HP Spectre x360

Thx for the Reply

Btw, I haven't got the chance to demo the ash silver Spectre
How's the keyboard's touch feels like? Is it the same as the silver one (smooth slippery)?

 

I was wondering if you could do me a favor. Could you use Battery Bar or Battery Mon (google passmark batmon) or something similar to see how many Wh the battery in the Thinkpad Yoga 14 is?

I saw every Best Buy around me get the Thinkpad 14 yoga in stock so hoped for a sale this week... but alas they discounted the yoga 700/900 but not the thinkpad. Grr.

 

49850 for battery. It'll last me an entire 9 hour workday with some left to spare. Charges up really quick to, I think having 65w charger vs traditional 45w helps.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

Thanks. I know lenovo uses a 45wh on the cheaper yogas/flexes and a 62wh battery on the yoga 900 and a 60wh on the y700 (which really should have a 90wh) so i was hoping the Thinkpad was at least 50wh... which is pretty much what it is.

Do you have the new skylake 6200u thinkpad or the broadwell or haswell revisions?

 

Skylark. It was a replacement for my sp3 and 'needed' a pen. Which after seeing the new ones have pen, I thought I'd try it out. And it's great.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

I saw that earlier in this thread you said you weren't getting good battery life from the i5 skylake with FHD (only about 4.5 hours). I was thinking about getting this version and was wondering if you were ever able to figure out how to get 8-10 hours+ of battery life out of this version, either through bios updates, settings changes, store exchange for new one, etc.

 

Just tinkering with it. Don't believe there is a bios update for it yet
But windows updates and me tweaking setting to how I like them. Now it lasts all day. Granted for me it's off/on, but no worries here


Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

One thing valid for any OS is to do some research and disable all auto runs and services which you don't need.
Takes some effort but worth it.

 

Are you getting the same, or better, battery life out of the i5 skylake than you got from the i7-5500u, QHD version?

When I last checked the Microsoft store was selling them both for the same price, I was going to go with the i5 skylake since I thought it would give me more battery life than the i7-5500u but then I saw that you actually had the opposite experience with battery life for these two versions.

 

Sorry for the confusion. My last battery replies on here were to someone inquiring about my ThinkPad yoga 14.

On the x360 spectre, i5 netted mmmmm about 2 more usable hours than the i7. Screen resolution ate the 2 hours, not the processor. But even then, it lasted beyond what a day could ask for in either configuration if power settings were set up nicely.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

 

By the way, I modified the Power saver power profile to limit the maximum processor to 50 percent. During a browsing session during a work day, I got over seven hours usage with 33 percent battery life left using minimum brightness. That would be over 10 hours of use per charge!

My PC is the HP Spectre x360 8GB, 256 GB SSD, FHD, I7 -6500U.

 

Hi,


I was wondering if there had been any further info on whether the 2016 skylake (uk) versions of the spectre x360 work with any of the synaptics pens. Strongly considering buying one in a couple of months but having no pen functionality would be a bit of a deal breaker. Thanks

And, as a side note, I'm guessing the newer Dell 750-AALT wouldn't work with it?

 

I've been really pleased with my spectre x360, but lately it has been having almost continuous display driver crashes. I installed the most recent display driver update in the HP Support Assistant and it's still happening.

I did a search but don't seem to be finding much info on how to resolve this.

Has anyone had this issue and successfully corrected it?

 

I have a Dell Synaptics stylus designed for the Dell Venue 8 Pro and Dell Venue 11 Pro. It works well with the Spectre x360. I have the Spectre 13-4103dx (8GB Ram, 256GB SSD, FHD).

Mine has been working great. The only issues I have encountered are software issues.

I do not like that the bios does not do full battery reports including battery life calculations. I run BatteryBar which is not displaying calculate life. It only displays estimated life.

The latest bios version F.32 will not install automatically via the Support Assistant.

The touchpad software did not support the old fashion scrolling direction on all apps. It would also lose any setting after a reboot. This was fixed by uninstalling and installing the Windows 8.1 version of the Synaptics driver. This took two installs to get it to work right. Google "hp inconsistent scrolling direction".
I used sp71089.exe as the Win 8.1 driver. The important part is to replace the driver in the Device Manager.

The Synaptics touchpad software is excellent. I love the use of the Chiral scrolling. It makes it so easy to browse long web pages. Just moving your finger on the slick touchpad in circles is so easy. I would not want to switch to another notebook unless it supported Chiral scrolling.

Everything else works great.

I have the natural silver version and feel that wear and tear will not show as easily as on the ash / copper version. That version is quite beautiful.

Setting the maximum processing percentage to 50 percent in Power saver added an extra hour or more on my internet surfing time per charge. I get at least 11 hours at minimum brightness surfing at 8.7 percent per hour usage.

I have had no bluescreens or crashes in three weeks of use. I have been trying to use this notebook constantly to ferret any hardware/software bugs before my 30 days return privilege is up.

 

@Ipaqman thanks for the excellent comments/input!

-Matt

 

Not only does the Spectre have an SD slot that allows full insertion of the SD card, the interface support for the SD card is fast. I tested a Samsung Evo Plus 128GB SD card and got a read/write of almost 80/24 MB / sec using ATTO benchmark. This is the advertised speed of this card.

My older Lenovo Yoga 2 13 gets a much slower benchmark. And so does my Dell Venue 11 Pro 7140.

This speed is important for those who want to add more storage space to their notebook.

Edited to get the correct units on r/w speed.

 

There are so many small things that HP did right with the Spectre x360.

There are the led lights for capslock, mute on, and backlight. The hinges work so well and smoothly compared to my Yoga 2 and Dell 3147. The SD card support is top notch. The exhaust vent avoids venting heat to your lap. The touchpad is glassy smooth and supports chiral scrolling. The F keys are aligned with the number keys making them easy to find (F5 is above the 5 key). The power plug is a right angle plug. The power switch is recessed and not easily pressed accidentally. The metal surfaces are finished so as to not show fingerprints. There is a full size HDMI port and 3 full size USB 3.0 ports. The power consumption is extremely low for light activities like emailing, reading, and browsing (up to 11 hours in practice). High CPU activities get much lower battery run times. Bios entry is easy by using the ESC key. A menu of functions appears including bios and diagnostic functions. There is a removable base plate for component upgrades.

 

Don't do that. It won't save you any battery because your CPU will still do the same amount of processing, just more slowly. It doesn't say "hey, my CPU is only running at 50%, I think I'll skip these instructions". All you achieve is to make your computer more sluggish.

 

Crazy how I am just now noticing that! I agree with you on all points, except for power button. It's good that it can't be pressed accidentally, but HP surely could have come up with a better placement or method for that rather than making it squishy and hard to press..

 

Actually the most noticeable difference is from 100% to 99%. Because when you max. it at 99%, CPU wont go turboboost mode. Turboboost really creates substantial heat and uses high battery.

 

Does it really though? I looked at the power being consumed and core temperatures using CPUID HWMonitor, on the HP Recommended and Hi Performance modes (main difference being that on the former, cores idle at 798 MHz, and on the latter 2695 MHz.

I found that when plugged in, idle power usage and temperatures were the same (41°C). On battery, power usage was just 0.2 W higher and temperature 2 °C higher at 38 °C in High Performance mode (still lower than the low power mode when plugged in).

In short, low/high power mode barely made any difference to power usage. I encourage people to try this for themselves.

Obviously under load it will use higher power and generate more heat momentarily, but it gets the job done more quickly, so will go back to idling more quickly and overall power usage should be similar.

 

Hey Gang, I've been digging into the HP Support Forums and have put together a list of Battery Savers based on my experience and others. I hit between 9 and almost 11 hours of battery time

I have Late 2015 13" i7 Skylake 8GB RAM, 512 SSD, FHD screen.

Since I don't run on battery very often, I tweaked the HP Power plan to use the settings below. This has been ideal for long flights, long meetings, or riding in the car on long trips. Hasn't failed me yet.

1. Ensure all Windows Updates and HP Driver Updates are in place.
2. Battery Saver Mode set to activate when battery is less than 100%
3. Turn off "Cortana", "Bluetooth" and "Location service"
4. Turn off "Choose how updates are delivered" under windows update
5. Turn on "Metered connection"
6. Ditch Chrome…Recommend Firefox or Edge browser.
7. Removed McAfee Antivirus and kept "Windows Defender"
8. Set "Hibernate" in sleep mode to 30 minutes
9. Disabled unnecessary software startups via Task Manager>Startup
10. Update "BIOS" to recent version. A reinstall may help as well.
11. In Power Options, set "Maximum processor state on Battery to 70% under power option
12. In Power Options>>>Display Brightness: On Battery to 70% under power option.
13. In Power Options>>>Display Brightness: Set Battery Dimmed Display Brightness to 30%
14. Power Options>Power Button and Lid>Lid Close Action>On Battery: Hibernate
15. Power Option>Power Button and Lid>Power Button Action>Both on Hibernate
16. Set Browser Home page to simple page. I set it for Gmail.com
17. Turn off Speakers if not planning to listen to media. If so, use plug in ear buds.
18. Unplug any external drives or devices not being used.

 

HI folks !
So I see varying info on actually the pen support of the current gen X360 spectre.
Somebody please enlighten me, what is the situation: Are they supporting synaptics pen input, or jsut partially, or no at all, or just selected models ? I would like to buy a 4108na config

 

Hello, I am using 4108na model for some time now with my Dell Active Pen (synaptics). It works great for me.

 

I tried a browsing test of the Spectre using BatteryInfoView which tracks the battery percentage used which seems to be the only "true" battery usage that is displayed. I tested the HP recommended setting for battery use and a modified version where the max processor was set to 50 percent.

I did note a difference of about one percent battery use per hour. So despite the logic that higher CPU gets it done faster, there appears to be more battery usage over time. Could there be background processes that use more CPU per cycle if it is available?

 

Thanks!

 

Hello,

I got a problem with my Spectre X360 4001ng.

The system freezes randomly so I need to restart the system.
Im not sure but I think everytime i was downloading something and my Notebook was connected to a second Screen through HDMI.

Often I let my Notebook on for a while and when im back, the Image and system is freezed and the fan is working. It happend to while working.

Does anyone had a problem like that before?

I send it to HP but they only reinstalled Windows.
The drivers are up to date and a few days ago, HP installed beta Driver on my system through a remote Connection but it dosent helped.
I think its Hardware related but the HP support is not the best....

 

A few of you have commented recently about the Dell Active Stylus, and the discussions around battery life triggered a thought... how often are people changing batteries in the stylus?

I'm lucky to get 3 weeks out of a battery, with about 3-4 hours of intermittent use a day, and its really annoying to find the AAAA batteries. Is this kind of usage consistent with others?

A colleague of mine made me very jealous when he told me that he was yet to replace the battery in his Microsoft Surface pen, coming up to a year after his purchase!

 

Hi all. Just signed up to say all your comments have been really helpful (and I mean really helpful!) I've been dipping in and out of this thread for a couple of weeks now while I've been agonising over whether to purchase an hp spectre 360. I'd read quite a few negative comments about HP laptops and notebooks which made me hesitant. But I've finally bitten the bullet and have just ordered the 4108na i5 model. I'm quite excited!

Because I've found this thread so useful I'd like to give people a shout out that this particular model is currently on sale at the HP store for £749 (it was £899 last week and about a month ago it was on offer for £799). Same price for Ash or Silver except the silver model number is 4118na. Specs appear the same but someone with greater tech knowledge than me would need to confirm that.

There is also a current valid 3% discount voucher on vouchercodes.co.uk for orders over £600.

So all in all if you use the code and take advantage of the sale price you can get the 4108na (ash) or the 4118na (silver) for £726.53 with free delivery.

Hope this helps someone who is maybe thinking of making a purchase.

 

Thats a great deal. I am sure you will like the device. It is very high quality and versatile. Being able to write with pen is a great option for note taking. Tbh I dont care about trackpad rattling and I dont think it is an issue. Enjoy it!

 

Maybe it is about the usage. I am own the pen for more than 3 months now, and I am still on the same battery. But I have to admit, I dont use it very frequently, just during note taking.

 

I purchased from Dell a A03 active stylus. It works great.

I hooked a VOM digital multimeter to the battery and contact using a paper tube. The current usage during activity is less than 9 ma. Post activity, the current usage drops to less than 0.05 ma after 40 seconds.

Since the AAAA alkaline battery rates about 500-600 mah, a sleeping stylus should last over a year. An active stylus should last up to 66 hours of constant use (no sleep).

That 66 hours matches your 3 weeks per battery.

On Ebay, I bought 12 AAAA batteries for less than $10.

 

@Ipaqman thanks (again!) for the ^^^ helpful post.

Sorry if this is old news but I just noticed there's an updated firmware for Broadwell units (F.32 Rev.A).

-Matt

 

I noticed a week ago that my Skylake i7 wasn't going into tablet mode automatically OR pulling up the onscreen keyboard when I would tap into a text field in manual table mode. If you're having this issue, this is your only fix...so back your data up first.


I was reading through a forum on the Screen Rotation issue here: http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Windows/Spectre-X360-Screen-rotation/td-p/5172398/page/7
Since it won't allow me to reply there, I'll continue it here.

I followed all the steps listed:

1. Change Registry Setting...already set to right one.

2. Re-Installed Intel Sensor Driver. Device Manager doesn't show a Sensor Hardware.

3. Reset the PC via the Windows Settings..both refresh and everything. Still doesn't fix it. Why? It restores it with the current version of Windows...not the one that came with the Spectre360. Most likely Version 1511 if you installed that update.

I did a little digging and found the fix for me. I use OneDrive for most of my files, so what isn't there, I backed up to external drive.

I went into the HP Recovery Manager>HP Recovery Environment. It will restart the PC into the Windows-Like interface, but choose the option to reset and it will get you to the HP System Restore. I did a System Restore. This is the option that put it back to Day One Box opening. And...the sensors work, tablet mode works, it all works again.

Once I did the restore, I updated the drivers from HP Support Assistant and THEN did all the Windows updates.

Still works.

So, this is what I found to make it work again. A pain, but it works...and I was about to send it back in for repair. No!!!!!

Glenn

 

So i finally bought my spectre! At the end i go for the i7,256,fhd model

Physically it's all good, no rattly trackpad, keyboard is good, screen good. Pretty happy with it, until i tried to use it.

So i've been encountering some problems:
1. Touchpad settings are not saved, it's gone after you shutdown, so i've been reading and it seems a registry edit will do the trick
2. Also my wifi is problematic, the laptop can detect wifi just fine when i first opened it, but when i turned it on again after several hours the wifi device is not detected (as in windows doesn't recognize that the laptop has an intel adapter in it)
I've tried updating the drivers and windows, it worked, once, then after shutdown it's gone again.
Been trying to find what is wrong online, but haven't got a clue, so i returned it for exchange.

Anyone knows the fix to these problems? I'm getting my replacement tomorrow, just hoping that this is not a problem inherent to the spectre

 

One Spectre user on YouTube reported WIFI problems that were resolved with the latest version of Windows 10 and drivers. If you had not updated to Windows 10 build 1533, you should try that.

I updated to that version a few days after I purchased my Spectre but I did not have any wifi problems before or after.

However, some wifi connections issues are due to Microsoft connection rules. Some older routers or drivers are not compatible.

My Aspire Switch 10 has a long delay connecting after coming out of hibernation (around 30 seconds).

If you have another Windows 10 PC, you could check to see if that one has the same problem.

 

My previous laptop (also windows 10) got no such problem and i've updated the spectre to latest non-insider build.

It's no connection problem though, in my case the windows doesn't show the intel 7265 as being "connected" so i can't find any wifi signal. If i go to device manager there is no intel 7265 in the list.
I suspect it's some cable got lose or something but it's kinda weird since it worked 2 times before

Update: Confirmed faulty unit, my replacement doesn't have such problem, only the usual outdated drivers that has problem. Updated everything to the latest build and it seems to be working just fine

 

Try saving a profile on the synaptics settings, they will hold after a restart

 

Actually it will only saved my preferred settings, the next time spectre is rebooted, I'll still get back to the default settings and the profile will only help me to not dive into the settings itself

The regedit solution i found is more of a solution, now my settings are kept through reboot

 

Hi, with this Spectre model: 13-4110nl, http://www.amazon.it/dp/B01ARVKIJO/ , is it possible to add 8GB about ram to have 16 in total?

Thank you all

 

No one can help me with the above question?

 

no you can't, all spectre model have soldered ram
it's only been an hour or so, try to be patient when waiting for answer in a forum
And it's quite a general question that you can actually google yourself

 

Hi again. Well my Spectre arrived yesterday. It's early days but so far I've encountered very few problems. The one thing that is bugging me however is the appalling sound from the speakers. I put a film on and struggled to hear so I had to plug in an external speaker. The sound is just too quiet and tinny. For a machine of this price I would have expected a much better quality of sound. The tinniness I could probably tolerate if the sound was louder.

I already updated the audio driver but there is also a Bios update to provide 'improved audio quality and volume'. However when I try to install it it says "the Bios update is blocked on this device".

Any suggestions much appreciated.

 

I have no rattly trackpad - I think this was one of the things HP must have fixed. Or maybe I just got lucky. The thing I was most concerned about were all the reports on the HP forum of spontaneously cracking screens! Hopefully this is something else they've managed to fix because no one here seems to have had that problem.

The thing I don't like (as you can see from my other post) is the sound. I've just listened again and it really is bad. Much worse than on my 5 year old Lenovo - and the sound on that is only average.

 

I got rattly trackpad but good speaker lol
I don't know how bad is bad based on your standard, but... let's say... this song


On a room ambience and the laptop where my hand can reach the keyboard, it can be heard very clearly on 50% volume (even on 20% i can distinguished clearly what word was said)
ofcourse the quality is nothing to write home about, it's such a tiny speaker... but some people say the headphone out can drive some ohm into headphones (though i can't test it since i got no high impedance headphone)

 

@Honorarymanc congrats on the new machine and welcome to the forum! Your BIOS issue sounds like you were updating on battery power. Once the same thing happened to me -- it cleared up once I plugged in the power supply.

You're the first to mention a serious speaker issue. The most common complaint here myself is a "static" or "crackling" sound that sometimes happens (I get it with headphones too). Often seems to drop off after a reboot.

-Matt

 

Good song!

And the volume is great (still a bit tinny but nothing I can't live with) which led me to do a few more checks and I've now deduced that sound quality varies massively depending on the quality of the original upload. It seems my old laptop was better at sound enhancement. The same film I watched yesterday is audible on my old laptop without external speakers but not on this one.

Some of the youtube stuff sounds good (like the one you posted), some sounds ...not so great. But at least I know that I don't have a faulty machine. I think if there was a way to alter the amplifier settings I'd be able to get rid of the tinny sound.

 

Ha! Can you believe it?!! This was one of the things I'd read about before I bought the laptop. I made a mental note to remember to always have it plugged in before updating. Doh! *slaps head*

Thank you!

 

Oh and Arcwindz? When you say rattly trackpad what do you mean? Do you mean the whole thing rattles? Or is it just when you tap the lower half of the pad it's slightly rattly? If so, I have that - I only just noticed it and it only rattles if I tap the lower half. It's not something that's bothered me. Some of the laptops I tried in Currys PC World had really bad rattly trackpads - much worse than this.

 

If you google the youtube video on how to fix spectre rattly touhpad, it's exactly like that, though note that the recording volume of that video is pretty loud