HP Spectre x360

Welcome James! Glad to hear you're contemplating joining our exclusive group.

Don't think I can help much with questions (1) and (3). However, regarding (2): fellow owner @alkpit posted back in July about a concern over keyboard lettering, including a picture.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/hp-spectre-x360.772405/page-62#post-10047782

I don't think I've seen any similar posts from other owners, and I've managed to read pretty much every one in this marathon thread! FWIW I've had mine since early July and *knockonwood* my keys look like the day I opened the box.

A quick personal comment: I absolutely LOVE this machine and I'm 110% satisfied...no, thrilled...with it. There's no such thing as a perfect machine, you have to make compromises somewhere, and in the case of the x360 I'm not a fan of the keyboard action (just tried the Microsoft Surface Book and those keys were near perfect for me) and sadly I don't get the 8+ hour battery life that other owners do. In my case though I have brightness (when unplugged) at 30% with two Chrome windows open and LOTS of tabs. That may be the culprit. Yep, just checked battery use in Win 10 Settings and Chrome is responsible for 55% of power use over the last week.

Oh, one last thought: I've started to watching a bit of Netflix (and also did some plane travel this week) and have to say I'm a huge fan of the convertible design. I can't speak for others (I've also often read in reviews, "Cute but not very useful") but for my own use case it's a huge asset to be able to switch between viewing modes, and I do it often.

-Matt

 

Hey Matt and thanks!

I was referring to that chap re his "A" key yes. But lets be fair... one complaint is likely an oddity rather than a trend (still, sucks for him though...)

I am ready to order tomorrow

Thanks for your detailed review there

The things that bother you are moot for me, hence me gunning for this lappy. I tried the keyboard at length in PCworld and my "The quick brown fox..." runs were near perfect and felt great. It helps that I have had three HP laptops over the last 15 years I guess! No keyboard is perfect, it is horses for courses. The half-size up/down button is my only drag... I use those a lot in excel. But, the assume track pad should negate this.

Also, I thought I would miss page down, but I have just learned that browsers allow "space bar" to work as down! Hallelujah!

I am coming from a 15" so I hope 13.3 wont feel small. Doubt it, as I have currently a 1366 display so will be in QHD heaven for screen real-estate!

Will totally be using tent mode for netflix, cant wait!

Battery life, well... I spend tonnes of time on charge so moot for me. I am sitting at a laptop that gets 2 hours max. 5 will be a revelation let alone 8-10!!

My current HP has a naff, noisy and quiet sound card. The spectre I tried was blazingly loud at 30% volume through my Shure IEM and noise free. That better be the case wth the one I order! Interference on sound cards is so 1999

I was going to wait for the Surface Book, it looks stunning. But, it will likley be north of £1500 for the spec I want, and first gen hardware....hmm.... As such, this x360 and then a new iPad once my iPad3 gets too old (still fine now mind!) will come in at under that and do both jobs better - a real tablet, and a real lappy/converatble

For what it is worth my last two HP Pavillions have been largely trouble free so I have had a good run with HP, 4-5 years with each, by buying high end each time. One replacement Battery and One screen cable replaced on this one - was pinched and caused screen cut out after a few years.

Will post tomorrow once my spectre is ordered assuming all goes well

James

 

Oh crap I just reread your first post -- how did I MISS THAT?!?!?!! Note to self: time for new glasses. Well, the potential silver lining of my plagiarizing you is that perhaps @alkpit can chime back in and provide an update on the issue!

Ah great, so you *are* drinking the cool-aid, excellent! Like you I'm plugged in most of the day so the battery life issue (btw I get between 6.5 and 7 hours when I am unplugged) is by no means a deal-killer. Already 50% better than the 4 hours I got from my previous machine.

WOW, you're moving up from a 1366x768 display? "Heaven" is the wrong word...you've already seen x360 display models so you know what you're getting yourself into. I'm sure it will be orgasmic. Ooops, can I even say that???

And yeah I agree the Surface Book list price is hard to swallow. I think the deal-killer on those for me, besides price, is apparently battery life in "clipboard" mode is 2-3 hours. Your plan to double up with an iPad sounds like the right solution! (And kudos to me, Android/Windows guy for actually admitting that the x360 and an iPad could peacefully cohabitate!)

OH, random thought: what truly wowed me about the Surface Book (all 5 minutes I played with it, I mean) is that the pen experience is SPECTACULAR, at least compared to the Dell active stylus and the x360. I've found sadly that the Dell stays tucked in my backpack most of the time, and that I've only pulled it out once or twice to sign my name in a digital document. My experience in the few apps I've tried is that palm rejection isn't really there, and hovering the pen over the screen strangely causes it to draw errant marks. I was really hoping I could do some penning in tablet mode but that hasn't worked out as planned. So chalk that up as another fairly minor "con".

-Matt

 

I am also a chrome monkey... double digit tabs. May try migrating to edge or something in windows 10 (still on trusy 7 here)

I have only seen the 1080p screen in person. I never use my current laptop above 70% brightness, and from what I hear the recent QHD screens are brighter anyway, maybe a bad initial batch.

No interest in the pen part of this, so another reason the Surface Book would be a silly OTT buy for me. Gorgoeus pice of kit mind, just not for my needs

Question
Has the Skylake Spectre moved to a faster SSD? They seem to be touting M.2 (whatever that means) which I recall someone in this thread replacing the stock SSD drive they receieved with one of these? Not that a "lesser" SSD really matter for what I do, just intrigued...

I will be jumping somewhat:

Current lappy:

HP Pavillion DV6 - 512GB 5200 drive, 6GB ram, 1366 screen, naff sound card, naff track pad, 2010 i5 processor, 2 hour battery

Desired, to be ordered lappy:

HP Spectre x360 - 512 SSD, 8GB ram, QHD screen, clean sound card, ace track pad, 2015 i7, 5-10 hour battery (we shall see here). Also abut 1/3 weight and thickness!!

Madness!

This is why I like to wait to upgrade. Frugal, yes, but the bigger jump is just so much more of an impact!!

Heres hoping to no defects/problems with order....

James

 

Not sure if Skylake specs include an upgrade in SSD connectivity/bandwidth speeds, but here's my 2 cents -- I'm on the Broadwell i7 BTW -- my original SSD was the stock 256MB. I replaced it with the Samsung 850 Evo 500MB M.2 SSD. The M.2 basically looks like a stick of gum and is very, very easy to swap (though it does require a precision screwdriver with a star/ Torx-style T5 screw (great disassembly shots here). I actually fibbed when I said I wiped and installed Win 10. Actually, I simply put in the new drive, burned a Win 10 DVD, and then connected and booted with a USB DVD drive to install the OS on the new SSD. It was ridiculously easy and quick. EDIT: dammit, I just realized I misunderstood, again. You weren't asking about upgrading the SSD but whether the new model has a better drive.

There are some finer points to the M.2 that others can elaborate on. I'm on the record here for being pretty happy with the "lower-speed" (relatively speaking) SATA version. IIRC there is a pricier PCIe version that's roughly double the price of the SATA and much faster (from what I gather our motherboard works with either -- someone please confirm!). But now that I'm running Samsung's Magician program (which borrows unused RAM to boost drive speed) I really have no complaints. And assuming your last machine was an HDD, wow...any SSD will seem unbelievably fast.

I just remembered there is one thing that you should check when you unbox: back in the summer, there was a bit of concern about "rattling" or loose touchpads. Mine makes the tiniest of loose-ish sound when touched, but when I wandered through a Best Buy tapping every single machine, I found mine was very, very minor. Surprisingly, even several MacBooks were much worse (maybe because they're so mistreated in-store).

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware/Spectre-x360-touchpad-seems-loose/td-p/4989857
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebo...pad-NOT-OVER-SENSITIVE-BUT-LOOSE/td-p/5116485

You know we're gonna hold you to that "pay it forward" promise! If you stick with ownership you have to stick around and let us know how it goes!

-Matt

 

I am hoping that this "looseness" to the track pad was an early issue and now,8 months post launch, they'll have sorted this at the factories. The one I played with at PCworld will have taking a battering and was smooth. I was also pleased that the paintwork (silver, mind, not the Ash one I plan on getting) was fully intact.

We shall see I guess!

 

That's good news! I attempted this on a Samsung Series 7 and was never able to figure out the adaptive brightness drivers again. It was pretty awful!

 

Noticed there's a new BIOS posted (actually been there for a few weeks), F.2D Rev.A. Obviously that's for Broadwell people -- can't say if it's the same for the Skylake owners. Looks like it may address the problem I've been having with sleep lately.

-Matt

 

Order placed!

For your information:

HP Spectre 13-4109na and 4106na are identical. The latter was supposed to be in silver, but they buggered up the order from the factory, so all came back in ash. So not quite as "limited edition" as they planned lol!

4101na is the 1080p version

I'll have mine by midweek, fingers crossed problem free

 

Turns out that you can't get rid of Synaptics even after a clean install. But I managed to tweak it to my liking, and had to do a registry edit to ensure the trackpad settings remain after logout (what the hell, Synaptics?).

There's nothing I don't love about this laptop, but two things:
- The rubber feet are way too short. I know it's for tablet use, but I have never used it in tablet mode beyond one time to test if the hinge works correctly. I use Presentation mode for watching videos, and Tent when I'm on a plane. This makes me concerned for the heat in this system since the intake grills are at the bottom. Wouldn't such short feet mean there's less air flowing into the system?

- I have the B&O Ash Silver edition, and the speakers are nothing like B&O. There's quite a bit of treble, so I adjusted the audio enhancements in the included B&O app. When I crank the bass to 100 and reduce treble and dialog clarity to 0, the sound is great, but YouTube videos sound distorted with some static-like sound. Is this an issue with the software or the hardware itself? I have zero distortion when playing high quality MP3s with the volume at 100 with the adjust speaker settings, so I'm guessing it's how bad YouTube compresses its audio. I'm playing through MS Edge, so maybe it's an issue with Edge itself.

But other than that, this is the most premium laptop I've held. I'm also getting an absolute minimum of 6 hours of battery life (until 20%, I usually don't let my battery go below that level) and that's with browsing on Edge constantly open with YouTube videos as well as about 2 hours of word processing and Photoshop open, and torrents in the background. Amazing stuff.

P.S. Since I did a clean install, is there any way for the drivers to be updated besides manually checking the HP site every week? Or would you recommend me download the HP Support Assistant to manage my updates for me? I'd like to minimize bloatware on this computer.

 

@sabermaniac welcome to the forum and THANKS for the detailed post! Awesome, another (mostly) happy owner.

I have a favor to ask...I remember seeing a few discussions on other sites about the registry hack...would you mind posting a link to the steps you used? I'd love to bookmark that for my own use!

Regarding your question about updating drivers, I have the same concern. I ultimately opted out of installing the Support Assistant, which looked pretty cool for the day or two I used it, and instead went the manual route. The irony I suppose is that even though I phone home every month or two, there have only been a small handful of updates since I bought the machine in July. So the manual labor is pretty light!

Oh, regarding air flow: I keep HWInfo running, including CPU temp readings, and I rarely see my machine rise about 50C -- 45-48C is often the norm. That's with your typical browser/word processing use, i.e,. 20-30% CPU utilization. Of course, if I'm doing something computationally intensive it might go up to 60C but that's the exception. In other words: I'm really impressed by how cool the x360 stays, so I wouldn't worry too much about those tiny rubber feet!

-Matt

 

As soon as I sell my 2015 MBr I am placing an order for the copper trim one. HP actually negotiated on the price somewhat. Dropped it to $1399 when I spoke to them. Now, need to move this MBr.

 

It's still less airflow than I would have liked, though. I almost always use my laptop on those IKEA lap rests which don't have a perfectly flat surface, and that may block airflow and cause it to run warmer than preferred, which is why the tiny rubber feet bother me. Also because those tiny feet mean the likelihood of the bottom being scratched is just that much higher. There isn't much friction on the feet, so when I put up the laptop at a small angle, it slips immediately.

I'll see whether I can find a DIY solution at a hardware store where I just glue some rubber feet to raise the notebook about a centimetre or so.

 

There are updated drivers on HP's site that fixed the distortion and static for me.

 

Installed the latest BIOS this morning and not having any problems with sleep today. powercfg is also estimating ~8.2 hours of battery life, though I should note I've only burned through about 2.5 hours (29%) of it so far. Still, that's a nice estimate!

-Matt

 

my "a" key is like it was, it hasn't gotten worse neither other keys have appeared such a problem.

 

With regards to scaling, on both Broadwell and skylake i7 QHD x360's, I hated the scaling. Out of the box, apps like Dashlane and many others, all looked too small. I had to adjust settings which always ended up with trade-offs to get what I wanted. The Yoga was better out of the box with scaling. And then as I've been saying a lot all around the web; the Samsung Spin, has got scaling down right!!!! The res on the Spin, is greater than the x360 but Samsung, clearly did something VERY right. I have made no changes to the display settings and every app so far, looks perfect. Chrome, Outlook, Word, Dashlane, Itunes, OneNote, ListPro, Revo Uninstaller (this one looked bad on the x360 and Yoga 900), all look perfect. You can see for yourself in any Best Buy store or ask me to take a screen shot of any program for you.

The only downside to the Spin is battery life. I am not able to get above 6 hours surfing the web with Chrome. Though since I love this device so much, I decided to just get a RAVPower 23000mAh Power Bank @ 1.3 pounds which brings my total carrying weight still below most 15.6" laptops. With it, I can get 10 to 12 hours with ease.

 

I think you probably had your x360 configured wrong. That or dash lane received an update before you got the Spin. This is stock settings for QHD. Doesn't look small to me. I do have scaling issues, but they are with Java apps, which almost none have proper scalable UIs. No machine will fix that; their resources are just simply that small.

 

Hey forum

24hours into Spectre x360 Ownership (i7, QHD, 8GB, 512, Ash Silver)

Early thoughts in no particular order. Consider this an addendum to all the serious reviews out there, I am sure anyone reading this will have checked those already....

Kinda long, but skim to sections you care about

This thing "looks" so good. I love the colour scheme, and the copper is not as garish as I had worried it would be. It is a magnet for finger grease though. The areas where you rest your palms tend to get a bit smeary. Nothing major and of course it wipes off.

My machine seems nippy as all hell (5 years since upgrade however, so of course it would)

Battery - FAR too early to tell. I lost 20% last night playing for about two hours. I doubt this is indication of 10hours total, but hell I will take it if it is. Also, I let the machine sleep last night for 8 hours. Zero battery drop. Although, I do have the thing where it goes from 100% to 93% and then slides down digit at a time. ..

75% brightness is perfect for me. No worries here about QHD being under bright. Although I don't have it near daylight much. 100% is not iPad blazingly bright, but it is bright for my blue eyes! It is far more reflective than my old machine, but such is touch screen tech right now...

The fan only kicked in once for about 30seconds, and was a cute "whistle" sound rather than the jets of my outgoing machine. Oddly, the coil whine (I think that is what it is) annoyed me more late last night. Note - I have ridiculously good hearing and this was in a silent room.

I had a blue screen 30minutes in!! It was a VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR. This morning I then had a pop up saying my "video driver stopped working but has recovered". I hope this is just teething troubles...

The soundcard. I am super happy! Few people talk about this stuff. Yes, the speakers are naff. All tiny speakers on iPads, phones, laptops, are naff due to their size. But these are clear at least on here. The stunning thing for me is the headphone out. This thing is powerful! It powers my Shure IEM to a good loudness at about 4% volume! My over the head Audio Technica Airs at 30%. Those things need solid amping to get good volume. Here, bam, right on board. No need for my USB headphone amp. Sweet surprise here! Perhaps THIS is what the B&O partnership is about

Goodbye McAffe. Hello 0.5GB or idle RAM (windows fdefender even turned itself back on by default)

I idle at around 4% CPU and 2GB or RAM before opening anything. Seems about right.... Glad I have 8GB not 4 onboard! Do NOT get 4GB RAM if you want to multitask!

I am super happy with the keyboard. Would've loved the up/down as separate keys, but even the newest macs are squishing these inwards to compensate for space.

Niggles:

Right, the three finger swipe up to show desktop is an AWESOME feature of windows 10. One of the things I wanted most from the Mac world. It is here. But, twice it has stopped working. It seems to be linked with the machine sleeping and/or going into and then back from tablet mode.... Oddly, instead of three fingers no longer doing anything, it changes function! Three finger tap keeps working for cortana. But, three finger swipe-up stops working, and three finger left/right then becomes back page/forward page in a browser instead of switch app. Odd! Something is reassigning the function, which I think is linked to synaptics.

The mouse and trackpad options are mostly in a separate window to the inbuilt windows 10 section in settings, so choosing what these things do is a mystery to me.

Oddly, I haven't been able to make this happen again today...I then downloaded the new drivers and 3MB "support" file through HP Support assistant. Perhaps this has/will fix this for good.

Last niggle. The trackpad is slightly rattly, yes.

This is an odd one, as I may not have noticed if no one had told me. It is minor and seems to be linked with the fact that the clickable area at the bottom has to float a little to move. But, then, it does on macs too and they are smooth.

I went back to PCworld and yup, my machine matched the display unit. And plenty of people say it is there

This video shows a fairly simple mod/fix I may try if it annoys me going forward:



Yes, I know, a brand new machine shouldn't need edits. But I have a perfect screen (no dud pixels), a perfect keyboard etc. I think a few screws and a piece of electrical tape is simple enough to remove an OCD issue. No machine is perfect, I guess. We shall see

Question: Once in the machine, it the battery super easy to remove? 3 screws and a port, I think from what I have read?

See... I said I would stick around. Hope this long posts helps people. Happy to answer questions too, as I get more accustomed to the machine


James

 

James, this is wonderful news. I can respond/comment on several things you mentioned, but I'm headed to work so a longer post later. In the meantime my apologies for putting the whammy on you and alerting you to the trackpad. Next time I'll remember to STHU and mind my own business!

One other quick note, regarding the "loss" of the three-finger swipe, I've implemented a batch command like the one described here which kills the Synaptics app -- when it restarts (sometimes you have to do it by hand) things return to the way you'd like:

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkP...s-missing-after-Sleep-Windows-10/td-p/2144785

-Matt

 

Dashlane has since been updated (automatically). It had been the worst scaling offender for me (and many others). Just google Dashlane scaling issue. I had gone through 12 x360s (starting 08/2015 thru 10/2015). Broadwell i7 QHD, then ending with several Skylake i7 QHD Ash silver. Again, out of the box (making no changes to the display settings, every x360 I had, all had scaling issues. Out of the box, even my desktop icons were too small. I am a young man with great vision but I was not happy with the sizes of text in many programs running on the x360, without making changes. On the Spin, I have made zero changes to the display settings (haven't even opened the display settings). If I still had an x360, I'd take screenshots to show an example of what I'm talking about. You have Java app issues. I don't recall having any. Let me know a site or app you have issues with and I can try it and screenshot it on my Spin.

 

And now a follow-up!

Battery - Interesting, I don't remember anyone else mentioning the strange drop from 100% -> 93%. Good to see I have some company! There's a chance the latest (Broadwell) firmware may have repaired or improved that issue for me. I think many users here have also reported battery life improving over the first few usage cycles.

Also, I haven't removed the battery but it *does* look very easy to do:

http://www.laptopultra.com/guide/hp-spectre-pro-x360-disassembly/



-Matt

 

I hope you enjoy your new device. I went thru 12 of them (exchanging from Best Buy). I started with the Broadwell QHD i7 in August, leading up to 3 Skylake Ash silver QHD i7s. YES the Ash Silver Spectre is one of the most beautiful machines out there (from the exterior that is).

The rattling mouse is something that I had on all 12 units. I got used to it but I did not like that even a soft tap would result in a clicking sound.

Some of the quality control issues that I had with the x360, drove me crazy because I can be pretty anal about the small details and things like scratches. I also had 3 units that each had 1 (or 1 small cluster) of sleeping pixels. I didn't notice this right away. After a few days with one unit, I noticed an always white pixel in the center near the bottom. On another unit I noticed an always blue pixel, dead center. I advise going to a pixel check site that will flash different colors for you to do a check, just to be sure.

Another issue I only noticed from owning a dozen units, is that on some of them, the bottom panel is loose at the rear center (right where the serial number and other text is printed). When I would close the x360 and carry it with one hand, with my palm on the lid and my fingers reaching around on top of where the printed text is; I could feel the panel pressing inward right there. I thought this was normal until I got my hands on other x360s that did not flex at all in that area.

My reason for going thru so many x360s had been mostly about wi-fi connection issues which by the last x360 I had, the problem had been resolved with HP issuing an older working driver.

I hated to let go of my beautiful Ash Silver x360 but in the end I returned the last one and tried a Yoga 900 which was a big mistake. The Yoga 900 feels MUCH lighter than the x360 and so tablet mode feels awesome on the Yoga but the Yoga is all plastic and rubber and just felt so CHEAP after spending a couple of months with the x360. Next I tried the Samsung Spin and very happy with it. Speaking about touch pads. I'm not a touch pad user as I prefer to use a Logitech MX bluetooth mouse. However, hands down, the Spin touch pad, is as close to a Mac touch pad as I have ever used on a Windows device. Try it in a Best Buy store and I have no doubt you'll agree. The x360 touch pad is okay even though I never got used to the large size. But it does not match the Spin touch pad by a huge margin.

Other things to look out for would be bubbles in the copper (or even on the chrome ones) hinges. On 4 of my x360s, there were little bubbles in the copper. I would be typing away and at some angles, I would notice that there were a few bubbles in the copper. Like I said; I'm pretty anal about the small details. Though the worst had been with the Yoga 900. 3 units, all had hair/lint, trapped under the silver paint.

I loved the x360 but it was just a bit too heavy and the final straw for me was that my left palm rest under heavy CPU load, would get too hot for me. I asked around to see if it was just my units or maybe just my sensitive hand. It seemed to be some folks had the same issue but most did not.

 

About the battery. I don't know if this has been changed since I last had the Ash silver i7 QHD x360 but back in October, I was not able to change the auto critical battery shutdown from 7% down to 5% or anything lower than it's default 7%. So that meant that once my x360 would get down to 7% battery, it would automatically shutdown/hibernate. I thought this was a Windows issue but on a Yoga and my current Samsung, I was able to adjust it down to 5% where I wanted it.

 

Not sure I follow -- did you try via the Advanced Power options? Seems like it's there for me.



-Matt

 

Yes that is exactly where I tried multiple times. So you set it to 5% and after you closed out and come back, it did not change back to 7%?

 

Wow, fascinating. Mine were set at 5%, but just like you noted, once I moved them up to 7% they were locked. Couldn't go back to 5%!

I think the solution may be here:

http://www.howtogeek.com/58109/how-to-lower-the-critical-battery-level-to-1-in-windows-7/

EDIT: Yep, just followed the instructions above and I'm back to 5%.

-Matt

 

Try Eclipse.

 

Wondering what laptop are you using now?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Glad you got it figured out. as I mentioned, I had about 12 x360's Broadwell and Skylake i7s, and they all started at 7% default and wouldn't save my changes. 7% is close enough to 10% so it's almost as if you really only have 90% of a battery charge. Not really a big deal, more of a psychological thing I guess. lol!

 

After all the x360s, and then the Yoga 900s, I returned the 3rd Yoga 900 for a Samsung ATIV Book 9 Spin. It is only sold on Samsung.com and Best Buy online and in their stores. When I got it, it was the same price as the Yoga but it is now $100.00 cheaper at $1,299.00. It's a 2-in-1 just like the Yoga and x360. Lighter than the x360 but not as light as the Yoga. All aluminum solid build much like the x360 but better quality control (2 friends have also purchased the Spin), and also no bottom vent (which I like because I can place it on a pillow, blanket, carpet, etc.). It has the same rear hinge area vent like the Yoga. Skylake i7, 3200 x 1800 touchscreen, 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM and Integrated Intel HD 520 HD. I installed a 512GB SSD and am VERY happy with this device though the battery life is not a good as I'd like and I am having cravings for a larger screen (I am a former 17" laptop user of 8 years).

Here is a link to a review that I contributed to (I am not affiliated with the site). It is also a great site with a list of all current ultrabooks: http://www.ultrabookreview.com/9207-samsung-ativ-book-9-spin-review/

 

Never heard of Eclipse. I'll have to look into it.

 

Hey all

So 48 hours in


Still loving:

The keyboard
The screen
The backlight on keys
The headphone amp/output

Niggles:

I have had two blue screens. Both stating VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR

These may well be linked to the following issue. I have had a large number of "display driver stopped and is recovering" pop ups. A visual stutter, then that message. It happens when browsing on Edge.

And I can force it with videos played on twitter in "Full screen" mode.

Have a link, and see if this causes a hiccup for anyone

https://twitter.com/nyknicks/status/659880354791182337


Literally crashed in the time it took me to copy that link!

Some googling seems to suggest it might be an issue with the 520 Intel graphics and Web video. IF it is that, I have faith it'll be patched.

I also had a weird episode where my cursor wouldn't work! It just stopped registering! I used my keyboard to initiate a restart and it came back all dandy. But still...


Lastly, the "rattle"

Now, I am light of touch with my touchpad. And I enjoy using tap instead of click. The touchpad is effectively hinged so that the bottom can click in. This I understand. However, on most other laptops, there is no "travel" between the click pad and the click itself. With this track pad, there is a very small gap. As such, anything more than a very gentle tap from the middle of the pad down makes a kinda rattle, as the pad moves down and then pops back to position. This is mostly, an annoyance, as it is the only "less than solid" part of this design.

I fancied having a look inside as there is a simple, non intrusive mod I linked to solve this. But here is another issue... I have a dud screw on the back of my laptop. I went round checking them and all but one turned no problem. One by the speaker in the bottom corner hasn't turned as looks like it is starting the chew. Very annoying! I am now concerned for the future, as and when I want to get in to change battery, or should it every need a repair...

Part of me is considering switching the laptop out, for the reasons listed above. Another part of me thinks (1) the software niggles will be patched (2) live with the rattle which is minor and (3) should I need to access the internals, a good laptop repair centre will know how to open the dodgy screw

Thoughts please people>?



Thanks
James

 

Also, quick question

Do trackpads "wear in"? Some people have mentioned on other threads that their laptop pads get less clicky over time... perhaps the usage and gravity close the "travel gap" resolving the minor rattle issue in this machine and others>>?

 

I'm guessing you are not in the U.S.? If you were, I would highly suggest returning the x360 and trying the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Spin.

Okay, well as I stated before, that between August and early November, I went through about 12 x360s. Each of them, had the rattling touch pad. Only one unit, had a touch pad that didn't seem to rattle on soft taps. I think this is just an HP design issue. One guy on the HP x360 forum, stated that after sometime of heavy typing, some of the keys started to wear (the paint). Covered under warranty, HP replaced it for him. after reading his post, I worried a bit because one of the units I had, came with an Esc key that had smudged paint.

On one unit, an Ash Silver QHD i7, I tried to open the unit up with I believe it was a #4 or #3 Torx screwdriver. I got 3 screws out and then I stopped at the 4th one because I somehow ended up stripping the screw. That really bugged me because I could not remove the panel with that one screw stuck. I ended up returning that unit over the over heating left palm rest.

I never had software issues with any of the units I had, only the wifi driver problem that so many of us had but it was taken care of in a November driver update. And yes you are correct about the display driver issue with the HD 520. I had it a few times on my Skylake x360 and then on my then Yoga 900, I had it happen many more times. On my new Spin, it only happened twice when I used the Edge browser. It never happens to me in Chrome. I do believe Intel driver updates will fix this sometime soon as it is a problem many people are having with various Skylake laptops.

You might want to start posting your questions over at the HP forum and do a search there about your specific concerns. http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebooks/ct-p/Notebook

Good luck!

 

It is an Integrated Development Enironment (IDE). I am a software developer.

 

I wish Intel would release the display driver updates already. I've been having display driver crashes almost every other day since I use Edge for browsing (I've heard it takes less of a toll on battery life than Chrome and Firefox). The crash itself only lasts one second, so that's fine, but come on Intel. :/

 

View attachment 129876

Intel releases drivers all the time, but they are reference drivers and are not specific for laptops. HP is your driver provider, or Windows Update.

 

I have just run windows update - a fairly chunky one it seems. Now I can load a twitter video in Edge stutter/crash free. So that is dandy and exactly what I was expecting to be honest

I'm not too worried about paint on keys, as I have the dark keyboard so hopefully it is less "painted" - besides, I think that was an edge case rather than a big problem (hopefully!)

I think I am going to speak with the laptop repair centre I use in town. I am simply going to ask them if they can loosen the screws in my laptop. I don't even know if I want to run the mod to the track pad now. However I do want to know that I HAVE access to it for future battery replacement and general piece of mind. I run a business so don't want to be without a laptop for any period of time if I can help it (this is why I am making sure I am 100% percent happy with this chap before I migrate my files and programmes across)

If they can "get me in" to my laptop, I think I will ignore the trackpad slight rattle/wobble and start enjoying what is otherwise exactly the laptop I wanted it to be!

Nothing is perfect, but I don't want to be "locked out" of my own machine!

 

James, glad to hear the video issue has resolved itself. Regarding the trackpad, it's hard for me to be sure either way, but I'm inclined to say mine started out pretty minor, and it's become less of an issue over time. Whether that's because the gap has reduced, or because I've acclimated to the slight sound, I'm not certain.

-Matt

 

Hey Matt

My thinking is that with clicking, and general pressure from usage, the gap will become smaller. If nothing else, I can't see it getting worse and yes, minor

I have decided to dive in and stick with the spectre.

I love too much about it to bail over a niggle that doesn't affect usage.I am by nature picky, and no laptop is "perfect". Besides, I have a 3 year warranty, so should it get worse I'll be able to ask for a repair.

Pretty sure the crashes were a Skylake/windows 10 issue and will disappear with time

I will be installing Office 2016, itunes, Sage accounting and some other stuff this weekend. Fingers crossed for a smooth transition

I'll be sticking around if anyone wants to talk Spectre

James

 

PS re my screws

The Laptop centre told me roughly this: T5 screws are indication that the laptop manufacturer doesn't really want you inside their laptop. Apple started it a while ago with star keys, other companies have followed suit. It makes it easier to spot when people have been in and tinkered, voiding warranties and such

She advised me to not get in. Should I need to clean the fans, do so with a can of air. And regarding Battery replacement - from a professional

I didn't get in, and only one screw looks like it has been touched, so haven't broken my warranty.

For what it is worth she sees what I mean when I said one of the screws looked like it would chew if I pushed it harder. They see this often, and have ways of getting in (better screwdivers, industry secrets). So I feel OK that the internals are accessible down the line even though I couldn't get in safely myself.

Assuming nowt goes wrong with my laptop I simply have to live in this age of zero home access. I have 3 years cover if issues occour. Fingers crossed for 4-5 years of trouble free computing!!

James

 

...iTunes???!??!?!!... Oh I had so much respect for you before you said that!

What are your thoughts/feelings about the various "modes"? It's something we don't talk about much here, but any time I flip it around at work my MacBook Air workmates "oooooo" and "aaaahhhh". It never fails to impress them! Which of course is not the point, but does highlight that together with the touchscreen, we own a very versatile machine.

On that note, something else that I never see discussed here is the fact that we have two video output ports. I kinda wonder who uses HDMI versus the mini Displayport, and how that's worked for them. Perhaps it's an underutilized feature?

-Matt

 

iTunes. I know...

I have an iphone and ipad so it is a necessary evil. Made my last PC chugg more than anything. Do they purposefully make it painful on PC to temp people to Apple laptops?!

I have used the tent mode once for a netflix session. The screen is great and the speakers surprisingly loud compared with my iPad3

I think that's the most likely use I will have for tent mode. The other modes seem superfluous to my needs. They weren't a factor buying the lappy.

HDMI I will use, as I have a TV near my desk. Need to check this in fact. That and the USB, haven't checked those yet....

 

Wow, I need to ponder this a bit more -- I got in and out several times with my precision driver set, though I do freely admit there was a turn or two where I bit my lip (and might have quietly cursed to myself!). But I don't think there's any sign of "chew" on the screw heads. Hmmm, interesting, that's very conservative advice from a tech. Oddly, the place where it got tough for me was pulling off the bottom door/plate while two tabs (near the hinge/display side) kinda stuck. But they "snapped" loose easier after doing it once.

BTW, I think the "industry secret" is something like this: (1) open a paperclip, and put a pointed end in the chewed screw head, (2) fill the head with a dot of superglue, and when it's set, (3) unscrew and enjoy. At least I think I saw a youtube video or two that pulled it off that way. Or maybe I dreamt it???? LOL

-Matt

 

SO, some late night thoughts sitting enjoying my laptop actually ON MY LAP – something I never did with my old lappy as he was a beast!

This chap is super comfy in a low lit room. The keyboard is a dream. The backlight is wonderfully crisp against the dark keys. Using the track pad softly while browsing is brilliant, super responsive. Now three finger swipe is behaving I use it constantly.

50% brightness is spot on for my eyes in low lit room

30% battery usage this evening in 2.5 hours. Including installing office from the internet, streaming, multiple tabs, photo edits… Very happy with this drain.

Something I DIDN’T expect to use so much in this laptop mode – The touch screen!

While typing a document in word, I find an ace way to amend typos I miss is using a tap on the screen. I also use the “from right” swipe to bring up the action centre. I never thought I would use the touch screen, but the screen is so solid it just works.

Two hours in and it is only just starting to get warm on my thighs. Not uncomfortable.

Headphones in, enjoying some streaming music. Annoyingly, Spotify seems to pause itself every few songs. GRR. Where is my windows 10 Spotify app. The windows store says Spotify is not compatible with my device! I assume this must be incoming soon…right?!

Re my only remaining issue with the hardware – rattle is not an issue with actual usage. I have learnt to be super gentle with this track pad as it is so responsive. Combine with some touchscreen usage for things I would right click, and I barely have to hear the rattle.

“Display drivers not responding” messages still occurring. Two this evening. One from a twitter video. One from hitting “windows-left cursor” to move window to left. I am sure this is all just windows teething issues. I can’t see this being hardware.

Question – what scaling do you all use? I stuck with 200% for days 1 and 2, but I am edging towards 175% now to give me more real estate, while text still being pretty clear.

Everything still “seems” sharp, even though I am not using a direct multiple of scaling….

Thoughts>?

James

 

We got our customized Skylake Spectre 360's today. Was VERY pleased and surprised with the B&O label on it. With my prior issue with the speakers and pops, it's nice to see these speakers in it. Specs at time of ordering didn't mention the B&O on any of the silver configs...only on the Gold/black special edition.

For both, we went with the FHD display. The QHD on the Broadwell I have is a pain to get a good scaling for. Always changing it for different apps or even when adding an external monitor. Plus, I'm aiming for some additional battery life on these.

I opted for the FHD Top i7-6500OU/8GB/512SSD. Powerhouse specs without a juice-hog monitor. Will be testing it over the next few days for battery lifespan as well as checking out the speakers.

 

Very happy for you getting everything worked out. It took me 4 months, 12 Spectres and 3 Yoga 900s until I found the right 2-in-1 for me (Samsung Spin). You mentioned iTunes and Office 2016. I too tried those together and was upset to find out that Office 2016, does not sync with iCloud. Apple, says an update is due this month so I hope to see it but I had to go back to Office 2013 for now (automatic syncing between my iPhone, iPad and laptop, are too important to me).

 

Again with the Spin?

How is the Eclipse testing going?

 

I just received my customized SkyLake Spectre X360 (i76500/8GB/512SSD with FHD..didn't want to mess with QHD and hoping for a battery saving) and let the battery cycle up and down twice...I am barely getting 4 hours. So, I've done a few things to see how the next cycle goes...and the first test after taking the steps below came up with 7 hours of battery...gaining 3 hours worth!

1. Ditched Chrome. Using the IE11/Edge Combo

2. Turned off Cortana listening. I really don't use that feature.

3. Have it set to HP Power Settings. I do MIDI and the power saver setting just won't cut it.

4. Turned off the Bluetooth. No need to have it on since I rarely use it.

5. Went into Task Manager and disabled many of the start-up programs. They'll work when I click on them.

6. Reinstalled same BIOS...just for good measure.

Will see how the next round goes. I have until Jan 12th to decide whether I'm going to keep or send it back.