HP Spectre x360 14 Convertible Review: An Instant Favorite

[vertigo]

This is pretty impressive, and had it been available a month ago I might have bought it, but instead I went with a T14s. If the Lenovo ends up having any issues, there's no way I'm going to wait another month-and-a-half or longer, in which case this looks like a great possible alternative. And personally, I'll take the battery life and better gaming performance of a 1080p display over a 4k and/or OLED one any day, and I don't trust OLED on a laptop due to burn-in, but it's also nice to have options.

The Spectre would lose its Evo certification if it came equipped with AMD options.

Perfect example of Intel's antitrust behavior. There's no valid reason for this, as models with Intel chips should be Evo and ones with AMD shouldn't be, simple as that. They need to be sued for this. And I agree with another commentor, that the Evo designation is useless anyways. As I mentioned in a comment on another article, it's just a buzzword Intel is using to try and stand out and make their products seem like more than they are.

[S.Yu]

I got the OLED spectre x360 14, and my thoughts on it so far are that first off, the display is literally the best. It does use PWM, but it's at 240 hz under 30% brightness, and above that, I don't notice it. The colors are amazing, brightness is exceptional, and the infinite contrast ratio is breathtaking. I watched one of those LG OLED TV showcase videos, and compared to my 2017 MacBook Pro, the HP is insanely better. Even though it's not 4k (which isn't really necessary at 13.5 in), the 3000x2000 display resolution is better than 1920x1280. Furthermore the 3:2 aspect ratio really does make a difference when it comes to productivity, and I really love it. Also, the keyboard, trackpad, and I/O are spot on, since it still retains a USB type A port, which neither the XPS 13 or 15 or even 17 offer. It's really nice when you have to plug in a mouse or two factor authentication key and you don't need to reach for a stupid dongle. Lastly, the battery life is still respectable, even though it has an OLED display. It lasted about 7 hours of light usage (5.5 hours for light & mixed usage), which is surprising considering the high resolution and OLED display. Note: I did keep the laptop on quiet mode. Having it on the smart sense would decrease the battery by around two or three hours, so make sure it's on quiet. All in all, this laptop at the price of 1399 is quite a steal of a deal, considering what it's offering at that price, when compared to say, the XPS 13 or even the 15.

Interesting, I just checked HP US a few days ago and the OLED option wasn't available, not greyed out but not even shown as an option.
The advantage of OLED is primarily the contrast. Even a VGA video would look a notch better than on a regular screen. 3000x2000 isn't even needed at this size, honestly.
7hrs light use is worse than the battery size would suggest though.
Overall the price is still good. HP may possibly be the only manufacturer in the PC market that reports prices I consider reasonable without flash sales or deals from unofficial channels. There are cheaper alternatives of course but the really ugly ones or those that look flimsy at a glance like barebones I just plainly ignore.

[dadankboi]

Interesting, I just checked HP US a few days ago and the OLED option wasn't available, not greyed out but not even shown as an option.
The advantage of OLED is primarily the contrast. Even a VGA video would look a notch better than on a regular screen. 3000x2000 isn't even needed at this size, honestly.
7hrs light use is worse than the battery size would suggest though.
Overall the price is still good. HP may possibly be the only manufacturer in the PC market that reports prices I consider reasonable without flash sales or deals from unofficial channels. There are cheaper alternatives of course but the really ugly ones or those that look flimsy at a glance like barebones I just plainly ignore.

I just noticed that on HP's website. That's interesting. I didn't purchase the device on from HP directly though. I got it from Best Buy, since it was at a lower price. What HP does is that instead of showing that a certain config or part is out of stock, they just remove it from their website. I have no idea why they would do this, since it tells the customer that they might have discontinued that specific config, which isn't true.

[boi]

I wonder when Linus Tech Tips will review this laptop

[Mothertrucker19]

Does the power button on the keyboard work, if it is in tablet or tent mode?

(This is at least an issue on this years Envy x360 13" where the power button is also builtin the keyboard. But in tent and tablet mode the keyboard incl. power button is disabled, so one need to fold it back to power it on or wake it from standby. HP knows about the issue, but for the Envys HP did not release a fix.)

Though the power button on the keyboard doesn't work, HP does keep the digitizer on the display on, meaning that if the laptop is sleeping in tablet mode, then with just a tap of the display, it wakes up. When the laptop is shut down in tablet mode, the digitizer is off, BUT they do keep the keyboard on in that mode.

Does this only work on the new devices? Does this work on the Probook 435 for example?

[vertigo]

Interesting, I just checked HP US a few days ago and the OLED option wasn't available, not greyed out but not even shown as an option.
The advantage of OLED is primarily the contrast. Even a VGA video would look a notch better than on a regular screen. 3000x2000 isn't even needed at this size, honestly.
7hrs light use is worse than the battery size would suggest though.
Overall the price is still good. HP may possibly be the only manufacturer in the PC market that reports prices I consider reasonable without flash sales or deals from unofficial channels. There are cheaper alternatives of course but the really ugly ones or those that look flimsy at a glance like barebones I just plainly ignore.

I just noticed that on HP's website. That's interesting. I didn't purchase the device on from HP directly though. I got it from Best Buy, since it was at a lower price. What HP does is that instead of showing that a certain config or part is out of stock, they just remove it from their website. I have no idea why they would do this, since it tells the customer that they might have discontinued that specific config, which isn't true.

That's not been my experience. Over the past couple months, I've checked HP's website numerous times, and every time pretty much everything has been out of stock.

[Joe Smith]

Does the power button on the keyboard work, if it is in tablet or tent mode?

(This is at least an issue on this years Envy x360 13" where the power button is also builtin the keyboard. But in tent and tablet mode the keyboard incl. power button is disabled, so one need to fold it back to power it on or wake it from standby. HP knows about the issue, but for the Envys HP did not release a fix.)

Though the power button on the keyboard doesn't work, HP does keep the digitizer on the display on, meaning that if the laptop is sleeping in tablet mode, then with just a tap of the display, it wakes up. When the laptop is shut down in tablet mode, the digitizer is off, BUT they do keep the keyboard on in that mode.

Does this only work on the new devices? Does this work on the Probook 435 for example?

I'm not completely sure, since I have only experienced it on the Spectre and Envy series. Since the Probook is a higher premium line than the Spectre, aimed at business professionals, my assumption is that they do have that feature as well, but I'm not completely sure.

[marketingbs]

I got the OLED spectre x360 14, and my thoughts on it so far are that first off, the display is literally the best. It does use PWM, but it's at 240 hz under 30% brightness, and above that, I don't notice it.

The odds are it's agressive low 240Hz below 99%.

[Grey Vic]

Thanks for this. Please what's the VRAM of this laptop? Under the display adaptive properties. Thanks a lot

[Joe Smith]

Thanks for this. Please what's the VRAM of this laptop? Under the display adaptive properties. Thanks a lot

Since Intel integrated graphics used shared memory, the amount of RAM available to the GPU depends on the amount of RAM available to the system. It currently has 0MB of dedicated VRAM, but it has around 8GB of shared memory.

[smh]

It's quite impressive what Intel can do with only four cores, getting over 2000 pts in Cinebench, which is almost matching what AMD can do with 6, and yes, both of them are running at 25W (The Envy x360 13 runs at 25W, and this Spectre cycles between 30 and 20, averaging 25). If only Intel increased the number of cores in their mobile U series chips, then AMD could be in trouble, since Intel's graphics are already more powerful. But right now, it seems that AMD has a leg up, since their R7 4700U (this chip's main competitor. 4800U is 1185G7's competitor), has 8 cores and 8 threads, and because of that, its Cinebench score is around 2400, which wrecks Intel.

[JRNY]

Just received delivery of my HP Spectre x360 14t.  My config is the Core i5, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM, 1000nit IPS panel with integrated Privacy Screen. Something that bothers me about this specific display panel are the very bad viewing angles whilst the privacy screen turned OFF. With the privacy screen ENABLED, it's supposed to darken areas of the screen so it makes it hard for prying eyes next to you to see the contents of your screen. But with the privacy screen disabled, you can still notice dark areas on the screen or a fading effect like a gradient effect (colors going from white to grey) when you SLIGHTLY move your viewing angle from the center of the screen to a few degrees over to the left, right, top or bottom of the screen.  In other words, if you're looking at the screen at dead center, tilt the screen toward you or away from you about 1-inch or so. Or sit 2-3 inches off center of the screen. It's very noticeable on lighter screens such as white colored backgrounds of webpages (i.e. homepage of Google), or Word, Excel, etc. It may not bother many people but it certainly bothers me and it's not a pleasing experience.  I would much rather go with the non-privacy screen 400nit display model and purchase a removable privacy screen filter and attach it to my screen when I need to do some private work in public places.  The other issue I noticed on my specific unit, there seems to be a slight bulge that can be felt on the bottom center of the laptop just below the air vent grille. It seems a little high for it to be the battery but that's what it feels like, a battery bulge. Maybe it's just my unit but I didn't notice it while I was using the laptop to drain the battery. But noticed it while I was charging it.

[S.Yu]

Just received delivery of my HP Spectre x360 14t.  My config is the Core i5, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM, 1000nit IPS panel with integrated Privacy Screen. Something that bothers me about this specific display panel are the very bad viewing angles whilst the privacy screen turned OFF. With the privacy screen ENABLED, it's supposed to darken areas of the screen so it makes it hard for prying eyes next to you to see the contents of your screen. But with the privacy screen disabled, you can still notice dark areas on the screen or a fading effect like a gradient effect (colors going from white to grey) when you SLIGHTLY move your viewing angle from the center of the screen to a few degrees over to the left, right, top or bottom of the screen.  In other words, if you're looking at the screen at dead center, tilt the screen toward you or away from you about 1-inch or so. Or sit 2-3 inches off center of the screen. It's very noticeable on lighter screens such as white colored backgrounds of webpages (i.e. homepage of Google), or Word, Excel, etc. It may not bother many people but it certainly bothers me and it's not a pleasing experience.  I would much rather go with the non-privacy screen 400nit display model and purchase a removable privacy screen filter and attach it to my screen when I need to do some private work in public places.  The other issue I noticed on my specific unit, there seems to be a slight bulge that can be felt on the bottom center of the laptop just below the air vent grille. It seems a little high for it to be the battery but that's what it feels like, a battery bulge. Maybe it's just my unit but I didn't notice it while I was using the laptop to drain the battery. But noticed it while I was charging it.

I'm wary of privacy screens for that very reason, it seems this is currently where the technology is at, it's far from perfect and severely compromises viewing angle. The screen itself is probably less efficient too.

[Greg]

Hello.
I just received this same model machine today and am shocked at how bad the viewing angles are. Researching this issue online I found that the screen behaves exactly like one with a Sure View option even though I am certain it didn't come with it. Is there any way you can check the screen viewing angles on this laptop again? I've seen others writing online with the same exact problem.
Thanks.

[RyzenFanBoisSmh]

Hello.
I just received this same model machine today and am shocked at how bad the viewing angles are. Researching this issue online I found that the screen behaves exactly like one with a Sure View option even though I am certain it didn't come with it. Is there any way you can check the screen viewing angles on this laptop again? I've seen others writing online with the same exact problem.
Thanks.

I just got my laptop yesterday (i7, 512GB ssd, 16GB ram, IPS 1280p (non-sureview)) and the viewing angles are up to my expectations, and don't seem bad at all. I think there was a problem with the first batch of laptops, but I don't know for sure. (Kind of like the Dell XPS 15 touchpad problem with the first batch). I received my laptop yesterday, so I doubt that it was of the first batch, and probably was the third or fourth batch, so I think that problem is gone. You should probably get in touch with HP support, because it's probably a defective unit, but I don't know completely.