HP Spectre x360 13.5 review: once more on excessive

HP Spectre x360 13.5

MSRP $1,700.00

“The HP Spectre x360 13.5 has each little factor you possibly can want in a high-end Residence home windows convertible 2-in-1.”

Execs

• Elegant aesthetic
• Wonderful productiveness effectivity
• Rock-solid assemble
• Superior keyboard and touchpad
• Attractive OLED present
• Surprisingly good battery life

Cons

• Creativity effectivity is lacking
• Barely pricey

The HP Spectre x360 has prolonged been a couple of of the best laptops by way of the years, notably inside the class of convertible 2-in-1.

Remaining yr’s 14-inch model, which was wonderful, has now been rebranded as a result of the Spectre x360 13.5, nonetheless carrying the similar dimension show nevertheless sporting a transparent new design.

It’s a bit pricey, nonetheless it’s rather more attractive this time spherical, a bonus to the improved effectivity and battery life. The opponents has stiffened, nevertheless HP nonetheless managed to climb its strategy once more to the best with its flagship.

Worth and configurations

I reviewed a $1,700 configuration of the Spectre x360 13.5 with a Core i7-1255U and a 13.5-inch 3:2 3000×2000 OLED present.

The Spectre x360 13.5 is obtainable in quite a few configurations, starting at $1,200 for a Core i5-1235U CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 512GB PCIe 4.0 SSD, and a WUXGA+ (1920 x 1280) IPS contact present. On the extreme end, you’ll spend $1,840 for a Core i7-1255U, 16GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, and a 13.5-inch 3:2 3K2K (3000 x 2000) OLED present. If you would like the utmost RAM, a $1,780 configuration is obtainable with a Core i7-1255U, 32GB of RAM, a 2TB SSD, and the WUXGA+ present.

I’m uncertain why HP hasn’t enabled every the utmost RAM and the OLED present, and perhaps that’s one factor that will change. My review configuration was $1,700 for a Core i7-1255U, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and the OLED present.

Basically essentially the most pertinent aggressive laptop at throughout the same price is the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7, although that 2-in-1 is intently discounted and a few hundred {{dollars}} decrease than the Spectre. The Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 7 is cheap and offers the similar CPU nevertheless, in the intervening time, no OLED present risk.

Design

Mark Coppock/Digital Traits

The Spectre x360 14 featured HP’s dramatic gem-cut design with sharply angled edges and notches decrease into the rear present and chassis corners. With its rose gold or copper accents, the 2-in-1’s aesthetic was a ravishing laptop that stood except for the gang. HP scaled once more that design with the Spectre x360 13.5, just like it did with the Spectre x360 16, rounding off and slimming the edges and firming down the extravagance. The chassis notches keep purposeful, with the left web internet hosting the three.5mm audio jack and the correct a USB-C port for retaining the charging cable out of the easiest way.

The result is a additional refined look that’s merely as elegant and distinctive nevertheless not as loud. The rounded edges are moreover a bit additional cozy to hold in tablet mode, although not as cozy as a result of the rather more rounded edges of the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7.

My review unit sported the Nightfall Black color with brass accents, with non-compulsory Pure Silver and Nocturne Blue color schemes with matching edges. In each case, the keyboard matches the primary color. The Spectre x360 13.5’s solely aesthetic equals inside the 14-inch 2-in-1 crowd are the Yoga 9i Gen 7 and Yoga 7i Gen7, which have rounded and sculpted chassis that are merely as attractive of their very personal strategy. I’m not saying the rest of the sector is boring, exactly, nevertheless none are as attractive as these three machines.

Constructed of CNC machined recycled aluminum, the Spectre x360 13.5 is rock-solid.

Constructed of CNC machined-recycled aluminum, the Spectre x360 13.5 can be rock-solid, with no bending, flexing, or twisting anyplace inside the lid, keyboard deck, or bottom chassis. It joins the best-built laptops similar to the Dell XPS 13 and the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7. The one laptop I’ve handled that truly feels additional sturdy is the Apple MacBook Skilled 14, and the excellence is marginal. Sadly, the hinge is just the tiniest bit too stiff to open the lid with one hand, nonetheless it holds the present firmly in place in clamshell, tent, media, and tablet modes.

I embody the Spectre x360 13.5 inside the 14-inch class, nonetheless it could merely be lumped in with 13.3-inch laptops merely as merely. With the taller present, though, it seems like a 14-inch machine, so that’s how I’m going to cope with it. Due to slim bezels and a 90% screen-to-body ratio, the Spectre x360 13.5 is a compact machine. As compared with the Yoga 9i Gen 7, the HP is almost an inch narrower and half an inch shallower, and it’s 0.67 inches thick and three.01 kilos as compared with the Yoga at 0.60 inches and three.09 kilos.

The latest Dell XPS 13 is smaller, with the Spectre x360 13.5 being an inch wider and deeper. The XPS 13 is thinner at 0.58 inches and lighter at 2.8 kilos. That slots the Spectre x360 13.5 between the Yoga and XPS 13 in every dimension in addition to thickness.

Ports and connectivity

The Spectre x360 13.5 has respectable connectivity, with two USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 assist, a single USB-A 3.2 Gen 2 port, a microSD card reader, and a 3.5mm audio jack. That’s higher than the on a regular basis 13-inch laptop nevertheless decrease than many 14-inch laptops that embody an HDMI port. HP throws in a USB-C hub with two USB-A ports and an HDMI port, which is sweet to have, nonetheless it doesn’t substitute for built-in connections.

Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 current the newest in wi-fi connectivity.

Effectivity

HP opted for a lower-power CPU with the Spectre x360 13.5, notably the 15-watt 10-core (two effectivity and eight Surroundings pleasant), 12-thread Core i7-1255U with a Turbo Improve of 4.7GHz. The Core i5-1255U with a Turbo Improve of 4.4GHz can be obtainable. My review unit equipped the Core i7-1255U, and it carried out correctly as compared with the other equally equipped laptops we’ve reviewed. It was moreover a big enchancment over the Eleventh-gen Core i7-1165G7 inside the Spectre x360 14. On the same time, unsurprisingly, the Spectre x360 13.5 wasn’t as fast as a result of the Yoga 9i Gen 7 and Acer Swift 3 which had been equipped with the 28-watt, 12-core (4 Effectivity and eight Surroundings pleasant), 16-thread Core i7-1260P.

I used the HP Command Coronary heart utility to test every balanced and effectivity modes. The utility made a significant distinction inside the CPU-intensive benchmarks, nevertheless I did uncover that the followers had been in no way terribly loud in each mode. HP updated the thermal design of the Spectre x360 13.5, along with adopting new followers that had been designed to provide a lot much less noise. They did the job. The laptop moreover didn’t throttle so much in each mode, hitting 91 ranges C at most and spending practically all of time inside the mid-70s. Given the thin chassis, I imagine HP tuned the machine to stay away from producing an extreme quantity of heat, which probably restricted effectivity a bit as compared with laptops that are tuned to run hotter nevertheless throttle on the extreme end.

The Spectre x360 13.5 provided wonderful productiveness effectivity whereas working cool and quiet.

Inside the Geekbench 5 benchmark, the Spectre x360 13.5 fell behind the Lenovo Yoga 7i Gen 7 nevertheless was sooner in multi-core than the Dell Inspiron 14 2-in-1. It was correctly behind the Core i7-1260P machines and ahead of the Asus ZenBook S 13 OLED with a 28-watt, eight-core/16-thread AMD Ryzen 7 6800U. In our Handbrake check out that encodes a 420MB video as H.265, the Spectre was the quickest amongst its pals and solely barely behind the higher-watt laptops (in effectivity mode). In Cinebench R23, the Spectre x360 13.5 was in keeping with its pals, as soon as extra in effectivity mode nevertheless correctly behind the earlier machines. Lastly, in PCMark 10 Full, which exams numerous productiveness, multimedia, and ingenious duties, the Spectre was aggressive with the rest of the comparability group.

Complete, the Spectre x360 13.5 provided wonderful productiveness effectivity whereas working cool and quiet, nevertheless as with totally different laptops with the similar CPU, it fell behind in ingenious duties. It’s significantly earlier than Intel’s earlier technology, though, and would possibly cope with some lightweight ingenious work in a pinch. As we’ll see inside the battery life half, the Spectre leveraged the lower-watt CPU’s effectivity greater than the other laptops I’ve reviewed.

The Spectre x360 13.5 scored about as anticipated inside the 3DMark Time Spy check out, with its score in effectivity mode being on the excessive end of the class. In spite of everything, the laptop is restricted to Intel’s Iris Xe and obtained’t be succesful to play modern titles at one thing in addition to 1080p and low graphics. I couldn’t get Fortnite to place in, so I couldn’t check out the Spectre’s effectivity in our go-to recreation for built-in graphics. I’m sure, though, that it wouldn’t have carried out any greater than totally different Iris Xe machines.

Present and audio

As regular, the Spectre x360 13.5’s 13.5-inch 3:2 OLED present was enticing from the second I fired it up. It’s sharp enough at a call of 3000 x 2000 and vibrant and glossy with deep, inky blacks. HP moreover offers a WUXGA+ (1920 x 1280) IPS present and a WUXGA+ present with HP’s privateness show.

My colorimeter cherished this present. It was shiny at 380 nits, above our 300-nit customary, and glossy enough for any indoor setting. Its colors had been intensive at 100% of sRGB and 97% of AdobeRGB and very right with a DeltaE of 0.61 (1.0 or a lot much less is indistinguishable to the human eye). And its distinction hit the OLED customary at 28,230:1. The three OLED exhibits inside the comparability group had been practically equal in prime quality, with the Spectre having the widest and most right colors.

Whether or not or not you’re doing productiveness work, binging Netflix, or working with pictures and video, you’ll love this present. And it’s not merely the brightness, colors, and distinction however as well as the side ratio, which at 3:2 is the closest to a bodily piece of paper in portrait mode and thus optimum for tablet use.

4 downward-firing audio system current a great deal of volumes, with crisp and clear mids and highs. There’s not loads of bass, and so the Spectre x360 13.5’s audio can’t maintain with the right spherical, Apple’s MacBooks. Nonetheless, the audio is sweet enough for binging Netflix and listening to the occasional tune. In spite of everything, audiophiles will nonetheless select an excellent pair of headphones.

Keyboard and touchpad

HP’s Spectre line has prolonged supplied a couple of of the best keyboards in Residence home windows laptops, with solely Apple’s latest MacBook Skilled Magic Keyboard being greater. That’s nonetheless true with the Spectre x360 13.5, although the keyboard isn’t exactly the similar as earlier fashions.

Apparently, HP dropped the helpful row of navigation keys alongside the right-hand side, which I miss, nevertheless I acknowledge the extra key spacing. The keycaps are moreover big, making for a extremely surroundings pleasant construction. As sooner than, the switches are light and snappy with a actual bottoming movement. It’s one of many important cozy keyboards I’ve used for prolonged typing durations. One nit to pick is that HP dropped the correct Ctrl key in favor of a fingerprint reader.

The touchpad is large and takes up most of the home on the palm leisure, which is larger than regular as a result of taller 3:2 present. The touchpad flooring is simple and affords a actual flooring for Residence home windows 11’s multitouch gestures, and the buttons have a nice click on on with out being too loud. Exterior of Apple’s Energy Contact touchpad or Dell’s haptic touchpad on the XPS 13 Plus, it’s most likely the best touchpads you’ll uncover.

The present is touch-enabled, in actual fact, and helps HP’s energetic pen that’s included inside the discipline. I found the pen’s Residence home windows Ink assist to be wonderful as a consequence of 4,096 ranges of stress sensitivity and tilt assist, and it conveniently attaches magnetically to the correct side of the present. The pen prices by the use of USB-C, which is one different consolation.

Residence home windows 11 Good day passwordless login is supported by an infrared camera, facial recognition, and the fingerprint reader talked about beforehand. Every methods labored quickly and reliably.

Webcam

Mark Coppock/Digital Traits

HP has outfitted the Spectre x360 13.5 with a 5MP webcam that provides a high-resolution image, and quite a few different software program program devices optimize the videoconferencing experience. HP Presence affords Auto Physique to keep up the particular person’s face in view as they switch throughout the office all through a reputation, Backlight Adjustment that ensures fixed lighting whatever the ambient environment, and Look Filter that smooths out blemishes that totally different webcams may highlight. A variety of audio enhancements moreover improve the experience, along with directional beamforming mics and bi-directional AI noise low cost.

There’s a key to electronically shut a bodily shutter over the webcam, along with a key to indicate off the microphones. That offers for some extra privateness.

Battery life

Mark Coppock/Digital Traits

The Spectre x360 13.5 has 66 watt-hours of battery functionality, a slight decrease from the sooner technology’s 67 watt-hours. That’s an excellent amount, higher than the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7’s 57 watt-hours nevertheless decrease than the Yoga 9i Gen 7’s 75 watt-hours. Every the Spectre and Yoga 9i used power-hungry OLED exhibits, and so I was wanting forward to seeing if HP managed to make the most of the lower-watt CPU’s presumed effectivity profit.

Based mostly on our suite of benchmarks, HP did one factor correct — the Spectre x360 13.5 lasted surprisingly prolonged in our suite of battery exams. Wanting once more on the effectivity half, it’s clear that HP tuned the laptop to run additional successfully in balanced mode on the expense of effectivity. That’s an affordable tradeoff, with the Spectre being higher than fast enough for typical productiveness duties whereas attaining wonderful battery life.

In our web buying check out, as an example, it lasted for 10 hours, which is an excellent score, notably for a laptop with an OLED present. The Spectre made it to 11 hours inside the PCMark 10 Functions battery check out, which is the right predictor of battery life working a typical (i.e., non-demanding) productiveness workflow. And in our video check out that loops an space 1080p movie trailer, it lasted for 14 hours, one different sturdy displaying given the OLED present. The one laptop in our comparability group that competed with the Spectre x360 13.5 in all nevertheless the web buying check out, the place it was practically three hours behind, was the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7, and it benefitted from a low-power Full HD+ IPS present.

You don’t sometimes get OLED prime quality and prolonged battery life, nevertheless the Spectre x360 13.5 delivers. You should be succesful to work for a full day of typical productiveness duties and maybe even have somewhat time left over.

Our take

The Spectre x360 13.5 is precisely what HP wished to provide to look at up on the success of the Spectre x360 14. The model new 2-in-1 is faster, offers significantly greater battery life, has a additional refined look, and retains the very good keyboard and touchpad of the sooner model.

I’m giving the Spectre x360 13.5 a 9/10 score, one notch decrease than the Spectre x360 14, not because of the change isn’t practically pretty much as good. It’s because of the opponents has gotten so so much higher. HP’s latest regains its spot as the right convertible 2-in-1, nevertheless the outlet between it and the next most interesting isn’t pretty so big.

Are there any alternate choices?

The strongest varied is the Lenovo Yoga 9i Gen 7. It’s merely as good-looking, as correctly constructed, and barely sooner. Nevertheless its battery life isn’t virtually practically pretty much as good, and its keyboard and touchpad are a step behind. It’s quite less expensive, though, and so makes for a robust choice.

If you happen to occur to don’t desire a 2-in-1, then Dell’s new XPS 13 Plus is a horny risk. It’s sooner and enjoys its private beautiful new design, incorporating enhancements like an exquisite haptic touchpad. You’ll spend in regards to the similar money and get a clamshell that’s among the many many most interesting obtainable in the intervening time.

My final suggestion is the Apple MacBook Air M2. It’s equally sturdy, if not barely additional so, it offers greater effectivity and battery life, and its present is excellent even when not pretty as a lot as OLED necessities. You’ll spend throughout the same money, and the MacBook is a compelling varied in case you’re okay with MacOS.

How prolonged will it last?

The Spectre x350 13.5 is extraordinarily well-built and may last for years, which its modern components will even assist. The industry-standard one-year assure is a disappointment, as always.

Do you must buy it?

Certain. Steady productiveness effectivity and wonderful battery life in a correctly sized, skinny and lightweight 2-in-1 with a spectacular OLED present — what’s to not like?

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