HP Spectre x360 15" 4k screen
28 October 2016, 09:44 PM
#1
HP Spectre x360 15" 4k screen
Does anyone have any experience with a HP Spectre laptop-tablet? Seems to have very good reviews from various tech websites...
http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Pr...pt=ABU&sel=NTB
Reckon it could last 4 years?
http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Pr...pt=ABU&sel=NTB
Reckon it could last 4 years?
29 October 2016, 10:11 AM
#2
I have the smaller 13" i7 x360 Spectre with the 2560 x 1440 (WQHD) display.
Its a very very nice laptop. Quality, feel, etc is top notch, but there are some gripes, mainly Microsoft related, but a few with HP too:
i7 runs uncomfortably hot on normal video unless the CPU speed is restricted in teh power settings. This is not a quick click change on win 10 like it used to be on Vista/7 as it has to be done via the old vista style menus which any win8/win10 user will tell is buried away a bit deeper than the new settings menus.
Set at 65% max on battery keeps the fan off and it just about right. The fan can be pretty noisy too, but it is tiny and its a alot of CPU to cool in a 13" case, but the software shouldn't need to keep peaking it out when watching SD video.
Screen: Its lovely, love the high resolution. BUT win8 and win10 changed the way software scales text which can result in blurred/out of focus text on some application...iTunes is a great example of this. Also tiny icons on VLC or iVMS. VAG-com won't go full screen. And the Mercedes DSS portal is microscopic. This is a problem on ALL win10 pcs running ultra-high resolution displays. Annoyingly I have a vista PC at home running a Dell U2412M which is 1920x1200 and has none of the scaling issues that win8 and win10 PCs have.
Its also quite shiny, so you do get reflections, and it struggles with brightness in the outdoors.
Touch screen; not bad, to be honest even at 13" I find it a bit too large and heavy to use a tablet. I'd guess 15" would be ridiculous...for example when I'm doing diagnostic or oscilloscope work from a car seat, I have to slide the seat back to get clearance from the steering wheel.
Win10 updates seem to like putting it into fixed tablet mode without asking regardless of orientation. Took me a while of continuous swearing to work out what was happening (bottom right, notification centre...turn off tablet mode; easy when you know
)
Also notification centre bug: Once in a while everytime I click it pops up, even when there isn't a notification. Annoying, requires a reboot to fix it...bear in mind I never turn this laptop off...its always in standby.
Which reminds me: Windows updates when plugged into power whilst in standby. It has a habit of doing this at 3:00am by default. Now if the laptop is in its sleave and by the bed, you are awoken by the fan working at full chat as the laptop is overheating (can't get air though the cover
).
Touch pad, nice to use with the exception I need to use too much pressure to do a "click", you can soft tap for a left click, but for right clicking I find I need too much pressure.
Battery life; spot on, so long as you set the power settings sensibly.
Cleanliness...the satin silver finish marks easily. Bear in mind I use this laptop in a grubby environment. It cleans off easy enough though.
The corners are rather sharp; you'll notice this if you use the supplied sleave, as it'll fray and rip after a few months of use. But after over 12months the Spectre still looks good and almost as new; Unlike my iPhone6s which is newer and looks like trash - bent, seal escaping from one corner, chipped edges and now the screen is cracked...my iP5 looked mint when I sold it, as does my iP4s (used as a ipod), so its not through pure neglect.
Finally there is a known issue with the 13" model (mine) in that the power socket circuit fails (google it). It starts off as the laptop dying, then eventually coming back to life but then being unable to charge. Mines OK, but I know someone with a 13" spectre that has failed. I believe the cause is being a heavy handed when plugging/unplugging the power, or moving the laptop whilst plugged in. I don't know if the 15" model suffers from this, worth checking though.
Mine has a 3yr warranty (came free as compensation for the order being delayed
), but as standard they come with just 12months..if the power socket flaw isn't fixed it maybe worth investing in the extended warranty or seeing it its available as a deal (HP sometimes do offers).
That said, I just purchased a £560 15" Asus i5 1080p laptop for my mum's partner. It looked nice in the pics, but in reality it feels flimsy and made from nasty feeling plastic when compared to the Spectre.
Last moan: Super slim and sexy compact laptop.....ugly, clunky large and messy charger. Compare to the one Asus supplied which is compact and slim, or Apple's usual fare, it really does let the Spectre down; They do offer a slim travel charger...but that's another £50odd quid to spend on a already expensive laptop.
Final thought; I miss my RJ45. Sometimes I want gigabit LAN, whilst I can get 400Mbps through my WiFi, that's more than half the speed. Easily sorted with a USB adapter, but obviously another gadget to buy and carry.
That's all the cons. I still love it and as a result its the first laptop I've ever had serious usage from...with my older laptops I would always use the desktop PC first and only use the laptop when on the move; But as the Spectre is that good I end up using it most of the time now and my desktop PC - once used daily, is now gathering dust.
Its a very very nice laptop. Quality, feel, etc is top notch, but there are some gripes, mainly Microsoft related, but a few with HP too:
i7 runs uncomfortably hot on normal video unless the CPU speed is restricted in teh power settings. This is not a quick click change on win 10 like it used to be on Vista/7 as it has to be done via the old vista style menus which any win8/win10 user will tell is buried away a bit deeper than the new settings menus.
Set at 65% max on battery keeps the fan off and it just about right. The fan can be pretty noisy too, but it is tiny and its a alot of CPU to cool in a 13" case, but the software shouldn't need to keep peaking it out when watching SD video.
Screen: Its lovely, love the high resolution. BUT win8 and win10 changed the way software scales text which can result in blurred/out of focus text on some application...iTunes is a great example of this. Also tiny icons on VLC or iVMS. VAG-com won't go full screen. And the Mercedes DSS portal is microscopic. This is a problem on ALL win10 pcs running ultra-high resolution displays. Annoyingly I have a vista PC at home running a Dell U2412M which is 1920x1200 and has none of the scaling issues that win8 and win10 PCs have.
Its also quite shiny, so you do get reflections, and it struggles with brightness in the outdoors.
Touch screen; not bad, to be honest even at 13" I find it a bit too large and heavy to use a tablet. I'd guess 15" would be ridiculous...for example when I'm doing diagnostic or oscilloscope work from a car seat, I have to slide the seat back to get clearance from the steering wheel.
Win10 updates seem to like putting it into fixed tablet mode without asking regardless of orientation. Took me a while of continuous swearing to work out what was happening (bottom right, notification centre...turn off tablet mode; easy when you know
)Also notification centre bug: Once in a while everytime I click it pops up, even when there isn't a notification. Annoying, requires a reboot to fix it...bear in mind I never turn this laptop off...its always in standby.
Which reminds me: Windows updates when plugged into power whilst in standby. It has a habit of doing this at 3:00am by default. Now if the laptop is in its sleave and by the bed, you are awoken by the fan working at full chat as the laptop is overheating (can't get air though the cover
).Touch pad, nice to use with the exception I need to use too much pressure to do a "click", you can soft tap for a left click, but for right clicking I find I need too much pressure.
Battery life; spot on, so long as you set the power settings sensibly.
Cleanliness...the satin silver finish marks easily. Bear in mind I use this laptop in a grubby environment. It cleans off easy enough though.
The corners are rather sharp; you'll notice this if you use the supplied sleave, as it'll fray and rip after a few months of use. But after over 12months the Spectre still looks good and almost as new; Unlike my iPhone6s which is newer and looks like trash - bent, seal escaping from one corner, chipped edges and now the screen is cracked...my iP5 looked mint when I sold it, as does my iP4s (used as a ipod), so its not through pure neglect.
Finally there is a known issue with the 13" model (mine) in that the power socket circuit fails (google it). It starts off as the laptop dying, then eventually coming back to life but then being unable to charge. Mines OK, but I know someone with a 13" spectre that has failed. I believe the cause is being a heavy handed when plugging/unplugging the power, or moving the laptop whilst plugged in. I don't know if the 15" model suffers from this, worth checking though.
Mine has a 3yr warranty (came free as compensation for the order being delayed
), but as standard they come with just 12months..if the power socket flaw isn't fixed it maybe worth investing in the extended warranty or seeing it its available as a deal (HP sometimes do offers).That said, I just purchased a £560 15" Asus i5 1080p laptop for my mum's partner. It looked nice in the pics, but in reality it feels flimsy and made from nasty feeling plastic when compared to the Spectre.
Last moan: Super slim and sexy compact laptop.....ugly, clunky large and messy charger. Compare to the one Asus supplied which is compact and slim, or Apple's usual fare, it really does let the Spectre down; They do offer a slim travel charger...but that's another £50odd quid to spend on a already expensive laptop.
Final thought; I miss my RJ45. Sometimes I want gigabit LAN, whilst I can get 400Mbps through my WiFi, that's more than half the speed. Easily sorted with a USB adapter, but obviously another gadget to buy and carry.
That's all the cons. I still love it and as a result its the first laptop I've ever had serious usage from...with my older laptops I would always use the desktop PC first and only use the laptop when on the move; But as the Spectre is that good I end up using it most of the time now and my desktop PC - once used daily, is now gathering dust.
Last edited by ALi-B; 29 October 2016 at 10:17 AM.
29 October 2016, 07:19 PM
#4
Scooby Senior
30 October 2016, 11:59 AM
#7
Currently, you can get a QHD display 13" Spectre i7 with 8Gb and 512SSD including win10 for £1199 incVAT plus there's a 10% discount voucher for this weekend making it £1079.1
http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Pr...pt=ABU&sel=NTB
The price of macs has always deterred me, but if I can get a i7 512SSD mac for £1100...obviously including the additional cost/time of installing a legit copy of win10 so I can use it for work, I will be seriously interested.
http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Pr...pt=ABU&sel=NTB
The price of macs has always deterred me, but if I can get a i7 512SSD mac for £1100...obviously including the additional cost/time of installing a legit copy of win10 so I can use it for work, I will be seriously interested.
Trending Topics
30 October 2016, 12:07 PM
#8
Scooby Senior
PRICING AND CONCLUSION
Dell's XPS 13 starts out cheaper than the MacBook Pro and tops out at £1649 with the top-of-the-range model. The MacBook Pro goes well beyond that as you continue up the range, thanks to the more expensive storage and memory options at the top-end. This is in addition to the more powerful top-end processors that manage higher peak clock speeds than the processor available in the Dell XPS 13.
At the bottom end, the XPS 13 is better value, but as you go up the MacBook range and gain access to the Touchbar and higher performance, the MacBook's price premium starts to make more sense. We'll wait until our review of the MacBook Pro 13 before making a firm conclusion.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinio...vs-dell-xps-13
Plus, it's a Dell.
Dell's XPS 13 starts out cheaper than the MacBook Pro and tops out at £1649 with the top-of-the-range model. The MacBook Pro goes well beyond that as you continue up the range, thanks to the more expensive storage and memory options at the top-end. This is in addition to the more powerful top-end processors that manage higher peak clock speeds than the processor available in the Dell XPS 13.
At the bottom end, the XPS 13 is better value, but as you go up the MacBook range and gain access to the Touchbar and higher performance, the MacBook's price premium starts to make more sense. We'll wait until our review of the MacBook Pro 13 before making a firm conclusion.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinio...vs-dell-xps-13
Plus, it's a Dell.
30 October 2016, 08:59 PM
#12
Forgot to say that I download a lot of programs to watch on my 60" 4K tv and what I have noticed is the difference from 1080p to 4K is minimal. The only time I notice a huge difference is if it's a proper blockbuster which had probably had £500m spent on it.
I also have an iPad with upgraded screen res and to be honest on such a small screen 1080p isn't noticeable and on my 60" tv I haven't really saw a huge improvement over 1080p to 4K.
If your going to buy a laptop purely on res it has to be for gaming as then they fringing shine but if it's just for video don't bother
I also have an iPad with upgraded screen res and to be honest on such a small screen 1080p isn't noticeable and on my 60" tv I haven't really saw a huge improvement over 1080p to 4K.
If your going to buy a laptop purely on res it has to be for gaming as then they fringing shine but if it's just for video don't bother
31 October 2016, 01:58 AM
#13
Scooby Senior
When I go from my screens to a 5k iMac I feel sad. The only thing I'll miss is the anti glare on my Macbook, I paid quite a lot for it and it was totally worth it outdoors but I'm sure I'll get over it pretty fast. If it's a retina screen then it's better than my old eyes.
I'm surprised gaming laptops are a thing, maybe the Switch won't be a flop. Buying Nintendo might be a wise move.
I'm surprised gaming laptops are a thing, maybe the Switch won't be a flop. Buying Nintendo might be a wise move.
01 November 2016, 11:35 AM
#14
Scooby Regular
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Particularly popular for regular attendees of LANs, college/university students, those with smaller living accommodations, and those who travel for a living but don't have to worry about carrying it themselves (eg truckers, road salesmen, etc)
As with all things, a variety of models are available of differing sizes, performance and cost - you pick whatever fits your own needs the best.
As with all things, a variety of models are available of differing sizes, performance and cost - you pick whatever fits your own needs the best.