New hp specter x360. Appearance, materials, controls, assembly

* Select models only.** On 33.8 cm (13.3 in) model only.1. The pen may be sold separately.
2. Weight and system dimensions may vary due to configuration and manufacturing variances.
3. Multi-Core technology is designed to improve the performance of certain software products. Not all users and programs can take advantage of this technology. Performance and clock speed will vary depending on workload and hardware and software configuration. Intel product numbering is not a measure of performance level.
4. Based on HP internal testing using CrystalDiskMark benchmark software. Improved sequential (read-only) performance over traditional 5400 rpm hard drives.
5. NVIDIA® graphics are available on select 15 "Specter x360 models only.
6. Battery life will vary depending on many factors such as product model, configuration, loaded applications, features, usage, wireless support, and power management settings. The maximum battery life decreases with use. See https://bapco.com/products/mobilemark-2014/ for more information.
7. Tested by HP to continuously play 720p (1280 x 720) HD video, 150 nits brightness, 50% audio volume, 100% player audio, local storage, headphones connected, wireless disabled communication, when the automatic dimming function is disabled. Actual battery life varies by configuration. The maximum battery life decreases with use.
8. Transfer rates may vary. All performance specifications represent the typical specifications provided by HP's component manufacturers; actual figures may differ from those shown.
9. USB Type-C ™ and USB-C ™ are trademarks of USB Implementers Forum.
10. 4K content required to view 4K images.
11. 4K resolution is available as an option on select models only.
12. Available on 13 "models only.
13. Four speakers are available on 15.6-inch models only.
14. Use of the privacy screen may require third-party software or applications.
15. Features described may require third party software or applications.
16. Charge the battery to 90% in 90 minutes with the system off (using the "Shut down" command). We recommend that you use the HP adapter that came with your laptop and do not use a smaller charger. When the battery is charged to 90%, charging speed will return to normal. Charging times may vary +/- 10% due to existing system tolerances. Available on select HP Specter, HP Envy and HP Omen and HP Pavilion PCs. For a complete list of product features and specifications, visit http://store.hp.com.
17. Charge the battery to 50% in 30 minutes with the system off (using the "Shut down" command). We recommend that you use the HP adapter that came with your laptop and do not use a smaller charger. When the battery is charged to 50%, charging speed will return to normal. Charging times may vary +/- 10% due to existing system tolerances. Available on select HP Specter 2-in-1 and HP x2 PC models. For a complete list of product features and specifications, visit http://store.hp.com.

The following applies to HP systems with Intel Skylake processors or next-generation silicon-based systems that are downgraded from Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 Pro to a previous version of Windows 7 Professional, Windows 8 Professional, or Windows 8.1: these versions of Windows installed on the processors and chipsets on this system have limited support from Microsoft. For additional support information, see the Microsoft Product Support Lifecycle FAQ at https://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle. Microsoft and Windows are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and / or other countries. Intel and Core are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.
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We rarely test laptops, the reason for this is quite simple - there are so many offers on the market that even if all authors write five reviews of laptops a month, we still won't be able to cover the whole variety of models, especially if we talk about the segment under 20,000 rubles. But we can quite tell about fashion ultrabooks, of which there are not so many, and, in my opinion, they are the most interesting from the point of view of acquaintance with them.

Specifications

Class: ultrabook
Form Factor: Convertible Laptop
Body materials: aluminum
Operating system: Windows 10
Platform: Intel Core i5-5200U / Core i7-5500U
Processor: dual-core 2.2 / 2.4 GHz
Video card: Intel HD Graphics 5500
RAM: 4/8 GB
Storage memory: SSD 256/512 GB
Wireless interfaces: Wi-Fi (a / b / g / n / ac), dual-band, Miracast support, Bluetooth 4.0 (A2DP, EDR)
Screen: 13.3 '', capacitive, IPS-matrix, 1920x1080 / 2560x1440 pixels (FHD / Quad HD), automatic backlight adjustment, oleophobic coating
Front camera: 1.3 MP
Battery capacity: 56 W * h
Dimensions: 325 x 218 x 16 mm
Weight: 1.51 kg
Price: 78,000-117,000 rubles

Equipment

Notebook
Charger
Power Supply
Neoprene pouch

The silver laptop comes with a black charger and a power supply of the same color. To be honest, it is not clear to me what the problem is to build the power supply into the charger, as it is done in the same MacBook Pro. Also in the box you will find a simple neoprene pocket-case, it looks frankly cheap and, as you might have noticed, gets dirty quickly.

Appearance, materials, controls, assembly

I liked the laptop at first sight, even when I just took it out of the box. Still, the aluminum case provides a significant design advantage, which is why manufacturers often use this move.

As I said, most of the case is made of aluminum, it is not the same as in the MacBook, less smooth and slightly rough to the touch. If you look at the Specter from the back, then its construction resembles a "sandwich", the two halves seem to be not connected by anything, at first glance, but this is not so. Hinges are used as mounts, they also guarantee the device a 360-degree screen rotation.

The manufacturer did not skimp on various ports, I will list them in a list (from left to right):

Right end:

3.5mm headphone jack
Two USB ports
HDMI 2.0
MiniDP 1.2
Volume rocker and Windows button

Left end:

Charger connector
Ventilation grill
USB port
Power button with inscribed indicator light
SD card slot

Below is another grill for air exhaust and two stereo speakers. The latter have excellent volume headroom and good sound quality.

Dimensions (edit)

In terms of size, the HP Specter x360 is a typical 13.3-inch notebook and does not differ much from most of them in size. Of course, the Acer Aspire S7 is a little thinner and lighter, but in reality you won't really notice this difference.

Transformer modes

The laptop supports four traditional transformer modes, thanks to two hinges, you can rotate the screen 360 degrees.

In "tablet" mode with an inverted keyboard, its buttons are automatically disabled, so you can safely press them while holding the device in your hands.

Screen

To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised by the screen in all respects: the brightness and clarity of the picture, the presence of an oleophobic coating, excellent behavior in the sun and in artificial light, and competent scaling (although here, apparently, the merit of the updated Windows 10).

I had an older model with QuadHD resolution on my test, and, again, I am just delighted with this screen, its quality is on par with the MacBook Pro 13 Retina.

The laptop has a wonderful oleophobic coating, which makes it a pleasure to use the touch screen.

Operating system

The laptop runs full-fledged Windows 10, while everything is very good here with scaling. The same Skype looks quite tolerable to itself, the same applies to other applications. We are planning a separate review of the top ten, so we will not discuss it in today's article.

Performance and heating

As you can see, the difference in the two versions of the laptop concerns not only the display, but also the amount of RAM / internal memory, as well as the chipset used. I had an older version on the test, which just perfectly performed any daily activities from working in Word to editing photos in Photoshop. Of course, this model is definitely not worth considering as a game solution.

During use, I drew attention to the operation of coolers. You can just type in Word or surf with Chrome, and then the fans suddenly wake up and start buzzing with all their might. At the same time, no productive tasks are performed at this time. Perhaps this is the only drawback that I could find fault with.

Autonomous work

The battery capacity is 56 W * h, the manufacturer promises you up to 12.5 hours of battery life, in fact, these figures are far from reality. At maximum brightness and using simple text editors with a browser, the laptop lasted about five hours. HD video mode drained it in seven hours. If you leave your laptop in sleep mode overnight, then after 15 minutes it goes into hibernation mode, so in the morning you will find it with the same charge as you left it. Turning on in this case takes about three to four seconds.

Keyboard and touchpad

You know, I am rarely happy with keyboards in laptops, but the HP Specter in this regard pleasantly surprised me. First, the location of the buttons - nothing is cut off anywhere, even for the ill-fated letters "Y", "E" and "Y" did not reduce the space, and this is very cool. Typing on this keyboard is a pleasure. The keys have a short stroke, but you quickly get used to it, but the arrows would like to be full-fledged.

The laptop has a backlight for the keys, it is not adjustable in brightness, when it is turned off, one button continues to glow, and this, frankly, is annoying.

In the laptop world, it is customary to extol the size of the touchpad in various MacBooks, but HP has managed to surpass even Apple. The touchpad in this laptop isn't just big, it's huge. At first, such a solution seems clumsy, then you get used to the appearance and begin to enjoy the advantages of such dimensions.

Wireless interfaces

There are no complaints about wireless interfaces, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth work fine, there were no problems with them.

Conclusion

On sale you can find two versions of the HP Specter X360: "simpler" and "more expensive". The first uses FHD resolution, Intel Core i5, 4 GB of RAM and 256 internal memory, the second - QuadHD, Core i7, 8 and 512 GB, respectively. The first costs 78,000 rubles, the second - 117,000 rubles.

In my opinion, the overpayment for the older version is inappropriate, you will not notice a big difference between FHD and QuadHD on a similar diagonal, and the performance of the Core i7 in such a solution is excessive. The younger model looks like a good business laptop for people who need a fast and thin computer with an excellent screen, average runtime and the ability to use it as a transformer (for example, during flights). The key drawback of the model is the noisy operation of the fans, which turn on too often.

My main laptop is a MacBook Pro 13 Retina, and every time I test its competitors on Windows, I am not happy with one or the other. It was all the more surprising for me to note that I can perfectly work on the Specter x360: I liked the keyboard, the look of the laptop, the screen, the oleophobic coating and the transformer modes, even Windows 10 improved a little in terms of scaling. The only thing the Specter is inferior to the same MacBook in is the noise of the coolers, and even this shortcoming did not seem critical to me.

Is this an expensive model? It would be appropriate to joke here: “Not at all, in the segment up to $ 1000”. But seriously, all competitors cost +/- the same money, take the same Aspire S7 or MacBook Pro 13 Retina.

Recently, the form factor of laptops that can turn into a tablet and vice versa is starting to be in great demand. The HP Specter X360 belongs to this category of devices and is updated every year by the manufacturer so that you can get top-end specifications, high-quality display and a number of new technologies. The HP Specter X360 13-inch Convertible Laptop is powered by a powerful Intel i7 ULV-series processor and a powerful 56Wh battery. Let's take a full review of the HP Specter X360 and see how successful the laptop is.

Specifications:

Type: laptop-transformer
Body: plastic, aluminum
Screen: IPS-matrix, 13.3 ", 1920x1080, glossy, touch, capacitive
Processor: Intel Core i7-7500U, 1.7-3.5 GHz
Video card: Intel HD 520
RAM: 8 GB, DDR3-1600
Storage: SSD 512 GB, M.2
Interfaces: USB 3.0, 2x USB 3.1 (Type C), combined with Thunderbolt, audio 3.5 mm
Wireless interfaces: Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2
Multimedia: microphone, Bang & Olufsen speakers, HD webcam
Operating system: Windows 10
Battery: 56 Wh, built-in
Dimensions: 325x218x16 mm
Weight: 1.45kg

Equipment

The delivery set turned out as follows:

Charger and power supply to it;
Cover made of neoprene.

The HP Specter X360 2018 laptop with a silver case comes with a black power supply and charger, which is not entirely clear. It would be more correct and aesthetically pleasing if they were painted in the same color. The complete case is fast

Design laptop transformer HP Specter X360

The design turned out to be very successful and, most importantly, it stands out among the mass of similar solutions of competitors. You can feel it as soon as you take the laptop out of the box. The case feels solid and high-quality, and a pleasant tactile metal was used for its manufacture. But it is different from what was used in the MacBook. It is not so smooth and rather rough tactilely.

When you look at the rear of the HP Specter X360 Convertible Laptop, one gets the impression that it is a sandwich, in which the two halves do not seem to be connected to each other. Although, of course, this is not the case in reality. Hinges are used for fixing, which allows the display to rotate 360 degrees.

There are plenty of ports dotted throughout the body, allowing you to connect everything you need for work and play. It will be easier to list them.

The following elements were installed on the right side:

3.5 mm headset jack;
A pair of USB ports;
HDMI 2.0;
MiniDP 1.2
Windows key and rocker, which is used to control the volume.

On the left side, we see the following:

Charger socket;
Ventilation grill;
USB port;
Power key with integrated indicator light;
SD card slot.

An additional grille for air exhaust and a pair of speakers were left below, which gives a full-fledged stereo effect. The HP Specter X360 review showed excellent volume headroom and decent sound quality, but more on that later.

The laptop received a 13.3-inch matrix with LED-backlighting and a high resolution of 2560x1440 pixels. With these parameters, we get 221 pixels per inch. It is a pleasure to use the screen at this resolution - the picture looks juicy and well-detailed, although there are opponents of this. The backlighting turns out to be uneven - at the bottom it is 19% dimmer than at the top.

The margin of brightness is sufficient, although for an ultrabook it could be higher, because sometimes you are faced with the need to work outdoors. In this case, you will have to look for a shadow. Otherwise, the picture remains legible, but fades badly when exposed to direct sunlight.

The viewing angles are maximum. The display itself is touch-sensitive and has a glossy surface, so it is not very convenient to work with it. You will have to look at the image through the image of your beloved; after all, a matte screen would be much more practical. Another disadvantage is the wide bezels that surround the screen along the entire perimeter. This is not a critical moment, but still in 2018 you expect minimal or no limits.

Sound

The HP Specter X360 13 2018 case bears the BANG & OLUFSEN wordmark, hinting at the use of an advanced audio system created by true professionals. But in fact, the sound does not stand out in anything special. In general, the quality is good, but as soon as the sound is turned to maximum volume, the speakers almost begin to wheeze. The preinstalled software for adjusting the sound does not change the situation much. It has only minimal options for customizing the sound.

HP Specter X360 notebook performance and specifications

In 2018, the HP Specter X360 convertible laptop is available in two modifications that differ in processor power. A model with an Intel Core i7-6500U processor came to my review. Two processor cores are capable of overclocking up to 3.1 MHz and what is surprising is the ventilation system. Even in such a compact case with a thickness of only 16 mm, the laptop does not overheat, and its coolers do not make noise like helicopter blades. Even with a full CPU and GPU load, during testing the HP Specter X360, we only managed to heat it up to 64 degrees.

True, as a further review showed, for this the manufacturer went for a little trick, which clearly cannot be called an advantage of the model - it drops the processor frequency to 1500 MHz and cuts the performance of the graphics core by 20%. This is clearly seen in the results of synthetic tests, where the laptop gives out more modest results than other models with similar technical characteristics. A review of the HP Specter X360 2018 showed that this becomes even more noticeable in games.

The laptop has 8 GB of RAM, which is still enough for solving any tasks. But taking into account the cost over $ 1500, you don't expect to get DDR3 at 1600 MHz. This is not at all expected from the 2018 model year. The difference in the operating speed with DDR4 is not so great, but in the future it may be difficult to replace the RAM, as the DDR3 standard is gradually leaving the market.

Reviewing the HP Specter X360 Notebook has shown that it shouldn't be considered a gaming device, even if you're willing to play on minimal graphics. This is not his strong point, at 23 fps in Tanks and 18 in Dirt Rally it is simply impossible to play. This is an exceptionally simple work laptop for graphics and text, although it is very expensive for its performance.

Part of the cost of the device is offset by the use of a 512GB SSD. Such a disk is expensive, but it provides good system performance, high read and write speeds. I consider the volume to be optimal so that all files can be stored directly in the laptop's memory, and not lugged with an external drive.

2018 HP Specter X360 battery life

It was not possible to install a good cooling system in the laptop, sacrificing performance, but enough space was allocated for the battery. It provides up to 9 hours of movie playback at near maximum brightness. In games, you can count on 3 hours of battery life, but as indicated above, you can only play in simple arcades.

If you leave the HP Specter X360 Convertible laptop unattended for a long time, then after 15 minutes it goes into hibernation mode. In this regard, upon your return, the battery charge level will not change.

Keyboard and touchpad

Review HP Specter X360 13 ae008ur notebook I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the keyboard and the comfort of working with it. To be honest, I rarely experience such emotions in modern models. First of all, the arrangement of the keys pleases - nothing is cut off, there was even a place for the letter "E", which almost no one uses anymore. It is very convenient to type text on such a keyboard. The keys have a short travel, which you quickly get used to. The only thing I would like to see are full-fledged arrows.

The keys are backlit, so using the keyboard is pleasant even in the dark. The brightness level cannot be adjusted. The backlight can be turned off. In this case, only the last pressed key will be highlighted.

The HP Specter X360 has a huge touchpad - one of the largest in modern notebooks. This makes its use as comfortable as possible, although at first you can accidentally touch it.

Output

The HP Specter X360 convertible laptop can be bought in two versions - a more productive, but expensive version, or a cheaper one. In the first case, you get a 7th generation Intel processor, 8 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD. The more affordable laptop uses an i5 coupled with 4GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

The difference in price is clearly noticeable - 78,000 rubles versus 117,000. As for me, it is not worth overpaying, since you will not feel a special increase in productivity. Of course, it is there, but all the same, a laptop will not work for games, and the basic version does well with everything else.

Advantages:

Spectacular design and metal as the main body material;
There are all the necessary connectors for connecting external devices;
Convenient keyboard;
Good battery life
Transformer mode with the ability to rotate the screen at least 360 degrees;
Silent operation of coolers.

Disadvantages:

Terrible performance. The performance of the processor and video core is specifically cut to prevent the laptop from overheating. As a result, you can forget about games;
Glossy screen;
Overpriced.

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As if Freddie Mercury walked into the HP office with the song “I want it all,” the Specter x360 13.3-inch convertible laptop also hints that yes, you can not only “want it all,” but also get it for some $ 1149 ($ 1359 model on test). With the sleek design of this machine and the ultra-powerful 8th Gen Intel processor, you get not only visual beauty, but also brutal performance.

In addition, the comfortable Specter keyboard, display with optional privacy mode, and great sound make it equally good for work and play. Its screen is a bit dim and its battery life is decent, albeit slightly less than what the competition is offering. That said, the Specter x360 is one of the best consumer 2-in-1 models you can buy right now.

Design

The Specter x360 looks like a solid aluminum ingot. The only difference between this year's model and last year's version is that when closed, the trailing edge of the novelty is a pair of rigidly beveled edges, in contrast to the curved design in the old model. We had a boring silver model on our test, but throughout the test there was a desire to try the black and copper model, which HP calls Dark Ash Silver, which costs $ 10 more.

One of the nicest improvements in the new Specter x360 is the hinge, which feels unusually tight. This is useful when you rotate the display from laptop mode to tablet, stand, or display position.

With dimensions of 30.4 x 21.8 x 1.23 cm and a weight of 1.3 kg, the 13.3-inch Specter x360 is similar in size. It's also lighter than the 13.9-inch juj Lenovo Yoga 920 and heavier than the 12.3-inch Microsoft Surface Pro.

The Specter x360 has both modern and good old ports. These include dual Thunderbolt 3 on the right side, USB 3.1 adjacent to the headphone jack on the left. Also a pleasant surprise from HP was the presence of a slot for microSD memory cards, given that the previous model did not have such a slot.

Since the Specter x360 has a folding design, the fingerprint sensor and the power and volume buttons are located on the side edges, next to the ports. We thank HP for not placing the fingerprint reader inside the touchpad, as some manufacturers do.

In testing, the fingerprint scanner performed well in helping unlock the system at boot. But the volume buttons seemed a bit stiff to us, requiring excessive force to press them.

Display

The Spectra x360's 13.3-inch 1080p display delivers superb color performance. As we watched the Black Panther trailer, we noticed how bright the glowing console on Okoy's ship looks and the tone of her golden-red armor. The 1080p display resolution provides enough clarity to make out the texture of Black Panther's armor and Eric Kilmonger's luxurious coat.

Displaying 109 percent of the sRGB spectrum, the Specter x360's screen is close to the 102 percent average, not far behind the Yoga 920's 105 percent and nearly catching 111 percent on the XPS 13. The Surface Pro was brighter at 140 percent.

The Specter x360 averaged just 261 nits on our colorimeter, falling below the 285 nits average and 283 nits on the Yoga 920. The 367-nit XPS 13 and 395-nit Surface Pro are much brighter, as do the viewing angles.

The Specter x360's touchscreen accurately detects touches when dragging icons and scrolling through a web page. It also quickly recognizes Windows 10 navigation gestures to view all windows and open Action Center.

The Specter x360 SSD rips DVD media files in lightning fast 9 seconds at 567 Mbps.

For those who use the laptop in public or with friends, family or colleagues who don't respect privacy, the optional Sure View privacy mode (for an additional $ 60) comes in handy, which is unfortunately not available for 4K displays. Activated by pressing the F1 key, Sure View makes the screen as white as possible when viewed from an angle. In our test, we noticed that it made the text illegible when viewed at an angle of 45 degrees or more.

Keyboard, touchpad and stylus

The Specter x360 isn't one of those super-thin laptops that will limit your typing experience. On the 10fastfingers test, the comfortable Specter keys achieved a speed of 78 wpm, very close to our average of 80 wpm. Some lag may be due to the decent force required for actuation - 80 grams (we consider at least 60 grams to be the norm), and the keys also have 1.3 millimeters of travel, which is quite small compared to the minimum 1.5 mm, which is considered comfortable. ...

The ultra-wide 11.9 x 6 cm touchpad allows you to navigate faster by accurately tracking your touches. It also perfectly recognizes the system's navigation gestures to view the desktop and all open applications.

The Specter x360 comes with a seemingly run-of-the-mill stylus, but this pen has a hidden feature: charging. A simple twist of the end of the stylus allows you to remove the cover and reveal the USB Type-C port, which is used for charging. Charging is done using the same cable used to charge the Specter. It's much more convenient than the Apple Pencil or buying AAAA batteries that you can only find on Amazon.

Audio

The Bang & Olufsen-branded speakers in the Specter x360 enable this little car to deliver an impressive amount of sound. During the tests, he managed to fill our office with Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer". We noted how clear the vocals sound and the drums pound.

The Specter x360's 13.3-inch 1080p display produces very rich color.

The Bang & Olufsen Sound Tuning App is included, although we didn't find its presets particularly useful. The default option is "Music". The "Movies" setting is practically the same, and Audio does not sufficiently cleanse low-quality tracks from noise that it makes sense to constantly switch between them.

Performance

Our Specter x360 in our test was equipped with an 8-core Intel Core i7-8550U processor with 512GB PCIe SSD and 16GB of RAM, which provided good speed, solid performance and even allowed us to play games. We didn't notice any stuttering after splitting the screen between 1080p YouTube videos and a dozen Chrome tabs including Giphy, Slack, TweetDeck, and Google Docs.

In the main Geekbench 4 benchmark test, our Specter x360 scored a decent 13,569 points, which falls between 13307 on the Yoga 920 (Core i7-8550U with 8GB RAM) and 14159 on the XPS 13 (Core i7-8550U with 8GB RAM) ). The segment average is 7358, which includes ratings from a wide variety of laptops, including older Intel 7th Gen processors.

The 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD enables the Specter x360 to rip a set of DVD media files in 9 seconds at 565Mbps. This is faster than the average speed of 228 Mbps, as well as the speeds of 301 Mbps for the Yoga 920 (256 GB NVMe PCIe SSD) and 509 Mbps for the XPS 13 (256 GB SSD). The Surface Pro, with its 339 Mbps (1TB SSD), is also left behind.

The Specter x360 achieved 3 minutes and 22 seconds in the OpenOffice benchmark, matching 20,000 names to addresses in a shorter time frame than the 5:38 average. The Yoga 920 (3:18), XPS 13 (3:19), and Surface Pro (3:14) were faster, but not much faster.

The Bang & Olufsen speakers built into the Specter x360 allow this little laptop to deliver surprisingly much sound.

Gamers not too demanding can expect the Specter x360 to play lag-free games. The device uses the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 chip. Not only did this 2-in-1 convertible laptop allow you to play the popular Cuphead platformer without any problems, it also made it possible to drive Dirt 3 at 56 frames per second, which exceeded the minimum comfortable game threshold of 30 fps and an average level of 42 fps. We saw a lower refresh rate of 36 fps on the Yoga 920 (Intel UHD Graphics 620), while the XPS 13 (2017) (Intel UHD Graphics 620) showed a higher refresh rate of 57 fps.

The Specter x360 also performed well on the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited graphics test with a solid 79529 score, which is above the 58981 average. The Surface Pro (Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640) scores 109679 points higher, Yoga 920 scores 86,268 and XPS 81,836. 13.

Battery life

The Specter x360's battery life should last most of the day, but some competitors last even longer. In our battery test, which includes continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi, this HP notebook lasted 8 hours and 27 minutes. This is in line with the ultraportable category average. The Yoga 920 (12:23) lasts a lot longer, but the Surface Pro (7:31) has less endurance.

Webcam

The selfie shot with the Specter x360's 2.0MP camera is so grainy that it feels like the shirt has been crumbled in the dust first before taking the picture.

But no, this is not dust, but the usual grain that is typical for most built-in webcams. In this case, it is also worth considering an external webcam if video communication matters to you.

Heat dissipation

With this laptop you don't have to worry about overheating. After watching 15 minutes of HD video, our infrared thermometer recorded 30 degrees on the touch panel of the computer, 31 degrees on the keyboard and 33 degrees on the bottom, which did not exceed the 35-degree threshold of comfortable temperature.

This year's model dissipates heat better as the vent has been removed from the left side - away from where your hand might be. The ventilation is now located on the back.

Software

HP offers the Specter x360 with relatively little pre-installed software. The JumpStart app walks you through the setup; Support Assistant will help you download drivers and contact HP, while Recovery Manager will help you manage your backups and create recovery images. There is also an annual offer of 30 GB of free space on Dropbox, although only available to new subscribers.

Configuration

We tested the $ 1,359 Specter x360 configuration that includes an 8th Gen Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Sure View privacy screen and stylus. If you don't need that kind of performance, you can opt for the $ 1,049 entry-level model; it comes with a Core i5, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

We'd love to spend an extra $ 10 on the laptop's black and copper color scheme, but we wouldn't be ordering HP's optional 3840x2160 pixel display ($ 150 extra) as it will likely increase power consumption.

Outcome

There is something to love about the Specter x360. Using it, you will experience the sensation of driving in a luxury limousine, enjoying impressive speed, comfortable keyboard, rich sound and Safe View privacy mode. The only wish is that this 2-in-1 transformer works more without charging, and its screen becomes a little brighter.

The Lenovo Yoga 920, which starts at $ 1,299, lasts 4 hours longer and has a brighter display, but we liked its keyboard less than HP's. Overall, the Specter x360 is one of the most attractive 2-in-1s on the market and is definitely worth checking out.

Result: 4 out of 5

HP has unveiled the third generation Specter x360 13 convertible laptop. With a 13.3-inch IPS touchscreen display, the Specter x360 has been designed with users in mind.

The novelty has become thinner (13.6 mm), lighter - its weight is 1.26 kg, and received an eighth generation Intel Kaby Lake Refresh quad-core processor (Core i5 or i7), thanks to which, according to the company, it became 30% faster. The amount of RAM of the laptop DDR3 reaches 16 GB, the capacity of the PCIe SSD is up to 1 TB. Connectivity includes a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports, a USB 3.1 connector, and an audio jack.

The screen resolution can be Full HD (1920 × 1080) or 4K (3840 × 2160). Durable Corning Gorilla Glass NBT protects it from scratches.

The 2017 HP Specter x360 13 also features a fingerprint sensor, thinner bezels, a microSD card reader (not available on the 2016 model) and longer battery life.

In a configuration with a 4K screen and a Core i7 processor, the laptop can work on a single charge for up to 10 hours in mixed mode or 8 hours and 45 minutes in video playback. And the model with a Core i5 processor and a Full HD screen resolution can work autonomously in mixed use mode for up to 16 hours and 45 minutes. Fast charging technology charges the battery from zero to 90% capacity in 90 minutes.

For added security and privacy protection, the laptop is equipped with both a fingerprint reader and an infrared webcam, which is used to log in with Windows Hello facial recognition. The model with a Full HD screen resolution has received the Sure View protection function. By pressing a button, you narrow the viewing angle of the screen, and the person behind you will not be able to read the text on the laptop screen.

The 2017 HP Specter x360 13 specifications include four speakers and two discrete amplifiers. The laptop also has a new hybrid thermal and infrared sensor to monitor the computer's surface temperature and other characteristics to balance fan noise and cooling.

In Russia, the third-generation Specter x360 13 transforming laptop will appear on sale in November 2017 at a price of 94,990 rubles. For the Russian market, all HP Specter laptops come with an extended 3-year warranty.