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Can somebody make an inexpensive hybrid that stands out from the crowd?
I'm Dan Ackerman, and this is the HP Pavillion X2.
This is the 2015 update of this system.
We've seen it for the past couple of years, since Windows 8, really.
This new version looks a lot different from the previous ones.
It's actually one of the sharpest-looking, inexpensive hybrids I think I've ever seen.
This guy starts at about $300.
And for that, you get a fairly standard set of components, Intel Atom processor, 2GB of RAM, a fairly small built-in solid state hard drive.
And of course it's a hybrid, so everything is here behind the screen, and then you have a separate keyboard base.
Unlike some of the earlier generations of Pavillion X2 hybrid or other HP hybrids, you don't have a big clunky plastic latch here.
You have to like press down or wriggle with your finger in order to separate the two heads, it's just a magnet.
So you hold the base down, and then you can just lift the screen up like that.
It's a lot easier than having like an actual latch, that you have to press or move around.
Then it's a strong magnet so you get anywhere close to this [SOUND] and it just snaps right back on like that.
So we like that part.
However, a lot of the space on the display right here is taken up by these big speaker grills.
And if you look down here there's a new logo here.
HP used to partner with Beats Audio for the audio systems in their laptops and desktops.
Apple bought Beats, that partnership is over.
Now they have a new high end audio partner, that's Bang and Olufsen, a very well respected name in speakers and audio.
However B and O did not actually design and build the speakers in this or any other HP laptops.
They just provided some sort of sound shaping and EQ software They is based on the actual size and design of the speakers and design of the laptop, etcetera, etcetera.
I gotta tell you though in real life this shockingly one of the thinnest, weakest sounding laptops at any price that we've ever heard.
We lined it up in our lab with a bunch of other.
two and three $350 laptops.
Definitely the weakest and thinnest sound by far, despite this big logo that says this is one of the areas where the HP X2 over promises and under delivers.
Despite the weak audio, performs about as well as other Adam based hybrids, which is good for casual web surfing.
You wouldn't want to work on it all day, every day.
Battery life just a little bit shorter than some of the competition but not radically so.
But it's still got those good looks going for it.
That is the HP Pavillion X2.
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