Hp Spectre X360 15 I7 8550u Video Editing Review
Our Verdict
The HP Spectre x360 (15-inch, 2019) is a solid performer with a comfortable keyboard and great battery life, all packed into a sexy chassis.
For
- Sexy design
- Colorful panel
- Comfy keyboard
- Solid performance
- Excellent bombardment life
Against
- Display could be brighter
- Muddy speakers
Laptop Mag Verdict
The HP Spectre x360 (xv-inch, 2019) is a solid performer with a comfortable keyboard and peachy battery life, all packed into a sexy chassis.
Pros
- +
Sexy design
- +
Colorful console
- +
Comfortable keyboard
- +
Solid performance
- +
Splendid battery life
Cons
- -
Display could be brighter
- -
Muddy speakers
The 15-inch Spectre x360 is back for 2019, and HP doesn't disappoint with this edition. For $2,049 (starting at $one,599), you go potent Intel Core i7 performance combined with a solid Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti GPU, a supercolorful 4K brandish, a clicky keyboard and good battery life, all packed into a mesmerizing aluminum blueprint. Where this arrangement slips up, however, is in its dim display and less-than-stellar speakers. But overall, the Spectre x360 is a corking multipurpose, premium, 2-in-i laptop that's competitively priced and earned its place on our Best Video Editing Laptops and Best 2-in-ane Laptops pages.
Price and Configuration Options
I tested a $2,049 model of the Spectre x360, which comes with an Intel Core i7-8750H processor, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q GPU with 4GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD.
You lot tin can become a cheaper, $ane,599 version of the Spectre x360 from Best Purchase, and it'll come outfitted with a Core i7-8565U CPU, an MX150 GPU with 2GB of VRAM, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. But for the aforementioned toll, you tin get the Spectre x360 from HP's website, and that auto will come up with a Core i7-8750H processor, a GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q GPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.
Design
The Spectre x360's aluminum build is lathered in a premium Poseidon Blue that evokes the Greek god himself. The pale brass accents effectually the chapeau, on the hinges and inside the HP logo give the machine a majestic aesthetic. On meridian of that, the hinges and surrounding expanse of the chassis are elegantly cut, creating a diamond-esque design. The Spectre x360 will brand you feel like you're the near stylish person in the room -- as long as you clean the messy fingerprints that this chassis is prone to picking up.
The interior bears the same pristine color scheme and features a neatly spaced keyboard with strong white backlighting, an elongated touchpad and a fingerprint reader in the right-hand corner. While the side bezels are narrow, the summit one is thick plenty to fit in a 1080p IR webcam. When I folded the x360 into tablet way, the lid magnetised to the underside; this is peachy, but the magnets aren't as powerful as on the xiii-inch model, so the display would flimsily detach and reattach.
The Spectre x360'south aluminum build is lathered in a premium Poseidon Blue that evokes the Greek god himself.
At four.6 pounds and 14.ii ten 9.8 ten 0.8 inches, the Spectre x360 is relatively hefty compared to the competition. The Dell XPS xv(four.2 pounds, 0.vii~0.5 inches), the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme (iv.0 pounds, 0.7 inches) and the Asus ZenBook Pro 15 (4.2 pounds, 0.seven inches) all accept slimmer and lighter profiles.
Ports
HP slightly skimps on ports with the Spectre x360.
On the left side, at that place'south the power button, a ability jack, an HDMI port and a headphone jack, while the right edge features 2 Thunderbolt iii ports, one USB Type-A port and a microSD card slot.
This machine would have been amend with an additional USB Type-A port for connecting legacy accessories.
Display
The Spectre x360'due south 15.six-inch, 4K, glossy display is a mixed bag. On one hand, information technology'due south ridiculously colorful and sharp, only on the other, this screen is annoyingly dim and comes with distracting glare.
In the trailer for Captain Curiosity, I found information technology difficult to make out annihilation around the Blockbuster that Carol Danvers crashed into during the night. However, I could practically see every countenance hair coming off of her head in the next scene. And when she blazed with free energy, Helm Marvel'due south blue and red suit looked bold and empowering.
Similar a bag of skittles, this baby wants me to taste the rainbow, equally it covered 157 per centum of the sRGB colour gamut while crushing the 118 premium laptop average and the ZenBook Pro 15's result (141 percent). Simply the Spectre couldn't get by the XPS 15 (164 per centum) or ThinkPad X1 Extreme (186 percent).
More than:The Best 4K Laptops - Notebooks With High Resolution Displays
For a laptop with a 4K display, the Spectre x360 is disappointingly dim. Information technology averaged only 247 nits of brightness, which doesn't compare to the 329-nit category average. On superlative of that, the XPS xv (447 nits), ThinkPad X1 Farthermost (366 nits) and ZenBook Pro 15 (330 nits) all surpassed the boilerplate with ease.
Keyboard, Touchpad and Pen
My fingers glided across the Spectre x360's keyboard like effigy skaters. Each cardinal is decently clicky, with solid travel, and together, the keys create a tight, uniform body with a expert-sized numpad. The font is sparse and sharp, giving off a stylish, sci-fi vibe.
I sped to a marking of 72 words per infinitesimal on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, beating my 66-wpm boilerplate. Nosotros measured the key travel at 1.5 millimeters, and the keys crave 71 grams of forcefulness to actuate. These results autumn in line with our prefered travel (1.v to 2.0mm) and actuation forcefulness (60-gram minimum).
The Spectre x360 comes with the HP Active Pen, which has 2 programmable buttons. The pen felt responsive as I laid out a map for a small village. Merely when I attempted to shade some parts in, the display couldn't pick upward the pen. This is mostly due to the pen's low number of pressure-sensitivity levels, at 2,048. That's half of what the HP Active Pen G2 has, at 4,096. I attempted to test the G2 pen, but I found that it wasn't compatible with the Spectre x360, which is disappointing.
I enjoyed how pleasantly soft the Spectre x360's four.7 x ii.three-inch touchpad was. But annoyingly plenty, information technology doesn't have Windows 10 precision drivers installed, so you can't arrange click settings. Notwithstanding, Windows 10 gestures similar 3-finger tabbing and two-finger scrolling worked well enough.
Audio
The Spectre x360's Bang & Olufsen speakers filled a pocket-sized office with Sim's "Existence," but the overall audio was a little muddy. It even so sounded decent, as the guitar, bass and drums were distinguishable during the chorus. But it was somewhat difficult to focus on the guitar riffs toward the terminate of the vocal; everything sounded like noise.
MORE:How to Adjust Sound Outputs for Specific Apps in Windows 10
The HP Audio Control app is somewhat lackluster, but each preset, similar Music and Flick, gives y'all three child-bearing options: Bass, Treble and Dialogue Clarity. At the very least, there's a total blaster to tune the audio to your liking.
Performance
The Spectre x360 packs an Intel Core i7-8750H processor with 16GB of RAM, which blew through 40 Google Chrome tabs and five 1080p YouTube videos without slowing down.
On the Geekbench iv.3 overall operation test, the Spectre x360 nailed 21,889, which topples the xiii,293 premium laptop boilerplate. The Spectre'due south score is within the range of what the XPS 15 (21,201) and the ThinkPad X1 Extreme (22,021) got with the same CPU. The ZenBook Pro fifteen hit but 21,691, despite its stronger Core i9-8950HK processor.
The Spectre x360 took 10 minutes and 45 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p; that'due south around half the time information technology takes the average premium laptop (21:43) to complete that task. This machine besides surpassed the ZenBook Pro 15 (10:53) but was outmatched confronting the XPS 15 (ten:12) and ThinkPad X1 Extreme (x:03).
MORE:The Laptops with the All-time Overall Performance: Guide
HP's 1TB SSD copied 4.97GB of data in simply nine seconds, which translates to 566 megabytes per 2d. That'south in line with the 545-MBps category boilerplate. It's hard to compete with the ThinkPad X1 Extreme'southward 1TB SSD (ane,017 MBps), but the XPS xv (391 MBps) and the ZenBook Pro xv (424 MBps) faltered with their 512GB SSDs.
Gaming, Graphics and VR
While it's not necessarily a gaming laptop, the Spectre x360 and its Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q GPU with 4GB of VRAM can handle gaming on medium to low settings, providing some reasonable frame rates.
On the Rising of the Tomb Raider criterion (Very High, 1080p), the Spectre x360 averaged xix frames per second, which is below the minimum playability threshold (30 fps) as well as the 33-fps premium laptop average. The XPS 15 (22 fps) and ZenBook Pro 15 (21 fps) didn't do much better with the aforementioned GPU, but at least the ThinkPad X1 Extreme accomplished a playable 35 fps.
The Spectre x360 got 46 fps on the Hitman benchmark (Ultra, 1080p), which lands at the bottom again compared to the category average (68 fps) and the scores from the XPS 15 (60 fps), ThinkPad X1 Extreme (56 fps) and ZenBook Pro 15 (60 fps).
On the Grand Theft Machine Five benchmark (Very High, 1080p), the Spectre x360 scored 32 fps, matching the ThinkPad X1 Extreme (32 fps) while surpassing the XPS 15 (27 fps) and ZenBook Pro 15 (31 fps). However, they all roughshod under the 38-fps premium laptop boilerplate.
More than:Laptop GPU Comparison - Discrete Graphics Cards vs. Intel HD
The Spectre x360 can handle VR better than its competitors also, as information technology hit iii.3 out of xi on the SteamVR Performance Examination, while the XPS 15, ThinkPad X1 Extreme and ZenBook Pro 15 got 3; ii.nine; and 2, respectively. The category average, however, is even so college, at 4.4. While Valve labels the Spectre x360 as "capable," machines that are "VR-prepare" typically score a 6 or college.
Battery Life
For a laptop with a 4K display and a discrete graphics card, the Spectre x360 has stellar battery life. After continuously surfing the web over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of effulgence, the Spectre x360 lasted 8 hours and 9 minutes. While that'southward slightly under the 8:29 premium laptop average, it'southward a bully time given the x360'due south specs. The XPS fifteen lasted viii:28 under the aforementioned limitations, while the ThinkPad X1 Farthermost and ZenBook Pro fifteen endured for just 6:07 and 6:01 (4:23 with touchpad on), respectively.
For a laptop with a 4K brandish and a discrete graphics card, the Spectre x360 has stellar battery life.
Webcam
The Spectre x360'south 1080p webcam is pretty decent. Information technology picked up the divides of gray and blue in my flannel shirt, and I could fifty-fifty see some item in my messy hair. Despite that, some of the ceiling was lost in white space due to the lighting. The test shots did seem somewhat boring, every bit the webcam couldn't pick upwardly bolder cherry or orange hues.
Heat
HP'southward aluminum machine handles estrus rather well. After I streamed a fifteen-minute HD video, the underside measured 99 degrees Fahrenheit, which is slightly over our 95-degree comfort threshold. The eye of the keyboard and touchpad registered 94 and 84 degrees, respectively. The hottest this machine got was 100 degrees, on the lower left underside.
Software and Warranty
HP includes a ton of its own branded software in the Spectre x360. This includes HP Command Middle (controls fan and CPU speed), HP JumpStart (a tutorial for Windows 10), HP Pen Control (configures stylus inputs), HP Back up Assistant (updates HP device drivers) and HP ePrint SW (tracks press status).
There'south also Windows 10 bloatware, like Processed Trounce Saga, Township and Royal Defection 2: Tower Defense.
The Spectre x360 comes with a one-year limited warranty. See how HP performed on our Tech Back up Showdown and Best and Worst Brands ranking.
Lesser Line
The 15-inch HP Spectre x360 ($2,049) has all the hallmarks of a solid premium laptop, including strong performance, a colorful 4K panel, a comfy keyboard and long battery life, all topped off with a godlike design. Even so, this machine's display can testify quite dim fifty-fifty indoors, and its speakers don't live up to the Bang & Olufsen standard.
If you're willing to fork over a few hundred extra dollars, check out the XPS 15 ($ii,559), which offers longer battery life, a brighter display, comparable performance and a smaller footprint. On the other hand, the ZenBook Pro xv ($2,299) features a unique touch-screen touchpad that streamlines productivity, just that comes at the cost of battery life.
Overall, the Spectre x360 is a groovy addition to HP'due south consumer lineup due to the machine's premium design and stiff operation offered at a competitive toll.
Credit: Laptop Magazine
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HP Spectre x360 (xv-inch, 2019) Specs
| Brand | HP |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-8750H processor |
| Brandish Size | fifteen.6 |
| Graphics Menu | Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Max-Q |
| Hard Bulldoze Size | 1GB |
| Difficult Drive Blazon | SSD |
| Highest Bachelor Resolution | 3840 10 2160 |
| Native Resolution | 3840 x 2160 |
| Operating Organization | Windows 10 Home |
| Ports (excluding USB) | USB iii.1, Thunderbolt 3, Headphone/Mic, HDMI, DC-in |
| RAM | 16GB |
| Size | 14.22 x 9.84 10 0.76 in |
| Touchpad Size | 4.7 10 2.3-inch |
| USB Ports | three |
| Video Memory | 4GB |
| Warranty/Back up | Ane-year express warranty |
| Weight | iv.64 pounds |
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Source: https://www.laptopmag.com/uk/reviews/laptops/hp-spectre-x360-15-inch-2019