Spectre x360 Kaby Lake impressions and questions

I purchased a Dell XPS 13 which arrived with some quality control issues so I decided to pick up the new Spectre x360 Kaby Lake at Best Buy after reading several positive reviews.

First I'll say that I really like how it looks, it's feels solid. I thought I'd like the black carbon fiber interior of the Dell better and although it is very nice I find that I prefer the silver aluminum interior of the Spectre x360. What I'm not so crazy about are the silver keys. In certain lighting when you enable the keyboard backlight the letters almost completely wash out, you have to wait until it's actually dark for the backlight to mean anything. I wish HP would have gone with black keys, not only would it have eliminated this problem but I think the contrast of black keys would have made the laptop look sharper as well.

The display looks very nice, that is until I put the x360 and XPS 13 side by side. It's actually an unfair comparison because the Dell has a much higher resolution display. If I didn't have the Dell to compare it too I'm sure I would think it's a great display. I found when lowering the brightness the x360 gets dimmer than the XPS 13 at the same brightness levels due to the higher nit display on the Dell. Motto of the story, don't compare displays side by side, especially when they're apples to oranges.

Love that it comes with Windows Hello facial recognition. It works great and makes entering a password seem so old school. The XPS 13 is really missing this.

This laptop is fast! it boots in something like 5 seconds. Definitely boots up faster than the XPS 13.

When I did the initial Windows 10 updates the fan came on and it was pretty loud. After the whisper of the XPS 13 fan this was a disappointment, making me wonder if I should bring it right back. Another thing is that surprisingly it did not come installed with the Windows 10 Anniversary update and did not update to it after installing all of the initial updates. I read that it's because there are some driver issues. Does anyone know if I wipe it and install the Anniversay update if I'll experience any issues?

Next I used the HP assistant to check if there were any driver updates. It said there was a bios update and a wireless card update. I usually uninstall this software right away but decided to use it for the first time. When I ran the bios it strongly recommended to let it create a partion in case something went wrong, and it's a good thing I did because I got a message that the bios update failed! I rebooted and the bios updated and everything was actually ok, so I have no idea why I received the failure message. (With the XPS13, I kept getting a message there was a bios update, but everytime I would click on update nothing would happen. I checked and there actually wasn't an update even though the Dell said there was).

I think the bios update has actually improved the issue with the fan, it hasn't come on since, granted I'm not doing anything particularly taxing but I do think it helped, I'll see.

Definitely missing the card reader, the. XPS 13 has it and I used the card reader a lot with my prior laptop, I'll definitely be missing it.

All in all I really like this machine. If there was an option for a higher resolution display, black keys on the keyboard, card reader and if the fan winds up not being bothersome it would be one awesome ultra book.

 

Odd that theres no high-res option, the last spectre had a wqhd option. Of course they tended towards yellowish whites, so maybe there were a lot of RMAs and they dumped it due to panel quality.

Hows the keyboard compared to the XPS13?

 

I've had this same HP Spectre x360 (bought from Best Buy) since Thanksgiving and pretty much love it. The keyboard is definitely one of the best I've used on a keyboard, better than the XPS 13 IMO from the brief time I was able to compare with at Best Buy. If you're any kind of regular typist like I am, you will not be disappointed. If you have a Best Buy near, just go out there and give it a try. It's free!

 

I just purchased the new 13" Spectre X360 with pen support, and I'm noticing that it doesn't support 4 finger swiping for virtual desktops. I'm a HUGE user of virtual desktops, since I use them constantly on my Mac, so I really need similar functionality on my Windows box. Dell supports 4 finger swipe, as does Lenovo and virtually every other manufacturer, but HP seems to have drivers from the dark ages that only support 3 finger gestures.

Does anyone know of a hack or alternative driver I can install to allow the 4 finger swipe gesture to this box?

Thanks!

 

Sorry, I don't know the answer to your question (though I'm sure somebody will - you might check the HP forum if you haven't already), but wanted to ask for your overall impression of the laptop other than the gesture shortcoming. Did you get the FHD or 4k display? How is the battery life? Is the fan loud and often on? Have you noticed if you are experiencing the battery drain on sleep/hibernation (4-6%) that many with the older models reported? Thanks for any input you may have. Good luck on resolving your issue.

 

I got the FHD version. I saw no need for 4k on a 13" screen, plus I'd happily trade resolution for additional battery life. I'm pretty happy with the laptop so far, but I am noticing that it seems to spool up the fans very quickly once the laptop is running anything even remotely taxing. Last night I was installing software and the fan was running virtually all of the time. My battery died in short order as well, lasting only 3.5 hours before I had to plug it in, although in its defense, Dropbox was downloading a bunch of files at the time as well. I haven't had the laptop long enough to test out the sleep drain, sorry.

My one big complaint about the laptop is the silver keyboard. Silver buttons with white lettering is silly! It's hard seeing the keys during the day, Had I been given the choice, I would have certainly gone with the ash silver version. Maybe I can swap an ash silver keyboard for this one? Hmmm.

 

Are you bothered at all by the screen door effect of the FHD screen? For some reason I really notice it on this panel.