Note: This article was first published on 14 Feb 2020.
It still looks like a Spectre notebook but HP has made a number of important improvements to the Spectre x360 13.
HP’s flagship ultraportable is here
Good things come to those who wait. Announced back in October, the HP’s updated Spectre x360 13 has finally arrived on our shores. The name might be the same but the machine has been updated and improved in many meaningful ways. And it has to be if it was to compete against the likes of Dell and its XPS notebooks, ASUS’ neverending lineup of ZenBooks, and Microsoft’s sexy Surface devices. I will go into details later but briefly, the Spectre x360 13 sports Intel’s newest processors, improved internals, and a thoroughly updated design that is sleeker and gives the notebook a much smaller footprint. Let’s not waste any more time and dive straight into the review.
More portable
The Spectre x360 13’s overall design hasn’t changed. It still features sharply chiselled edges and has a highly angular profile with bold accents. Two colours are available at launch: Nightfall Black, which comes with Copper Luxe accents; and Poseidon Blue which comes with Pale Brass accents. Both are equally attractive though my personally prefer Nightfall Black. Black and the copper accents, which look like rose gold to me, are a winning combination.
HP showing the bezel reduction on the new Spectre x360 13. (Image source: HP)
The big change has to do with the bezels, which have been more than halved. 11.5mm have been shaved from the top bezel, bringing it down from 17.35mm to just 5.85mm. Fortunately, this hasn’t come at the expense of the web camera, which remains above the display and still supports Windows Hello. Speaking of which, there's also a privacy kill switch that disables the web camera. The bottom bezel sees an equally big reduction – from 25.82mm to 11.09mm.
The net effect of all this bezel shrinking has an amazing effect on the footprint of the device.
Model | Width (in cm) | Depth (in cm) | Overall size (in cm2) |
Early 2019 model | 30.8 | 21.8 | 671.44 |
Late 2019 model | 30.7 | 19.5 | 598.65 |
Looking at the table above, we can see that massive reductions were made to the depth of the notebook and HP were able to reduce the Spectre x360 13’s footprint by a significant 11%. And if you are obsessed about screen-to-body ratios, the new Spectre x360 13’s 90% count totally trumps its predecessor’s 78%.
The bottom bezel is a lot thinner now.
However, the new Spectre x360 13 isn’t entirely more compact than its predecessor because thickness has actually been increased from 14.5mm to 16.9mm. If you do the math, you’d find that overall volume is actually very slightly greater.
Model | Width (in cm) | Depth (in cm) | Thickness (in cm) | Volume (in cm3) |
Early 2019 model | 30.8 | 21.8 | 1.5 | 1,007.16 |
Late 2019 model | 30.7 | 19.5 | 1.7 | 1,017.71 |
In the real world, my take is that the reduced footprint is much more appreciable even if the new Spectre x360 13 is more voluminous. It fits into bags much more easily. And since weight is unchanged at 1.3kg, the new Spectre is much handier to hold as a tablet.
The display is sharp, crisp, and has nice colours.
The display itself measures 13.3 inches – no change from its predecessor. And as usual, there will be Full-HD and 4K options. The 4K options will feature OLED displays, which, theoretically speaking, should yield more vibrant colours. I haven’t seen them for myself so I’ll refrain from commenting further.
The Full-HD display that we have for review, however, is very capable and easily one of the best in its class. It’s plenty sharp, has good colours, and most importantly, has sufficient brightness so that it can be used in challenging environments (a common problem for most ultraportable notebooks). All displays are touch-capable and very protected by Corning Gorilla Glass.
Faster processors, better cooling
The Spectre x360 13 is powered by Intel's latest Ice Lake processors.
There are big changes on the inside too. The newest Spectre x360 13 is powered by Intel’s newest 10th generation Ice Lake processors. Unlike the 10th generation Comet Lake parts, the Ice Lake processors are built on Intel’s newest 10nm process.
As usual, there will be a number of configurations to choose from. Customers will have the option of Core i5 or Core i7 processors, up to 16GB of memory, and up to 2TB of speedy PCIe M.2 SSD storage. The base model, however, comes with the following specifications:
- Intel Core i5-1035G4 processor
- 8GB DDR-3200 RAM
- 512GB SSD
Cooling has been improved too. Larger air intakes and vents improve air circulation, while a beefier internal cooling system consisting of two fans and three heat pipes draw heat more efficiently away from the processor to improve performance.
On the left, you'll find the power button in the corner, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a USB-A port.
On the opposite side are two USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports and a microSD card reader. That switch you see disables the web camera.
Port selection remains the same and that’s a good thing because the old Spectre x360 13 was a leader in this category. There’s two USB-C ports that support Thunderbolt 3 and a single USB-A port that supports USB 3.1. This means the Spectre x360 13 will play well with any of your existing accessories and peripherals and it will also work with any modern accessory that you may want to add on, such as an external graphics dock or Thunderbolt 3 dock. It also has a microSD card reader and wireless networking supports Wi-Fi 6 standards.
Better trackpad, great keyboard
The keyboard has good feel but the layout has an extra column to the right. The trackpad is woefully small.
One complaint that I have with many modern ultraportables is their tiny trackpads. To be fair, there’s only so much you can do when your machine is this small but that hasn't stopped HP from making some thoughtful improvements to the trackpad. Unfortunately, the size hasn’t changed much and it’s still woefully small. It measures just 11cm across and 5.5cm from top to bottom, making it one of the smallest trackpads in it class. One upside is that it now uses Microsoft’s Precision drivers. Coupled with its glass construction, it makes for a trackpad that’s smooth, responsive, accurate, and quite pleasant to use even if it's small.
The keyboard remains great to use with large keycaps, good key pitch, a decent amount of key travel. It also has the right amount of resistance so it feels firm and pleasant to type on. My only gripe is that the layout isn’t entirely conventional as there’s an extra column of keys to the right (Home, Pg Up, Pg Down, End). As a result, first-time users will likely miss the ‘Enter’ key for at least the first couple of hours but I think that this layout is something users will get over with a little practice (hopefully).
Performance
To evaluate the HP Spectre x360 13, we will be comparing its results from our benchmarks against other new and portable ultraportable notebooks such as the recently reviewed ASUS ZenBook 14 UX434 and Microsoft Surface Pro 7, as well as the Acer Swift 5 and Dell XPS 13 2-in-1.
The unit that we are testing is one of the higher-end configurations and it comes with a Core i7-1065G7 processor, 16GB of memory, and a 1TB SSD.
The XPS 13 2-in-1 and Surface Pro 7 are arguably the Spectre x360 13’s closest rivals as they feature similar specifications, top-notch build, and have convertible form factors that enable them to be used as traditional notebooks or tablets. Here are their configurations and how they stack up.
Model | Microsoft Surface Pro 7 | Acer Swift 5 | ASUS ZenBook 14 UX434 | Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 | HP Spectre x360 |
Processor | Intel Core i7-1065G7 | Intel Core i7-1065G7 | Intel Core i7-10510U | Intel Core i7-1065G7 | Intel Core i7-1065G7 |
Memory | 16GB | 16GB | 16GB | 16GB | 16GB |
Storage | 512GB SSD | 1TB SSD | 1TB SSD | 512GB SSD | 1TB |
Graphics | Intel Iris Plus Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce MX250 | NVIDIA GeForce MX250 | Intel Iris Plus Graphics | Intel Iris Plus Graphics |
Price | S$2,688 | S$2,398 | S$2,098 | S$2,898 | S$2,899 |
Benchmark results
Overall, the HP Spectre x360 13’s performance can be summed up as decent. General computing performance is quite good as evidenced by its scores on PCMark 10, Cinebench, and WebXPRT 3.
Graphics performance, on the other hand, can be said to be slightly below average. Its 3DMark scores were a bit of a mixed bag as it scored poorly on the least intensive Cloud Gate run but then it clawed back and performed strongly on the more intensive Sky Diver and Fire Strike runs. On Tomb Raider, it achieved the lowest frame rates and was as much as 15% slower than the XPS 13 2-in-1 and Surface Pro 7, both of which are also powered by Intel Iris Plus integrated GPUs.
Battery life
Battery life is one aspect that the HP Spectre x360 13 excels in. It lasted the longest in both Modern Office and Gaming workloads. On the Modern Office workload, which tests general computing tasks like web browsing and spreadsheets, the Spectre x360 13 lasted an incredible 579 minutes – that’s 9 hours and 39 minutes. More impressively, that’s 232 minutes (nearly 4 hours) longer than its closest rival. On the Gaming workload, it was the only notebook to run for three hours – the other notebooks couldn’t even manage two hours. Needless to say, it was the most power-efficient notebook of the bunch. And, thanks to its compact dimensions, it also scored the highest on our Portability Index.
One of the best ultraportables
It may be pricey, but that's the price to pay to get one of the best ultraportable notebooks in the market today.
All things considered, the HP Spectre x360 13 is easily one of the best ultraportable notebooks you can buy today.
For a start, build quality is excellent and it has a convertible design so that it can be used as a traditional clamshell notebook or a tablet. Granted, the Spectre x360 13 can’t compete with the Surface Pro 7 as a tablet but I’ll argue that it’s more versatile and definitely more pleasant to type on.
Its performance is quite decent too. Though graphics performance is lacklustre, it makes up for it with its long battery life, which I think people will value over the ability to run games a tad faster. After all, it's an ultraportable, and you're supposed to be getting work done with it. It also has a good selection of ports and it supports the latest Wi-Fi 6 standard.
It works well enough in tablet mode but it's still slightly compromised compared to a Surface Pro 7.
Now, if you are thinking that all of this has to come at a price, you’d be right. The Spectre x360 13 is one of the pricier notebooks available at the moment. Prices start at S$2,399 and for that, you’ll get a Core i5-1035G4 processor with 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD. That’s good enough for most people, but more demanding users will want to opt for the pricier model (the one I tested) that costs S$2,899 and comes with a Core i7-1065G7 processor with 16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD. It’s a lot of money for a notebook but it’s the same Dell charges for a similarly specced Dell XPS 13 2-in-1.
That makes it considerably pricier than the ASUS ZenBook UX434 and Acer Swift 5, but that’s the price to pay for the extra features (convertible form factor, Thunderbolt 3 support) and refinement. And to be fair, that’s comparable with its closest rivals such as the Dell XPS 13 2-in-1 and Microsoft Surface Pro 7. So in other words, the Spectre x360 13 is pricey but not unreasonably so.
To end, if you are in the market for a high-end ultraportable portable notebook, the HP Spectre x360 13 does a lot of things right, making it a wonderful place to start your search.
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