HP Spectre x360: Yay or Nay?

[GTaudiophile]

Can anyone name a better non-APPLE laptop for $1K?

HP Spectre x360:
Core i7
8 GB RAM
256GB SSD
13.3" 19x10 IPS
12 hour battery
Intel HD5500

I need a thin & light road warrior with battery endurance. Most "extreme" tasks being InDesign & PhotoShop. (Would the latter benefit hugely by dedicated nVidia GT 940M graphics from say a Lenovo?)

 

[jdoggg12]

Based on my research, if you're not looking for a convertible, you're probably going to be better off with the XPS 13. The battery is better than the Spectre and the screen is raved about. Keyboard and touch pad are well-liked too. Many complaints about the huge touchpad on the Spectre.

I looked hard at the Spectre (best value), XPS 13 (best overall), and Yoga 3 Pro (best form factor)

I ended up running across an Acer R13 with i7, 8GB, 256 SSD for $850 and couldn't pass it up.

 

[Cowfy]

I have the Spectre x360 in the i7 configuration. I haven't used it for any high demand applications yet, but it seems quite capable.

Don't expect 12 hours out of the battery. I typically get about 8 hrs (I think?) with brightness at ~80%, although I haven't extensively tested it. I'm not sure I've run out of battery in a single sitting yet. If you're interested I can bring it to work and let it sit there all day with the screen on to see how long it lasts. I've also found that the wifi range isn't as good as my phone or tablet.

The trackpad is indeed quite large. I have difficulty right clicking with it. It has great palm rejection. In general, I hate trackpads. I don't think it's any better or worse than any trackpad I've used on numerous other laptops.

That being said, it's the best laptop I've ever had... fast, small, light, very sturdy, and I enjoy the convertible nature of it, particularly if I'm watching a movie in bed. The touchscreen is more practical than I would have thought using Windows. It also boots up extremely quickly, although I tend to just leave it in standby rather than shutting it down, like a tablet. The battery lasts a few days using it like this.

If you don't care about having a convertible laptop, from what I've heard the Dell is the better choice. I wouldn't consider the Yoga 3 Pro due to its Core M processor.

 

[GTaudiophile]

If I get it, I wonder if I should image the SSD and install Win7? Or try to grin and bear Win8.1 until July 29?

 

[jdoggg12]

If I get it, I wonder if I should image the SSD and install Win7? Or try to grin and bear Win8.1 until July 29?

I hated the thought of Win 8 too but it's not nearly as bad as I thought it'd be. I wouldn't upgrade my existing win 7 machines to win 8, but I've abandoned most of my distaste of Win 8 and wouldn't go through the trouble of "downgrading" to Win 7 (this is, of course, assuming it's on a touch-enabled device... on a non-touch laptop, Win 7 all the way)

 

[XavierMace]

Spend $5 on Start8 and be done with it. 8.1 is the superior OS save for the start menu.

 

[Cogman]

Spend $5 on Start8 and be done with it. 8.1 is the superior OS save for the start menu.

Or just wait for 2 months and get windows 10 free.

 

[imported_Irse]

I use Classic Shell (free) for a Win 7 start menu.

 

[HitAnyKey]

Actually been looking at the i5 / 256GB version of this one myself. Very tempted but the only thing holding me back is I still can't believe I am considering this brand. For too long nothing they offered was even remotely appealing.

There has to be a catch... But everything I read and saw says its a decent buy. This or wait to see if the Surface Pro 4 is worth the extra coin... hmmm....

Now to answer your question. This or Dell XPS.

If you need a computer that can sorta act like a tablet then HP looks like a good choice. Otherwise Dell XPS because its a more proven quantity at this point and it does what it does very well.

 

[iCyborg]

I've been looking at Spectre i5/256 SSD/8GB with 1080p lately, Best Buy has $50 off this week. Win 10 is starting to be preloaded, and I don't want it, so this may be the last chance to stay on 8.1 without spending $130 for a license. XPS 13 has a bunch of stuff I consider flaws, so Spectre is closer to what I want.

Can anyone from North America who has Spectre with 256GB SSD tell me what's the SSD brand and model they have? It can be seen in DeviceMgr or properties in win explorer.

It's not very clear on the net: some say it's some Samsung M.2 with the same 840 EVO slow down bug which Samsung will *not* fix, so that's a bummer, others say some SF-based ADATA which has rather below-the-average performance, but I might be ok with that. Even with discount, it's running >$1400 in Canada (our dollar crapped out lately), so putting some better SSD for another 200-300$ is getting way to expensive, I was targeting $1K really.

 

[iCyborg]

Well, I bought Spectre x360 with 5200U/8GB/256GB on Sunday. It's a bit more than I planned to spend, but the alternatives with 1080p 13" panels come rather close in price after HDD->SDD swap. XPS 13 when configured with 256 SSD and 8 GB RAM is $150+tax more expensive.

SSD is ADATA 256GB, it'll stay for now, I may upgrade it in a few years if I start running out of space.

So far I like it a lot: battery life seems great, really nice build and finish, thin, light, great screen, specs more than adequate for what I'll be using it for.
The touchpad *is* unnecessarily big, but nothing to write home about. I'm not a fan of touchpads in general, and I'm not a fan of this one either. Keyboard is pretty good, the travel is as good as one can expect from something this thin.
It still had Win 8.1, so I can choose when to upgrade to 10, if at all, so that was good too.

All in all, yay from me.

 

[HitAnyKey]

Well, I bought Spectre x360 with 5200U/8GB/256GB on Sunday. ...
All in all, yay from me.

Congrats on the purchase. Check back in a week and give an update if you don't mind.

 

[jaydee]

My friend has one of these. You can hit all the sweet spots: i5 ULV (not Core-M) 8GB / 256GB SSD, convertible, 1080p IPS touch, DP and HDMI, all for $1000 (available at launch, I actually don't see that configuration any more), which I don't know of anything else that can with those features for that price. It also seems really well built.

My friend has the i7 version. The performance difference between i5 and i7 ULVs is almost nothing since its same number of cores/threads and little difference in frequency.

The only thing is, if you don't need something right away, Skylake mobile is right around the corner and looks like it will provide a decent boost to battery life and a little more performance.