HP Spectre Review 

 

The Pros

Gorgeous design and color scheme; Super thin; Bright screen; 3 USB-C ports (2 with Thunderbolt 3)

The Cons

Below-average battery life; No traditional USB ports

Verdict

While its battery life leaves a lot to be desired, the HP Spectre is one of the thinnest, most powerful and best looking ultraportables on the market.

 Review

The HP Spectre isn't the thinnest laptop in the world anymore, but it's still super portable and gorgeous to look at. And inside, the Spectre has gotten even more powerful, thanks to new 7th-Generation Intel Core i CPUs that seems to defy expectations of how much power you can get from a system just 0.41-inches thick.

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With looks that remind me more of an Italian hypercar than a consumer laptop, the Spectre seems to be as much of a thoroughbred as a Ferrari or Lamborghini, despite a much more attainable starting price of $1,070. However, if you want the HP Spectre's haute couture good looks and potent performance, you'll also have to live with its weak battery life and lack of traditional USB ports

Design: A truly premium experience

While the Spectre's slim, 0.41-inch-thick build may grab a lot of attention, its chassis would still look great even if the notebook were a little thicker. The combo of copper and charcoal (HP calls it "ash silver") go together like champagne and caviar, and HP's minimalist premium logo is sleek and subtle while still exuding a sense of class.

I've heard some people criticize the fingerprint-loving mirror finish on the Spectre's hinge, but you know what else attracts smudges? Jewelry, watches and cars. And if a few streaks are the price I have to pay for style, just call me Mr. Clean.

The Spectre's hinges had to be specially engineered to support a system this thin. They were inspired by the type of hinges you'd get on a piano, and while they may look a little strange at first, they offer the kind of stability and artistry that feels right at home on a premium machine like this. Really, the Spectre looks like it belongs in a museum as opposed to on a desk or stuffed in a bag. It's that pretty.

Keyboard and Touchpad: Deliciously snappy

Unlike many other superthin laptops, the Spectre doesn't compromise on typing comfort. In fact, the backlit keyboard on the Spectre is one of the best I've used, regardless of size. While 1.15mm of travel might sound a bit short, the keyboard's strong but not-too-stiff 65-gram actuation weight and crisp action were great. When I switched to other laptops, I often found myself longing for the Spectre's keyboard.

Audio: Surprisingly rich

Good sound is hard to find on a laptop, and despite having almost no room for speakers, the Spectre acquits itself pretty well. As with a lot of other notebooks, there's not as much bass as I'd like, and audio can sound a bit flat at times. But when I listened to the Spectre's Bang & Olufsen speakers did a surprisingly decent job re-creating "Shotgun" Tom Kelly's gravelly voice and the song's rich piano chords.

Heat: Hyperbarically cool

In an attempt to keep this superthin laptop from getting sweltering hot, HP designed a "hyperbaric" cooling chamber, which uses fans to create a pocket, suck in cool air from the vent on the bottom and release hot air from the vent on the machine's back. Unfortunately, if you do more than simple web surfing and light productivity, the bottom of the laptop gets uncomfortably warm.

Ports and Webcam: Boldly embracing our USB-C future

Because this laptop is so thin, there's room only for USB Type-C ports, which are located on the back of the system, instead of the traditional Type-A slot. But, as opposed to the single connection you get on Apple's 12-inch MacBook, HP provides three USB-C ports, one with USB 3.1 and two with Thunderbolt 3. That means you'll never face the dilemma of choosing between recharging your laptop and plugging in a peripheral.

Performance

When it comes to performance, HP simply isn't willing to compromise. Unlike competitors such as the Acer Swift 7, which feature slower Intel Core i5 Y-series processors, the Spectre gets full Intel Core i U-series CPUs. And on our review unit, which sports a 2.5-GHz Intel Core i7 chip with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, the Spectre's performance was 40 percent better than the Swift's. That performance advantage can really make a difference for people who need to multitask or do a bit of light video editing.

Battery Life

From the outset, the big concern with the Spectre's superthin design is that it leaves little room for batteries. Even though HP did some innovative engineering by splitting the battery into four separate sections, the Spectre lasted a disappointing 6 hours and 6 minutes on the Laptop Battery Test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi.

The average for ultraportable laptops is 2 hours longer, at 8:07, and even the Acer Swift 7 did an hour and 20 minutes better, with a time of 7:25. And that's before you get to other competitors, including the nontouch Dell XPS 13 (13:49), 12- Inch Macbook Pro  (9:38) and even Lenovo's Yoga 910 (10:36), which all offer significantly longer run times.