HP Spectre x360 13-inch review – the 2-in-1 ultraportable to get

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Specs Sheet
Design and exterior
Keyboard and trackpad
Screen
Hardware and performance
Noise, heat and speakers
Battery life
Price and availability
Final thoughts
Comments

By Derek SullivanHP Spectre x360, last updated on September 22, 2021

HP Spectre x360

Summary: I’m not easily impressed, but HP certainly won me over with this one. The highlights of this 13-inch HP Specter x360 are the incredible battery life, perfect screen and excellent user interface with the keyboard and trackpad. Let’s also not forget the build quality. Those features alone easily warrant the price they are asking. Sure, there are a couple sacrifices to be made, but that’s a small price to pay in comparison to what you get in the package.

Our score: 4 / 5
Price when reviewed: $899 - $1429

THE GOOD

excellent build quality; perfect screen, with great colors and clarity; pen input; great keyboard and trackpad; solid performance; long battery life

THE BAD

slightly heavy, making tablet mode a little encumbersome; possible WiFi issues; small rubber feet might lead to scratches; the touchscreen could be a bit smoother

Table of Contents

The specs sheet
Design
Modes
Keyboard and trackpad
Screen
Hardware and performance
Windows 10
Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers and others
Battery life
Other notable things
Price and availability
Final Thoughts

Ever have one of those situations where you need a tablet, but you have a touchscreen laptop? Or you need a laptop, but only have a tablet? You might have filled the void by carrying both, or might have also tried the many 2-in-1 laptops available out there. For me, I’ve always carried both, as I found most 2-in-1 options to fall short on key features – that is, until I met the Surface Pro.

What attracted me to the SP was a lightweight tablet that has a decent keyboard and pen input, allowing it to be a pretty useful laptop replacement as well. The kickstand made it unique as well, because I could place it practically anywhere in my garage without worrying of scratching the underside. I honestly didn’t realize how useful it would be until I used the features on a regular basis.

But this article isn’t about the Surface Pro, this is about the HP Spectre x360 – a 2-in-1 convertible laptop that, in my opinion, will make people think twice about considering a Surface Pro, including myself. Read on to find out why.

The specs sheet

	HP Spectre x360 13-4003dx
Screen	13.3 inch, 1920×1080 resolution, 10-finger multi-touch, IPS
Processor	Intel Broadwell Core i7-5500U CPU, dual-core 2.4 GHz(3.0Ghz boost)
Video	Integrated Intel HD 5500 HD
Memory	8 GB DDR3L 1600Mhz
Storage	256GB SSD
Connectivity	Wireless AC Intel 7265 , Intel Bluetooth 4.0
Ports	3x USB 3.0, HDMI, Mini DisplayPort, mic/earphone combo, SD card reader
Baterry	55 Wh
Operating system	Windows 8.1
Size	324.9mm or 12.8” (w) x 218.4mm or 8.60” (d) x 16.0mm or .63” (h)
Weight	1.47kg or 3.26 lb
Extras	Extra wide trackpad, 2MP webcam, 6 in 1 card reader, backlit keyboard

Design

The HP Spectre x360 is quite an eye catcher and the pictures online don’t do it justice. When I picked it up out of the box, I was immediately impressed with the build quality on this little machine. The all-metal unibody was the right choice for this design, and there’s no doubt that this laptop can take a beating and last a long time.

Weighing in at just over 3 lbs, it actually felt a little heavy to me, but I can attribute that to it being so thin and dense. Sure the Yoga 3 Pro is lighter, but they are made out of totally different materials.

Starting from the top, the lid is solid silver in color, and is a smooth, matte finish. Actually, the finish is almost identical to that which you would see on a Macbook Pro or Air. Hewlett-Packard’s discreet logo adorns the lid, in similar fashion to their other latest laptops. The text is slightly embossed from the surface, and frankly, I’m not sure what’s holding it on or if it can accidentally come off. It looks great though, and I’m happy they chose this instead of some sort of backlight glowing design. Across the top edge is a small strip, most likely plastic, for the antenna. It’s the same color at least, so it blends in pretty well.

Lifting the lid was kind of challenging, due to the small cutout they put in the unibody and lack of a lifting ledge on the lid itself. I have a tough time getting my finger into the slot sometimes. This kind of reminds me of the Acer S7 series ultrabooks, but it’s not quite as bad. Unfortunately, due to the weight distribution and the nature of the hinges, it took two hands to open. I can’t express enough how important I think one finger opening is, but I’ll give HP a pass here since the hinges are meant to last and support so many different positions.

Speaking of hinges and different positions, the main highlight of this machine is that the screen flips all the way back 360-degrees, similar to what you get with the Lenovo Yoga. As far as I can tell, the hinges are pretty solid. I only notice a small amount of wobble when tapping the screen in laptop mode. There’s a lot more to talk about, so I’ll cover the different modes in more detail in a separate section.

On the inside of the lid, the screen is a 13.3-inch IPS touch panel, which will also be covered in the display section below. The panel is almost edge to edge glass, with a thin rubber gasket separating it from the metallic edge. A small logo is centered below the screen. Overall, the bezels are about average sized, with the bottom being the widest. There is also a 2MP webcam centered on the top, along with a microphone.

On the bottom half is the keyboard and trackpad. The palm rest is made from an unibody aluminum shell and looks absolutely stunning. The keyboard is recessed into the unibody, keeping the keys at a distance from the panel when closed. The trackpad also has a nice chamfer along the edges to highlight its appearance. The outer edges of the laptop look sharp but the edges are slightly broken, just enough to not feel them on your wrists. Honestly, this laptop is so thin that it would be hard for your wrists to hit the edges. The only branding on the palm rest is the Spectre logo on the lower left. The Intel sticker is on the other side and can be peeled off.

On the left, starting from the back, you have a standard power connection. Right next to it is the CPU fan exhaust, followed by a single USB 3.0 port and a power button. The power button is another thing similar to the Acer S7 series, but HP one-ups it by making the button sit flush with the edge, so you won’t accidentally press it. That was actually the reason I hated the side button on the S7 and actually disabled it all together. On this model, I never accidentally hit it. If anything, I had a tough time finding it sometimes though. I could definitely learn to live with it since I rarely turn my laptop off and instead just close the lid to put it to sleep. Finally, after the power button, there is a full SD card reader. HP went right with this one, as it allows you to fully insert the card, leaving only 1mm exposed.

HP practically uses the entire right side as well, starting with an earphone/mic combo jack in the back. It’s hard to notice this with pictures, but after using the laptop for a week, I dislike where they put this jack. It’s nearly the same size as the power jack and I’m constantly trying to put my power into the earphone jack and vice versa. Someday, I’ll get used to it, but it’s not today… Next to the earphone jack there are two more USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and a mini DisplayPort connection. Then there is a dedicated volume rocker and a Windows key, which are only there for use when in a non-laptop mode. They still function but they aren’t very practical in laptop use since there are also dedicated keys on the keyboard.

The bottom is pretty plain and simple. It’s a solid piece of metal with a number of torx screws holding it in place. Four wide rubber feet are placed here as well and are probably the shortest feet I’ve ever seen. The laptop rests so low to the surface that I almost guarantee the back bottom edge is going to get scratched up over time. Perfectionists will want to be aware of this, but I think most won’t really care. The reason for the short feet is to maintain thinness when using the laptop in tablet mode – so again, sacrifices are made, but for a good reason.

Taking off the back cover was mildly difficult and required removing the visible torx screws. You’ll need to use either a T5 or T6 driver, preferably T6 since it’s the best fit. There are clips on the front edge that need to be undone and then the back clips can be manipulated to release by shifting the lid. Honestly, nobody will be doing this because there is little to replace underneath. There is a single M.2 SATA SSD on the top edge(80mm variant). I was fooled into thinking the RAM was replaceable since there was a spare P/N sticker on the case, but alas underneath the cover was some embedded ram chips.

Modes

There are basically four modes that HP advertises the Spectre x360 is capable of: Notebook, Tablet, Stand and Tent. Each has its uses, but there are some disadvantages/sacrifices to be made when switching between them.

Laptop mode is obviously what it sounds like. The keyboard and trackpad are fully functional as well as the extra use of the volume, power and windows buttons on the sides. Laptop mode stays initiated while the screen is 0 to roughly 210 degrees. This means you can continue to use it in laptop mode when the screen is lying flat with the keyboard at 180 degrees(pretty useful for some people).

Tablet mode gets triggered in a couple of ways. First, if you flip the screen greater than 210 degrees, and second, if you rotate the screen 90 degrees in any direction or hold it upside down. This automatically disables the keyboard and trackpad, preventing you from using any input except for the on-screen controls and the buttons on the edges. By flipping the screen all the way backwards, you can hold it just like if you had a 13-inch tablet (a very thick and heavy 13-inch tablet, mind you). I don’t think I could use this in tablet mode very often unless I rested it on my lap. To me, it’s a little much, and no convertible is going to beat having a straight up tablet. Still, it’s better than not having the feature and those willing to sacrifice will make it work somehow.

There are two sub modes for the Tablet mode. First is Stand mode. If you look closely at the pictures, HP has included four very small feet on all four corners of the palm rest/keyboard area. You can flip the screen around and watch movies this way or use it as a display for presentations or something. I can’t say I’m a big fan of this mode, and here’s why. Those rubber feet are just too small for me to trust them and aluminum just scratches too easily. If I’m going to lay it down on the palm rest area, that surface better be clean as a whistle. I’m not overly protective of scratches on my devices, but if there’s one area I care to always look nice, it’s the keyboard/trackpad area – I look at it every day. So for me, I’ll be opting for the final mode.

Tent mode is basically the same as Stand mode, except you’re resting it on the edges of the palm rest and the lid. I honestly thought this was a ridiculous way to use a convertible until I got a Surface Pro 3 and used a kickstand. What I like about it is you can basically stick it anywhere without risking heavy scratches to the surfaces. For me, the garage has many surfaces that have debris on them. I use my Surface Pro 3 almost everywhere and I still don’t have a scratch on it. The same would go for the Spectre x360 in Tent mode. I’ve used it to watch how-to Youtube videos on my workbench which was covered in 3D printer debris, small screws and other tools that were lying about. Sure, maybe I should clean my workbench, but who wants to do that every time they need to use a PC.

Keyboard and trackpad

It’s not very often that I say an ultrabook keyboard is great, but this one really nails it. Typing on the Spectre x360 is a pleasure and it took no time at all for me to adapt and type at my full speed. The keys are very appropriately spaced and have excellent travel and feedback for a laptop of this size. It’s certainly good enough to type this entire review.

The keyboard is backlit, which is a must for a high-end ultrabook. I can’t say I use it all that much though, mainly because the keys are silver with black text and the ambient light from the screen is, in most cases, enough to illuminate the keys in a dark room. On top of that, the backlight is white, so I found the contrast to be better with the backlight off instead of on. Don’t get me wrong though, the backlighting does help in dark rooms and isn’t as drastic of a contrast problem as say the Acer S7, which made reading the keys nearly impossible for me.

In light rooms though, the keys are more difficult to read so I tend to leave it off. This brings me to an annoying feature on this laptop, which is the backlight button(the F5 key). When the keyboard isn’t backlit, the F5 key shines VERY bright. In light rooms it’s no biggie, but in dark rooms when you’re watching a movie, it’s annoying. Asus has been doing this with their power buttons, but at least they are off to the corner – this one is nearly centered and is very bright. Thankfully, HP updated the BIOS with a way to turn this feature off, which I promptly did upon discovery.

Other notable things with the keyboard are the media controls, integrated with the F keys on the top row. The default is for the media keys and Fn+key will actuate the associated F key. I think this is becoming the norm with ultrabooks, but those who utilize the F keys a lot will want to be aware of this and know that there is no Fn lock (at least none that I could find). You can, however, reverse them in BIOS. Kudos to HP for giving us BIOS options for these minor issues.

Enough with the keyboard – let’s talk about this trackpad. HP nailed it again because this is probably the first trackpad I’ve used that actually rivals Apple. First of all it’s huge, spanning 141mm which is nearly 50% of the width of the unit. It’s a bit shorter than the Macbook Pro’s trackpad, but still takes up as most space as possible at 65mm tall. The surface is just as smooth as a Macbook trackpad as well.

At first I questioned whether or not it would get in the way, but after using it for the last week, I’m convinced this is what all trackpads should be like. The extra wide space leaves lots of room for leeway and the advanced palm detection by Synaptics causes little issues with inadvertent taps while typing. Synaptics also has a lot of settings you’re able to modify and optimize, but I found the default settings to be pretty good right out of the box.

Tracking and tapping were generally smooth and very accurate. On long glides across the screen, I didn’t notice any jumpiness with the pointer or any indication with sensitivity problems. Multi-touch gestures were very well recognized and easily repeatable. Scrolling was about as smooth as it gets when it comes to Windows. Zooming in and out isn’t as smooth as using the touch screen itself but its far better than the competition.

If I had one complaint about the trackpad, it would be right clicking. Because it’s so wide, the integrated right click is much farther to the right than what I’m used to. Frankly, I’m still not used to it and constantly accidentally left click because I’m too far over. To fix it, I opted to make a double finger tap be right click instead. This is a good solution to such a mild complaint and I doubt many of you would be bothered by it.

Update: I take back my only complaint as it can be remedied by changing a simple setting in the Synaptics control panel. In the “clicking” tab, there is a sub-tab for changing the size of the right button zone. Very convenient feature to have for such a large trackpad.

Screen

This Spectre x360 is equipped with a 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution 13.3-inch IPS touchscreen and is another welcome highlight to the machine. The panel has excellent viewing angles and good color accuracy, right out of the box. The max and minimum brightness are also above average. Overall, I’m very pleased with the screen they chose for the FHD model and I have nothing that I could possibly complain about, when it comes to the looks.

The screen is also touch enabled and comes with an active digitizer. There are many Dell and HP brand pens that are compatible with this laptop. From reading the forums, it was recommended that I try the Dell Active Stylus 750-AAGN. I picked one up online and gave it a try.

I only got to play with the pen for a day, as I just got it yesterday. Overall I’m pretty happy with the experience so far though. My handwriting really looked just as bad as it is in real life. I even tried drawing a sketches for work, which turned out pretty well. As an engineer, I’ll be using this feature a lot for rough sketches with customers. I’ll need something reliable and easy to use, which I have to say is what I have right here. The size of the screen is great since I’ve always wished I had just a little more room on my Surface. Palm rejection was also perfect and never interfered with my drawing.

My only complaint with the pen is actually with Onenote, but it’s still worth noting – the eraser button doesn’t function in the desktop Onenote app. With the Surface Pen this is not an issue and I’m going to either have to work around it or use the less functional metro app. I’m not sure if this is only with the Dell pen, but I’ve looked it up and there have been complaints for over 2 years on multiple pens.

The FHD screen is pretty much great

You don’t need a stylus in order to take advantage of the touch functionality, but there’s one thing I want to point out about the display that’s different than the competition. The glass is a little sticky. By little, I really do mean little. I’ve had phones with and without oleophobic glass and there is a VAST difference between them. This is not quite that bad, but it could certainly be better. My swipe gestures all worked just fine, they just didn’t glide as well as I would have expected. Maybe it has something to do with the digitizer, I don’t know. The trackpad is so much smoother than the glass, though, that I opt for the trackpad almost always. With the Surface Pro 3, it’s the opposite for me.

The panel itself is made by Chi Mei and carries the model number CMN1357. Unfortunately, HWinfo didn’t give a part number, so I can’t give you any more of the manufacturer specs other than that it’s 1080p at 60Hz. The viewing angles are probably rated at 85 degrees in each direction, as I have no problem at all reading the text on my screen, no matter how extreme the angle is. The brightness does start to taper off at around 45 degrees, but the colors stay consistent and it’s not out of the norm. By the way, my panel had zero backlight bleed.

I used a Spyder4Pro to calibrate the colors and measure some more specifications. Out of the box, the colors already looked great and the colorimeter didn’t change a whole lot. I got measured gamut values of 96% coverage for sRGB, 71% NTSC and 74% aRGB – all great results. At full brightness, the contrast ratio is 650:1, which is also good for a laptop screen. The brightness range of this panel is 25-378 nits. So not only will this screen work pretty well outdoors, it can also be looked at the second you open your eyes in the morning, without squinting.

Below is a chart showing the brightness distribution of the screen.

Hardware and performance

Powered by a Core i7-5500U Broadwell CPU, and 8GB of RAM, this convertible can certainly handle most of your daily tasks. It’s no quad-core, but it’s as close as you’re going to get without sacrificing battery life. For most people, the specs will be overkill, but some may find this machine perfectly capable of professional photo editing and graphics design work. It’s also capable of running CAD programs, although the lack of a graphics card does have its limitations.

As you would expect in a high end laptop, the Spectre x360 is equipped with a SSD. My unit came with an Adata 256GB M.2 SATA SSD. You can see the Crystal Disk benchmarks in the pictures. I’ve certainly seen better SSD write speeds, but this one is still pretty decent. I’m not really sure if there would be any benefit to upgrading the SSD, but you certainly have access to if you wanted. Since it’s M.2, the highest you can currently go is 512GB, with options from Crucial, Samsung and Transcend – all good drives.

Below are some of the benchmarks I ran. As expected, it performed slightly better than the i5 models we’ve been seeing and about on par with the other i7 Broadwell models.

3Dmark 11: P1099;
3Dmark 13: Ice Storm – 41303, Cloud Gate – 4337, Sky Diver – 2080, Fire Strike – 565;
PCMark 08: Home Conventional – 2490, Accelerated – 3045 with 84C max temp
CineBench 11.5: OpenGL 29.73 fps, CPU 3.03 pts, CPU Single Core 1.39 pts;
CineBench R15: OpenGL 30.98 fps, CPU 274 pts, CPU Single Core 119 pts.
x264 Benchmark 4.0: Pass 1 – 85.57 fps, Pass 2 – 16.37 fps.

I also got a chance to try some games. Compared to the Broadwell i5 models I’ve tested, this i7 actually performed pretty decently. Here’s what I got:

Title/Graphics settings	fps 720p	fps 1080p
Tomb Raider – normal	20-28	14-17
Tomb Raider – low	36-50	25-32
Borderlands 2 – medium	20-32	15-20
Borderlands 2 – low	25-35	15-20
Portal 2 – high	45-60	40-60
Portal 2 – medium	60	55-60
Starcraft 2 – medium	28-35	24-30
Starcraft 2 – low	60-70	55-60

Like I’ve said before, integrated graphics isn’t for games. But this i7 is better than what I’ve seen in the past, and I think if you travel a lot and don’t mind playing older games on low graphics details, you won’t be too disappointed.

Windows 10

This article actually coincided with Windows 10 day, so I decided to take the early plunge and install it. I downloaded it to USB and installed it as an upgrade. The process was flawless – all the drivers and programs transferred over perfectly. My WiFi acted up(which I’ll discuss below), but I was able to help it a little by changing the driver setting to prefer 2.4Ghz. I’m crossing my fingers because so far I haven’t had any issues after that.

I’ve really enjoyed Windows 10 for the most part and I think it’s really going to make these convertibles so much more functional. As far as I can tell, it’s like using Windows 7 again with all the Windows 8 features running in the background. There are a couple complaints, one of which is the trackpad settings override Synaptics. So three finger swipes no longer navigate forward and back in web pages, but instead switch between apps. They really need to let us choose and I already went ahead and left a comment in the feedback section about it. In the meantime, I’m actually swiping the screen to navigate back and forth.

I won’t make this a Windows 10 review, but one last thing I wanted to mention was “tablet mode” in Windows 10.

You have the feature of enabling Tablet mode, which brings back the metro start menu and makes everything “touchable”. In other words, icons are bigger and more spread apart, the taskbar turns into a Nav bar and the desktop pretty much disappears. One cool feature the Spectre has with Windows 10 is when you flip the screen around, Windows 10 tablet mode automatically engages. I haven’t spent more than an hour with it so far, but it’s pretty cool, and you can of course turn that feature off if you don’t like it.

Noise, Heat, Connectivity, speakers and others

There is a single fan on the left hand side that has an intake on the bottom and exhausts on the left edge. Because of how thin the laptop is and the fact it’s an i7, it gets pretty hot quick – so don’t expect silent running. That said, the fan is relatively quiet and I hardly noticed it during normal use. When doing more heavy tasks, you certainly hear the fan ramp up to full speed though.

I took some readings using my sound detector. Ambient sound in my room was 20dB. With the fan on its lowest setting, I measured only 22dB at ear level. While playing a game, I ramped the fan all the way up but still only got a reading of 25dB. It’s really not a harsh sound at all but you will notice it in a quiet room. At work and at the coffee shop, where the ambient noise is louder, I never noticed it at all.

As for heat, the maximum CPU temperature I measured was 87C when pushing it with a game. The fan managed to keep temperatures equalized without having any noticeable throttling. Surface temperatures on the laptop were also measured, both during normal tasks and while under load playing a game. Here were my results.

* Daily use – internet surfing and watching movies (vent exhaust – 33 C)
* Gaming Use – Tomb Raider for 30 minutes on medium FHD settings (vent exhaust – 40 C)

WiFi performance is pretty good with the onboard wireless AC card. The brand is Intel AC 7265. At approximately 30 feet from my router, I was getting download speeds of 90.0 Mbps (maxed out my ISP). I pushed it further by taking it out on my pool deck, about 50 feet and two walls away. I got download speeds of around 65 Mbps.

Overall, I was very happy with the WiFi performance, but there is a small catch. For some reason I had issues connecting at work. When I turn on the computer or wake it from sleep, I get an error that it can’t connect to the network. After a couple minutes, though, it will eventually connect and stay that way provided I don’t put it back to sleep. I really can’t explain it and it doesn’t happen to me at home at all. There are also numerous other reports of this issue with no solid solution. Needless to say, if you’re buying one of these, you’ll want to quickly test your WiFi in all your favorite spots.

UPDATE: I’ve installed the latest bios and driver firmware and it seems to have solved the issues I was having. I’ve tried to recreate the issue I was having and couldn’t so far. Your mileage may vary though.

As for the speakers, there are only two onboard and they are both downward facing. I guess in this case that is a good thing, since in tablet mode they would be facing the wrong direction.

Regardless, as small as they are, they’re actually pretty good. At max volume I didn’t notice any distortion, as the sound quality was quite clear. The bass was audible as well and I didn’t feel any abnormal vibrations coming from the machine. I played a song and measured 82dB at ear level, which is plenty loud enough for anything you’ll be doing.

Battery life

My battery test consists of using the stock “Power Saver” power profile, 30% brightness(70 nits), WiFi off, Bluetooth off, and running a 720p movie in a continuous loop at full screen with the volume muted. I start the clock when it’s unplugged and stop it when the unit performs a self- shutdown. The Spectre x360 lasted a stellar 10 hours and 45 minutes before shutting down. I’ll admit, I was shocked when I woke up in the morning and it was still going. Very impressive battery life!

Unfortunately, I’m unable to provide any Batterymon results because it wasn’t working properly for some reason. I kept getting the same 3600mW and 7200mW discharge rates not matter what I was doing. I’ll continue to troubleshoot and try to get some more concrete results.

In the meantime, I can tell you that I have been using this laptop as my daily driver for nearly a week and I haven’t had to plug it in, in the middle of the day, once. I think most will easily be able to get all day battery life out of this machine(unless of course you need to literally keep it on all day). I typically use Microsoft office apps, heavy internet use on Chrome, Youtube and Netflix, all at full brightness.

Other notable things

The bios has some pretty cool and useful options that make your machine a little more useable. On top of the norm, you’re able to disable virtualization, toggle the fan to always be on, swap the F and action keys, disable USB 3.0, disable USB charging while sleeping and disable that pesky F5 LED.

The power adapter is pretty light and portable, which is expected for ultrabooks these days. The cord is plenty long too. I honestly only used it at night to recharge, so I didn’t travel with it at all. The difference in weight it will add to your bag is negligible though.

Price and availability

The model in this review can be purchased at many retailers and all their prices are all over the place, depending on what configuration you get and whether or not you choose refurbished. Most retailers are selling the i7 version, but you can also pick up the i5 version from Best Buy or directly from HP. The prices are so close though, that I would recommend getting the i7.

At the time of this review, Amazon currently has prices ranging from $980-$1280 for the i7 version. Follow this link for updated prices and configurations at the time you’re reading the post.

That aside, Best Buy might be the better choice for some, since they have all the different model options, including ones with a QHD screen. There’s even an $899 configuration, but only includes 4 GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD, so I’d probably look into some of the beefier specs.

Final Thoughts

I’m not easily impressed with HP, but they certainly won me over with this one. The Spectre x360 is a highly versatile machine with excellent build quality. It’s obvious HP and Microsoft teamed up to make the most efficient and productive machine per pound and square inch. This is a worthy competitor to those also considering buying a Lenovo Yoga Pro 3, a Macbook Air and a Surface Pro 3.

HP did most things right with the Spectre x360, that’s why this is one of the best 2-in-1s out there

The highlights of this machine are the incredible battery life, perfect screen and excellent user interface with the keyboard and trackpad. Let’s also not forget the build quality. Those features alone easily warrant the price they are asking. Sure there are a couple sacrifices to be made, such as the extra small feet which increase the risk of scratches, but that’s a small price to pay in comparison to what you get in the package.

The only thing I can ding HP on is the Wifi issue I’m having. I’m contacting their support on the issue and hope to get it resolved as soon as possible. I’ll be sure to post what I find out. Until then, I ask that you be wary of the issue and make sure to test your unit fully before your return policy is up. UPDATE: So far, so good on my Wifi issues. After a firmware update to the bios, a driver update and Windows 10, my issues seem to be better. I have no idea which one was the fix, since they were all so close together.

My decision isn’t final, but I’m seriously considering keeping this and selling my Surface Pro 3. It’s going to be a mix on whether my Wifi issue gets cleared up and whether or not I’m able to use this machine in the same manner as my SP3. The size is a little bigger, but the power and battery life are so much better, so it’s too tough to call for now. I’ll be sure to let you know what I decide.

Well, that about wraps up my review. Sorry if it was too long, but I wanted to put as much into this as possible, since there’s so much to talk about. If there’s something I missed or if you have any questions, please leave me a comment below. If any of you are also experiencing the same issue as me, I’d also like to hear about it.

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Review by: Derek Sullivan
Derek Sullivan - Review Editor. In addition to being a tech enthusiast, I have a career as a Biomedical Engineer. I enjoy taking things apart, figuring out how they work, and finding ways to make them better. My other hobbies include spending time with my family, "Do it yourself" projects such as home automation, and running.

47 Comments

Marek Tatraj

July 31, 2015 at 2:53 pm

Hi , thanks for the great review! :) I am just thinking about buying this beauty, instead of my faulty XPS 12(pitty they didnt get upgraded).

I am curious what do you think about 5200 version with 8GB?
Ahmed

August 1, 2015 at 7:41 pm

Hi Derek,
Thank you very much for such an amazing review. I am more interested in 15″ convertibles though. So, I was wondering if you can share you thoughts about the newer versions of HP’s 15″ Envy x360? The specific model I am talking about is the HP ENVY x360 – 15-w005na (store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=M1N44EA&opt=ABU&mastersku=M1N44EA&masteropt=ABU&sel=NTB&). I am very tempted to buy it, especially that this model has the FHD display, a 2GB NIVIDIA GeForce 930M, and a 256 SSD storage. What do you think?
Tommy Ipsen

August 2, 2015 at 8:52 pm

Hi
The girl friend just bought the Spectre x360 (i5,256Gb SSD,FHD) a couple of days ago – priced at 1.322$ here in Denmark (very competitive price!) while the i7, 256Gb SSD, QHD) is priced at 1.911$.
Very positive experience so far – upgraded to Windows 10 right away and everything seems to be running smoothly.
BTW: Had good use of this website researching the different options Lenovo Yoga, Asus Zenbook, Lenovo XPS, Samsung ATIV Book 9 – even Macbooks – but ended up buying the Spectre x360 and so far it seems like a good choice.
Cheers, Tommy
Michal

August 5, 2015 at 12:38 pm

How loud is it compared to your Dell XPS 13 (1080p, i5)? Many people say that i5 model is mostly passively cooled (some say even during installations and similar). Do you think that the fans kick in more often because of the Win10 or the i7?
Have you switched to Win10 with you XPS 13?
Dan

August 5, 2015 at 6:13 pm

You should have a look at the HP pro x2 612
Would be interesting to read your impressions on that.

It also reviews very well, and is meant to be a great alternative to the Surface Pro 3.
Rob

August 5, 2015 at 6:57 pm

Great review! I’ve been looking for an ultrabook that is up to par with my wife’s macbook air for a while and this looks like it could finally contend. It sounds like the trackpad is a great upgrade. One thing though is that I’ve been wanting something that can at least do some moderate gaming. I checked out the asus zenbooks but not only does the trackpad seem to fall short, the monitor issue is a complete deal breaker. I’m considering going with this machine just as a consumption device and possibly doing some emulator/indie games. HP is selling the i7 version certified refurbished for about 990, seems like a great deal, thoughts?
Logan

August 6, 2015 at 9:27 pm

2 questions. Will i7 make the device hotter than i5? & would buying pre-installed W10 version be better than buying w8.1 then upgrading? I’ve heard that upgrading to 10 conserves more battery life so I’m so torn on this. Your thoughts?
M_X

August 20, 2015 at 8:00 am

Great Review. Thanks. Before reading it I was thinking about buying a Dell XPS 13 or an ASUS UX303. Now the Spectre is my new favorite. If you type a lot(!), sometimes outside, work with photoshop now and then, play games only a little and think the touchscreen/convertible functions are rather optional: Which one would you buy of these three?
bm

August 22, 2015 at 10:52 pm

I have the SP3 (surface pro 3) and use it all day as a business laptop replacement.

I haven’t used it as a tablet during my 9 months of ownership so clearly don’t need a tablet. not having a hinge and a smallish screen has led me to search for a replacement. The Dell XPS 13 sounds like the perfect machine (screen size, performance, build quality, low weight and dimensions, touchscreen) except it does not work with a haptic pen. These pens clearly speed up operational efficiency but I cannot find any low weight ultrabooks which work with a haptic pen.

Anyone have any ideas. I think having a haptic pen is a real advancement and am surprised nobody is producing a good lightweight laptop with these pens. Dell do the XPS 12 which might work but again the screen is a little small.

Any suggestions?:)
Hlovate

September 4, 2015 at 12:22 pm

I have always love your reviews. You always mention the details very well and things that other reviews missed. Should I buy this one or should I buy toshiba satellite radius 14″ and why? Hp spectre x360 was my choice but the price makes me doubt myself (it’s expensive in my country) by the way, thank you and stay awesome.
ALEX

September 7, 2015 at 9:51 am

Excellent review!!! Thanks!
Martin

September 9, 2015 at 7:54 am

Can you please provide additional details regarding how you tested the battery life? I want to reproduce an identical test on my Spectre x360 since I am having difficulty squeezing even 6.5-7 hours of very light use battery life out of mine. I have the i5 1080p one. I think something might be wrong with my unit and if I can’t match your battery life with an identical test, I am returning mine.

– What software did you use for the video playback?
– What codec was the 720p video using? DivX/XviD? h264?
– You mention you use the stock “Power Saving” profile. By default, this profile has the screen turn off after X minutes of idle time. Was the screen off during the video playback or was it on the entire time?

Also, does your trackpad miss left clicks about 15% to 30% of the time? If not, can you please tell me the exact version of the Synaptic drivers you have installed? Maybe this is a Win 8 issue with this laptop — I have seen it reported at other places.
Hamdy

September 23, 2015 at 1:56 am

Thank you for the detailed review that convinced me to order the Spectre X360 directly from HP and take advantage of their limited time 20% discount. I have been for sometime now reviewing and comparing specs and reviews of Dell XPS 13 and Lenovo X1 Carbon to find out which is a better ultrabook for my needs and budget. I was also hoping to get an ultrabook with a 6th generation Intel Skylake processor but decided not to wait longer for it as it would not have large differences from the current 5th generation to justify a longer wait (probably will be available in ultrabooks by October-Novermber).
Muradori

October 4, 2015 at 1:04 pm

Hi Derek. Thanks a million for your review which is so easy to read. You just choose the right words, think about writing books for a minute ;-)
I got this machine for over four months now. First time I returned it, was because my battery seemed not to be enduring and the fan was always on. Second time because of poor performance of loud speakers (they cracked). Third and fourth time because I wanted to get the credit note…
In the meantime, I switched from Win8 to 10 and one thing I was really disappointed in, was the Synaptics in Win10. Do you think they’ll revert the option to use the 3-finger swipe for navigating back and forth?
You wrote that there’s no big difference between 256gb and 512gb SSD in this machine, why? And last question: Do you think there’ll be a cool unit coming out with Skylake soon (convertible) which is worth waiting?
Cheers
Rob

October 5, 2015 at 1:15 pm

Derek, one of the things I keep coming back to is how this will compare with my several year old gaming laptop. I have an ASUS G-73JH which has actually preformed very well over the years, priorities in life have just changed and I need something less obnoxious with more battery life. While I understand this isn’t a gaming machine I’m hoping the advancements over the last 5 years have brought integrated chips to at least exceed what I have now. With skylake models releasing over this weekend I’m considering pulling the trigger but I’d hate to actually have a downgrade on performance.

Secondly, they want something like $350+ for the 512GB SSD, thoughts on buying and installing yourself to save some money?
wem

October 21, 2015 at 10:47 am

Dear Mr. Derek,
Thank you for excellent review on HP X360 i7.

Actually, I have been going to and fro between this laptop and thinkpad Lenovo yoga 14 i7 for my next working companion.

I usually do lots of emails, documents and spreadsheets, plus sending photos for product presentation.

I would love to have a good screen for photo editing because accurate colour rendition I think is quite important. Some occasional games are Ok too.

How would you compare between these Two?
Any suggestions?
I really appreciate your time and opinions.

Thank you and best regards.
Khalid

October 26, 2015 at 2:58 am

Hi Derek,

Trust you’re well. Just wanted to add my sentiments to those already received; your review is thorough, refreshingly “real world usage” centric and as a result empowers informed decisions by readers. An elusive and very welcome combination in a space of simple opinions and observations.

I plan to wait for Skylarke and dive in early 2016. Do you think 2560 x 1880 will cause too many scaling issues for an average user or are more publishers/ content providers embracing this increasing resolution. Your perspective greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance…Khalid, Sydney, Australia.
Sebastian Riedel

October 28, 2015 at 3:02 pm

Now did you keep it in the end over the SP3? Or did you even get a SP4 already?
Roger

December 4, 2015 at 12:56 am

Excellent review: thanks.

Here in Australia it’s difficult to get sensible information on the Spectre: HP “contact” are hopeless.

A big retailer (Harvey Norman) told me yesterday (3 Dec 2015) that the i5 128GB model is being discontinued, yet the HP website still shows it. Any comments?
- Derek Sullivan
  
  December 4, 2015 at 1:56 am
  
  Sorry, I have no idea about HP’s availability. In the US, we literally only have two models for sale in a single store and the HP site has more options. I’m guessing your retailer is just narrowing down their stock and limiting to what they thing will sell.
Windsor Furr

February 6, 2016 at 9:17 pm

Derek, you mentioned being able to do CAD on this machine. What CAD package would you recommend? Thanks.
- Derek Sullivan
  
  February 7, 2016 at 1:46 am
  
  I use Solidworks. It runs pretty decently on integrated graphics but you have to change the settings around a little bit for it to be optimized.
Kr

September 1, 2016 at 12:37 pm

Hi Derek,

I loved your review. I’ve been on the fence between the Dell XPS 13″ and The x360 for a couple of weeks now. What has pushed me slightly further into the x360 camp, is its versatility. I loved the tablet option, and on an off note I am not a fan of shallow keys( as the Dell XPS 13 has been accused of having.)

What has now scared me, is the mountain of complaints regarding the x360’s cracked screen. Perhaps, I am exaggerating but most of the complaints are eerily similar, where they all closed their laptops, whether overnight or over a couple of hours, only to find it cracked upon opening.

Since you have now spent quite a while with it. Have you encountered any issues such as this or heard of any since February? Or am I simply being paranoid
- Derek Sullivan
  
  September 1, 2016 at 1:26 pm
  
  Hi Kr,
  
  I haven’t really spent that long with it – I only reviewed it for a short time before I moved on. I haven’t really heard any complaints on cracked screens until now though. It looks like a number of users had issues with them in the HP forums. I don’t know, it sounds like its a small amount of people though. A quick glance at Amazon and out of 200 reviews, only 2 had the issue that I could see. It’s a terrible problem because I doubt HP would ever warranty that. If you’re that concerned, maybe look into an accidental damage coverage plan as well. I’m with you on the keyboard though. I liked the X360 a little better. The touchpad was fantastic too. The XPS 13 is still a really nice laptop too though. My wife still uses the XPS 15 which is a bigger version and she loves it.
Carlos

January 5, 2017 at 4:39 pm

Hello Dereck,

I have read all your complete information about the "HP SPECTRE X360" and the different comments of your followers.

I already bought this laptop for my wife, but I could not find the "Dell Active Stylus 750-AAGN", do you have another pen reference that works well? Do you know the "HP Stylus Active"? Is it compatible with the HP SPECECT X 360?

Thanks.
- Derek Sullivan
  
  January 5, 2017 at 4:58 pm
  
  You have to be careful when buying pens from HP because they also sell pens for the Spectre x2, which is a different brand digitizer(Wacom I believe). The x360 is Synaptics brand so there's a good chance that if the pen is Synaptics, it'll probably work.
Key

May 2, 2017 at 4:34 pm

Hi Dereck
I was thinking to get Asus UX360CA Zenbook Flip 13.3" Core M3-7Y30 8GB 512GB SSD and I can get it for 884 euro. But I sudenly founded your review, and I haven't seen better review writer then you. So I founded HP Spectre Pro x360 G2 13.3 QHD Touch, Intel® Core™ i5-6200U, 8GB, 256GB SSD, Intel® HD 520 and I can get it for 970 euro, but it is from RENEW program, and I dont cnow if I shoud be afraid of that renew program items, and as far as I understand this is an older version. I'm searching ultrabook for dayly use, I'm not a gamer but Asus has a glossy screen and isn't so powerful compared with Hp. Thank you in advance for help choosing
- Derek Sullivan
  
  May 3, 2017 at 10:09 am
  
  I've never heard of that program. It could be just old stock that's still new in the box or it could be refurbished. It's Skylake though, so it's not really that old. Considering the prices are so close, that's a tough decision. The x360 will easily outperform the UX360CA, but you might not really need that performance. The Zenbook is fanless though, so that's a plus. My dealbreaker would be the keyboard not being backlit and the screen being dim. If either of those were better, the Zenbook would probably be my pick, mainly because it's thinner and lighter. But since I use my laptop a lot at night, I would want my keys lit or at least have a bright enough screen to make them visible.
  
  Your call, but if it were me, I would probably go the x360 route.
Adam

August 3, 2017 at 12:17 am

Hey there Derek. Are you still updating this? Haven't heard from you yet. Thanks man.
- Derek Sullivan
  
  August 3, 2017 at 4:04 pm
  
  I haven't touched on this one in some time, especially after the new one came out. Did you have a particular question on it?

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HP Spectre x360 13-inch review – the 2-in-1 ultraportable to get

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