I picked up this model the other day and thought I'd share my initial thoughts.
Design & Ergonomics 9/10
Slim, sharp, sleek. Looks and feels very premium. You basically get a 15” laptop in a 13" body. I’ve always thought HP makes some of the best-looking Windows devices, and the Spectre x360 is one of their most attractive designs yet. I don’t know how much I’ll use tablet mode, or the touchscreen, or the included pen, but I won’t complain about having these extra features either.
The trackpad works well and has excellent palm rejection (I primarily use a Bluetooth mouse, though). The keyboard has plenty of key travel and feels great to type on. I’m happy to have a number pad back again.
The speakers aren’t bad, but they’re nothing to brag about either.
You get a nice variety of ports, but only one for each. As a photographer, I wish there was a standard SD card slot instead of Micro SD. I might use the MicroSD slot for additional storage, and I’m going to go ahead and pick up a USB-C hub for more ports and a full SD slot.
The fingerprint sensor is a little finicky. I find a quick light tap seems to work well, and I added the same finger a few times for improved accuracy. There’s also a physical camera on/off switch for privacy. Nice touch! Now if only Microsoft would care a little more about user privacy, too.
Display 10/10
I do a lot of high-resolution visual work (so I’m picky) and to my eyes this 4K display is close to perfect. The color accuracy is as good as my 5K iMac & iPad Pro, and it doesn’t strain my eyes like my iMac does over long periods of time.
Scaling works well and text is sharp and easy to read even when it's tiny and my head about is about 3 feet away while sitting at my desk.
It’s not the brightest screen, but more than bright enough for me. I’m keeping it between 60-100% brightness.
Overall, I’m very impressed and surprised by how much I love this display.
Performance 8/10 (so far)
The low power Whiskey Lake CPU & MX150 GPU give this laptop a healthy balance of performance and battery life.
Battery life is very good and charge times are quick.
As for software performance, this morning I was able to process several large 42MP RAW files with Adobe Bridge, Camera RAW, Photoshop CC, and run Skylum Luminar as a Photoshop plugin without any issues. A few things weren’t quite as snappy as I’ve gotten used to on my iMac, but again, we’re balancing performance and low power consumption here. I worked for around 2 hours in these programs and only used 35% of my battery. That’s impressive.
And if you need a performance boost down the road and feel comfortable with opening the laptop, upgrade options are possible with this model. The RAM can be upgraded from 16 to 32GB (I’m doing it), the SSD is replaceable, and an external desktop GPU can be added via thunderbolt 3 for improved graphics performance.
OS Bloat
I almost forgot how much crap you need to disable and uninstall in Windows. This takes time and tinkering, and Microsoft continues to make disabling certain services and features increasingly more difficult. But a search engine and some helpful people on the internet usually make modifications quick and straightforward and get Windows back to running lean and mean the way I like it.
Conclusion:
I've been using MacOS and iOS exclusively for the past few years, and so far the Spectre x360 has offered a pleasant welcome back to Windows.
A comparable MacBook Pro configuration would have been at least $1000 to 1500+ more, especially after I upgrade the RAM to 32GB. That’s ridiculous.
I’ll continue to enjoy the Apple devices I currently own, but it feels good to loosen my dependency on their ecosystem and diversify my setup with this beautiful laptop.
Design & Ergonomics 9/10
Slim, sharp, sleek. Looks and feels very premium. You basically get a 15” laptop in a 13" body. I’ve always thought HP makes some of the best-looking Windows devices, and the Spectre x360 is one of their most attractive designs yet. I don’t know how much I’ll use tablet mode, or the touchscreen, or the included pen, but I won’t complain about having these extra features either.
The trackpad works well and has excellent palm rejection (I primarily use a Bluetooth mouse, though). The keyboard has plenty of key travel and feels great to type on. I’m happy to have a number pad back again.
The speakers aren’t bad, but they’re nothing to brag about either.
You get a nice variety of ports, but only one for each. As a photographer, I wish there was a standard SD card slot instead of Micro SD. I might use the MicroSD slot for additional storage, and I’m going to go ahead and pick up a USB-C hub for more ports and a full SD slot.
The fingerprint sensor is a little finicky. I find a quick light tap seems to work well, and I added the same finger a few times for improved accuracy. There’s also a physical camera on/off switch for privacy. Nice touch! Now if only Microsoft would care a little more about user privacy, too.
Display 10/10
I do a lot of high-resolution visual work (so I’m picky) and to my eyes this 4K display is close to perfect. The color accuracy is as good as my 5K iMac & iPad Pro, and it doesn’t strain my eyes like my iMac does over long periods of time.
Scaling works well and text is sharp and easy to read even when it's tiny and my head about is about 3 feet away while sitting at my desk.
It’s not the brightest screen, but more than bright enough for me. I’m keeping it between 60-100% brightness.
Overall, I’m very impressed and surprised by how much I love this display.
Performance 8/10 (so far)
The low power Whiskey Lake CPU & MX150 GPU give this laptop a healthy balance of performance and battery life.
Battery life is very good and charge times are quick.
As for software performance, this morning I was able to process several large 42MP RAW files with Adobe Bridge, Camera RAW, Photoshop CC, and run Skylum Luminar as a Photoshop plugin without any issues. A few things weren’t quite as snappy as I’ve gotten used to on my iMac, but again, we’re balancing performance and low power consumption here. I worked for around 2 hours in these programs and only used 35% of my battery. That’s impressive.
And if you need a performance boost down the road and feel comfortable with opening the laptop, upgrade options are possible with this model. The RAM can be upgraded from 16 to 32GB (I’m doing it), the SSD is replaceable, and an external desktop GPU can be added via thunderbolt 3 for improved graphics performance.
OS Bloat
I almost forgot how much crap you need to disable and uninstall in Windows. This takes time and tinkering, and Microsoft continues to make disabling certain services and features increasingly more difficult. But a search engine and some helpful people on the internet usually make modifications quick and straightforward and get Windows back to running lean and mean the way I like it.
Conclusion:
I've been using MacOS and iOS exclusively for the past few years, and so far the Spectre x360 has offered a pleasant welcome back to Windows.
A comparable MacBook Pro configuration would have been at least $1000 to 1500+ more, especially after I upgrade the RAM to 32GB. That’s ridiculous.
I’ll continue to enjoy the Apple devices I currently own, but it feels good to loosen my dependency on their ecosystem and diversify my setup with this beautiful laptop.
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