HP Spectre 13x2

Just got this yesterday so I have not put it thru much pacing, however I have been using it a lot without the power cable. I waited until the 4th generation i5-42042Y 1.6 GHz before I sprang for this model. Win. 8.1 64bit, 4 gigs of Memory, 1920x1080 resolution, 120g SSD. 1st impressions are from a compaq V6000 and a dv5 1000. The Good: Screen is bright and very sharp, adjusts to room lighting. Sound from beats is very impressive. Keyboard is chicklet style with crisp touch. I put Office 2013, HP Music, Firefox, Printer software, process explorer. The Not So Good: It has hung once but during Office instal and inserting the power plug, not sure what happened. The OS takes getting used to but will manage. The only other thing I can pound on is the screen/keyboard interface. There is maybe a .125 play while connected. I saw the engineer who worked on this unit and he said they dwelled on the mechanism, we'll see. Just got an update from HP, updated the IDT audio and something with the hang issue. They are on it so time to reboot. Later

 

can you also comment on your initial impressions regarding battery life ? also do all models come in that fancy champagne color ?

 

also can you comment on the heat dissipation of this fan-less unit ; curious if Haswell can in fact provide the power without heat issues. would wonder why everyone else ,except Apple, hasn't come out with fan-less computing with Haswell

 

I have had it up for 4.5 hrs. on base battery with more to go. Have not tried the panel for more than a half hour or so. The battery indicator didn't move that I could tell. The model I ordered didn't offer a color choice.

 

That was my question too, now that I've been using it for a couple of days the only heat I feel is in the upper left behind the display when attached to the base. I mean the base is cold, strange but that's it. Detached the temp is felt behind the display lower middle to right. I suspect the battery discharging is creating some of the heat.

 

still hoping to get a more complete idea of battery life; does it approach the advertised 8-9 hrs ? I've got my finger on the order button !

 

I took it to work yesterday without the power cord. I do forms and print and look online for information. I had clients all day and pretty much used it all the time. I did put it to sleep fearing it wouldn't last but it did. Brought it home and used it another hour and a half before the battery indicator insisted I plug in now. Battery life is in line or better than advertised at least it's 1st outing. As is always the case, they now offer a t3000 spectre that has an i-7u and 8GB of ram and another option for added HD which I missed on this one. Also a higher resolution display. Kind of ticked about that but half expected the add-ons to blossom closer to the holidays. Happy hunting gskidsdoc.

 

If I'm not mistaken, the specs and model you quote above is for the spectre ultra book with the non detachable screen . It's not a tablet / hybrid . Different creature altogether . However if one can forego hybrid x2 concept , it definitely seems like a beautiful notebook at a better price point compared to the hybrid . I don't see any other hybrid x2 models offered than the original offering with an option for a modest screen upgrade .

 

As I was researching the X2 models I saw where they had 3 different ones. The split X2, the Envy X2, and the Spectre X2. Not to mention the Slate 10X2. The configuration I was offered I got. I see they limit screen detail on the Split X2 but offer a 500 GB HD with the 120GB SSD. That would cut the battery time but by how much and did they compensate for that??? I'm thinking the Split X2 is a better deal since I had to drop the display dpi to see the screen better. However the 1366x768 crowds the display especially on a 13in. platform. I'm sure they will have gobs of choices as these models develop, if they take off like they want them to. My only major complaint is that the thing is hard to hold on to. Could be easily dropped if not careful. Oh well....

 

Is the ram upgradable (does the manual say anything about opening the tablet portion)? My primary hesitation is being limited to just 4gb of ram, especially since the GPU is using some.

 

I just received mine a couple days ago. The RAM is not upgradable. That said I haven't seen any performance issues yet because of it.

I'm also in the process of trying to install Ubuntu on it, here is a link describing my trials and tribulations to date.

 

The HP Split 13 x2 CAN have its ram upgraded and that's because I upgraded it last week:

HP Split 13 x2 - A closer look

This WILL invalidate your warranty.

Please research! You will need DDR3L ram. (Notice the L at the end of the DDR3 - Low voltage) While in there also consider changing the mSata but use software like R-Drive image to image the install across as you might run into recovery issues due to the machine having two hard drives.


P.s. You could always TRY DDR3 like the vengeance line but I wasn't brave enough to try

 

If anyone figures out how to open the HP Spectre 13 X2, please post a reference. Love mine except I'd like more RAM, a bigger SSD, and an SD card slot. At least I could fix two out of three...

Bought my first one from HP Home and Office. Won't make that mistake again. Returned that one (flaky wi-fi card) and got one from the Microsoft Store. The MS Store version was $100 cheaper, and best of all, the version they sell has no crapware on it! Just the basic utilities needed to make it work. (I never could fully exorcise the horrid McAfee suite from the first one I bought.)

BTW, if anyone else is using a Bluetooth mouse, I had constant problems with it disconnecting and having to suspend/resume the laptop to get it to activate again. To fix the problem, you have to go into device manager, open Properties on the Bluetooth device, and turn off power management. Works fine after that.

Anyone know of any other forums where this model's being discussed?

 

The fanless x2 models (spectre, g1x0) have their ram soldered to the system board and not upgradeable unfortunately.

 

That's not possible anymore. The old Split series contains a memory slot and only one miniPCie slot for WLAN. They removed the memory slot with the newer Split series, which is also the base for the Spectre series. The RAM is now soldered on the system board and the slot was replaced by another miniPCIe slot for a 4G/3G card.

AND you are not able to disassemble the back cover with the newer model the same easy way you could with the old Split model: you now have to destroy the screw cover triem piece to access and remove the screws of the back cover.

A new piece is included with ALL spare part components, because this is the only way how it works.

So you have to buy the old Split x2 model with FHD display and 2nd battery in keyboard dock to expand the memory to a total of 8Gb OR wait for HP to ship a 8Gb Spectre version, which still exist but isn't available yet.

I don't understand how stupid a company like HP has become...maybe that's the problem they are not selling so much products to consumers or executives.

 

I'm not seeing many user reviews on this site. I'm most interested in the touch screen sensitivity especially with regards to tapping small boxes and small links . The Ipad for example is very responsive and accurate when trying to tap small " objects " on the screen, the Nook for example is not. What is the spectre tablet like ?

 

there is a sd card slot on the base unit and on the tablet - i doubt it´s upgradabel.

 

Nope, media reports were wrong. There's a microSD on the tablet, no slot on the keyboard.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

People interested in discussion by x2 owners may wish to check out the analogous thread on the laptopreview site

 

The 500gb hd was tempting, but a month ago when I got Office 365 I moved everything to the cloud (onedrive). I'm loving the screen in detached tabled mode. I'm not going to hold it if I'm on my back in bed (use an ipad mini there), but for sitting in an easy chair the Spectre 13 in tablet mode is great.

 

Been at work for almost 7 hours and battery still shows 26% usage. Left for a bit to run errands and eat lunch, but I'm loving my Spectre x2 from Microsoft Store. On my old zenbook I had to disable the trackpad as my palm would interfere, but not so on the Spectre x2.

 

On my Spectre x2 I got a popup notification: Intel Update Manager, new update available, Intel experience Center Driver Update Version 1.9.0.8 (12.53 MB).

Ok to install this update? I don't want to make a mistake.