel and good spacing between them. The trackpad is also good; it’s pretty big and it supports all of the Windows 10 gestures, but it feels like there’s the slightest input delay that I can’t help but notice and haven’t been able to correct in the settings. There’s also a stylus included. I don’t see myself using the stylus that much, but it does work well, probably about as well as the Surface Pen. The webcam on top of the screen is good, but not great. The image is pretty soft in all but best lighting. It does support Windows Hello for login though, which is super-fast. HP also added a hardware switch for the camera on the side, so those concerned about privacy won’t have to tape over it. If you’re not using Windows Hello to login there’s also a fingerprint scanner next to the keyboard that works well too. I wasn’t very happy with the amount of bloat that came preloaded on the Spectre. At least a third of the tiles pinned to the start menu was just a bunch of extra crap – games, Dropbox, McAfee, some frivolous HP apps. Some of it might actually be useful to some, but most of it just feels insulting; something in this class of PC shouldn’t have all this advertising clogging up the UI. It’s easy enough to remove, but it shouldn’t have been there in the first place. The tablet mode works well enough, but Windows 10 and what I use it for just doesn’t work as well with just a touch screen. The Spectre x360 is technically a 2-in-1, but if I’ve got the option I’ll usually use the keyboard and trackpad before the touchscreen. That’s either a testament to how great the mouse and keyboard experience is or how unrefined the touch experience is (or a little bit of both). Overall I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a great all-around Windows laptop, especially if you can appreciate the design and battery life. My only real issue with it is the bloatware, but fortunately that’s an issue that can be fixed.

Design (Faceted design, color): The new “faceted” design of the Spectre x360 this year is incredibly striking. I also really like the positions of the power button and the USB-C port on the “cut” corners. It makes the power button easy to find by touch and plugging the laptop in is a little less obtrusive. The whole design and feel of the laptop feels very high-end. The “Dark Ash Silver” itself is understated, but the copper accent on the facets is attention-getting. I like it, but I believe the “Poseidon Blue” looks a little more understated if that’s more your style. Keyboard/Touchpad: The keyboard is a joy to type on. The keys are responsive and the entire keyboard feels very sturdy. The key travel distance is just right (at least for my typing style) while still keeping the laptop acceptably thin and light. (I’m looking at you, Apple!) I’m writing this review on it and it makes me annoyed to have to go back to the keyboard on the MacBook Pro I use for work. The touchpad is practically perfect. It’s a nice size and the surface is pleasantly matte. My only complaint might be that the pressure necessary to register a physical click is a bit on the high side, but I usually tap rather than click so it’s not a dealbreaker. Display (1920x1080 - low power panel) The new low power - 1W 1920x1080 panel in this year’s model contributes to the “all-day and then some” battery life claims. It is wonderfully bright and clear. I was worried that I would miss the extra pixels compared to the MacBook Pro but I think 1920x1080 is the sweet spot between overly pixelated and a lot of extra work for the graphics card for no real benefit. I’m also very glad to have a touchscreen at my fingertips, so to speak. Audio I was blown away (almost literally) when the x360 booted up for the first time. The speakers are loud and clear. I don’t normally ask my laptop to make a lot of noise but a few tests with music and movies left me impressed. Ports (USB-C location) Two Thunderbolt 3.0 ports (USB-C 3.1) and a USB-A 3.1 are good if you like to have peripheral options without a dongle. A headphone jack and a Micro-SD card slot round out a pretty standard set of interfaces CPU/Performance (“Whiskey Lake”) The 8th Generation i7-8565U and on-chip Intel UHD Graphics 620 is more than powerful enough for everything I’ve thrown at it so far including 3D rendering (Daz3D), photo editing (Photoshop/Lightroom CC), very light gaming (Minecraft) and the standard web browsing, document editing and video watching. 8GB of RAM is fairly standard for a modern laptop and does the job. If you like to have a lot of programs running at once or like to dabble in running virtual machines on your laptop it might be worth seeking out one of the 16GB models but 8GB is roomy enough for most. Fingerprint reader Putting the fingerprint reader back on the top of the deck by the keyboard is a welcome change from the previous model’s use of a side-mounted fingerprint reader. I’ve been using it for a couple days now and it hasn’t let me down yet. Pen The pen (included non-tilt version) is where I encountered my first issue with the x360. It has a nice feel and initially worked very well on the screen for note taking, photo editing and sketching. Unfortunately it has stopped working after about a day’s use. I’m suspicious that the included AAAA battery has died, though I can’t be sure whether the battery or the pen is the problem. I will find out more when I can finally track down a new AAAA battery to attempt. Webcam kill switch This is a great feature for those of us who don’t really use a webcam for much and are fond of taping over the webcam for security reasons. The switch turns the webcam off, supposedly at the BIOS level, and removes some of the worry of having your webcam secretly activated (or joining a web conference from home office and having video of you in your bathrobe accidentally popping up for your coworkers). Battery life I’m not sure I believe the 22 hour battery life claims HP is making for this laptop for real world use, but I have yet to be able to kill the battery after a couple days of testing. Today I’m four hours off the charger with light web surfing and the battery is at 80%. Software As someone who bounces back and forth between Windows, MacOS and Linux as an occupational hazard, I’m not generally a big fan of Windows bloatware and the extra effort one has to put in to make things run smoothly on Windows. However, HP does a passable job of keeping the bloatware to a minimum and I think this is about as quickly as I’ve gone from pulling a Windows laptop out of the box and getting it set up the way I want it.

The latest model of the Spectre x360 feels very polished overall. I was very impressed during my review with very few bad things to say. Lets explore. Unboxing: This is a treat. The outer box is simple brown packaging but the actual Spectre packaging is inside. That box is two tone and high quality. Upon opening everything feels very premium and well thought out. You will find documents, the laptop, a carrying case, the stylus (with battery) and the 65 watt adapter. The adapter is great as much of the cable is wrapped in fabric and feels durable. It charges via USB-C. Set up: Pretty standard Windows 10 setup here. The only changes worth noting are you will set up Windows Hello via facial recognition or via fingerprint initially. You can use both with further configuration after the initial setup. Use: Typing this review on the laptop, I am overall happy. The keys feels just right to type on but are a little offset to the left since the home, pg up, pg down and end keys are on the far right side. It takes some getting used to but is not a huge deal. The track-pad is wonderful. It feels high quality and is very precise. The touch screen is bright and responsive to touch. The screen is easy to move in different positions which is a pro or a con depending on how you look at it since it opens easily but will push back easily if you try to touch it in laptop mode. Design: It looks amazing. The ash silver model looks more brown and gold to me than ash silver. The gem cut is actually very practical and not just a pretty design. The power button is on the left corner which keeps you from accidentally pressing it. The right corner has a second USB C connector which keeps the charger out of the way. The screen is bezeless on the sides but has a large chin and forehead. My main problem with use is when it is in tablet mode. It is kind of hard to use as a tablet since the new gem cut design creates lots of rough edges. This makes it somewhat uncomfortable to hold in your hands as a tablet. Therefore, it is somewhat difficult to take notes on. The fingerprint reader is a nice touch but it sometimes takes a few tries. I seem to have better luck unlocking with the face recognition. Weight is not too heavy and can be help for long periods. Display: The color reproduction feels good enough and I tried to edit some photos on it with no issue. The blacks are a little bright which affects the overall contrast. It is a 1080p display but this is more than adequate for a 13 inch laptop. I couldn’t find what % of sRGB it supports but colors seem vibrant enough for me. The display is bright and crisp. Battery: HP claims there should be close to 22 hours of batter life. I don’t see that at all. I am getting more like eight hours or so (not timed, estimate) but that is way more than enough for me. It will easily last all day Performance: I was a little concerned with having 8gb of RAM vs 16 gb but in practical use, this is one zippy laptop! The 8th gen Core i7 is plenty fast for most of my needs including photo editing. It only has a Intel 620 GPU so simple gaming is ok but I wouldn’t push it too hard. The SSD is extremely fast and I attached a screenshot of Crystaldiskmark and Geekbench to show performance. For the average user, this computer is more than fast enough, for a power user it should meet most of your needs. Audio: The speakers are great on this baby. This is the first convertible laptop I have had where you get great sound in both laptop mode and in tablet mode. The speakers fire on both sides of the keyboard section so no matter the orientation it will sound great. As for headphones, the output is clean and static free but it only supports 24bit 48000hz. For most people this is no issue but for some who listen to high res audio it might be a bit lacking. Connectivity: You will find a good number of ports here. There is a USB A 3.1 port of the left side, the right side has two thunderbolt USB C ports. Either can be used for charging. There is also a micro SD card slot. I tossed a 256 gb card in there for music storage and it works great. It is a cheap and easy way to effectively double your hard drive space. There is a 3.5mm headphone jack and a switch to turn off the web cam as well. Bluetooth 5 is present and works well as well as a Intel 9560 WiFi chip which works great via AC networks. In summary, this laptop is a head turner. It looks amazing, especially if you like gold. The laptop meets 90% of my needs and I am very happy with it. My only changes I would fix if able are better keyboard placement, higher res audio output, and a little more curve on the edges for tablet mode. These are minor gripes and this is a solid laptop.

HP has really made a name for itself in the last few years for being a top of the line product when it comes to Windows Laptops. This HP Spectre x360 is no exception and really packs a punch! PROS: - The design is beautiful! I really wasn't sure of the angular edges but it really grew on me. It has virtually no bezel on the sides of the screen and overall is really compact and thin. It feels really easy to carry around too. - The ports are minimal but great. In an increasingly USB-C world I like how they still included one USB 3.0 port as well as a headphone jack. Just provides for better backwards compatibility while everything catches up. - Set-Up was a breeze, it doesn't have too much bloatware but any that does come with it you can easily uninstall. - The HD screen looks incredible and really pops while watching videos, the added Dolby Atmos support on videos (including Netflix) is a nice addition as well. Also when comparing 13" to 15" I think the 13" is very ideal for on the go and portability. - Typing on it is very smooth. The key's provide enough feedback to feel firm but are still low profile and comfortable. The Camera privacy switch is another well made addition. Also it has a fingerprint sensor for signing in and other features and it works quickly and effectively. - Finally, the pen provides great additional functionality in tablet mode. And if you aren't a big note taker, it can still come in hand for doing some designs or using as a stylus so you don't smudge the screen. CONS: - I can see the hinge of the laptop screen becoming a problem over time. It is very functional in laptop, tent, or tablet mode but I worry that over use could cause it to be flimsy as sometimes I notice the screen can womble when I carry or move it around in laptop mode. I know this is a difficult compromise to make for 2-in-1's as you don't want the hinge to be too tight or too loose. It's just something to consider with longevity but I could be wrong. - This is not a 4K screen model and that's okay, but I think at least HDR should be standard on new laptops as they are on most cell phones and tablets. - I wish the laptop had an easier way to carry the pen with it. Either magnets or some sort of storage or attachable component. It's just not as easily accessible as it should be. - There are no USB-C adapters that come in the box. It's just another purchase you will have to make if you want more ports or HDMI and ethernet access. BOTTOM LINE: HP's Latest Spectre x360 is another great achievement. It's fast, thin, and can do pretty much anything you need from a laptop. Immediately when you use this, it will be your go to do it all sidekick.

This is the best looking laptop I've ever used. The box itself just looks sharp and expensive. The laptop itself is sleek and impressively small. At 2.6 lbs it's the lightest laptop I've ever used (though I'm sure there are lighter out there) even if it's not the smallest. The laptop boots very fast, thanks to the 500gb SSD drive. For a laptop this feels like ample storage (depending on your usage, of course) and is fairly standard. It can always be upgraded to a larger SSD, at somewhat of a hassle, or you can simply use micro-SD cards! This is a great option and one I'm not used to seeing on laptops. The computer and screen are gorgeous. The display looks great at normal HD settings. After looking over forums I've not tried to figure out how to get it to 4k as it appears there are some driver issues right now. This is a super-fast, super-responsive computer. Programs open right away, and I've experienced no "hangs" yet, even with multiple programs running. Out of curiousity I ran it through "Novabench" to see how it compares benchmark wise to other laptops. The majority of the computer is in the top 80-90% (memory, speed, cpu, etc). The only thing that really brought the score down was the lack of video card. The onboard processor is very limited--you'll probably want to look elsewhere for gaming. I've seen other reviewers mention external video card set-ups. This computer has the profile to work great with an external set-up if that's your preference. The inputs are terrific and more than what I'm used to from a light, modern laptop--there is not an ethernet port or HDMI, but that's standard for lightweight laptops anymore. It does include a USB-3 connector, which is hardly standard anymore and very nice to see. So many things still use USB that this is still a very necessary connection so it's nice not to have to use an adapter. It also includes two USB-C connectors (one is used to charge the battery when needed). My only gripe so far about this computer is the awkward placement of the charging connection--it's kind of at an angle between the back and side. I'm used to being able to charge from either the right or the left directly on the side. It causes the cord to stick out at a slightly strange angle. Not a big deal, but just a little odd. The laptop ran warm at first, but this seemed to mostly be due to initial set-up and updating. After the first few light sessions I updated the BIOS as well as some HP and Windows updates and haven't noticed it get any warmer than any other laptop I've used. The fan also kicks on fairly often depending on usage, but it's negligible sound (and again, much softer than older laptops I've used). I also liked that it has 5ghz connection capability. This is what I usually connect to, since that's frequently the less-used wifi connection anywhere I am. My internet speeds are great as long as there's even a semi-decent connection around. The pen that comes with it is easy and fun to use. I use Windows ink and have really enjoyed it. The screen in tablet mode is very responsive, and the resolution makes detailed artwork possible (not that I've done any to speak of yet--I've just mostly experimented with detailed doodles to test what kind of art can be done). I'm going to invest in a better art program and see how that goes, but with the screen resolution and processor speed I expect it will run as well as anything else. There is no real "bloatware" installed, so that's another plus. I replaced the McAfee right away with Bitdefender and Malwarebytes (both of which I already had subscriptions for), but McAfee is a decent program so feel free to use it if you need anti-virus software (and honestly Windows does a pretty good job of that itself these days--couple it with another free program here and there and you shouldn't need much of anything). If you're looking to replace a high-end work laptop (or drawing tablet) you can't go wrong with this one--just don't expect to do much gaming without further investments.

My daughter loves this laptop she is a biochem major and has zero problem with it! The Geek Squad guy recommended it! Thank!

At first glance, the laptop design catches my eye immediately with the black and rose gold design by Bang and Olufsen. It has a sleek design and even comes with a leather like pouch to put it in. It also comes with a pen and the USB-C charging cable. The product looks very lightweight but it feels a little heavy, mainly the bottom keyboard portion. When you open it there is a protective sheet, duster for the keyboard. The on button was a little hard to find and it is located on the left top side of the laptop. I love that it is not in the keyboard area but I think that the spot that was chosen is a good choice. To unlock the laptop, there is a facial recognition or a fingerprint option. There is a tiny square for the fingerprint on the bottom right side of the mousepad. There is also a keyboard password setting if you choose not to use the fingerprint or if it does not work (not your fingerprint.) The keyboard has a high, medium and off lighting setting for typing in the dark. The computer screen in my opinion is a great size, 13 inches. It is great for carrying on the go, small enough to fit in a tote or backpack but big enough to watch a movie. I feel like the keyboard letters are proportioned properly for someone with big hands. If you have used Windows 10 before then set up will be easy. This laptop is also a tablet and it also comes with a pen. The pen comes with an quadruple “A” battery to get you started. You turn on the top button and it immediately connects to the computer by pressing on it with the pen. When flipping the tablet it goes back easily with no force. The charging cord is very sturdy, as it is braided. The laptop so far has great battery life, and runs smoothly.

Background I had a Macbook for 10 years (MBP 5,1) but it was time to replace it. I didn’t want to spend 2000USD for a Mac again. So tried my luck on the Premium Windows machines. First I bought the Dell XPS13, but that one had only 120’ degrees of opening angle. Being tall this was inconvenient. And it had a very annoying ticking sound in the speaker that Dell support wasn’t able to resolve. Besides, I missed the USB A port and I don’t like carrying dongles, so i sold it and had to find a new one. Pros: - Light, with nice metal body - Excellent crisp screen, rotating 360’ degrees makes it very versatile to use - amazed by quality of speakers given size of laptop - Keyboard is very comfortable, nice travel - Performance of i7 is great, fast bootup - Comes with sleeve and pen - Still has 1 USB A port unlike Macbooks and Dell XPS - Hardware camera switch - Battery life is great - 2 nicely located Thunderbolt ports - Good Wifi reception Cons: - Lot of bloatware, laptop has 256GB, usable approx 237GB (normal like any laptop) but I had only approx. 165GB after installation of office etc. So, I wiped the whole thing clean. Reinstalled Windows and apps, now 202GB free. :-) - Personally miss the page up/down keys directly next to the arrow keys - Under heavy load the fan kicks in, others find it annoying but it is OK for me. - Memory is soldered on the mainboard, cannot be upgraded - No windows Precision mouse drivers, but they can be installed via Lenovo ;-) Other comments: - Didn’t get used to the pen yet - Don’t expect the Windows touch interface works as smooth as an iPad. Sometimes it is clunky, but maybe Microsoft will improve it in future updates. I paid 949USD for it, which i find excellent price/value for a machine like this. Overall very happy with the Spectre.

This laptop's strongest selling point is by far the bang for your buck that it offers. No other product line has everything that this laptop offers at this price point. Elsewhere, you either get less features for the same price or the same features at a higher price. Such value proposition has a price though: This product line has a poor reliability record. Personally, my laptop is well built and has been pretty reliable so far. However, I have read a lot of horror stories about HP Spectre X360's having reliability problems right of the box. My recommendation here is to test EVERYTHING immediately after purchasing this laptop. This laptop is a GREAT purchase IF you get a well built, reliable one. When you unbox this laptop you get a decent outer box with a plastic briefcase handle. And a fancy inner box (which I suggest you keep). Inside you will find the laptop, a 65W USB-C charger, a basic stylus with an AAAA battery included and a leather sleeve. Style wise this laptop is very, very stylish and luxurious looking. HP describes it as a "gem cut dark ash silver with copper luxe". The gem cut part is easy to ascertain from looking at online photos. As for the color: Dark Ash Silver is a dark brown/gray with an anodized, sandblasted finish. Copper Luxe is chromed bronze with a brushed finish. Function wise, my review is as follows: In terms of 2 in 1 ultrabook functionality this laptop is very portable, the hinges strike a good balance between resistance offered and flexibility and the touchscreen is very sensitive and precise both with your fingers and with the included stylus. On the battery front with the default power plan it last roughly 10 hours of everyday use and takes roughly 2 hours to fully recharge. However, if you play games with this laptop battery duration plummets to around 3-4 hours. On the security front both the IR camera and the fingerprint sensor are easy to setup and use. The IR camera is faster than the fingerprint sensor. The webcam's resolution is best in class but has a noticeably grainy image. You do get a physical switch that turns it off COMPLETELY. That's great for privacy. The screen has amazing image despite being a FHD panel. It seems to be Windows HD Color compatible when on charger power only. The speakers have amazing sound. The 4 speaker arrangement does a good job at ensuring you always fully hear everything. No matter how you place the laptop. The keyboard feels great and has two backlit levels. Be warned that it isn't compatible with Alt codes right out of the box. The glassy touchpad also feels great. However the included drivers don't seem to fully make use of its multi-touch gesture capabilities. Both the Intel Core i-7 8565U processor and the Intel AC-9560 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth module are very powerful and future-proof. Nevertheless, due to the Intel UHD-620 GPU it can only do light gaming. It does light gaming quite well though. Windows 10 is surprisingly resource hungry when its comes to the included 256GB SSD and 8GB of DDR4 RAM. Fortunately, both are very, very fast during everyday use. On the available ports front it has few ports but the ones it has are quite potent: 2 Thunderbolt 3, 1 USB-A Gen 2, 1 microSD card reader and 1 headphone/microphone combo. Finally, regarding bloatware this laptop is neither bloatware free nor it is riddled with bloatware.

Pros: - Really good design, the gem cut looks nice but isn't over the top - The battery life easily lasts all day - The keyboard feels good (better than the XPS 13 in my opinion) - Windows hello facial recognition and fingerprint scanner (the facial recognition takes about 2 seconds to sign in, the fingerprint scanner is a bit slower) - build quality is decent, could be better - Speakers are louder than many other laptops - The stylus and a leather sleeve is included - A decent selection of ports for a laptop (2x thunderbolt 3, 1x USB A, 1x SD card) - performance is good with the 8th gen whiskey lake i7 - only weighs 2.9 pounds Cons - the trackpad comes with Synaptics drivers, but you can easily install windows precision drivers for more accurate tracking, - the black finish gets fingerprints a lot, and it's very noticeable when you get it dirty - The display could be brighter - The top and bottom bezels are big for an ultrabook in 2019 - Fans can get loud - It's a bit too heavy to use regularly as a tablet Overall I highly recommend this laptop, and the cons aren't very prominent when using it daily. The spectre offers a lot of features at a reasonable price point (at least when its on sale), and it has one of the best designs on an ultrabook today. All aspects of the laptop are very good for its price (display, keyboard, ports, weight, design, build quality, battery, keyboard, performance).

I'm not a stranger to owning expensive high end laptops, but never had one focused for business and light entertainment. All my previous serious laptops have all be gaming ones so my opinions will be based on someone who's used to having power hog types of machines. The screen is, although "just" 1080", it's a high quality screen with excellent viewing angles. The colors seem pretty accurate, but I haven't taken time to measure it; most people won't care anyways. The brightness can go up to painfully bright but the lowest setting should have been set just a little lower. It's just a hair too bright in dark rooms. Intel's brand new i7-8565u powers this unit and even though it's a low power chip it powerful enough to do desktop work. Coupled with 8GB RAM and an M.2 256GB SSD make this one heck of speed demon. Transferring a file over wifi AC1300 I was able to sustain ~80MB/s transfer while within 10' line-of-site to the router. I've attached a few benchmark results - PC Mar and CrystalDisk Mark. PC Mark and Crystal shows the power the Spectre x360 brings to the table. The weakness is, of course, gaming. But this isn't what the Spectre was made for. Still it's nice knowing you can game a little with it on your down time. 3dmark score was 417 in Time Spy, 364 graphic, 2585 CPU. VR Mark (the 620 is min spec for Windows VR) was 681 with 14.85 fps on Orange Room test. The Spectre x360 comes with a sleeve and a Pen. I haven't tested my drawing programs with the pen yet but the little I have done is probably the biggest disappointment of the Spectre. As good as the laptop is, the pen is just poor. If you have a heavy hand then you won't many problems with it, but you will have some missing strokes. Drawing fine lines is a big hit or miss. The included pen is no where near suitable for drawing. Doing the "scribble from corner to corner" test there were at least 3 breaks even when pressing with a heavier than normal amount of pressure. Good thing I purchased a third party Windows Ink pen ahead of time. Using the third party pen was night and day. Thin strokes were perfect and the scribble test passed with various pressures. In my opinion, toss the pen and buy another from a company that specializes in making drawing tablets. So far battery life has been hours more than I'd ever expect from a laptop - remember I'm a gamer, my laptops die after 3hrs. Surfed the web for 30 min and I'm still seeing 100%, an hour later and I'm still over 90%. What kind of magic did they put in there? I put the battery profile one setting over battery saver for on battery use, but use full power when plugged in (all tests were full power). It's kinda weird having a laptop that I can draw on that can outlast my tablet I used for drawing AND more powerful. Being 13.3 inches and made of aluminum makes for pretty easy 1 handed used for me. I fold in in half an slip on finger between the halves to clamp on and add stability. I've used this grip with all my tablets and haven't dropped one yet. I have to get used to windows tablet mode. Although I'm used to this kind of interface with tablets it's just weird using window like that. I'm just used to seeing all those floating windows. Sure I could turn off tablet mode, but it's actually kinda neat. I need to spend a bit more time in it to see if I'll actually start liking or hating it. So, I'm in love. The HP Spectre x360 is the Windows tablet I've been waiting for going on 5yrs. Sure it's a bit on the expensive side, but thunderbolt, newest i7 mobile processor, speedy m2 ssd, and excellent wifi chip... maaaan you'd be crazy to look anywhere else. I'll have to test gaming a bit when I go to my Dad's house during some down time. I'm sure I can play some early 2k games easily - even Crysis!

Few days after using the laptop the display started popping off from the back. I can't believe that a premium laptop like this would have such quality defect. Indeed it seems like the display is "glued" to the back. I just missed the replacement/return date. Will have to send it out for repairs. My heart bleeds

I already had a 15" version of this laptop that I love but had been wanting something a little smaller and lighter to use when I was in bed or sitting in front of the TV. Got this one on sale and it has been great. The only complaint that I have is that it doesn't run as cool as the 15" version when sitting in my lap. I can have the 15" laptop in my lap for hours and never feel any heat coming off of it unless it is plugged in. This one has a hotspot like most laptops. The finish is beautiful on this laptop, the screen has great resolution and it is super fast. Love how light it is. I will probably upgrade the hard drive down the road a bit when the price of the PCIe drives come down and I figure out how to clone one. You can't add a SATA SSD because there isn't a spot for it. For now I just added a 128GB micro SD card in the slot in case I need extra storage. If that works well I may just get a bigger SD card and skip replacing the hard drive.

We purchased this computer on 7/1/2019 for our college bound daughter. She loves this laptop. The only aspect of this laptop that is not above average is the webcam. It's not bad, it's just average. The touch screen feature is one of the things she likes most about this computer (convenience}. She likes the layout of the laptop, and it has more than enough power to perform every task that has been required of it, and does it quickly. Battery life is 9+ hours, and it recharges VERY rapidly. She enjoys the feel and sensitivity of the keyboard and says it is a pleasure to type on. And, of course, most importantly, it's pretty. While that attribute is strictly aesthetic in nature and does not affect the functionality of the laptop, I do agree that it is a beautifully designed computer.

The Spectre is the best laptop I’ve owned to date. The battery life and portability of it make it easy to slip in a bag or a briefcase just in case I may need it. The look of it is both fun and professional and I have received compliments on it when I pull it out in a business meeting. The included styles makes it easy to get signatures when needed or to quickly mark up a document. I’m able to run all the applications I need at once without seeing any change in performance and the Thunderbolt 3 ports make it easy to dock at a desk for a multi monitor setup.

I am extremely happy with my purchase. I love the small design of my new HP Spectre labtop. It is high quality and I found the best price at Best Buy. I spoke with several associates as I purchased after about 30 days of doing my research. The staff was super friendly and knowledgeable. The color of the Spectre is a dark rose gold and I just love it. It is lightweight and very portable. The keyboard is lit and is very comfortable to use.