HP Specter X360 (2020) review: futuristic design

n a time of global health emergency, notebooks continue to be an essential tool for people. In fact, the producers have not stopped and are starting to bring to the market the products that we have seen recently presented during fairs and various events. Among these we find HP who, just last January, at the CES in Las Vegas, showed the new one for the first time Specter X360, updated with Intel's 10th generation platform and with some aesthetic features such as thinner bezels to surround the display.

The 2019 version of this notebook was already considered an excellent product, a reference within the 2in1 category, but HP went further, working in close collaboration with Intel, to ensure that the 2020 model responded to the fees necessary to be able to bear the badge "Designed for mobile performance".

This is the identifier used by Intel to report what we could define as an evolution of Ultrabooks designed to redefine the canons of premium solutions. Notebooks optimized in close collaboration between the Santa Clara company, PC manufacturers and various components to meet quality standards that can guarantee an optimal user experience on the move. An innovation program also known by its code name Project Athena, launched last year and of which this Specter is only one of the first specimens on the market in Italian stores. By the end of the year, approximately 50 other products falling into the same category are expected to be launched. But how does this HP Specter X360 falls into the category and above all how does it behave? I'll tell you right away.

The products that aim to be included in the above selection must follow some guidelines that substantially concern all aspects of the notebook, starting from the design and ergonomics. HP Specter X360 is a 2in1, offers great flexibility in all situations and is built with a care that I could define as manic. The shell is made entirely of metal – a magnesium alloy and aluminum – and the various components are perfectly assembled. There are no crunches or sagging and immediately you have the feeling of having a notebook in your hands that is absolutely portable but also very, very solid.

I liked several aspects of this Specter X360. First of all the design, now become iconic and certainly full of character. The lines are angular, almost aggressive, without however flowing into the tacky. There remains a sober solution with some really interesting engineering solutions. I speak for example of the USB Type C and the power button located on the rear corners of the body, just not wanting to waste even a millimeter of the space available.

Thanks to this philosophy, despite the reduced thickness, this Specter X360 offers two USB C with Thunderbolt support, audio jack, micro SD card reader and a USB Type A equipped with a spring door that when closed on itself makes sure to maintain the linearity of the design. When we say the attention to detail.

On the bottom there are two long rubber strips that run horizontally on the body and offer excellent grip even on smooth surfaces. These make the solution stable even when used on the table of a moving vehicle, be it an airplane or a train. Situations in which the use is also facilitated by the limited size given by the 13.3-inch display with frames optimized on three sides and from weight of only 1.3 kg. Features thanks to which even the impact in the bag or backpack is at the minimum terms.

So we said about construction is solid and so is the keyboard plane, which does not flex and which houses standard size keycaps, well spaced from each other and backlit on 3 levels of intensity. It is a keyboard with which you get familiar quickly, it takes just a few hours of use to get used to its ergonomics and start typing quickly and making few mistakes. What did I like most? The click, clear, precise, reaches the end of the stroke and makes itself heard without being too loud.

Also very good touchpad, of a good size considering those of the notebook in general. It has a slightly elongated shape, the fingers slide well and the answer is precise even when we use more than one to activate the gestures. If we really want to look for the hair in the egg I would have perhaps tried to better separate the two left and right buttons, even if, at least personally, I use them very little.

Next to the touchpad, on the right, we find the reader for fingerprint recognition digital, always very precise. The latter together with infrared sensors for facial recognition they enable quick access to the system via Windows Hello, it only takes a few moments to be operational, another function required to boast the badge I mentioned before. Still in security and privacy, there is a switch on the right side of the notebook that allows you to darken the webcam when not in use.

The display of this HP Specter X360 measures 13.3 inches diagonal is type IPS and offers a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels with a density that therefore stands at 165 ppi, not impressive but still sufficient to obtain clear images in all situations. It is then a touchscreen panel that can be used with your fingers but also with the HP Tilt Pen that we find included in the package.

Let's talk about a active nib which takes advantage of Microsoft protocols and which is based on Elan technology. It is not as precise and responsive as the most recent that I have tried with Microsoft's Wacom or ex-Ntrig technology, but let's say it does its job without problems and is always a useful tool for taking notes or underlining documents. I greatly appreciated the construction and lightness, in addition to the presence of a convenient Type C for charging. A few seconds attached to the PC are enough to have several hours of autonomy.

But let's go back to our display, produced by AU Optronics and characterized by a good general quality. The maximum brightness reaches 300 cd / m2 and the contrast is sufficient to be able to use the notebook in very brightly lit environments easily thanks to a good anti-reflective finish. Obviously we carried out the usual measurement using the Calman colorimeter and software, the results of which are in the graphs below.

It is probably not a display that is factory calibrated but the results are not bad. We have coverage of the sRGB standard very close to 100% and delta E of 4.8 for grayscale and 3.6 for colors. Considering that 3 is the value beyond which it is possible to perceive the difference with respect to the reference tonality, it is however an acceptable error in both cases. We have certainly seen more precise displays but enjoying multimedia content on this panel is still a rewarding experience.

And here we are talking about the platform on which this notebook is based. Inside the Specter X360 (2020) we find a Intel Core i5 processor tenth generation, to be precise a 1035G4, equipped with a 4-core and 8-thread CPU with a maximum operating frequency of 3.7 GHz. The latter is supported by a graphics card Intel Iris Plus Graphics, 8 GB of LPDDR4 RAM and a 256 GB Samsung PCIe SSD that offers read and write speeds of 3500 and 1550 MB / s. By opening the body it is possible to notice that the latter is also the only updatable element.

With this hardware, therefore, Specter X360 meets the minimum requirements necessary to be able to boast the "Designed for mobile performance" badge which, as the slogan says, aim to identify solutions that are able to guarantee reactivity and fluidity in all processes and in all situations.

There are two characteristics that I particularly appreciated for this platform. The first is scalability, the second and the integration of artificial intelligence and graphic acceleration that allow you to greatly improve performance with software optimized to take advantage of these specifications.

But let's go in order. I talked about scalability because among the technologies introduced by Intel with the tenth generation chipsets we find Dynamic Tuning. What is it about? By analyzing the data from various sensors, the system is able to determine how much power the CPU needs and dynamically vary the TDP in order to provide him with the right amount of energy in every situation. Inside the HP Command Center it is also possible to manually act on these settings by choosing one of the existing presets and, if necessary, force the adoption of the profile that at that moment seems more useful to us. You can then switch between modes Comfort, where PL1 and PL2 (Power Limit) are set to 8.5W, to that Performance, with which we push ourselves up to a value PL2 of 51W.

All this is supported by a good cooling system that guarantees effective dissipation and adequate frequency management that minimizes the risk of episodes of lag or crash if episodes of thermal throttling should occur. However, I would like to point out that the fans can be a bit noisy in some contexts. The tests we carried out with this platform show reassuring performance, which will allow most users to see their needs always met. Loading at maximum CPU and GPU in fact, one is registered average frequency on all cores close to 1.5 GHz for the CPU and 1.0 GHz for the GPU.

In situations where the intervention of the graphic component is not required, then, there is an increase in the frequency of the CPU that allows you to keep 2.5 GHz on all cores for a very long period of time. The temperatures then stabilize around 95 degrees, testifying to a very thorough and well optimized setting. Do not be frightened, however, on the outside the body never goes above 40-42 degrees at the bottom and does not exceed 37 in the hottest area of ​​the keyboard.

As I said above, the introduction of the new ones GPU Iris Plus has made it possible to significantly improve the graphics performance which are now very close to those of the NVIDIA solutions of the MX line. We are not yet at the level of discrete GPUs but we say that we can still take away some small satisfaction in the gaming field. Obviously the most recent triple A remain a utopia, but we are certainly not faced with a product designed for this. Cheaper titles such as classic graphic adventures and simpler third-person shooters are still playable with an acceptable framerate lowering detail and resolution.

However, there are other situations where the presence of the new GPUs is felt. I speak of some optimized programs that support graphic acceleration and artificial intelligence. With these software we have major performance improvements, and operations such as enlarging images or contextual filling with Photoshop are completed in a significantly shorter time than the previous generation platforms, which cannot enjoy this optimization. In the table above you see a concrete example in comparison with a notebook with an eighth generation Core i7.

All very nice, interesting performances, but autonomy? One of the promises of the so-called Modern Devices is to succeed in take away the thought of the dead battery and to guarantee at least one day of real use. Objective achieved, at least for this Specter X360 with which I managed to exceed 10 hours of use in Balanced mode and with display at about 50% of lumionsity, however more than enough for indoor use. A use made mostly of navigation, word processing and some videos on YouTube.

Autonomy HP Specter X360 2020

50% screen brightness (about 120 nits), 50% audio.

It is a interesting result because improves by two hours what was the autonomy of the previous model, a clear sign that these optimizations work and that the new 10 nanometer SoCs do their job. Obviously we are still far from the 20 hours that we will be able to reach with the next evolutionary steps, but if we look at the progress made over the past few years, the hope of getting closer to the finish is not completely in vain. We will see how the situation will evolve with new low-consumption displays and with the further optimization of the production processes.

For now, the 10 hours guaranteed by the 61Wh battery inside the chassis of this Specter are still sufficient for many users. Battery that it recharges completely in about an hour thanks to the 65W charger present in the package. A very compact power supply and equipped with a cable covered with a rope that is very nice to look at but also very resistant.

Summing up, we are therefore certainly talking about an excellent product, perfect for working on the move, light, compact and complete without renouncing a solid construction and good performance. It is a 2 in 1 that guarantees great flexibility in terms of adaptation to use away from the desk, with the pen that is definitely a plus not to be underestimated. Performance also convinced me and above all the ability of the system to adapt to the needs of the user in different working situations. In short, when you have to stretch your muscles, this Specter X360 has what it takes to do it in complete safety, but if this is not necessary, there is no waste of unnecessary energy, to the full advantage of autonomy. The parameters provided by Intel's Project Athena program are all well respected, such as the battery life in real use of more than 9 hours and the wake-up time of less than a second.

But how much is it? The price list speaks for 1299.99 euros, on Amazon it is about 50 euros more. There are not a few in the absolute sense, but frankly, seen and considered everything we have just said, it is not a figure that I consider exaggerated. There are some similar solutions between the competitors' proposals and the prices are aligned, in some cases even slightly higher. Right now I would certainly recommend it to those who have no budget problems and need an agile but reliable machine, without forgetting the street price and its evolution. Break through the 1000 euro wall, and we will get there, this is an absolutely noteworthy product for everyone.