HP Spectre 13” Laptop – thin and crispy (review)

The pizza analogy is very relevant – it is more svelte than a Dominos with the lot, but less digestible with a durable aircraft aluminium and carbon fibre clamshell body. And it is in HP’s new dark ash and copper two-tone finish that oozes expense, yet it starts from A$2399.

While it has the latest specifications and comes with either an Intel Sky Lake Core i5 or i7, it lacks one feature – touch screen. That may not be a deal breaker but if it is, then its slightly larger, bigger brother - the Spectre x360 may, at 15.9mm thin, be more your style (iTWire review here).

HP has positioned its Spectre models for the premium prosumer. This is for ultimate computing on the go. Whatever your choice these are products from the “new HP” and they have taken the boring out of computing – even the boring HP logo is now edgy and stylish.

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Let’s start with the specifications.

There are two models – the i5, 13-v037tb as tested, and the i7, 13-v038tu. Where different the latter’s specifications appear in [square] brackets.

• Intel Sky Lake Core i5-6200U (dual core, 2.3/2.8Ghz), TPM and Intel 520 graphics [Core i7-6500U, dual-core 2.5/3.1GHz]
• 256GB PCIe, NVMe M.2 SSD [512GB]
• 8GB LPDDR3-1866
• 13.3”, 1920 x 1080 HD, `66ppi, Brightview, IPS, non-touch screen with Gorilla Glass 4 protection
• 32.5 x 22.9 x 1.04 cm x 1.16kg
• 1 x USB-C, 3.1 Gen 1 and 2 x USB-C Gen 2 with Thunderbolt
• Wi-Fi AC, dual band, 2 x 2 MU-MIMO, Bluetooth 4.2, 3.5mm audio
• 38Wh Li-ion battery and 45W USB-C charger
• Full size backlit keyboard and oversized trackpad with multi-touch
• Bang and Olufsen quad speakers, HP TrueVision HD webcam and dual-array microphones
• Windows 10 64-bit Home
• 1-year warranty
• A$2399 [3099]

It comes in a very attractive box several times too large for it and has a USB-A female to USB-C adaptor.

USB-C

USB-C is one of the prime reasons this can be so thin. Over the next year or two, you are going to see the end of micro-USB, HDMI, DisplayPort and Ethernet ports on tablets and laptops as USB-C with a “dongle” will handle both charging and data.

But to be clear if you intend to use this as a “desktop” with multi-monitors you will need a power dock device to run external monitors, charge, accept standard USB devices like portable disks. iTWire has an overview of the new Kensington USB-C docks ranging from A$129.90 to $349.95 for a fully powered dock. HP has a lower cost $299 USB-C dock with power pass through (uses your device adaptor).

To HP's defence, it has three USB-C ports, and the MacBook Air has only one so you may get away without the dock.

Core i5/i7 and go fast stuff

I am glad that HP chose to use a full fat, Core i5/i7 for this as it means it runs all those CPU hungry programs with aplomb. Geekbench for the i5 was just over 7000. It is perfect for things like Lightroom.

It will play HD video and basic 3D games at 30 fps.

There is nothing wrong with the lower powered (both in horsepower and battery drain) Core M5-6Y75 processor used in the MacBook Air (Geekbench 5879) except that in my experience it can choke up for power users and its ability to render graphics and games is limited.

HP uses a heat pump called hyperbaric cooling and two very small fans to remove all heat. After several hours use, the vents and keyboard were warm to touch, and I did notice minor fan noise at times.

It is also pleasing to see 8GB RAM (not upgradable) and 256/512GB PCIe NVMe SSD – this is blazingly fast and at 1255MB/s will keep up with data transfer rates over Gen 3 USB-C.

Wi-Fi AC, dual band, 2 x 2 MU-MIMO got over 700Mbps at 20 metres – that is very good.

Keyboard/trackpad/use

I love the chiclet island style keys, and I hate the trackpad – well, dislike is a better word.

The backlit keyboard is well spaced, has a degree of tactile feedback, 1.3mm travel, and is as good as it gets as far as typing on a laptop gets. The backlighting is effective on full-sized keys (a nice glow) but a little irritating on half-sized function and arrow keys where a harsh LED light shines through the space surrounding those keys. Not a big deal.

The trackpad takes four diagonal swipes to get from the top right to the bottom left of the screen. By comparison, the amazing oversized trackpad on the x360 takes only one. It does not support multi-touch gestures like pinch or zoom, and that is a major oversight on a non-touch laptop. What that means is mousing around is a pain, and you are going to want to use a Bluetooth mouse for any serious work.

The hinge provides sufficient tilt to the screen for normal use, but it only goes marginally past 90° vertical (to 120°) – fine for typing but perhaps not enough as video device on a plane.

Screen and audio

It is bright (301 cd/m2), clear, crisp and has 1531:1 contrast. Its colours cover 95% of the sRGB gamut – all very good and HD movies looked both natural and superb. In all a quality IPS screen but can be subject to glare given its Gorilla Glass coating.

But the B&O audio from its four speakers is clear but does not offer a good range or depth. These speakers are not for music or video – fine for a PC.

The HD camera was fine for Skype and happy snaps.

Battery

HP claims up to 9 hours and perhaps you can get that at 30% screen brightness. During continuous HP video loop at 50% brightness, it achieved just over 5 hours. During a normal office day, running Word, Skype, Email, browsing, Wi-Fi and periods where it went to sleep it got 7 hours.

Recharge time from zero to 100% was three hours.

This laptop will drain fairly quickly if left in sleep mode losing over 30% of its charge in 24 hours sleep mode. I am sure that can be addressed in firmware updates but for the moment shut it down.

Conclusion

It is a remarkably well built, thin, powerful, and sexy laptop. The omission of a touch screen, while not a deal breaker for a laptop user is puzzling given it has a very basic touchpad. OK, I know a touch screen would have added .5mm to the thickness.

This is a tilt at the MacBook Air and in every hardware specification it is far superior. I mentioned earlier that the debate about Windows 10 versus macOS was not germane as dyed in the wool Mac users will not have read this far and are unlikely to switch anyway.

There are no gimmicks here – no 4K, no touch screen, no x360 hinge, – just one of the most well-made, stylish, full-blown, Core i5/i7 laptops that will stand out in the crowd.

What I liked:

• Looks – stunning, sexy, sleek, modern, eye-catching
• Quality build
• HD Screen
• Keyboard
• Wi-Fi AC is a screamer
• Intel Core i5/i7 power over the Core-M
• 3 USB-C ports – two with Thunderbolt and a USB-A adapter in the box
• Leather sleeve provided

What was meh

• Trackpad and half size keyboard light bleed
• Battery life
• Some heat and fan noise after a lot of use at the back vents and around some function keys
• Audio
• Non-upgradeable ram – 8GB is fine for most use

Rating

This is subjective. For my money, I would go for the Spectre x360 any day for Touch and its amazing keyboard and trackpad.

This is pretty good; it competes well with other 13” including Dell’s XPS, Acer Aspire S, Asus Zenbook and the Surface Book.

Where the Surface and Dell are definite 4.5 out of 5 stars, this is just a little behind at 4.