Tech Review: HP Spectre x360
Hi friends! Today I’m going to be writing a review of the laptop that I purchased recently and discuss how well it’s served my needs as a student and as a budding developer.
I own the HP Spectre x360, in Dark Ash Silver and Gold. To see what it looks like, check it out here. Previously I owned a Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13. The reason I chose to get a new laptop was that my old one was simply too slow and didn’t have a large enough SSD for my needs — after trying valiantly to run R scripts on 4GB of RAM, I decided it was time for a new one. I also preferred the 15.6 inch screen on my new laptop to the 13.3 that I had on my old one — if you’re in the market for a Spectre but don’t want a laptop that big, it comes in a 13.3 inch model as well for considerably cheaper.
First, the specs. This laptop has an i7–7500U mobile processor that is dual core. Now, a dual core processor might make people turn their heads away, but keep in mind that the 13 inch MacBook pros also have a dual core processor, and for most of my needs, four cores simply isn’t necessary. I was personally willing to take the better battery performance over the additional cores. The laptop also has a 512GB SSD and 16GB RAM, that should more than cover the average person’s needs in a laptop. Most tasks a person does will hardly require 8GB of RAM, so having the 16GB is a definite plus. I enjoy the 512GB SSD because I’m getting into photography and .ARW files are massive.
This model also sports a 15.6 4K UHD screen, which is absolutely beautiful for my design, photo editing, and coding needs. I have not had issues with things being too small, so it seems as though software is becoming much more optimized for 4K screens. The screen’s color accuracy has been helpful in photo editing as well.
The keyboard is one of my favorite features of the laptop. It sports an island-style chiclet keyboard which has great travel and is sufficiently clicky to satisfy the person (me) who enjoys listening to themselves type. I rate my comfort on a keyboard by how fast I can type on it comfortably, and my typing speed on the Spectre clocked in faster than either the 2015 or 2016 models of the MacBook Pro. The keyboard, however, does not have a full number pad, and instead sports Bang and Olufsen speakers on each side of the keyboard.
This model has an NVIDIA GeForce 940MX graphics card, which appears to be suitable for light gaming but not so much so for more graphics-intensive games. I’m not a PC gamer, so I haven’t seen much of an effect, but this may not be the best computer for you if you’re looking for a better line of graphics cards.
There’s a couple of features in Windows 10 that I’ve really enjoyed with the new hardware that I have on the HP Spectre. One of the main ones is Windows Hello, where I can use facial recognition to log myself in to my computer. While it doesn’t work flawlessly 100% of the time, I think it certainly has a better use case than that of the iPhone X or the Galaxy line. I also have been enjoying the features in the new Windows 10 Creator’s Update.
I would 10/10 recommend my computer to a friend or a family member, especially to a developer or designer who may be looking for a new machine for school or for their needs. I would not recommend this computer to someone who is into hardcore PC gaming or someone who isn’t willing to use a slightly heavier laptop. If you’re looking for something smaller, I would consider going for the smaller HP Spectre or looking another HP computer.
