HP Spectre x360

alkpit Σε ευχαριστώ! Unfortunately I can't buy the laptop VAT free otherwise the price of 1100 euros sounds quite reasonable for these specs!
GBO323 thanks for the input, your experience sounds quite reassuring. My ideal setup of the x360 would also be with 8GB of RAM and 512GB SSD but this can't be found in Europe AFAIK.

If the QHD display was of a "Retina" quality or equivalent I wouldn't bother that much to pay the 300 euros premium for having the best specs. I don't really care for the i7 but since I'm planning to hopefully keep the laptop for at least 4 years I think that in the long run QHD would be a standard. My previous laptop was a FHD Sony Vaio bought back in 2011.

What still troubles me is that picture of both screens
QHD on the left and FHD on the right.

 

I don't know how to check, but I am pretty positive that my FHD's screen is lower than 260 nits on the lowest brightness. 260 would be eyeball searing in the dark, and I've used my x360 plenty in the dark without melting my retinas.

 

That's great! I have no experience with the x360 display but I also think that this looks extremely high, I don't know if there are any third party software that could dim the screen to any level that it is needed. There is also a speculation that in German (maybe European too?) market darker QHD panels are used, there was a similar case with XPS 13's 4K display. Also a French review of the QHD panel mentions that it is too dim alone and even more compared to the FHD.

I have also found that the Dutch base model comes with FHD/i5/8/128 for 1050 that seems almost ideal with a potential SSD upgrade in the near future, unfortunately they don't ship abroad!

 

Double post

 

Vsxp - would you be able to post a link to this review if you have it?

 

Of course! Here is the really positive review of the FHD version
Here is the not so great for the QHD display.
So far both the French and German reviews agree on the display brightness.

 

Well, I get into the same situation here. Cannot find much information regarding the QHD panel. Apart from brightness concerned, I also have concern on its color gamut. It looks to me that HP's website only mentioned the "72%" for the FHD panel, without referring the same to the QHD panel. More color space must be better for photo editing and general viewing.

 

It seems brightness will be sufficient for my own use. I have another convertible, Yoga Pro2, which measures in similar brightness (from the anandtech.com). I found that its sufficient for me.

 

Merci!

I've been to-ing and fro-ing between the QHD and FHD versions for a while. I've seen both models in different stores, but not side by side. The QHD version is certainly much dimmer, although just about fine for the basement store lighting conditions where it was displayed. I do think though if it only had just a couple of additional notches of brightness it would be perfect. The higher resolution makes for very crisp scaled text, and great detail when viewing photos, but I think I'm reluctantly going to end up going with the FHD model, as I think for my use the dimmer screen would frustrate me more often than the added resolution would benefit.

 

That brightness theoretically could work for me too. Although the European models seem to use completely different panels. The only measurement I found on color accuracy was something of 85% sRGB for the FHD but I can't remember the source. Some "minor" things force me to appreciate more the monolithic and unchanged specs that Apple prefers.

Glad to help! Do you think that QHD has an edge towards text editing and white and black balance? I'm only relying on specs so my decision becomes even harder. Judging by the fact that the French QHD has an extravagant cost of 1700 euros I could understand your concern.

 

In terms of clarity and detail (in suitable lighting conditions) I preferred the QHD for reading text (approaching 'retina' clarity) and viewing photos. The blacks on the QHD looked very black, and to my eyes, the whites looked somewhat off-white (could partly be a colour-calibration issue, but I think also due to the fact it's dimmer). The FHD screen by comparison had much brighter/whiter whites, but with perhaps a bit less contrast overall.

I think I will take another look at both this weekend to confirm my initial impressions before making a final decision.

 

Has anyone been able to boot from the USB to install an OS (Windows 10 in my case)? I can't get the X360 to do this. I've disabled secure boot in the BIOS, among other workarounds I've found, but I still haven't got the option to boot from USB in the boot options. Any help would be appreciated.

 

I found this article detailing how to put Windows 10 on.

http://chriswoodruff.com/2015/05/04...0-clean-on-a-hp-spectre-x360-from-build-2015/

I have not tried it (yet), but hopefully helps!

 

OK, here is another update. I spent some more phone time with HP Tech Support today. This time I got enough information to reset my BIOS to F.00. Battery Bar Pro then began working properly. But, I wanted a newer BIOS, so I went to HP Support and found only one BIOS version that was available for update, Version F.04. Battery Bar Pro still works, but I would like to go back to F.10 which is what my x360 had from the factory and Battery Bar also worked with that BIOS version. I will report back if I can find BIOS Version F.10.

Regards, Jim

Latest update: There does not appear to be any Versions between F.04 and F.11. F.04 was released Feb 10, 2015, F.11 was released Mar 18, 2015 and F.12 was released April 21, 2015. I am going to stick with Version F.04 until I see a need to update to a later version.

Jim

 

Your description seems to match with the overall impressions. I can't understand what the limitations are for manufacturers to offer a decent QHD display. Currently I'm leaning towards the FHD if I could have it with 8GB RAM. I will wait for your final impressions after the weekend experiment!

 

Thanks! This info is very helpful.. If I have time I'll give it a shot tonight.

 

Let us know how the install goes .....

 

Howdy HPers!

Has anyone converted to Win 7 pro yet? I'm not waiting on Win 10 and will wait 2 years at least before jumping on. Windows is fantasizing on their virtual reality glasses (what a poofer!) so I'm looking for a slow problem-filled rollout of win10. I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not using WIn8 for one day after trying once. It would not work or even shut off and it was on a Sony!

Anyway, any problems foreseen in Win7 Pro upgrade? I could care less about touch screen, and think it will just shorten screen life and cause "Win 8" problems, lol.


TIA!

 

The install went well, using the info in the link you provided above. Now I know how to manually make a bootable USB drive. I've not used it much, just installed a few things and some light web browsing. No problems yet. Windows 10 looks and feels great on this machine!

 

For anyone who's upgraded their SSD. Is the M2 ssd SATA or PCI-E??

Some guy says they put a Samsung XP941 (which is PCI-E based) in their spectre x360??? But it originally comes with SATA SSD?
http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Hardwa...nts/SSD-upgrade-for-spectre-x360/td-p/4949235

 

Hi. Been around the block with a number of the current 13" Ultrabooks with QHD and QHD+ screens - including the HP Spectre 13t-3000, which I adored and which had a screen which was quite bright enough for any indoor use, regardless of how bright the ambient light was and which delivered battery life in the 7-8 hr. range, under "real" conditions (75% brightness, plenty of multitasking and videos) - and I can mostly report that as of now the vast majority of programs and apps for Windows scale beautifully on both QHD and QHD+ screens. As for the other two "bugaboos" of UHD screens - diminished brightness and greatly reduced battery life, my present daily driver, a Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus produces 310 nit (using my Spyder 4 calibrator) and battery life is in the 8-9 hr. range, again under aggressive "real life" usage scenarios. This is what I would call the exception that disproves the "rule" commonly held that UHD screens rob brightness and battery efficiency (my Ativ Book 9+ only has a 47Wh ). I have to say that, once I became accustomed to the QHD+ resolution and touchscreen I find any Ultrabook without these attributes just disappoints. I do own a Sony Flip 13A - which I picked up for a song on eBay for its active digitizer/pen and convertible features - has an absolutely lovely FHD screen with 100% sRGB color gamut at 340 nits. Nonetheless, on a number of apps - 2-4k videos, UHD photos and even text, which is so exquisitely sharp when you drop the resolution to 1600x900 and get 4/1 pixel ratio for text compared to a native FHD screen - the Ativ 9+ has spoiled me rotten compared to other phenomenal screens with what I would have called "excessive" resolution at FHD/13" only 2 years ago. As to why Samsung can deliver such stunning resolution, colors, brightness and battery life (on most tables of battery life, it comes in just below the various Apples as the top Windows battery life performer excluding Sony machines with sheet batteries when others apparently are felled by their overly ambitious specs. (Especially perplexing: Samsung's own new Core M, 12" , non-touch /QHD gets no more than 7 hrs battery life, though for purposes of weight savings they went with a fairly small (35Wh) battery - Query: how can Apple fit a 20% larger battery in a notebook at about the same weight??. Clearly even within a single manufacturer using it's own parts through its vertically integrated manufacturing capability, the challenge can appear easily surmountable or clearly difficult, depending, I guess, upon what the starting template is. (Final "put to rest:" using Samsung's firmware patch and using Spyder calibration, the infamous "yellowgate" color problem of "mustardy" yellows is truly a non-issue.)

Sorry to blab on so continuously (those of you who know me know this is a comparatively short post for me!) My concluding point is that, after many mfrs jumped the gun on UHD Ultrabooks - because they could, rather than because they should! - 1.5 years later the screen technology, catch-ups by software developers, better power engineering and greater understanding of managing the tradeoffs of image density, power efficiency, other display capabilities make it a more reasonable consideration than ever to buy UHD screen products if they are made well, have the power you need for your work (ie, Haswell or Broadwell U cpu/gpus with 2.0-3.0 gHz clock speed cpus with cooling systems that can both keep the cpu/gpus from throttling and keep the noise from becoming, well, annoyingly "low rent." If you plan to keep a laptop for 3+ years, I'd seriously consider a high PPI screen, "full" ULV silicon and - I'm looking at you, HP x2-360 - don't sacrifice ports and don't overpay for 8GB, 512GB, QHD, touch screen (believe me, it becomes addictive!) models, which you can obtain for under $1,400 - a true no-compromise purchase - unless you find anything over 2.2 lbs to be too heavy to carry!

Cheers. Comments welcomed.

 

Thanks so much for your input. I completely agree on how QHDs will become the standard really soon. Since I'm - hopefully - planning to keep the laptop for at least 3-4 years, buying something with the best possible current specs is important for me. Also working on the field of image I need the best possible display for the money that I can afford to spend. I hope that a true QHD will not be a compromise, on the brightness field, since 7-8hrs of battery life seem exquisite for me now. I think that x360 is the best Windows option for my needs, my next best thing is a Macbook Pro Retina but I'm hesitating going that path for different reasons.

 

@lovelaptops

I am not sure which ATIV book you have. But it sounds like you dont have the new M Core version.
If that is the case you have an old intel graphics 4400, only 12 inch and no option to flip the screen over to make it a convertible. These are three MAJOR cons.

So how would you compare this ultrabook to a convertible like the x360?

I would like QHD but I decided to buy the FHD option (battery, brightness, price). The only other laptop I considered was the XPS 13 which is just so much better than the ATIV book it isnt even fair. But it is not a convertible so I chose the x360.

I seriously wonder if you never tried the XPS13 or Aspire S7. Since you dont seem to care about the convertible functionality: How could you choose the ATIV book over the XPS or Aspire S7? That is just crazy

 

You are absolutely correct. I do have a Sony Flip 13A and Thinkpad Yoga 12.5 (FHD, matte, Wacom) to handle my convertible, tablet, handwriting duties. The exciting thing about the x360 is that it does it all, though the Synaptics pen may not be as good as the Wacom or N-trig options of my other two devices. For note taking alone, I thing the Synaptics will do just fine, and thus an x-360 would do the job of my 3 devices! Again, I am very, very pleased with the 3200x1800 screen in my Samsung Ativ 9+ and find its brightness, color depth and battery life to be superb. I also find it to be as well made a device as I have ever owned. That said, I read that the x360 meets the high bar I feel the Samsung established, while also having the Broadwell IGP which is far better than the 440 as well as having the multiple screen configurations and compatibility with the Synaptics pen. (Though on the latter, I read that several technologies will bring digitizer-like pen support to any and all laptops, even those with purely capacitive screens; if so, this will be a boon to all consumers, as those of us who use One Note heavily and want to write directly on our screens are limited to relatively few choices and sometimes to overpaying just to get the functionality needed.

Hope that helps. A big part of me wants to sell most of what I own and buy the x360!

 

The more I read, the more I get confused
Maybe I should go for the XPS 13 and get the new Ipad Pro for note taking etc in autumn.
x360 is nice but I would really like to have the QHD ...

 

XPS 13 has pretty crappy battery life. I've only gotten around 5 hours max out of it. Same usuage with x360 I get 7 hours. Sure, it's not QHD+, but that's so unnecessary. Another issue is the fact that it's so high resolution it actually makes the performance sloppy in chrome and some other programs. The stupidly placed webcam (even if it is to make the bezel thinner) makes it basically useless for any type of interaction besides with friends or family who won't mind staring at your chin lol

 

What other convertibles similar to x360 are out there?
After some thinking i either want a convertible ultrabook or an ultrabook with dedicated graphics. Unfortunately I dont know of any ultrabooks with dedicated graphics.

I had high hopes for thw new lenovo lavie 360 but it turns out battery life and even stand tent mode have problems

 

Maybe UX303LN?

Regards, Jim

 

I thought about it but it has that yellow mustard problem.
What battery settings are you guys using on your spectre x360?
I am on power saver, 75% brightness and use it in tablet mode. Battery Bar tells me i only got 2h23min from 90%battery. That seems low ...

 

I took another look today at the FHD and QHD models. I'm now slightly inclining again towards the QHD model...

I brought my old iPad 2 3G with me to do a rough screen brightness comparison. Comparing predominantly white backgrounds on both devices, the FHD screen was as bright (perhaps a touch brighter) than my iPad 2 at full brightness, and I was able to match the brightness of the QHD screen pretty closely with the brightness slider on the iPad positioned two thirds of the way across.

For me, the resolution difference between the QHD and FHD screens was again quite noticeable when reading text. At a normal viewing distance, with 200% scaling on the QHD and 150% scaling on the FHD, I can clearly discern a certain amount of font pixelation on the FHD screen which is not really visible on the QHD screen - i.e. to my eyes at least, the QHD is for all practical purposes a 'retina' display. For me this is a really appealing feature.

Using my iPad 2 at full and 2/3 brightness as a rough proxy for the FHD/QHD screens, I've come to the conclusion (as others here and elsewhere have indicated) that the QHD screen is plenty bright enough for pretty much any indoor lighting scenario where you are able to position yourself so you do not see direct reflections of the sky (or bright lights) on the screen. Furthermore, in the event you can't avoid these reflections, I don't think even the FHD screen is really bright enough for comfort, and in my case I would not really want to use either model in that situation for very long.

I think I am just going to go ahead and get the QHD model now. I don't think the brightness will be an issue for me in 95% of the situations I'd want to use it, and the QHD resolution is too nice a feature for me to want to give up lightly. As long as the battery life is reliably above 5 hours I don't mind losing a bit of that too.

 

That's an excellent wrap up and now I'm feeling extremely positive that I've done the right thing ordering the QHD display yesterday!
Since 90% of my use will be indoors and almost 75% of my job relies on text editing and watching videos I felt that QHD was the right way to go. I wanted that "retina feeling" without going to the dark/mac side. Also I was afraid that the extreme brightness of the FHD could ruin the balance I needed so let's hope that I did the right thing! I hope that when I will receive my parcel that nits war would be just unnoticeable and I will focus only on the positive points of the Spectre!

 

Has anyone tried upgrading the x360's M.2 drive with a Samsung SM951 to get the PCIe performance? I know one user used the older Samsung XP941 to upgrade his:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Hardwa...nts/SSD-upgrade-for-spectre-x360/td-p/4949235

I will be getting my Samsung SM951 on Tuesday to test out. Please let me know if this has been tested.

 

Interesting! In what application were you reading the text? What was the font? What was the font size?

Regards, Jim

 

Folks that have the 3200 x 1800 screen claim that the mustard yellow is 99 % fixed. I think part of the fix is running at high screen brightness.

I use IE 11 Metro, not desktop, with all of the IE popup blockers active. I use the HP Balanced power plan with only minor changes to when to sleep (never), when to hibernate (never), etc. with 50 % brightness on battery. Powercfg /batteryreport reports the average run length has been 10 hours 10 minutes since the OS was installed. Battery Bar Pro says current run time will be 10 hours 50 minutes. My use profile is fairly light, Internet, Email, card games, board games, the usual updates and virus scans, some video, some music, etc.

Regards, Jim

 

I was reading a book in Safari Online bookshelf (in the 'HTML view') in Internet Explorer. The font was 15pt Verdana I think.

 

well i looked at both screens fhd and qhd. the brightness difference is quite noticeable.
even the fhd is sometimes not bright enough. people should look for themselves.

i went with fhd and am happy. mostly bright enough and whenever i want it brighter than possible i just think of how awful the qhd must be

 

When I open the lid after sleep mode I have to press the power button to wake the laptop up, which is not the most convenient thing since I have to search for the power button and press it pretty hard. I think at very first I was just cklicking a random key and it woke up, but how can this have changed? Are there any options for that?

 

Have you tried the advanced configurations in your power plan? Search for the "lid action" setting

 

Jim's got it right. Amazing how long it takes rumors - positive and negative - to die. You can buy any Lenovo, Samsung and Asus QHD+ and have no worries of mustard yellows. At worst it was on battery and then only on brightest setting. Back it down one notch and it was never visible. With the Samsung/Lenovo patch it's gone.

Jim's also right that the Asus 303LN is the only ultrabook with discrete graphics - nVidia 840 I believe; no Alienware but most games playable on medium, 1368x766 worst case. Don't know about heat/throttling on that model though, so I would research before buying.

Btw, always a good idea to take Jim's ("Hawkeye's") advice. The few models he hasn't owned - he's researched intensively. Treat him like a best friend /know-it-all re: Ultrabooks and you'll do well.

 

I had the QHD but returned it due to the screen brightness as well as scaling issues with a number of apps. I was going to just stick with my Retina 13 MacBook but decided to give the FHD x360 a chance. The screen is much brighter and I think the FHD screen looks good still overall. The reality is that a number of my apps don't handle the scaling well so they really look better on FHD vs QHD. I run the FHD screen at 100% so I have no scaling issues now.

 

Fyi, I owned the QHD version of this and it worked just fine on apps that wouldn't scale by setting resolution at FHD and scaling at 100%. Why not have a screen that can handle both resolutions for the very small price premium and no other downsides to running the QHD screen at FHD. The measured difference in brightness in both published reports (eg, notebookcheck.net) and using my Spyder 4 was about 200 nit, hardly detectable by human eye.

 

I tried that first on the QHD but running it at FHD is not as clear/crisp as a native FHD screen. The brightness is definitely noticeable between the two units. Price was not an issue for me...just the brightness and scaling issues.

 

I am almost set on getting a QHD laptop, and based on all I have read I am still a bit concerned about the x360. It does seem that the difference in brightness is not huge, but noticeable.

The questions I have is: is this software (driver /optimization issue) or is this a flaw with the hardware? (if it is the later, will be hard to make the purchase especially since my best buy does not have the QHD)

 

Well I went to Best Buy and since they wouldnt show me the spectre x360 QHD screen I just bought the QHD model, opened it next to them. Went to the FHD model they had and compared brightness. It really is the only way to find out if it is bright enough for you. It is noticeable and even in FHD the screen isnt quite bright enough. I returned the QHD within 15 minutes and bought the FHD one.

Another thing to consider. Most battery test were made at 50% brightness or 75%. Hardly ever at 100%.
I do like it sometimes to set it to 100% and battery drains quickly. Since 75% on the FHD is OK for me but nothing below, I would have to keep the QHD on 100% all the time. Which means a battery life of ....

They had the Asus UX 303LN at the Microsoft Store and the mustard definitely is still there. I mean the thing was next to the XPS 13 and it really is noticeable. But I gotta say the Microsoft guys hated me for googling YELLOW images on all their laptops

Other options I found: Lenovo LaVie 360; Thinkpad Yoga`s (convertible, FHD AND graphics card); lenovo flex 3 (360 convertible + graphics card)

Anybody got opinions on any of those 3?

 

After reading about the issues on the lavie Z (which seemed interesting) I am fairly set on buying the x360 however I have a few questions for folks that have it

- one of the options is the Microsoft Signature edition at the microsoft store, given that unlike the typical configuration here in Canada it comes with a 256GB SSD, however by talking to the people at the microsoft store and looking at it it seems that besides no added software (mcafee etc.) which is great, it also does not come with anything else, like no HP recovery manager etc. so I am unclear on how I could restore it to factory settings in that case: has anybody bought it from the MS store here? what did it come with?

- in general I always install windows fresh (this would be my first 'store bought' pc in forever, haven't done it since the vista days iirc) however these days with the 'we don't give you recovery media / clean install media' I am not sure how I would do so, I have found posts with people with computers where reinstalling with the Microsoft image will work automagically by picking the key from the BIOS and others where this does not happen: has anybody here installed windows fresh on the x360? how did you do it? how was your experience? what drivers (and from where) did you have to download to get things working?

- another option rather than the MS store is best buy, which is $150ish cheaper but has a 128GB drive, in that case I might just get a 500GB on my own and install it: how easy is it to open the x360 to do so? does it void the warranty?

- at the MS store I was trying things out and as much as the touchscreen (FHD) seemed to work fine, the trackpad didn't seem as precise as say a macbook's, there were some hitches here and there, is it an issue with the computer in general or maybe it was a display model problem?

- And finally I have never had a windows convertible, how do folks here use it? do you set it up to hibernate on open/close? just sleep? if you just sleep it how long does the battery last? I tried sleeping it and hibernating it at the windows store and it restarted really really fast which was quite surprising; unfortunately though it seems it does not support the new windows 'active sleep' or whatever it's called because when I did powercfg /a it just had sleep, hibernate and fast start

 

Without getting too specific or lengthy [EDIT: forget keeping it from being lengthy - it's a disease those eho know me here have long been aware of!] , I have a couple of responses to cover both of your posts. Pardon me if I treat both as if they were a single post by one person, just for efficiency's sake.

1) As far as the QHD screen appearing less clear set to FHD, was that done from memory or A/B side-by-side? Either way, I'd posit the following : over the next year or two - arguably even now - the % of times you need to downscale to FHD will be much lower IMO than the % of times you will miss out on the truly magnificent apprarance of UHD content if you have an FHD native screen. Even the amazing sharpness of images and video that you currently need to partially downscale (say, to read tiny text) but which do so very well will provide you with incomparably better results than a screen that maxes out on FHD, regardless of the content. (Another advantage of QHD+ is with primarily textual content to set resolution to 1600x900 and scaling to 100% and you will have 4:1 pixel density compared to a native FHD screen, which at best could provide 1.2:1 density. What you get here is pretty much what Apple does with all Retina-enabled content and its what started the love affair with UHD displays on 13" - 15" laptop displays.)

2) If you are a bright screen freak (count me in ) you have to assume you'll be using approx 75%-100% brightness, or whatever gets you to around 225 - 275 nits, in daylight, whenever your eyes just can't get by without their "fix!" (note that we are a tiny minority: most keep brightness at around 150 nits!) I think you'll find that, regardless of a backlight's maximum strength, most displays will consume about the same amount of energy to deliver 250 nits on your side of the screen, given the same pixel density (see above for some pro/con on UHD displays). Thus your battery life, adjusted for the brightness your eyes will seek, will be mostly a factor of the size of the battery inside (few exceptions such as Thinkpad X and T models noted). Even Apple, which does run somewhat more efficiently due to hdwe/sftwe integration, owe much of their spectacular battery times to superb miniaturization of internal hdwe components/modules, leaving room for whopping big batteries. Moral of this story: as long as a model you are considering gets bright enough for you, even if it takes nearly 100% of the brightness setting, then it's fine for you. This probably means a 250 nit or brighter screen. For those sunlight monsters w/375-400+ nits, you're really only getting an opportunity to use far more brightness than your eyes and battery can handle well. There is no inherent benefit of being able to use your screen at 60% of max brightness if that level is around 275 nit. Thus, I would consider, say, the HPx360s sufficiently bright for the vast majority of even bright-screen-freak users; you just have to run it at max settings. For the minority that wants (or needs) 300+ nits, there are a small number of models to suit your needs. (if you also need all-day battery life, try to love one of those Thinkpad 400 nit screens with batteries poking out the back!

3) “Mustard yellows." They are simply no longer a significant problem. You must do some/all of the following if your device mfr (eg, Asus, with the 303 LN, and Im going on your reporys hete, no personal knowledge or experience) hasn't had the decency to bring its hdwe/firmware up to date:

1) Get Samsung's patch and run it; this will eliminate 100% of the yellow weakness except: at the very brightest setting while plugged in and the brightest 2-3 settings on battery. Those remaining issues are, a) minor - you wouldn't notice if you weren't made aware or were a graphic artistn b) 95% fixable, using a Spyder 4 color calibrator (or "poor man's version using software and trial/error) and by using higher power settings on battery (if you are sufficiently OCD about this to sacrifice an hour of batery time!) and, c) bbacking off one notch - or more - from the brightest screen setting.

Personally, I wouldn't buy a current model computer that didn't have these corrections hardwired in because that's just lazy and probably a cost cutting move - ie, buying a lot of old screens. That Asus model has you over a barrel because it's the only true "Ultrabook" with decent discrete graphics at a low price. If you're interested in one for gaming you're probably less interested in color accuracy so you'll be fine anyway. If you're concerned with both, you can take the steps I outlined above and be fat and happy too .

(The yellow thing was always overblown. A few years ago, both Sony and HP were using the same LG IPS 15" screen which showed reds as orange and violet as blue. It was bad enough to earn itself a genuine "-gate" suffix, as in "Orangegate!" Took them almost a year to get LG to fix it and meantime they sold tons of Envy 15s (when Envy was a true premium brand) and Sony S15s (the last of the fully user-servieable under 5 lb 15" quad core (not ULT) laptops. Not only were they fantastic products, even the screens were 9/10 at the time (3 yrs ago 15" IPS screens were rare) other than the red/orange issue. The Samsung QHD+ never even earned a "mustardgate" scandal title and both they and Lenovo (Yoga Pro 2) sold every one they could make.)

Happy hunting and pardon my cellphone keyboard typos!

 

As for me: I very often shut it down since it boots insanely fast (about 4 seconds) or if I have some tasks going on I just close the lid.

 

Wow you can type that much on a cellphone. That is INSANE
Ok so assume I would need to run the QHD model on 100% brightness all the time. The Battery would maybe even come down to just 3h !? I mean with my brightness settings on my FHD model I am struggeling to get more than 5-6h out of it.

I am a scientist and the convertible/tablet functionality is important as I read a lot of scientific papers. Using the Dell Active Stylus (third version) this surprisingly works very well. So I would really want a convertible with a discrete graphics card. But the graphics card is not really for gaming, but rather for scientific calculations of say a multi electrode array in the brain that usually runs with the GPU rather than the CPU.

Anyway. Since I do make Photoshop figures etc. for science, color accuracy is important and therefore any mustardy problem is a no-go.

My dream laptop would be: Convertible, 13-15 inch QHD screen (better than 1080p, but with 300nits, good color accuracy), discrete graphics card, 512 GB SSD, 8+GB RAM and >5h battery life, <4.5 pounds.

If anyone finds anything like that, let me know
Anybody ever tried the lenovo thinkpad yoga 14?

 

also, as a P.S. if you put the x360 in tablet mode and you connect it to an external display, can you use the internal keyboard? meaning, say I have a large monitor on my desk, can I put the x360 face down and use it as a keyboard connected to it? or when you put it in tablet mode the keyboard deactivates no matter what

 

Running the screen in non native resolution is never as good as running the native resolution. It is visible to me, just like the brightness difference.

The apps I use all day do not handle scaling well so I would never use it in QHD since I would need to enable scaling. Many line of business apps do not handle scaling well based on my experience (I run a network/computer services firm). I love the sharpness of QHD and 4K but until all of my apps work well with scaling it's not the right option for me. This was the same issue when the Retina Mac's first came out...many apps actually looked worse.