HP Claims Innovation Over Apple With 'World's Thinnest Laptop'

[Sellewiet]

Marketing Team: "Can we call it 'Spectre' so grown men think they are James Bond"?

The HP brand name Spectre has been around a lot longer than the James Bond movie.

Marketing Team Apple: "Can we call our connectors Thunderbolt and Lightning, so men think they are Thor?" Can we call our hybrid SSD/HDD Fusion Drive, so they think they are scientists?"

If there is one company that uses a but load of gratuitious flash marketing words, it's Apple.

 

[NT1440]

This proves that it's possible to make a thin, powerful laptop with MORE THAN 1 PORT. I don't know what  was thinking with the 12''MB. It defeats the purpose of portability when you have to drag around a bag full of dongles to make it work with peripherals.

Apple was crystal clear in their introduction of the macbook. It's a device for the wireless world. If you need ports, don't buy it, but don't complain when you are the one interested in a product the explicitly is not designed for the world of peripherals on the go.

 

[fanboy7]

It's got a huge hinge, and fans! I'm confused it's innovation just cause it's thin? I'm all about thin but...

 

[applezulu]

you lot...

I saw a Spectre in real life - think it's pretty similar to this, just not as thin. I was playing with it for 10 minutes in the shop, it's gorgeous in real life.

Can't speak about this new model, but the HP Spectre I played with was stunning, the keyboard was cracking, lovely screen, touchpad was very MBP like...

And Windows 10 is awesome, no idea what you lot are complaining about!! It's given a new lease of life to my work PC (7 years old).

Meanwhile, my MacBook Pro from 2012 is slowing down to a crawl, ridden with bugs and I wish to hurl it through a window. So frustrating.

My 2010 MBP is still running along just fine. Maybe it's just you.

 

[weeniewawa?]

too bad no one will buy it

winders users all love the fact that they can get $600 lap tops and why pay + $1000 for an Apple product?

they would have to be hypocrites...

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Shock: Most of marketing is, marketing.

It appears, after looking at the pictures, that someone thought going for the 'copper/black' look wasn't a throwback to the 80's, and might convince people to but this thing...

It might work...

 

[ScottUniverse]

World's thinnest Hackintosh...

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Early indications are that the SSD and memory are soldered onto the mainboard, suggesting HP sacrificed repairability for thinness.

Boy, am I getting tired of this meme. Clearly, the editorial staff of MacRumors has zero engineering background.

HP didn't "sacrifice" anything. They reduced parts cost and enhanced reliability. Greater reliability = fewer repairs = longer life = lower warranty service costs. Got that?

Every connector/socket is a potential point of failure. The only question is whether the component fails more frequently than the socket. These are engineering decisions, not marketing department decisions.

Modularity is beneficial to manufacturers when it comes time to fine-tune inventory and reducing component costs through mass-production, but at some point, other factors win out over being over- and under-stocked on certain configurations, or having fewer part numbers in the warehouse.

Sure, fewer sockets means thinner, too, and thin is in. But the notion that a manufacturer would make a product thicker solely for the purpose of making room for sockets is ludicrous - the demand just isn't there. They would make it thicker if there was a significant demand for larger batteries. I'm quite confident that in a survey of average consumers (not here at MacRumors), longer battery life would trump "repairability" or "upgradability" by a very large margin. Yet people also want light weight, and I suspect "light" would trump battery life, so long as battery life was in the 8 hour range. You wouldn't find a whole lot of takers for a heavier laptop with a 12- or 14-hour battery.

One of the two key selling points for SSD/Flash is long-term reliability. Why socket/connectorize Flash as if it was a failure-prone component? It's not a spinning HDD. RAM is no more failure-prone than any other chip.

My repair experience goes back to vacuum tubes and discrete transistors. One of the biggest jokes was the socketing of low-power transistors, logic DIPs, and the like. Tubes burned out, so sockets were a necessity. Why treat highly reliable solid-state parts as if they were failure-prone? Socket failure and improper inserting of components into those sockets (bent leads) was by far the largest cause of failure. Back then, cigarette smoke residue was a common cause of connection-point failure. Soldering components directly to the circuit board eliminated that failure mode. Sure, there's potential for soldering failures, but does it matter whether it's the connector that's poorly soldered, or the transistor/chip? Hardly.

In the end, "repairability" is just a lame stand-in for "upgradability." As if upgradability was a standard expectation of consumer goods. "Oh, goody, I can buy a cheaper pickup truck today, and slap a bigger engine in it later, if my needs change!" Yes, computers have a hobbyist heritage. But it's been quite a long time since they graduated from the category of hobbyist/tinkerer's toys and became a ubiquitous part of every workplace and home. Get over it!

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

World's thinnest Hackintosh...

World's thinnest failure? Stay tuned...

 

[robogobo]

I'd have to say that Apple is in serious trouble internally if they don't have a MBA, MBP, or nMB that can compete with this (at least performance wise) to show off and ship by July. With HP (HP!!!) dropping something like this....

If they don't get skylake into the entire line by the holidays this year, Apple, as a leader, is dead.

doomed!

 

[RogueWarrior65]

Thin is vastly overrated. It's a recipe for bending the thing when you put it in a backpack.
That said, I've got an HP laptop on my desk (sadly) and it's a classic example of poorly-implemented me-too/one-up features. The touch screen is pretty useless because the hinge causes it to bounce when you press it. The trackpad is the worst. It's off-center making it hard to use for right-handed people (ironically). There's an option-click zone that you can't turn off which means you end up clicking that when you don't want to forcing me to use a mouse all the time. But the worst thing is that even though it's closed up which SHOULD mean putting the thing to sleep, the damn thing wakes up in the middle of the night and plays alert sounds. Really irritating.

 

[star-affinity]

And Windows 10 is awesome, no idea what you lot are complaining about!! It's given a new lease of life to my work PC (7 years old).

Meanwhile, my MacBook Pro from 2012 is slowing down to a crawl, ridden with bugs and I wish to hurl it through a window. So frustrating.

I like Windows 10 pretty much too, still has GUI schizofrenia though and I don't just mean that there's touch GUI elements here and there mixed with non-touch GUI, but that many (third party) apps still looks as if they were made for Windows 95.

My MacBook Pro from 2011 that I have at work is fast and stable for me running OS X El Cap. Have put a SSD in it though, and it helps a lot.

 

[uid15]

Anyone using "...compared to Apple" and using that in marketing, clearly see Apple's vastly superior products as a huge threat... else why compare?

Here's the things Apple has that make them rise far, far above this nonsense by default:

#1: Apple
#2: Did I mention Apple?
#3: OS X
#4: Force Touch/Taptic engine

... and they're not all, but I'm hungry so must get offline to eat.


Yet again these fools fail to take experience and emotion into consideration.

 

[drewyboy]

Meanwhile, my MacBook Pro from 2012 is slowing down to a crawl, ridden with bugs and I wish to hurl it through a window. So frustrating.

I have a mid 2012 13" baseline MBP. I have an SSD in that thing and I honestly wish it would die so I could justify a new one but it runs absolutely flawlessly. Do you still have a spinning disk? Have you done a fresh OS install since getting it?

 

[DragoniteD]

That hinge. |

i k r!!!!!!
rmb is so damn beautiful & sexy
while this guy is.... holy xxxx

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Boy, am I getting tired of this meme. Clearly, the editorial staff of MacRumors has zero engineering background.

HP didn't "sacrifice" anything. They reduced parts cost and enhanced reliability. Greater reliability = fewer repairs = longer life = lower warranty service costs. Got that?

Every connector/socket is a potential point of failure. The only question is whether the component fails more frequently than the socket. These are engineering decisions, not marketing department decisions.

Modularity is beneficial to manufacturers when it comes time to fine-tune inventory and reducing component costs through mass-production, but at some point, other factors win out over being over- and under-stocked on certain configurations, or having fewer part numbers in the warehouse.

Sure, fewer sockets means thinner, too, and thin is in. But the notion that a manufacturer would make a product thicker solely for the purpose of making room for sockets is ludicrous - the demand just isn't there. They would make it thicker if there was a significant demand for larger batteries. I'm quite confident that in a survey of average consumers (not here at MacRumors), longer battery life would trump "repairability" or "upgradability" by a very large margin. Yet people also want light weight, and I suspect "light" would trump battery life, so long as battery life was in the 8 hour range. You wouldn't find a whole lot of takers for a heavier laptop with a 12- or 14-hour battery.

One of the two key selling points for SSD/Flash is long-term reliability. Why socket/connectorize Flash as if it was a failure-prone component? It's not a spinning HDD. RAM is no more failure-prone than any other chip.

My repair experience goes back to vacuum tubes and discrete transistors. One of the biggest jokes was the socketing of low-power transistors, logic DIPs, and the like. Tubes burned out, so sockets were a necessity. Why treat highly reliable solid-state parts as if they were failure-prone? Socket failure and improper inserting of components into those sockets (bent leads) was by far the largest cause of failure. Back then, cigarette smoke residue was a common cause of connection-point failure. Soldering components directly to the circuit board eliminated that failure mode. Sure, there's potential for soldering failures, but does it matter whether it's the connector that's poorly soldered, or the transistor/chip? Hardly.

In the end, "repairability" is just a lame stand-in for "upgradability." As if upgradability was a standard expectation of consumer goods. "Oh, goody, I can buy a cheaper pickup truck today, and slap a bigger engine in it later, if my needs change!" Yes, computers have a hobbyist heritage. But it's been quite a long time since they graduated from the category of hobbyist/tinkerer's toys and became a ubiquitous part of every workplace and home. Get over it!

'Repairability' is swapping whole internals. Likely it's just slapping the old skins on a 'new' integrated motherboard with the old screen bolted on. And they call that progress.

I wonder how many have wished they had bought the larger memory version after they found out that they can't upgrade like they could with every other system they have ever owned.

It's like the whole industry has been taken over with 'tablet fever', and what you buy is what you get, forever.

Do they actually sell 'upgrades' that cost as much as the original purchase for those needing more storage?

 

[shuka.margolin]

But it doesn't run OSX

Amid rumors that Apple is working on ultra-thin 13 and 15-inch "MacBooks", HP yesterday announced the "world's thinnest laptop" in the form of the Core-i powered 13.3-inch Spectre, with a design that the company said offered proof that it is driving innovation faster than Apple.

Created with a focus on "luxury and artisanal craftsmanship", the HP Spectre is 10.4mm thick and weighs in at 2.45lbs, sporting a twin-tone aluminum and carbon fiber chassis with an edge-to-edge Corning Gorilla Glass IPS 1080p display. Apple's 12-inch Retina MacBook is 13.1mm thick and weighs 2.03lbs by comparison.

The copper and dark gray body has contrast bronze edging and a full-size, recessed backlit keyboard with 1.3 mm travel, and includes a pair of arcing piston hinges that fold flush for a "nearly hingeless look" when the laptop is closed. HP says the design is inspired by high-end furniture details.

The laptop is powered by an Intel Core i5 or i7 Skylake processor, rather than the significantly slower ultra low-voltage Core M CPU specifically designed for ultra-thin notebooks and found in the 12-inch MacBook.

HP claims this is made possible by the Spectre's integration of Intel's "breakthrough hyperbaric cooling system", which features two ultra-thin fans, a heat-pipe and a copper radiator, allowing the system to not only extract heat but also draw in cool air and direct it over the processor.

HP used two differently sized polymer batteries in the Spectre, making up four cells in total for a claimed battery life of up to 9.5 hours. HP also used a new variant of its logo on the rear of the display to set apart the laptop from its other ranges.

Other specifications include a glass trackpad, three USB-C ports (two of which support Thunderbolt 3), up to 512GB PCIe SSD storage, a maximum of 8GB RAM, dual speakers part-designed by Bang & Olufsen, and Intel HD Graphics 520. Early indications are that the SSD and memory are soldered onto the mainboard, suggesting HP sacrificed repairability for thinness.

HP says the Spectre will be be available for pre-order on April 25 and begin shipping sometime in May. Prices will start at $1,170. In addition, a Bluetooth mouse, carry bag and leather sleeve that match the design of the Spectre notebook will be sold as accessories.

Speaking ahead of the Spectre's unveiling at the New York Times' International Luxury Conference in Paris, the company's PC chief Ron Coughlin said that the laptop is an example of HP's determination to lead the way in the PC industry. "For years, Apple has been seen as the innovator and the driver of innovation [but now] HP is really taking over that mantle," Coughlin said.

HP has had to defend its laptops in the past over perceived design similarities with Apple's notebooks, but the company is clearly attempting to push its latest "luxury" model as a trendsetter in the premium PC laptop market. At the CES in January, HP unveiled its more business-focused Elitebook Folio, measuring less than half an inch in thickness.

A recent DigiTimes report claimed that Apple's upcoming "ultra-thin" MacBooks will "share a design similar to the existing 12-inch MacBook" and be "thinner than [the] existing MacBook Air," but failed to specify which MacBook lineup the new design is destined for.

New Macs could feasibly be introduced by WWDC 2016, which will likely take place between June 13-17 based on scheduling information available from the Moscone Center.

Apple's refreshed Mac lineup is expected to feature Intel's faster Skylake processors and Thunderbolt 3 with USB-C, while the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are also deserving candidates for an overall redesign.

Article Link: HP Claims Innovation Over Apple With 'World's Thinnest Laptop'

 

[DragoniteD]

This is actually a very good looking laptop. Too bad it runs windows

I would assume you were saying "good" looking LOL.
It makes SB's hinge not that bad LOL

 

[brewmonkey]

This is actually a very good looking laptop. Too bad it runs windows

And has that awful PC-obsessed 16:9 display.

 

[DragoniteD]

Anyone agree that with these level of thickness, the weight actually matters more?

 

[baryon]

I'm glad that there's finally a computer company other than Apple who actually comes up with something new and interesting. The MacBook looks good and is thin, but it lacks ports and has very poor performance just because it had to run without fans - I would argue that the sacrifice wasn't worth it. HP's computer proves that it's possible to make an even thinner computer that includes fans and thus good performance, without sacrificing battery power or ports. It has 3 USB C ports, so you get to actually use 2 USBs while charging - on the MacBook that number is zero. No Apple notebook even has 3 USB ports.

Apple can no longer claim that there's simply not enough space in a MacBook to have more than 1 port, or that you can't put fans in there to at least make the computer run like a normal computer in 2016.

Let tablets be the cheap, limited consumer devices, and let computers remain useful, reliable and fast, no matter how thin - otherwise you just get the worst of both worlds.

 

[Fancuku]

Has anyone noticed it say it can come with EITHER 'Windows or OSX' in the small print??

View attachment 625591

No, it simply means that they are comparing it to other machines, be it Windows machines or OS X machines. It says nothing about coming with Windows or OS X.

 

[DragoniteD]

Why so many haters?
At least HP came up with a new design instead of what so many others do nowadays. Just try to re-create the Apple aluminium look with glossy black screen frame and black keyboards. As if a laptop irequired look that way.

Yep Nice try HP, just prove that non-apple design looks like xxxx

 

[MH01]

You obviously haven't tried running virtual machines on it. It's utter tosh.

Probably not a 1st world problem for 99.9999% of users out there. The general consensus is that windows 10 is good.

 

[H2SO4]

Hingeless? I still see hinge. In fact, it's one of the worst laptop hinges I've ever seen.

Can’t you read?
……….that fold flush for a "nearly hingeless look”.
Bit of deduction for you. If they’ve included the words 'that fold flush’, in the sentence, it means when the laptop is closed.