HP Spectre x360

(for the 15.6 4k)

Hi RTbar, a few days on, have you been able to fix a reading on the battery life when doing general 'productivity' takes. eg. internet browsing, word processing, and also heaving screen tasks like movies?

And any further comments on keyboard, performance, screen, speakers etc! A dearth of reviews at the moment, so you're our only hope.

Many thanks
Nick

 

Well the computer still won't give me a figure, but yesterday I browsed for about 3 hours and watched a show on Netflix, and I was around 65%. Overall battery life seems pretty good, but today I'll leave it off the charger and see how much is left at the end up the work day (I'll be using it to work from).

The speakers are amazing, much better than my rmbp's... and all 4 are DEFINITELY firing at the same time which is awesome.

The keyboard is a little bit stiffer than my mac's but the keys have just as much travel and it's nice to type on, and I find that I don't need to use the back light as much with the silver keys vs black. I sometimes do find that I hit the home key by accident when I am trying to hit backspace, causing me to have to go back with the cursor... but the more I keep using it the easier it is to type.

The screen is amazing, especially 4k videos on youtube. Apps that scale correctly such as edge have razor sharp text, just as sharp as my macbooks, but at a higher "retina" resolution (1440x900 on the mac vs UHD @ 200% on the Spectre).

The touchpad is good once you play around with the settings, and I did not find that the extra width caused any issues with accidental touches. For what it's worth, I like this trackpad much better than the fully loaded XPS 15 that I tried before this one (I actually like this laptop MUCH better than the Dell, and it's less expensive too).

I still can't get the dell active sylus to work, so I'm going to try exchanging it and see if it was simply defective.

If you have any specific questions let me know

 

So this is just DANDY.

I close my computer and go to work, right? When I come home I open it and a crack has mysteriously manifested on the screen. I didn't interact with it nor did anyone else because it was in the same spot I left it. But now the display is cracked.

What?

The only thing I could come up with is thermal shock. The heat of the body of the computer being close to the display causes the cool screen to change temperature really quickly and fracture in the process.

I ended up buying a service plan because everyone who made this claim on their forums is being told it's not covered in the warranty, even though their stories mirror mine (they don't do anything to their computer and end up having the display crack out of nowhere).

Is this REALLY my own doing...?

 

This might be useful:

(1) Create a text file (I placed it on my desktop for convenience) and rename it "whatyoulike.bat"

(2) Right click the file and select "Edit"

(3) Paste this line into the file: powercfg /batteryreport

If you then save the file and double-click on it, you'll see an HTML file appear called "battery-report.html" which includes daily (and/or weekly) estimates of your battery life (scroll to the bottom) since you've owned it.

-Matt

 

I did 3 hours of word processing, a bit of youtube, an hour of internet browsing,and let the computer idle

I tired this but it didn't work, it just remained a text file with that line pasted inside.

Is there any way to go back/forward with the touchpag in a web browser?

 

Yep, sounds like you might have "view file extensions" turned off. If so, this will help:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/...ions#show-hide-file-name-extensions=windows-7

Once you can view the full filename, just click once and make sure it ends in ".bat" and it'll run!

-Matt

 

Ok that works, it says the estimate since OS install is 5.5 hours ... keep in mind that a lot of that involved restarts and installing software and testing 4k videos

 

guys i use my hp spectre for about 9 hours a day should i keep the charger plugged in to the laptop? or should i discharge to near 0 then charge every time?

Thanks.

 

I saw a post from a hp tech on their forums that modern batteries aren't affected by keeping the laptop plugged in because they switch to ac only after the battery reaches full charge

 

I don't know if this has changed, but my latest information is that the lithium-ion batteries are being stressed when charge is kept at it's maximum 100 % constantly.
That's why Sony provided a battery care function to limit charging to up to 80 % during plugged in use.
I have this on most of the time, and my battery is almost as fresh as the first day, after six years now

 

I received another dell stylus today and tried it with both the supplied and a new store-bought battery, but the computer won't recognize this one either

 

EDIT: during plugged in use

 

There's no need to discharge completely. It doesn't help with anything.

Nowadays, you don't have to worry about keeping it plugged in constantly, the battery will be just fine.

I guess that's confirmation then, that the 2016 models do not have stylus support.

 

I think we need to wait until they fix the firmware update for the touch controller before we can assume that pen input won't work, as the description says it enables active pen support

 

Oh? I was under the impression that HP had made a business decision not to support stylus on 2016 models. But if a firmware update is coming to enable this feature, all the merrier!

 

Has anyone tested the 15" model just released? I know it's a bit early, but maybe someone has used one?

I was thinking about ordering the custom version with the upgraded CPU, i7-6560U Processor Dual-Core, which also comes with 16GB of memory.

It's still a dual core, but an upgraded performance CPU/iGPU. $200 seems a bit steep for the upgrade, and Intel doesn't even list the price, so I can't tell if it's a pass through on the price, or price gouging from HP:

6500U / 6560U comparison
http://ark.intel.com/compare/91163,88194

HP Spectre x360 - 15t Touch Laptop
http://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/Laptops/hp-spectre-x360---15t-touch-laptop-p0a58av-1

Customize and Buy
http://store.hp.com/us/en/Configure...1&storeId=10151&catEntryId=1175653&quantity=1

 

Well one sales rep and then later one tech told me on an online chat that the 15t was pen enabled... the tech was taking too long so I exited the chat, but the update for the touch controller on the 15t support page lists active pen support as a feature... but the update fails to install every time, so I can only assume that once they fix the installer pen support will be enabled...

I could try the HP Active stylus, but if the dell pen doesn't work, the HP shouldn't either, right?

I have top specced 15t, check out the last few pages I left some impressions.

 

I missed those key posts

Thanks for the review and other follow up posts, very helpful.

Did you get a chance to benchmark a 6500U vs a 6560U with upgraded Intel iGPU 540 vs 520?

I have been "against" 4k up till this role, as GPU's just don't have enough power yet for AAA games in Ultra at 4k, so 1080p is preferred, but the 4k screen seems like a win in this instance, not really enough power to feel like you should scale games at 4k, but all the other uses have enough power - video's, photo's, etc.

So, maybe a 4k, 6560U, 16GB, 1TB model might be in my future for carrying to work and to meetings.

I just wish they had those cool color schemes for the 15T model, right now it is "Natural Silver"

Update: I guess I will be waiting for OLED and color schemes that come with it...

 

I suspect either both stylus will work or neither will work.

I am waiting on Ash Silver & Copper as well (for the 13" with i7-6560U). There doesn't seem to be any word on when the color option will become available, but at CES ash silver models with OLED were displayed, so I think HP will release ash silver models when the OLED option becomes available "sometime this spring"

 

I just saw this post from user jjh42 with a possible fix on this thread:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebo...re-x360-15/m-p/5490713/highlight/true#M126353

""under support, software & drivers, spectre x360 15t, firmware:

http://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-spectre-15-ap000-x360-convertible-pc/9256669/mode...

Titled HP Touch Controller Firmware Uupdate, 1.00,A,1 Rev.A

Another posted said to extract the files from the executable (I used winrar, he used 7-zip; I figure any zip app can do it), then run the bat file. Works now!!!

I find the Dell stylus much more responsive than the HP stylus."

My laptop is at work, so I can't test right now, I will try tomrrow

 

Wow, that's great news

I also use 7-zip, it handles lots of different formats including rar, and also knows how to unpack .exe installers so you can get at individual files, comes in handy when an installer won't work but it has driver updates that can be installed through Device Manager driver update.

 

I can confirm, the pen now works after unzipping and running the .bat file

 

Good to hear! Thanks for reporting

 

I was looking at the displays of the 13" HP X360 Spectre and Pavilion models in a shop, when I was considering downgrading from my QHD to a FHD screen. They went from 720 (HD) vertical pixels, to 1080 (FHD), to 1440 (QHD). Difference is really noticeable in the text quality when you have them side by side - so I decided to stick with the QHD. With the new 15" model there's an FHD option, but that will look somewhere between the HD and FHD screens on the 13" models. It will be OK if you don't mind pixels, and maybe the better choice if you want to use it at the same time as external monitors without scaling (if you have different scaling, it's going to look fuzzy on one monitor or the other with most apps).

I find text looks better in Firefox than in Edge, because Firefox uses Cleartype, which works by rendering text at the subpixel level, while Edge uses greyscale font smoothing. Cleartype is being phased out because it doesn't work correctly for anything other than black text on a white background, and more importantly for tablet devices, it doesn't work when you change the screen orientation, since the RGB subpixels are lined up differently. So the solution is to use greyscale, with higher-resolution displays to compensate for the extra fuzziness. I think MS office and Windows Explorer etc still use Cleartype though, so you might see even sharper text in those than in Edge.

Personally I feel that QHD is great, and I can't see the pixels at normal laptop distance, but for reading text close-up, the extra pixels of 4k would be welcome. After all, you get QHD on phones these days, and that's on a 5" screen! Overkill, probably - my 4.6" Galaxy Nexus phone is half that (1280×720) and the pixels are essentially invisible at 316 ppi, even close up (maybe being OLED makes a difference too). On the 13.3" screen, FHD is 166 ppi, QHD is 221 ppi, and UHD (4k) would be 331 ppi, which would be ideal, if it ever appears. You can get amazingly high-res, tiny screens these days. I'm wondering how long it'll be before screens will be such high resolution that your computer OS's output won't need to correspond to physical pixels for a good picture.

Another thing about the 15" model I noticed: the USB C port, which is USB 3.0. On the Dell XPS13 it's 3.1, and you can use that one port for charging, DisplayPort, and all your USB / Thunderbolt devices, so you can dock your machine with a single cable. But it looks like on the Spectre it's just a funny shaped USB port.

Maybe I'll be tempted to upgrade when there's a Spectre with a 4k OLED display, Kensington lock slot, PgUp/Dn/Home/End keys, and USB 3.1 type-C port that you can charge and display from. Before Cyber Monday this year, by any chance?

 

@Sweyn since you mentioned Thunderbolt and DisplayPort, I have a random question: not sure if all X360's have a mini DisplayPort, but mine does. Can you think of any way I can connect it to an external Mac 27" monitor? I've managed to get it to work on an unbranded monitor by going from mini DP (out) to full DP (in). With the Mac monitor, however, nothing seems to happen when I plug the Thunderbolt from the monitor into the HP's mini DP port.

-Matt

 

is anyone able to get smooth zoom on the hp spectre on google chrome? with the touchpad its rigid on chrome but on edge its smooth. anyway around this?

 

I googled "connect apple thunderbolt display to pc" and the long and short of it seems to be that no it's not possible: you can only connect it to a Thunderbolt port (despite the Thunderbolt 1 and 2 using the same connector as mini DisplayPort).

http://superuser.com/questions/540751/how-do-i-connect-an-apple-thunderbolt-display-to-a-pc

Personally I have my Spectre connected to a Dell U2515H (2560x1440) and a Dell U2413 (1920x1200) in daisy-chain via the mini DisplayPort, and it works fine.

 

Thats just chrome, its like that on my macbook also

 

its funny cause when you pinch zoom on the touch screen its not rigid. however when you pinch zoom on the trackpad its rigid.

 

Wow, I never noticed that and I use Chrome as my default browser!
A quick google search didn't find any solutions or extensions.. Not sure why Chrome doesn't support it while Edge does.

 

Thanks, that was the link I was looking for! Guess it's a non-starter.

-Matt

 

A quick, slightly off-topic update (maybe for those of you with school-age kids), but I picked up the HP Pavilion 13-s128nr x360 for my 14-year-old this week from Amazon ($560, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014X4UAUI). There are several variants of the Pavilion on Amazon -- this particular one has the Core i5-6200U, 8GB RAM, a FHD 13.3" display, and a 128GB SSD. Some thoughts and impressions:

- display is just a bit less bright than the Spectre
- screen bezel more or less identical to the Spectre
- Dell Stylus WORKS
- interesting: HP swapped in a full-size ethernet port for our mini DisplayPort
- no backlit keyboard on the Pavilion (but it has black keys/keyboard)
- chunkier than the Spectre, but for the price it's pretty good-looking (same 2-in-1 features)
- EDIT: power options natively displays estimated battery life!!!

Ironically, the OEM 256GB SSD from my Spectre is on the shelf, so I'l install that soon. I'm also a little jealous of the Pavilion key layout -- they shrank the Tab, Shift, Backspace, and Enter keys, which makes room for dedicated Page Up/Down and Home/End keys on the far right side of the keyboard (is that how it looks on the newer Spectre, or are those keys still dual-function with the arrow keys?). I also like the key action on the Pavilion a bit more than on the Spectre.

My overall impression is very, very positive. Since owning the Spectre, I've been really impressed with HP and reassessing my old feelings. The new Pavilion definitely increases my sense that they're doing a good job.

-Matt

 

Matt - before I got the Spectre I briefly had a Pavilion of the same spec as in your post, except the i5-5200U version. Great machine, with very impressive spec for the price.

Advantages over the Spectre:
- Better keyboard layout
- Kensington lock slot
- Lower price
- Ethernet
- Hinges slightly stiffer, allowing lower angles in Stand mode

Disadvantages:
- Fan stays on most of the time, so it's noisier (still quiet, but not silent like the Spectre)
- Keyboard lower quality, less key travel, more flex, no backlight
- Touchpad very stiff, clicking uncomfortable
- Slightly thicker and heavier, but still thin and light objectively
- More plasticky, so perhaps less durable?
- Shorter battery life (though still long)
- No DisplayPort, so you can only attach 1 external monitor, via HDMI

I returned mine because the keyboard on my unit had too much flex in some places and kind of rattled on some keys towards the right of the keyboard, while others you had to specifically press them in the middle or they wouldn't actuate. It just wasn't nice to type on. Also the headphone jack had a terrible hiss, there was a semi-stuck pixel, and I found the fan annoying. All fixed on the Spectre, though if you get lucky and find a Pavilion with no issues, then it's probably better bang/buck.

 

Oh yeah, now I remember you mentioning it a while back -- I wonder why I didn't process that it was a Pavilion? Anyhow, a few quick replies:

- checked the keyboard flex and the Pavilion seems minimal -- you really need to lean on it, otherwise it's pretty stiff
- Pavilion touchpad RATTLES (surprise, surprise) but it's also pretty minimal -- but clicking is easy (have to do it on the bottom half) -- kind of a moot point for me since I pretty much never click but instead use the 1- or 2-finger tap for clicking
- headphone jack seems quiet

For the most part I hadn't heard the fan on the Pavilion in the first 24 hours. However, last night I decided to wipe the OS and do a clean install of Win 10 and as I was going through BIOS I noticed the "fan always on" option had been enabled. So I switched that off and it's been totally silent since.

I might also add -- since we have several Skylake owners here -- that straight out of the box the Intel HD video driver crashed a number of times (it was pretty ugly). Again, since the wipe and clean install I've had 0 issues. Strangely, I haven't actually installed a single driver -- everything running at the moment is what's come down through Windows update after the reinstall.

-Matt

 

Yes I can believe that it varies a lot between units, since the display model didn't have the flexible keyboard or noisy headphone jack (mine was only noisy when actually playing a sound). I had no problems with drivers as far as I can remember, perhaps because it shipped with Windows 8, and Windows 10 was downloaded afterwards. I did discover the fan setting in the BIOS, but I think perhaps I had a dodgy bearing or something since giving the machine a firm smack on the underside would sometimes shut it up!

It was still a lot quieter (and better in almost every other way) than my old Dell laptop, but it's funny to see how difficult it is to find a laptop with a good keyboard these days. It seems like every keyboard from 10 years ago was so much better than those you get today - perhaps not in thickness and weight, but certainly in comfort and layout. Some unwise trade-offs have been made, if you ask me.

 

Hey,

just wanted to ask about experiences with the stylus and Onenote.
I think about getting this one because in Germany Lenovo Yoga 460 is much more expensive and this even looks better.

But since HP doenst promote the possibilty with the active stylus worries me a bit i want to use it in the university and the pen is one of the main reasons for me to get this notebook.

So any experiences ? I have heared there are problems with palm detection?

 

This is the first real review of the 15" I've seen, though it is a lower spec model:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Spectre-x360-15-ap011dx-Convertible-Review.159134.0.html

 

Thanks, that's very encouraging news!

-Matt

 

Have you considered the Surface Pro 4? If one of your main uses is going to be note-taking, it would be the better choice I think.
I haven't used the stylus (the Dell one) on my 13" Spectre much but I think the inking experience on SP4 is superior. Plus the 13" Spectre is a bit unwieldy as a tablet (too large and heavy for that). However, it does have much better battery life compared to SP4.

 

Yes i have considered it but i still need a laptop. And 13,3" is the smallest i can imangine i would prefer 14,x or even a small 15" like an xps.

 

Perhaps the Surface Book then?

Here's why I'm suggesting the Surface line if note-taking is important to you:
Surface has a very thin display stack to reduce parallax, the Spectre doesn't and has more parallax effect.
The best active stylus available for the Spectre right now (as far as I know, that would be the Dell one) still isn't very good. Buttons are kind of awkwardly placed, because it's near where you would grip the pen. No eraser button at top (Surface Pen does, which is more intuitive, and that also has useful shortcuts like press once to open OneNote and press and hold to summon Cortana). The pen tip material is not the best - it's too slippery - whereas Surface Pen's tip can be changed with tips of various hardness according to your preference.

You can get by with a Spectre for some note-taking, but in my opinion it is not the best solution for that purpose.
However, I do think the Spectre is a fine laptop for what a traditional laptop is supposed to do. Good keyboard, decent trackpad, long battery life, good specs (also OLED and 16 GB RAM options coming later this spring; I wish the 13" had a USB-C port though). Oh, and the ash silver & copper version is probably the best looking laptop on the market right now. I have complaints about the factory color calibration of the QHD panel, but you can get the FHD panel and avoid that problem (I imagine the OLED panel will have even better colors). Another complaint I have is about the speakers - tinny sound and distortion when in laptop mode on a desk Edit:Seems the speakers were somewhat faulty - I did not have the same distortion (buzzing) on a slightly different model (Silver FHD, 13-4163nr). I have heard the 15" Spectre speakers (there are 4 of them on the 15") are better though. The last complain I have is that there seems to be too much power limit throttling during sustained heavy loads such as gaming. I've noticed that when I'm playing SCII (my Spectre has i7-6500U btw), the package TDP drops to about 12W soon after starting the game and stays that low for the duration of the game, so the performance isn't as good as it could be if it didn't power limit throttling so easily and was running at the full 15W.

 

Thanks for the recommendations .
Surface book is too expensive for the configurations i like.

But again i thought abouut it any i may have highlighted the pen function to much.
Currently my only concern is the small size 13,x. but i may want to try it
Do you thinnk the i7 version is worth 85€ more than the i5?

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Update-Samsung-Serie-7-700Z3C-S01-Notebook.77437.0.html

was my previous laptop, so even the i5 should be a little bit faster?

 

If you're talking about i7-6560U, then yes I think it's worth the upgrade since it has Intel Iris 540 (GT3e graphics, with eDRAM). If it's the i7-6500U (which has Intel HD 520 (lower tier GT2, no eDRAM), same as the i5) then you may not notice a difference between the performance between it and the i5, especially if you don't have heavy workloads. See http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-6500U-vs-Intel-Core-i5-6200U and http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-6500U-vs-Intel-Core-i5-6200U/m36930vsm36796 for some benchmarks and comparisons.

 

Ok thanks . I was talking about 6500u.
I think then i am going to order teh HP Spectre x360 Convertible 13-4102ng, 850€ is a good price for that one .

 

Has any one seen a review of the HP Spectre 15.6 4K and can supply a link. It's been available to buy for a few weeks now, and I've not seen anything. Thanks

 

Ok it just arrived .

One Question already: anyone has a recomendation for a screen protector?
Anto glossy with a good "glide" ability would be nice .

 

any way to connect the pause/play buttons of the hp spectre to youtube and video players?

edit: I found a chrome extension that did it.
anyone know any other extensions that complement the hp spectre?

 

My recommendation is none at all. Seriously, don't stick plastic over your beautiful screen. It won't scratch under normal circumstances, and screen protectors look worse than scratches anyway.

Someone said that there was a Chrome extension that stopped background tabs using CPU, which could help with battery life. Or you could use Firefox which seems not to have this problem. With Firefox I'm using
- FireGestures, allows you to go back/forward, change tabs, open links etc using touch
- Adblock, saves CPU / battery from annoying adverts
- Anti Aliasing Tuner, can select greyscale rather than Cleartype if using in Portrait / tent mode
plus various others non-specific to the Spectre

 

I have a question: does anyone else get snaps and clicks on the speakers when using the on-screen keyboard? Anyone know why it happens or have a workaround?

 

No more video crashes...happy to report!