If your laptop could be thinner, lighter and smaller with the same great battery life and performance, would you celebrate? Or complain about all the missing ports?
That's not a rhetorical question, it's the deciding factor when you consider the latest version of the HP Spectre x360.
Earlier this year, I called the 13-inch Spectre x360 one of my favorite laptops, because it didn't force me to compromise. It offered powerful processors, long battery life, a beautiful backflipping hybrid screen, a relatively thin aluminum frame plus enough ports to plug in two monitors, a mouse, keyboard, a USB thumb drive and my camera's SD card simultaneously.
The HP Spectre x360 has slimmed down.
Josh Miller/CNETStarting at $1,049 or AU$2,299 (UK availability TBD) the new, slightly revamped version of the HP Spectre x360 is just as good in almost every way -- but it's missing a lot of those ports. Like Apple with its new MacBook Pro, HP chose thinness over utility.
HP Spectre x360 (late 2016)
| Price as reviewed | $1,099 in the US, AU$2,299 in Australia |
|---|---|
| Display size/resolution | 13.3-inch 1,920x1,080 touch-display |
| PC CPU | 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-7500U |
| PC Memory | 16GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,866MHz |
| Graphics | 128MB dedicated Intel HD Graphics 620 |
| Storage | 512GB SSD |
| Networking | 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.2 |
| Operating system | Windows 10 Home (64-bit) |
Personally, I'd buy last year's laptop. The same point goes for last year's MacBook Pro if you need HDMI or USB-A ports. But I'm not you. Here's what you need to know about HP's new Spectre to make the right call.
Discuss HP Spectre x360 (late 2016)