Review HP Spectre x360: an unknown creature-transformer

Form factor laptops that turn into tablet and back again, obviously, have found their consumers, amount of time stayed on the market, and now one of the oldest and best-known computer manufacturers trying their hand in this niche. HP Spectre x360 is a new transformer with the productive “stuffing” based on the economical Intel i7 ULV-series and capacious battery. Try to find out how good he is as a notebook for everyday tasks and able to replace the tablet.

Technical specifications HP Spectre 13 x360-w001ur

• Type: laptop-transformer
• Housing: plastic, aluminum
• Screen: IPS-matrix,13,3″, 1920×1080, glossy, touch screen, capacitive
• CPU: Intel Core i7–7500U, of 1.7–3.5 GHz
• Video: Intel HD 520
• RAM: 8 GB DDR3–1600
• Storage: SSD 512 GB , M. 2
• Interfaces: USB 3.0, 2x USB 3.1 (Type C), combined with Thunderbolt, audio 3.5 mm
• Wireless interfaces: Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth 4.2
• Multimedia: microphone, speakers, Bang&Olufsen, HD web camera
• Operating system: Windows 10
• Battery: 56 WH, built-in
• Dimensions: mm 325x218x16
• Weight: 1.45 kg

Ergonomics and design

Fortunately, laptops in the sphere of exterior is not yet gone, already over smartphones and not turned into the same dull rectangles. Form factor, functionality and traditions of different manufacturers make a bit of individuality, and long-term orientation towards business customers in HP put a corresponding mark on all their products — even in the brightest “hambuch” from this company to read a certain coldness and formality. In the case of Spectre x360 tie tightened even tighter: this is how bored MacBook, but for people who don’t wear loafers and rolled jeans, and all sorts of smoothies and cupcakes prefer American and business Lunches. An adequate set of connectors (the classic USB for flash drives and stuff, plus the modern Type-C to connect what your heart desires and charging), a huge touchscreen display, nice materials, sensitive trackpad… in short, the best thing you can take from the world of business-books and modern technology.

Clean lines, cool aluminium, the sleek milling, minimalism and distinctive logo — HP Spectre line always looked decent. Especially in the pictures. Unfortunately, the reality makes minor adjustments.

The lid opens very tight (one finger to open — on 30 degrees it gets “stuck” and block the laptop keyboard is raised after display).

Keyboard backlight… watery, differently will not tell. Its brightness is not configurable, there are only two positions: on and off. In the pitch darkness looks good, but in all the intermediate versions. The keys are silver, the engraving is not too contrasting.

The display fades in bright light: spring sun easily gives glare, blurring of image details, and the top level of the backlight can not cope. Fortunately, even in the dark you can get a comfortable brightness level.

15-watt processor in a sleek new design passive heatsink not enough, so it forcibly blows a small impeller. In standard modes the laptop is silent, but under load it periodically audible high-frequency whistle of the impeller and the flow noise of the air — that doesn’t sound very respectable business-buck.

Sound

A cacophony of sounds from the cooling system of moral compensate for a speaker — they were set up by specialists from Bang & Olufsen, and everything is fine. Expect the volume, as in the cinema, a concert hall volume or low frequencies, 40-inch subwoofer is not necessary, but everything sounds clean at any volume level. Adjusted for the size of the device sound can only be glad.

Performance

The heating package 15 Watts will not give the dual core i7 and integrated Intel HD 520 long to work at maximum load, but in some cases, this bunch shows miracles. From the stock 1.7 GHz miracle stone accelerates to good in 3.5 — that is double the operating frequency.

Power graphics core is enough for 30 frames per second (this number is forced to limit performance) in Diablo 3 or the same Overwatch.

Of course, on minimum settings. Half an hour or forty minutes of gameplay the laptop stand, then the whole body warms up and the performance in an uncontrolled way jump — it is necessary to do a break. Overall HD620 copes with the games five years ago, giving a stable 30-40 fps on low and medium settings. Even reissued TES V: Skyrim support DX11 playable.

However, we must remember that the laptop is not designed for hardcore gaming, but for everyday tasks or office routine performance HP Spectre is more than enough to view documents, to outline the presentation, open the browser with the fifty tabs to fix something in the code to quickly process the picture or cut the video right in the field, on set. To speed no complaints.

Work offline

The most delicious in laptops with Intel ULV-series — work time away from an outlet with a good performance. Unlike Core-M, super saver i7 capable of not only a browser to run, Yes, text documents edit, but also to perform very serious tasks that will quickly put you in a deadlock of the cold “emka”.

Trinadcatiletnie the child was capable of working eight hours in “normal” mode. Browser, messenger, document editing, procrastination in social networks, the base image — this is no problem, you will not even notice that they are working on one of the most economical processors Core i7. From dual core i3 to the “big” laptops feeling worse.

However, if you heat at full, the battery is easy to blow away a couple of hours to zero — for example, in the same Diablo 3 that aggressively uses CPU, and graphics card, and RAM.

Ya planchette!

The possibility to put the laptop in the opposite direction — an excellent option, especially for ten-inch netbook in a slim body. Here you have a laptop, but he flick of the wrist transformirovalsya in convenient device for content consumption. Video, text documents, lazy browsing, working or entertainment… But here arises the problem of the “tablet” mode, the desktop Windows 10. Focused on touch control applications small, especially Russian-speaking. If the foreign services of the social networks to order food present in the app store, with the Russian all a bit wrong. Not in a hurry our company to the app store desktop with “Windows”, but a tablet without apps is a dead device. Yes, it is possible somehow to do a web version, but it is not!

In the result, the tablet mode is used for YouTube (to the kitchen table to the device take up less space), evening readings 4PDA in bed and occasionally to boast in front of others: see, what a thing!

The results

“The Queen gave birth to the night, not the son, not the daughter” — these thoughts arise in my head every time I see another attempt to combine two classes in one. Options for such implementations a lot, and not very successful, and the question was always the same: “what you do is who and what is needed?”.

Trinadcatiletnie transformer with a capacious battery 15-watt Core i7 inside? Designers little diagonal and lacks a pressure-sensitive pen. For the student it will be expensive, as a machine for note-taking of lectures not applicable. Remains premium segment and the corporate sector — for them and “filling” at the time, and the identified deficiencies are not critical. A little more elaborate hinge design, normal keyboard backlight and thoughtful work on the software, switching modes, tablet and laptop, would have made of “unknown animals” of handsome. Forces the developers did not have literally in the last few steps.

Pros:

• slim and compact;
• performance has not fallen victim autonomy;
• design on the level.

Cons:

• as the tablet is heavy and bulky;
• the workmanship is questionable.

Author: Ivan Krylov

Picture device: Daria Nesterovskaya

109990RUBRecommended price
at the time of publication

Source: 4pda.ru