HP has come out with a refreshed 15.6-inch Spectre x360 laptop, one with speed and performance that essentially replaces the desktop and will appeal to any creator. With a retail price of $1,500, the 2017 edition certainly delivers, with a quality entertainment center and a touch surface to let your imagination go wild.
Armed with a 4K touch display, a 3840×2160 resolution, a 7th-generation Intel Kaby Lake chip (i7-7500U processor), fast charging, and a larger battery, HP has made its 15.6-inch Spectre on par with the 2016 Spectre 13.
Getting to know the 2017 Spectre
In addition to Windows 10 Home, the HP 15.6-inch Spectre comes equipped with a 256GB PCIe NvME M.2 solid-state drive (SSD), 16GB DDR4 SDRAM, ports for USB Type-C Thunderbolt 3, HDMI, USB A, and USB Type-C 3.1 Gen1. HP has packed this computer with the technology necessary to handle your creative needs, be it managing Photoshop, editing photos, word processing, watching videos, playing games, or surfing the web.
Image Credit: Michael O’Donnell/VentureBeat
The 15.6-inch Spectre isn’t bulky — it has a thickness of 0.7 inches and weighs in at 4.42 pounds. By itself, that’s not bad, but the 2017 edition is 0.07 inches thicker and 1.22 pounds heavier than its predecessor. This laptop is no brick, but it does have some weight to it, and I could feel it when lugging it around in my backpack to and from the office.
This isn’t a device that you’d want to carry around like a MacBook Air — it certainly isn’t suitable for airplane usage, because it’s so big. But that’s not why HP made this laptop; it’s something that really stands out at the home or office. Just like with the MacBook Pro and the Microsoft Surface Book, the HP Spectre is a premium quality device, not only internally but externally as well.
With an aluminum chassis and a black (“ash silver”) and gold finish, the HP Spectre has a polished look that could be well received by creative professionals. It’s a change from last year’s model, which was only available in HP’s “natural silver” color.
Image Credit: Michael O’Donnell/VentureBeat
The keyboard is massive, and there’s no mistaking where the keys are — they take up nearly the entire width of the computer. Typing felt normal, with one exception: You have to account for the fact that on the very end is a column featuring the home, page up, page down, and end buttons that can throw off your typing. Much of this review was typed on the HP Spectre, and the keyboard felt very comfortable to use. There’s 1.5mm of travel and enough space between keys to make it easy to type out a script, email, or document without any problems.
HP provides a backlit keyboard, but you can’t toggle the lighting levels — it’s either on or off.
The trackpad on the 15.6-inch HP Spectre is wide enough that no matter where your hands are on the keyboard, you’ll be able to easily control the cursor. There were times when the cursor would coast randomly across the screen for no apparent reason, an issue that I’ve experienced on at least one other HP laptop. However, when you’re actively steering the cursor with the trackpad, you can still browse the web, use multi-finger gestures to scroll, and move things around.
HP has once again used Bang & Olufsen audio technology in its laptop, with quad speakers, two more than its predecessor. It matches the update the company made with its 13-inch model last year, and the sound quality is pretty good. While there are audio controls on the display and the keyboard, there are also volume controls along the right-hand side of the computer, which come in handy when in tablet mode.
As for battery life, HP boasts that its latest Spectre laptop contains a larger lithium-ion battery with six cells and 79.2Wh that HP says will last up to 13 hours. It supports fast charging and, the company claims, will achieve 50 percent capacity within 30 minutes. After I drained the battery and then charged it, this wasn’t quite…