HP Spectre 13T-3000

Here's how you can tell if Rapid Start is working (excerpted from the Intel RS technology user guide; note step 27-- you'll notice this behavior since the keyboard lights will go out, come back on, and go out again. Regular hibernate doesn't show this behavior. Also, while in S3 (sleep) state, even with RS enabled the power button will flash on and off. When the machine is fully hibernated all lights will be off (as in regular hibernation.)

Testing the Intel Rapid Start Technology

26. Click the Windows Start button, and then click Sleep. This will put the system into S3 state.
27. Observe that the system will go into sleep mode, and then quickly wake up again before going into sleep
state again. This is normal behavior as the system first transitions into the S3 state (per the OS), and then
Intel Rapid Start will wake the system up and move it into the S4 state.
28. The system is now in the S4 state as it cannot be woken up using USB devices such as USB keyboard or
mouse.
29. Press the Power Button to resume the system.
30. Observe that the system resume time is as fast as a wake from S3.

 

Thanks for the input. I think I am now "in compliance" with the setup for RS with hibernate disabled and it is behaving just how you describe with one exception: the restart from S3 is 1.5-3 seconds - sometimes seems like 1 - but from S4 it's more like 4-6 secs - in other words, S4 is faster than hibernate but noticeably slower than from S3. Even more perplexing: I have a C2D era laptop that resumes from sleep (plugged in) in 2-3 seconds, same for every other laptop I have going from Arrandale to Ivy Bridge cpus. Thoughts?

 

Your numbers seem about the same as mine. I assume the step 30 observation is overstated, although most people who wouldn't time it might not quibble. As to why the older gen CPU (I have a Core 2 duo in my old T400s as well) wakes up as fast (if that is your point) from what technical descriptions have noted the Haswell and its support logic is in deeper sleep, consuming significantly less power in S3 than older chipsets, so taking the same amount of time to wakeup is the major advancement. I continue to be impressed by the battery life of this machine, operating and in sleep. My old notebook's battery icon reminded me of an ice cube on a hot sidewalk; I don't feel as tethered to an AC outlet with the Spectre.

 

I'm not sure if you guys got a notification or not, there is a newer version of HP CoolSense. Check HP Support Assistant, it will not show as an actual update, it will be one of the "messages."

 

I'm looking at getting this laptop. I've seen reports of image retention on this model, though it seems only people with the QHD have reported it. Can anyone confirm who the FHD panel manufacturer is? And does anyone have the IR problem with the FHD panel?

 

I've had mine for about 6 weeks and have not noticed any image retention with my FHD screen. As for who manufactures the FHD display, the device manager did not yield much info. Hardware ids just says MONITOR\CMN1357. This does not give me any hints. Maybe someone else can shed some light on to who makes the screen.

 

It is my understanding that Philips make the display panel

 

Out of curiosity, is anyone else noticing this bug with the USB ports. I think it may be attributable to the fact that Intel does not have a USB 3.0 host controller drive and the only one available is the generic Microsoft one that comes with Windows 8/8.1. When I plug in a USB drive or device for the first time after a sleep, restart, or cold boot, it always fails to load and the error message about device failing to be recognized comes up. Taking the drive out and putting it back in works everytime. Has anyone else noticed this and is their a workaround to having to put a USB drive in twice to get it recognized?

 

Its a joint production between LG and Philips. They are not made from either or, I believe LG just uses Philips factories for manufacturing. That's why the model numbers say something like "LG Philips D000000"

Source: My mind, and LG.Philips Displays - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Also just a basic search of "LG Philips" together like that.

I have the QHD panel, and am experiencing image retention, have had the computer for 1 week now. Already setup another exchange. Also I was given the option
of a 3 year accidental damage warranty for $199. Or should I buy the $299 warranty from Square Space?

Really like the QHD panel, super sharp text, not that the FHD isn't. Just wanted a bit of future proofing. Hopefully HP figures something out with LG, or switch to Samsung high res displays. (Like the Retina Macbook Pro, they use both LG and Samsung) Also NO, I'm not talking about the infamous Pentile junk like the Lenovo Yoga Pro

Also might consider getting the FHD panel if the scaling isn't solved soon, Photoshop is very useless.

 

Mike,
I know I have read about this before -perhaps for my Envy 14 Spectre. I haven't yet found the links for it but suffice to say I believe the Intel 3.0 driver is - or at least it was - "defective" (not sure if that's the correct description but that's the generic status) and apparently doesn't support USB 3.0, but I am certain the problem doesn't cause it to fail, as yours does, but to function as a USB2 interface. I am not with my Spectre but will see if I get the same result as you're getting. I would think someone on the thread would have reported it if it was common. In any event if your problem is related to the USB3 driver so it's software.

(Truth is, Iv'e been remiss in not testing out all the operations related to hardware on my Spectre and my 21 days have come and gone. Still, I love the machine and am commited to it regardless. As it is I know the trackpad is malfuntioning in a minor way (the control zone features are inoperative on the left side) but I probably won't send it in for that alone.)

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

 

Thanks for the replies on the screen. I stopped at Best Buy over lunch to look at it, and with the limited time I had, I didn't notice any image retention like in the pictures I've seen. I also tried to get the fan to kick on to hear for myself. The video I saw on youtube made the fan sound about like any other small PC fan.

 

I wanted to first say thanks to all those who have contributed to this forum - it's been a very helpful and lengthy read.

I purchased a 13T-3000 from HP in late December. It arrived in mid-January (i5, FHD, 256 SDD, 4GB, AC). I ended up returning it within a few days. The keyboard in the top left (around the tab key) wasn't fully responsive. I was going to send it in for repair, but opted to make the jump to 8G. I was surprised how much RAM the system used - i was about 2G with just a few apps open. My new laptop arrived last week (i5, FHD, 256 SDD, 8GB, AC) and I'm happy to report that there are no major issues. I do have a bit of bleed during start up. Updated and cleaned off bloatware without issue. After a week in, I'm very happy with my purchase.

Wishes: Hard to keep her clean. Shows everything. Specfically, the touchpad has some funky discoloration. Any advice for cleaning the screen?
Surprises: I actually like Windows 8/8.1 with a touch screen. I hated it on my desktop PC - but after playing around with it for an hour or so i 'get it' - and I actually like using it... some of the apps are quite rich (stocks, weather, etc)
8.1 is kind of annoying: When you close an app, you have to drag it to the bottom and wait for it to 'flip' to actually shut the app down. Otherwise, it sits in memory.
HP: I got a call from HP support resolution. They wanted to know more about the issue with my keyboard. I told him what was wrong and that I returned the laptop. I started asking some questions, and he told me that I was the first person who reported this issue with a keyboard and they wanted to investigate it further. That impressed me quite a bit... I did press for other issues or problems with the laptop and he gave me stock answers.
Ignorance is bliss: I haven't seen any of the issues that many of you are reporting - however, I also don't dig too hard - so i'm sure there are some underlying issues that a more general user doesn't even notice.

 

I haven't experienced any problem with a USB drive or USB DVD not being recognized.

Regards, Jim

 

If the USB port isn't working as USB 3.0 with a USB 3.0 device, check to make sure that USB 3.0 is set to 'enabled' instead of 'auto' in the EFI setup. You can verify a device is running at USB 3.0 speed in: settings charm > Change PC settings > PC and Devices > Devices
The device will show 'Connected to USB 3.0' or 'can run faster if connected to USB 3.0 port' (or something like that) if it's not running at super speed. I haven't had any issues with connecting USB 3.0 hard drives or Bluray burner.

Auto setting is supposed to run the port at USB 2.0 initially and then alllow USB 3.0 operation; but I don't see it working that way; the port seems to stay at 2.0 unless set to 'enabled'.

 

That's the setup that I'm looking at getting.

One of the options when building the laptop on the HP site is an HDMI->VGA adapter. I presume that it will not output via VGA if you're running something that requires an HDCP connection to the monitor (ie. it isn't an HDFury replacement).

 

Thanks all for commenting on the USB issue I reported earlier as well as the troubleshooting I've been doing on some other issues. Here's my current update on the last few days trials and tribulations:
- The USB port seems to be operating correctly. I was using a Corsair Flash Voyager GT USB 3.0 drive and it was failing to detect the first time. An immediate removal and installation worked. When I tried the same test with a SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0 and Transcend USB 3.0 drive (all 32GB size) those two worked fine. It is something with the Corsair. I know there was mention on whether the USB 3.0 ports were actually operating at correct speed, without a true Intel driver, but I haven't had a chance to test. I'll check when I get back from travel this weekend.
- I was having trouble getting Intel Rapid Start to install. I got it working after another recovery drive install. The correct UEFI partition and 8GB partition showed up this time and the program installed. Not sure why there is the 400MB unallocated space at the front of the drive unless it is meant for diagnostic programs? Anyways, I was happy to finally get Rapid Start operating. Thanks to Burd for his advice. I still haven't figured out what I was doing wrong before as I followed the Intel directions to a T and nothing worked until the recovery.
- I have the updated Intel versions of Rapid Storage, Rapid Start, and WiFi drivers installed and working well. I can't say for certain but I do not recommend using the *.1015 CPPC drivers discussed a few pages back. When I did the Recovery I had to do it three times (frustrating). I think this driver messes with the graphics and you can result in a black screen after the login screen (mouse cursor shows) that doesn't get repaired with a System Restore. I will continue to monitor my other drivers to make sure it doesn't happen again, but I think it was the CPPC driver that caused it. Stick with the HP version for now, if you aren't one of the ones who uninstalls it completely.
- There is an updated HP graphics driver on the Support site now, for those that are interested. It is an even higher version than the one listed on Intel's page. It installed fine.
- I am experimenting with the image retention issue on the QHD. You may be able to mask it if you don't have a bright background (e.g. dark backgrounds seem to mask it a little better).

Question: Is there a solid SSD optimization software available that maximizes performance of the drive? My Momentus XT hybrid drive on my other laptop is faster than the HP's SSD. I also ran PerfectDisk in SSD Optimize mode and it doesn't do much, although it is telling me the drive has no fragmentation yet is running at 91% (which may be due to a powersaving feature enabled somewhere). Running HD Sentinel indicates the drive is in perfect condition.

 

Perhaps you have a problem When I connect my 3.0 My Passort external drive it says: "connected to USB 3.0" But the EFI setting was apparently defaulted to Enabled. Same on my Spectre 14's 3.0 port.

Coupla things:

There are a number of steps - some of which I'm sure you know, possibly most -
recommended to maximize SSD performance (e.g., disable or reduce pagefile size, eliminate hibernate, quite a few others) and if you Google the subject you will find both "canned" utilities that go in and perform some of the adjustments and good lists of things for customized DIY steps. I recommend the latter, as I don't really trust off-brand software (these packages are all "indies") and I like the flexibility of only doing those things I want (eg, one of the recommended steps are to eliminate the restore partition, but I find that one of the most useful features of Windows and would not consider doing so). Sorry to be lazy and not give you links, but easy to find in a search. (I haven't done this on my Spectre 13 and have only done these to W7 machines, and I'm not sure what changes are appropriate for W8. If you perform a majority of the steps you can see some material but not hugely significant speed bump (10-15%, possibly a bit more, but you would be hard pressed to notice even a 50% increase in speed since you're starting from approx 400/350 Seq. Read/Write and 30 Mb/s random 4k read (the most important measurement for what you'll notice in everyday operations - 30 Mb/s on the stock 256GB SSD in the Spectre 13t is nearly the fastest of any SSD I've seen benchmark. Keep in mind, the average HDD does the random 4k read at about 0.3 Mb/s so the SSD in the Spectre is 30X faster than the average, current day, mechanical HDD. It's harder to move the needle on this area of performance than others, but you notice a 10% improvement more at 30 Mb/s than you do from the sequential file base of 400 Mb/s.

Sorry for a lot of blah, blah and doublespeak, but I think the important factual information you can use is in there somewhere, and I having a dementia day.

---------------
Finally, can you provide an easy way to see if you have an image retention problem. I have the QHD screen and have not noticed this, but I underestand it can get worse with time and I want to kind of force it to happen and be visible if it is there. Thanks.

 

Curious, how fast is the Momentus XT? I ran Crystal Disk Mark on the Spectre and though not quite as fast, it seems in line with the Samsung 840 EVO in my i7 desktop (sequential R/W measured 465MB/s, 355MB/s on the Spectre; 499/484 on the desktop Samsung). Random R/W speeds also seem reasonable, though the Samsung was almost twice as fast at random writes (its a pretty good SSD). The Spectre blows away my older i7 920 desktop machine (it has a Samsung 830 that got 264/239 MB/s seq. R/W -- its only on a SATA II port).

 

I find these "Magic Fiber" microfiber cloths, supposedly made specially for LCD glass cleaning, work pretty well. I have a spray bottle of a "magic solution" (a.k.a. "water" ) and spray one side of the cloth lightly to clean, then use the other side to polish dry. As a longtime OCD about fingerprints I like these because you can rub as hard as you want without fear of scratching the finish (as long as you don't use it after it accumulates dirt/dust), even if the cloth is dry.

 

No; its running fine at super speeds for me also when set to enabled (I have a Passport as well). But I happened to discover that the 'auto' setting doesn't seem to work as advertised because I set it that way when when I created a Macrium PE recovery flash drive . It booted fine for the recovery environment but didn't revert back to USB 3.0 mode for Win 8.1 as it claims it should in the help text for that setting.

 

I 'm finding the touch screen very convenient as well; even in the desktop environment some things are just quicker to swipe and poke. I just wish I had it on my other machines since I find myself reaching out to the screen by reflex now. I was missing the fingerprint reader on my old laptop (when rebooting it's convenient for speedy sign-on's) but the Win 8 'picture password' feature is just as easy.

 

I'm on travel at the moment but I'll see what I can do to compare (e.g. crystalmark) when I get back. My comment is based on comparison between this laptop and a 3.5-year old (I guess) Lenovo W510. I upgraded the hard drive from the 7200 rpm drive to a 500GB Momentus XT (1st gen) and later to the 750GB version (2nd gen). Immediate, and huge difference between the Momentus and standard HDD. The difference was even more noticeable when I put the 500GB version in my wife's 6-year old laptop. It runs Win 7 like a champ. Anyways, I just notice that everything in the Lenovo (Win 7 Professional) is almost instantaneous. Likewise, installing software and updates goes much faster, but that could also be Win 7 vs. Win 8 (even though you'd think Win 8 would streamline some of the process). Anyways, I'll see if I can get a comparison for you. I have just noticed that the SSD in this HP takes a long time to run Registry checks. I can't remember the name off the top of my head but I know there is a mainstream software that may be able to tweak and improve performance of this drive. I don't think there is an SanDisk firmware update.

 

A couple times in this thread, the question of max display brightness between the FHD and QHD screens has come up. As we know, the HP manual specifies a rating of 340 NITS for both screens. Having had many laptops around the house over the years, I suspected as others have that 340 was too high of a rating for this system. I have the QHD panel and really wanted to see if in fact the 1080P panel brightness was truly the same as HP states. So, today I took my QHD system into Best Buy where they have a 1080P Spectre 13t-3000 on display with the FHD screen. With all power and graphics settings identical I now have the answer. The FHD 1080 panel is noticeably brighter than the QHD. Two others with me quickly noted the difference as well. So, HP did not feel it necessary to convey accurate brightness numbers to consumers for some reason. This is too bad for many of us that would have preferred a brighter screen.

 

I have to admit, I doubt the 340nit number for my QHD too. Surprisingly, a very respectable test source, notebookcheck. net, measured a high of over 340nit and an average 335. Maybe they had a run of bad screens that have dimmed LEDs. Who wants to be the first to get HP to replace their screen?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

I would really like to hear from anyone that has switched between QHD and FHD screens and their experience regarding screen brightness. Just seeing the FHD and QHD side by side the difference was very apparent to me, assuming both were representative quality builds. I have a few days to make my decision between the two so any info is helpful.

 

tried one Spectre 13 with QHD screen myself and i really like it. too bad i'm in Singapore and the prices for this one is just crazy, i7/8G/256SSD/QHD is S$2499 (~1967USD), probably can get around 100 bucks discount from dealers at most. same for Asus Zenbook UX301LA, i7 4558U/8G/Iris graphics/256SSD/QHD is S$2788 (~2195USD), while rMBP 13 with i5/8G/256SSD/Iris graphics is only S$2088! (~1644USD).

it's like forcing people to buy RMBP here, which i really don't want to...

 

Very interesting - and lamentable for you. I'm curious, do you have any idea why the Macs are selling for about $400 less than the HP Sectre 13 there vs about $500 more here ($250 without HP coupons.)? That's a relative price differential of $650 - $900 here vs there. I would assume all the higher prices outside the US are due to import tariffs and taxes, but why would they affect the HP and Asus products so much more than Apples'? Or do you think Apple is pricing there stuff lower there for market share, causing their end consumer price to be lower than the competition there vs higher here? Again, I'm sorry you get penalized with computer prices, but at least you have cleaner streets

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

I have had two Spectre 13's with the FHD screen (which I returned) and now I have one with the QHD screen. I never had them at the same time so I couldn't do a direct comparison but I can say that the QHD screen I have is plenty bright enough for my eyes. It is set on 100% but I wouldn't want it any brighter though (I sometime run it a click down from it's brightest setting if I am am on mostly white screen).

I think I may have had the FHD set at slightly less than 100%, so it may have been potentially brighter but like I said, the QHD can be as bright as I would want it to be. :thumbsup:

 

Yeah...I have the QHD as well and it is plenty bright. In fact I have it set at 50% on battery power and 60% plugged in. This is with the adaptive brightness setting turned off, which makes it brighter. I wouldn't want it very bright because it will only make backlight bleed more noticeable.

 

it's all because of HP's stupid pricing here.. not sure why they set it this way, but it's very very stupid. GST tax rate here is 7%, the prices i quoted previously were all tax inclusive (this is how it's normally done here), if we compare pre-tax prices, Apple's price is actually almost the same everywhere in the world, all the different prices are results of different local tax rate. Also, I've checked with HP here, US set will not have international warranty! guess what, Apple has! so ironic that only through this incident i found out that Apple's way of doing business is actually much better than everyone perceived. it's not only cheaper than HP and Asus, but also more transparent and honest than HP!

For Asus, it's a little different this time around, as UX301 is very expensive in every country and prices doesn't vary by too much (1850USD on Amazon pre-tax, similar to what i will pay if i can get some discount from dealers). if I must decide soon I'd rather buy Asus rather than throw away few hundred bucks to HP for nothing! At least Asus UX301 specs is comparable to RMBP while Spectre 13 is not...

 

Here's the configuration I'm considering; I'm trying to determine if I should jump on it. The $100 off coupon is good through 2/22, and the 5% Fatwallet cash back is good through tonight.

Price $1,264.99
Coupon - $100.00
Sub-total $1,164.99
Tax $81.55
Total $1,246.54

5% cash back is $58.25

For a grand total: $1,188.29

Components:
• Windows 8.1 64
• 4th generation Intel® Core™ i5-4200U Processor + Intel® HD Graphics(For 8 GB Memory)
• Onboard 8GB DDR3 System Memory
• Included 2 Year Warranty
• 13.3-inch diagonal Radiance Full HD Infinity LED-backlit Display (1920x1080) Touchscreen
• 256GB Flash Solid State Drive
• No Additional Office Software
• Free Upgrade to 1-yr McAfee LiveSafe service™
• 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• No Internal DVD or CD Drive
• Backlit Keyboard
• Webcam and Microphone
• 802.11 AC WLAN and Bluetooth® [2x2]

 

I would try for the 20% off deal that many people have gotten.

Good luck, Jim

 

I just got off the phone with HP. He couldn't give me the 20% since it was too far past the end date for the promotion.

 

Well, I bit, not sure it that was smart or not. Since its a gift, I can accept that it wasn't the absolute best deal around.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9

 

How often does HP run similar coupons to 20% off? I'm looking at one of these and trying to figure out when to buy.

 

I asked the same thing awhile back in this thread. I was told it can vary by the day, but I have tried older coupon codes daily for 20% off and haven't had any luck. All the coupon code sites don't have an active 20% off coupon either. Still holding out for a new code...If anyone has connections please hook me up!

 

you might try asking if they expect another coupon offer in the near future, also ask if they can provide any kind of discount. Tell them you will otherwise have to choose a Dell that offers the same performance at a lower price (even if it isn't true). You might also ask for a manager and try the same riff. Finally, if you have the time, buy one at its current price and call in a request for a return/full refund; this almost always begets an offer of a discount if you are willing to keep it. At that time you can tell them the price it would take to keep it. Hp doesn't like to lose to anyone. I'm not just making wild guesses here; I've done just this maybe 6+ times in the past 3 years. Can't hurt. Good luck.

 

I need your help folks. Earlier in the thread I brought up my problem with return from sleep was taking 8 seconds or so instead of being nearly instantaneous, as I know it should be. After lots of input I settled on: hibernate disabled and Intel Rapid Star technology enabled in both the UEFI and programs. It was working like a champ for a while and then, without changing anything, it went back to being slow coming out of sleep. Interesting, it doesn't happen except when I close the lid (set to sleep) and it works fine if sleeping for something like an hour or two. If I leave it like that overnight when I open the lid the keyboard is dark and pressing any button doesn't bring it to life. Instead I have to wake it up with the power button and it takes that 8 seconds or so, but once it comes on it is in the exact state I left it when putting to sleep, kind of like hibernate would do but, again, I have hibernate disabled. This just changed out of the blue. To my knowledge I neither changed any settings nor installed something new that might be causing this.

A second problem I've been encountering is that about 1/3 of the time when I go to Devices and Printers to turn on, say, my bluetooth headphones I find them and all other bluetooth device greyed out. When I check Device Manager it no longer shows Bluetooth Drivers either on their own not in the network card. I have to re-install the bluetooth 4.0 drivers and then everything works fine - until it happens again. Any thoughts?

Thanks.

 

Rapid Start will always transition from the 'sleep with very quick wakeup' to the 'near zero power draw' state (which appears like hibernation) after a time delay, which can be set from 0 to 120 minutes if the RS user interface is installed in the tray. There is no setting that is 'permanent sleep' with Rapid Start in the picture, at least not that I've seen (maybe there's a registry hack?). When set to 0 minutes, the power button acts just like a 'hibernate now' button. When set to anything greater, the machine will appear to sleep/rapid wake until the timeout expires, at which point you'll need the power button to revive it (at which point it will take the 5 or 6 seconds, maybe longer if you have lots of stuff open, to get the desktop to appear). Does it (the RS user interface) appear in your configuration (it wasn't in mine by default; I got it by re-installing RS from Intel's website), and if so, what is the timeout set to? No clue as to why it would suddenly start to show this behavior (this is normal behavior AFAIK except for the variation in times you're seeing; it should have always operated this way).

With all of that said, I think you'll get the behavior you expect if you uninstall or turn off Rapid Start and use conventional sleep.

Regarding bluetooth, I have had a few flaky experiences with the BT drivers in the past on this machine... somehow they seem to interact with other device driver installations (for example, I've had issues with btmshellex.dll errors popping up right after updating a synaptics driver; finally after some sequence of install/re-install which I will probably never be able to recreate, the BT driver error went away). I'm hoping they eventually settle down with either an Intel driver update or the next revision to Win 8.1...

 

FYI. For those that use Intel-provided drivers instead of HP versions, Intel just released Wifi driver 16.10 for the 7260AC.

 

Now that more people have purchased this laptop I am curious what the consensus is on using HP Coolsense? Several pages ago there was thought that turning it off or uninstalling it improved performance without compromising battery life. Is that still the consensus? Are most people using it or not and do you find it useful?

 

When the Synaptic driver update became available previously, I installed it and it impacted Bluetooth. There is a compatibility issue there with the updated driver. I ended up rolling back to the previous driver and the Bluetooth issue went away. I did not see any track pad or any other performance or behavior change with the updated driver on my system before I removed it.

 

I have it turned on. I have no issues with either performance or battery life. I find the biggest drain on battery life is screen brightness, I turn it as far down as I can when on battery.

 

I'd like to re-open the "flying cursor" issue that has been mentioned by me, lovelaptops and maybe a couple others. This still happens to me occasionally, and can be quite devastating if working in software without an undo function. It always happens as I rest my palms to start typing, once I'm typing, it doesn't seem to happen as long as my palms stay down. But I, for the life of me, see it when it happens so I can correlate it with what ever I'm doing with my hands to cause it. I've reverted back to default touchpad settings, as any changes, either had no effect, or made other functionality worse. Does anyone have any insight on this?

Also, the other issue I had with this was the phantom touch screen tapping; the computer would act as if someone was drumming their fingers on the left edge of the screen. This has just stopped happening, don't know if an update fixed it, a little bit of use wore in some of the components or if it is just dormant waiting to strike again. But it's been nearly a month since it happened the last time.

 

You know, I did the same thing (rolled back the touchpad update). But I noticed that the cursor would frequently disappear with the touchpad .17 driver level and after a while tried re-installing the updated .18 version. After some monkeying around with BT uninstall/re-install I got it working without errors. I don't seem to have the disappearing cursor problem with the .18 level of the touchpad driver.

 

I've encountered this. All of a sudden my Bluetooth mouse stopped working, I went to settings>pc and devices and found that Bluetooth was not there. I had to reinstall the Bluetooth 4.0 driver from HP to get it back again. It's happened twice since I've had the computer over the last three months so pretty random.

 

OK - I'm convinced - I want one! They aren't available in NZ at the moment - and I will be in the US on the 23 April. So my question is - when do I buy. Up until the 22 Feb I can buy this configuration

Components:
• Windows 8.1 64
• 4th generation Intel® Core™ i5-4200U Processor + Intel® HD Graphics(For 8 GB Memory)
• Onboard 8GB DDR3 System Memory
• Included 2 Year Warranty
• 13.3-inch diagonal Radiance Full HD Infinity LED-backlit Display (1920x1080) Touchscreen
• 256GB Flash Solid State Drive
• No Additional Office Software
• Free Upgrade to 1-yr McAfee LiveSafe service™
• 4 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• No Internal DVD or CD Drive
• Backlit Keyboard
• Webcam and Microphone
• 802.11 AC WLAN and Bluetooth® [2x2]

For $1144 plus Phildelphia tax (8% I think?) That's with the $100 coupon currently.

However it would ship 3 March - so would be well out of the 21 days free right of return period.

My main concern is a manufacturing fault - screen or battery seems most likely. How often do these show up? If something like this was apparent when I got to Philly - would I still be able to exchange quickly or would I have have to a return to fix scenario under warranty.

Basically I have 5 days in Philly and then we are road tripping for 3 weeks - so it would be awkward to have to return it for anything more than a day or 2.

If I wait and order say early April - it should be in Philly waiting for me when I arrive - I can thrash it for a couple of days to make sure all is OK. I would be able to return within the 21 days window if required. Note I won't be exchanging because I didn't like it - only on an actual fault.

To make matters more complex my address in Philly (relatives) are away for the previous week - if HP ships early there will be no one home to receive -I assume that they require a signature and won't just leave the box at the door - is that an accurate assumption?

 

The one piece of factory software that the HP systems don't have which is very useful is battery charge limiting software. The Lenovo systems have this. Most ultrabooks have sealed batteries that cannot be removed. For people who work in an office setting or other environment in which the system is plugged in to A/C much of the time it greatly extends the overall life of the battery. The software simply limits the max charge level to 80% of maximum when on A/C (a battery at continuous 100% charge will have a much lower service life). Does anyone know of a 3rd party application that will provides this function? I have not found one and suspect it must be software that can only be OEM system specific.

 

Screen defects, while not the norm, are very common. I had a hugh screen defect in the 1st one I ordered that I exchanged for another. Also, I don't think that is really that great of a deal at all. I paid $1,200 plus tax after a discount. That was a MAX config with EVERYTHING including an I7 processor, QHD screen and Windows 8 PRO. I got all that for $56 more than you will pay. Seeing the randomness of manufacturing defects I would not buy a new system that I did not have the option of exchanging for whatever reason

 

Yes they are - Noel Leeming are now selling them for a wicked price of $2249. I bought mine in December from pricespy.co.nz for $2700 so the Noel Leeming price is great for our dollar.

If you want to see the three configurations you can buy, search 'spectre' on pricespy.