HP Specter x360 with Kaby Lake G- Review

The 15 “-Spectre x360 is a lot smoother than last year’s version and the Vega GL-gpu can compete with a GTX 1050. That fast hardware does generate a lot of heat, which is dissipated over The laptop has a nice sharp 4k screen, which unfortunately is not well calibrated.And just as in the previous generation, the rubbers that protect the casing are very thin.The battery life is with almost eight hours during browsing not bad for a 4k laptop, but its predecessor did better, together with the cpu the gpu also became faster, so the laptop can compete with competitors like the Asus Zenbook Pro and Apple MacBook Pro.

Final verdict

During the CES 2018, Intel introduced its Kaby Lake G processors: quadcores, with a GPU from an unexpected angle, namely from AMD, and HP and Dell fit the new processors eagerly in their new 15 “convertibles: the Specter x360 and the XPS 15 2-in-1. In this review we look at the first of those two to see what the new generation Specter x360 looks like and how the performance of the new processor fails.
The old 15 “variant of the Specter x360 reviewed, a little more than a year ago and then we came to the conclusion that the laptop is actually the ultimate 15 “convertible, with a – then still – fast Core i7-7500U processor, GeForce 940MX-gpu, 1TB-ssd and 4k screen. In the meantime, a lot has changed. The i7-7500U with two cores was replaced by an i7-8705G with twice as many cores and a Vega GL-gpu, which should be more powerful than the 940MX. That makes the new Specter X360 faster than its predecessor in one go.

Apparently this hardware needs more space, because if you new Specter, you immediately notice that you have a larger device in your hands. The thickness went from 17.9 to 19.4 millimeters and the weight went up by 130 grams according to HP’s own task. Despite the increased dimensions, the Specter x360 for a 15 “laptop is not particularly large and heavy, the screen edges are kept reasonably thin and we would consider a weight of 2.1 kilograms as average for a fifteen-person.

The case is as usual with Specter laptops made of metal and dark gray colored, with brass colored edges.HP is different, but we can imagine that not everyone who color combination equally The case feels for the most part firmly, only the screen is easy to press from the back, the frame of the screen is sturdy again and can not be easily twisted, which is important because the Specter is a convertible , where the screen often needs to be flipped up.When you put the laptop in the presentation mode, it comes to rest on the keyboard side and just as with the previous model are d The protective rubbers around very thin. A scratch on the housing is therefore easily made and for a device of 2600 euros that is a shame. That should have been better thought about.

On both sides air vents can be found, just as with the previous generation Specter 15 “. GPU and CPU are developing quite a bit of heat and that has to be neatly disposed of, but fortunately there was enough space left for ‘regular’ connections, including usb-a links and hdmi 2.0 right The system also has two Thunderbolt connections,

Keyboard and Touchpad

The biggest change on the outside of the Specter x360 is in the keyboard, the old one had a keyboard without a numerical keypad, while the new one added, according to HP, to make it easier for professional users. but it also means that the ‘normal’ keyboard part had to go a bit to the left, so the touchpad, which is located under the keyboard, comes to the left of the middle of the laptop from. So if you sit right in front of the touch pad, you are no longer in the middle of your laptop. It is a matter of taste, but we like to sit right in front of a laptop and can miss the twenty extra keys. The keyboard does, however, type fine, because the sturdy housing does not come along and the keys give a clear feedback.

Unfortunately, the touchpad of our test laptop was disappointing because the surface did not Seated well. At the bottom, the touchpad gives about half a millimeter before you feel the feedback from the button below. Hopefully this error only occurs with our copy, because the rest of the touchpad works fine, thanks to the glass surface and the fast recognition of multitouch movements.
A stylus is also supplied with the Specter x360 and although there are no drafters walking around on it. the editors, we will try to assess the pen. The stylus is made of metal and can be charged via a USB-C connection. It is the HP Tilt Pen, which weighs fifteen grams lighter than most pins with AAAA battery. The tilt functionality must ensure that the tip does not have to stand directly on the screen, but also works at an angle. In that respect, we saw little difference with the Asus Pen which we still had and which does not support tilt functionality. The eraser on the top is made of rubbery plastic, which indeed feels like you are using an eraser on paper. The pen supports different pressure levels, giving you thicker lines when you press harder on the pen. We have not been able to find how many levels that are, but it seems comparable to the aforementioned Asus pen, which supports 1024 pressure levels.