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Review: HP Spectre x360 14

by Parm Mann on 29 March 2021, 14:01

Tags: HP (NYSE:HPQ), Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)

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Conclusion

...a gorgeous 3:2 OLED touchscreen that is easily one of the best laptop displays current on the market.

Standing out alongside the likes of Microsoft's Surface, Dell's XPS and Lenovo's ThinkPad is easier said than done, yet HP has managed to do exactly that with the Spectre x360 14.

Beautifully built and well furnished, the stylish ultra-portable isn't revolutionary in the processor department - an 11th Gen Intel processor is a modest upgrade - but has a supporting cast that elevates the overall experience. 12-hour battery life is joined by dual Thunderbolt 4 Type-C, an impressive quad-speaker sound system, and a gorgeous 3:2 OLED touchscreen that is easily one of the best laptop displays current on the market.

There are some drawbacks - the quad-core CPU is quick to throttle and there's bloatware to remove - but for the right audience, these are minor concerns for users seeking responsive everyday performance and an excellent keyboard and trackpad in a polished convertible form factor.

Bottom line: wanting to splash out on a premium portable PC? HP's Spectre x360 14 deserves to be on your shortlist.

The Good
  
The Bad
Gorgeous 3:2 OLED display
High-quality convertible form factor
Excellent keyboard and touchpad
Bundle includes pen and sleeve
Impressive quad-speaker sound system
USB-A and dual Thunderbolt USB-C
Good battery life
  
Quad-core Intel CPU gets bogged down
Some bloatware



HP Spectre x360 14

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The Spectre x360 14 convertible laptop is available to purchase from HP.

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.


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HEXUS Forums :: 8 Comments

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Posted by cheesemp - Mon 29 Mar 2021 16:04
These ultra portables are very nice but for this level of money I'd only consider Ryzen… Saying that they've really come on since I last considered one in 2015. There are a lot less cut corners than there used to be.
Posted by Dribble - Mon 29 Mar 2021 17:50
cheesemp
These ultra portables are very nice but for this level of money I'd only consider Ryzen… Saying that they've really come on since I last considered one in 2015. There are a lot less cut corners than there used to be.
I was just buying something like this so researched it. It depends on you use case. The ryzen's are significantly faster if you need lots of cores at once (e.g. compiling for programming, or complex video editing) but if you want to use it to do standard office style tasks the intel cpu's faster single core performance is more important. The graphics on the intel cpu are quite a bit faster too. Hence for a lot of people (my wife included) the intel cpu is fine.
Incidentally I bought my wife a dell inspiron 14 7000 which cost me < £900 for something spec'd very similar to that hp minus the touch screen and full flip capabilities.
Posted by [DW]Cougho - Mon 29 Mar 2021 18:35
Dribble
I was just buying something like this so researched it. It depends on you use case. The ryzen's are significantly faster if you need lots of cores at once (e.g. compiling for programming, or complex video editing) but if you want to use it to do standard office style tasks the intel cpu's faster single core performance is more important. The graphics on the intel cpu are quite a bit faster too. Hence for a lot of people (my wife included) the intel cpu is fine.
Incidentally I bought my wife a dell inspiron 14 7000 which cost me < £900 for something spec'd very similar to that hp minus the touch screen and full flip capabilities.

Oooh, I'm looking at that Dell laptop myself. What are your (or your wifes) thoughts on it?
Posted by Dribble - Mon 29 Mar 2021 19:05
[DW
Cougho;6011]Oooh, I'm looking at that Dell laptop myself. What are your (or your wifes) thoughts on it?
Pro's - screen is very nice, sound is good, it runs fine, fairly quiet, pretty light, metal body, compact, it's got nvidia graphics (more a drivers then then performance - more stuff “just works” with Nvidia), good trackpad, looks like you can get to the fan fairly easily to clean it (although I haven't tried yet), looks like you can easily replace the battery.
Con's - keyboard is only ok (it's fine but doesn't feel amazing or anything), you can't upgrade memory (but it came with 16GB so that's not such a problem). It's never going to be blazingly fast (it's running that cpu at 15-20W not the max 28W).

For my wife who wants it for her job which involves a lot of ms office/publisher, watching tennis on prime, having far to many tabs/windows open at once, and it's gotta stay quiet in the endless zoom calls it's the best I could find for the money.
Posted by cheesemp - Tue 30 Mar 2021 09:56
Dribble
I was just buying something like this so researched it. It depends on you use case. The ryzen's are significantly faster if you need lots of cores at once (e.g. compiling for programming, or complex video editing) but if you want to use it to do standard office style tasks the intel cpu's faster single core performance is more important. The graphics on the intel cpu are quite a bit faster too. Hence for a lot of people (my wife included) the intel cpu is fine.
Incidentally I bought my wife a dell inspiron 14 7000 which cost me < £900 for something spec'd very similar to that hp minus the touch screen and full flip capabilities.

That's probably true but my interests are more in those areas plus light gaming which is Ryzen every time. I also like to buy to last which also means more cores.

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