Things are getting heavy in the land of ultraportables. Not a week goes by without a new ultra-light, super-slim notebook crossing the PC & Tech Authority testbench, and HP has weighed in with two lightweights. The second of these is the Spectre, a 13.3-inch convertible that is as light as it is flexible. Can it live up to the increasing competition of this sector though, where competition is incredibly fierce?
According to the official press release, HP has made some rather impressive improvements compared to the previous version of the Spectre. It’s 13% thinner at a mere 13.8mm, while it’s shed around 150 grams, bringing it to a total weight of 1.295kg, for the entry level model at least. This doesn’t make it the thinnest or lightest on the market, but it’s not far off. The convertible screen rotates through 360 degrees thanks to two hinges, and they’re nice and sturdy, minimising bounce if you choose to make use of the touchscreen capabilities. Speaking of which, the IPS screen is a beauty – our review model came with the wonderfully crisp 4K model. It may seem like overkill on a 13 incher, but it is a delight to behold. Unfortunately the price we were supplied was for the 1080p version – bump it up to 4K and you can add another $600 or so to the price quoted above.
Perhaps the biggest improvement though is a claimed 25% increase in battery life. HP says this should deliver up 15 hours of use thanks to a 57.8W battery combined with the latest Intel 7th Gen Core. Our review unit hit a very healthy 264 minutes in the very demanding PCMark 8 Home Battery test; it would have done even better if it was the 1080p version, as the 4K screen is known to be a bit of a power-pig. Helping optimise battery life even further, our sample came with the Core i7 7500U CPU, which ramps up to 3.5GHz under maximum load but generally likes to hang out around 2.7GHz for regular duties. It’s only a twin core model, but the inclusion of Hyperthreading helps out when it comes to multitasking.
One improvement that is easy to note is the new ‘micro-edge display bezel’, which has reduced the bezel by an impressive 10mm on each side, giving it that the infinite edge look and feel that is now the norm. Unfortunately due to its rather thin nature, the range of I/O ports isn’t overwhelming. On the left is a single USB 3.1 Type A alongside a 3.5mm stereo minijack, while the right has twin USB 3.1 Type C ports. The great news is they’re both Thunderbolt compatible. HP has also generously included three different peripherals that change the functionality of these ports; a single RJ45 Ethernet Adaptor, a HDMI adaptor and a VGA adaptor. There’s even a stylus included, though we couldn’t see any mention of it being pressure sensitive, and a quick test in Paint suggests it’s not, though it is very crisp and accurate. We were also blown away by the audio quality for such a lightweight – the quad speakers pump out clear, loud sound, though it obviously lacks bass.
Digging under the hood reveals a fairly well-rounded machine. As well as the aforementioned CPU, there’s 8GB of memory, which just scrapes in by our books; sadly it’s not upgradable. Our system came with a 512GB Samsung PCIe SSD, which can be upgraded all the way up to a Terabyte, and we’re confident this is why performance was so snappy, giving this machine an excellent score in PCMark 8 Home’s Accelerated test. This was quite the surprise, as the Yoga 910 had double the system memory and a bigger SSD, so by all rights should have placed first. It didn’t though, if only by the smallest margin, so we have to give the Spectre the chequered flag when it comes to performance.
It’s getting tougher and tougher to pick the best Ultrabook around, but the Spectre’s excellent performance combined with solid specs makes it one of the top contenders on the market. If only it had a larger SSD and more memory, it could have been the pick of the bunch.
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source https://news.gigarefurb.co.uk/review-review-hp-spectre-x360-13-w031tu-ultraportable-laptop/
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