HP SPECTRE X360
Not the best ultraportable, but one of the prettiest
Powerful thin’n’light that doubles as a tablet
WELL, IT CERTAINLY looks nice. HP’s new notebook is a sleek little number, with its touchscreen, digital stylus, and 360-degree hinges for swapping between different configurations. Our review model comes with a lovely matt finish with rose-gold accents. It’s certainly easy on the eye, and easy to use; touchscreen control is smooth and effective, and the 13-inch screen provides excellent sharpness and color contrast. The maximum brightness does leave a little to be desired, though, struggling a bit in brightly lit environments.
Performance-wise, this isn’t going to blow any minds, but it does its job well. The Spectre X360 13-ap0038nr—catchy, we know—packs an Intel Core i7-8565U processor with integrated UHD 620 graphics. That’s a quad-core CPU with a base clock of 1.8GHz, and Intel claims that its Turbo Boost technology can lift the frequency up to a maximum of 4.6GHz. HP offers a variety of performance modes and thermal settings for tweaking how you want your laptop to run; we found that this machine did get quite warm and noisy under CPU stress. With 16GB of DDR42400 memory, the Spectre X360 is best suited for image manipulation and office work, rather than heavy-duty gaming and 3D rendering.
The 512GB M.2 SSD boasts brilliant read times, on par with the best M.2 drives available right now, although write times came back tragically slower— barely superior to conventional SATA drive speeds. For connecting other hardware, there’s a single USB 3.1 port on the left-hand side, and two Type-C ports on the other, joined by a standard headphone jack and a microSD card reader. The Spectre charges from these ports, too; one is offset diagonally on the top corner of the chassis, intended for charger connection.
It’s not as small and lightweight as some notebooks currently on the market, thanks in part to a thick bezel on the lower and upper edges of the screen, the latter of which houses HP’s own Wide Vision FHD IR camera and a dual-array microphone setup. Audio is a pretty big deal with this notebook; HP has teamed up with Bang & Olufsen to deliver highquality sound via four speakers and HP’s Audio Boost 2.0. Paired with the sharp WLED-backlit screen, watching videos on the Spectre X360 certainly makes for an enjoyable experience.
Also in the box is an HP Tilt Pen, a powered stylus with two buttons. This is by far the best way to use “tablet mode”; once calibrated, the stylus is precise and effective, and the buttons can be remapped to perform various functions, such as bringing up the Windows Ink sketchpad. Touchscreen control with a fingertip is also an option—and better for quick taps in laptop mode, because pressure from the pen has a tendency to make the screen shift on its hinge a bit— but extended use is sure to leave your screen covered with fingerprints.
One of the more original features on display here is the integrated privacy screen function, HP Sure View. With the tap of a button (F1, to be exact), a screen polarization effect is instantly triggered that renders the screen completely obscured to anyone looking at it from outside a narrow cone of visibility. Security features have all been quite well thought out by HP for this laptop; the camera comes with a physical independent power switch on the side of the casing, and can be used for facial recognition login on Windows 10, and— like many modern laptops—it comes equipped with a fingerprint scanner beside the trackpad.
Finally, an oft-contested point of machine quality for notebooks: battery life. The Spectre is impressive in this department, capable of providing 14 hours of charge for working on the move. The lithium-ion battery weighs 250g and is supplied by a 65W AC adapter, which supports fast charging, thanks to USB-C—the battery is capable of charging to 100 percent in approximately one hour. With that in mind, we feel comfortable saying that the Spectre X360 is a solid piece of gear. –CHRISTIAN GUYTON
VERDICT 8 HP Spectre X360 13-ap0038nr
FRIENDLY GHOST Elegant design; fast SSD reads; thoughtful security features.
JUMP SCARE Fan is noisy; a bit heavy for a notebook; unimpressive SSD write speeds.
$1,479, http://store.hp.com