HP Spectre x360 13t
PROS
• Thin, light, and powerful • 8th-gen Core i7
• Supports external graphics
CONS
• Trackpad is a tad wide
• Can get a tad hot under load
BOTTOM LINE
The HP Spectre x360 13t continues to be our favorite convertible: It’s everything we loved about the first version with a lot more to offer in terms of performance.
$1,099
Keep reading for a detailed rundown of the configuration and its highlights.
CPU: Intel 8th-gen quad-core Core i7-8550u. This is Intel’s latest chip technology, which delivers a dramatic boost in performance on multi-threaded workloads. HP also sells a version of the Spectre x360 with the 8th-gen Core i5 CPU, and it doesn’t give up much in performance. To save a bit on cost, consider that one.
RAM: 8GB of LPDDR3/2133. While 16GB would be nice, for 90 percent of us, 8GB is fine.
Storage: 256GB Samsung PM961 NVME SSD. In today’s world, 256GB of storage is a little tight—we’d prefer 512GB, or even the 1TB version HP offers. Assuming you don’t load up the Spectre x360 with every picture and video in your world, however, 256GB is plenty.
Display: 1920x1080 IPS touchscreen with active pen support. We were generally pleased with the IPS touch screen and its Corning Gorilla glass layer. On battery, however, we noticed that the brightness dropped to about 255 nits max, whereas on AC it was able to hit 295 nits.
Pen: Our review unit came with the N-trig– based HP Tilt Pen. It has two nifty features. First: no more batteries. Like most users, you only find out your pen is dead when you need it the most. And, no, even Radio Shack
Battery Club members won’t have a AAAA cell around. The HP Active stylus slides open to reveal a hidden USB-C port to charge it up.
The pen also supports a Presentation mode that lets you use it to scroll down and