Review HP Spectre x360 15t 2in1


ed here with the digital digest and today i wanted to share my full review the digitally digested segment for the hp spectre x360 15t now this is the refresh for 2020 that means we have the new design the 90 screen to body ratio just like we got with the 13t at the end of 2019 this has been my daily driver love this machine but i have to say this is even more impressive granted not as portable and won’t fit in some bags that i wish it would but still for its size and for its price this is really hard to beat even with tiger lake around the corner especially if you need a machine today now with that said it’s also constantly out of stock so i’ll include a link in the description directly to hp with this exact configuration which i’m about to go over a little under 1900 us dollars you’ve got a 15.6 inch 4k amoled display gorgeous in my opinion the best display i’ve seen on any laptop to date of course it is touch screen this is a two in one it does not come with a pen this is my hp tilt pen that i purchased in conjunction with the 13t this is

what i’ve used primarily on this machine and that’s also what was used in the inking video that is online i’ll include a link in the description i may even edit that into this and overall the comet lake that is an intel comet like six core i7 processor that’s under the hood is completely competent it is not a generational leap in the way many would hope that seems to be what tiger lake has to offer but no word yet on this getting a tiger lake refresh so there’s no point in even getting into that discussion if you need a pc now especially a two in one that is a desktop replacement this is the machine to beat in my opinion so that 1075 0h is a solid cpu but then you’ve also got the nvidia gtx 1650 ti with max q design four gigs of dedicated gddr6 ram which means you’re going to be able to game at 1080p medium settings pretty much any title it’s not a gaming laptop because that’s not a high-end gpu but for the size of this machine again at a little over four and a quarter pounds or a little under more with the 135 watt brick really impressive i have to say even though you can find that gpu and smaller machines like the razer blade stealth i would much rather have it here again 1080p gaming you are going to be fine the two titles that i predominantly tested were rust and call of duty world war ii which are not similar titles at all but that gives you a good variation of what it’s capable of and i had no problems uh you know keeping solid frame rates with either of those titles when we talk about the processor and gpu the other thing you have to think about of course is video editing photo editing you’re not going to have any problems at all between the cpu gpu combo you have here now in my experience i

have been using this as my workhorse since i got it for review because that’s the way to put it through its paces right not just running benchmarking tests those are good but real world use is best in my opinion and i used vegas 17 pro the suite and my render times using the gtx were significantly better than the 13ts iris plus solution which of course is an integrated intel graphics solution not a dedicated gpu but that you could have guessed right i mean that’s no breaking news is it a world of difference no but is it critical to people who actually plan on doing video editing on a regular basis like if this is going to be your single machine absolutely for me the 13t is my daily driver but i have an incredibly powerful desktop so if i need to do any real heavy lifting i turn to my desktop for many of you this is going to be your only computer and that’s why it is important to have the best of both worlds in a package like this so gorgeous display solid processor solid gpu we’ve got 16 gigs of ram a one terabyte nvme drive that is an intel nvme that is upgradable the ram is soldered for those of you that are wondering so again 16 gigs in this configuration uh and i recommend that the brightness on this display uh is a little over i think it’s like 340 350 nits but the color accuracy is excellent as you would expect from an amoled display and i love that hp gives you their display mode preferences whether you want the default web which is of course srgb photo which is adobe rgb dci p3 movie or just native something most

manufacturers don’t do it shows that they recognize content creators care about those things and i specifically do and i’ll be touching on the new 14-inch spectre that is slated to come out this year because some of you may be wondering if that may be a better option than this i’ll tell you first and foremost that’s not aimed at being a desktop replacement to my knowledge no gpu options so i don’t really see that as a competing model but more of a complimentary one also they shifted to a three by two aspect ratio 3000 by 2000 amoled display which i’m sure is going to also be great but again appealing to a different customer that doesn’t care necessarily about the benefits of having content consumption with a 16 by 9 aspect ratio like i do so anyone who’s looking for a taller display like is offered by thing you know machines like the surface laptop surface book that’s what i feel like it’s directly competing with but again no gpu option no 4k resolution that for me would take it off the table not ruling it out i hope to review it soon and share that machine with all of you as well we’ve talked about the processor we’ve talked about the gpu both being competent the ram perfectly fine

let’s talk about battery life heat keyboard track pad because track pad by the way that’s one of the biggest critiques on this machine that it’s just too small i’m fine with it but hp’s listened and even on that new 14-inch model that’s coming out that i just mentioned which i feel like is really more of an answer to this machine even though they’re going to still be making the 13 tee with tiger lake that should be pretty exciting they have made the track pad larger so whenever the refresh for this machine arrives the track pad will be bigger no question about that but i feel it’s perfectly fine i’ve had no build quality problems by the way that was something that plagued me with the 13t none here at all with the 2020 15t so for those of you wondering will you have a wonky machine with popping creaking none of that and this was the only review unit that hp sent over i didn’t have to communicate and sit you know say this one’s popping this one’s got this no perfect uh so that’s another reassuring thing and it should be i mean it’s an expensive machine but i do feel you’re getting what you pay for fingerprint scanner works as expected the windows hello ir camera feature i think is a must-have i do wish the webcam quality was better in terms of keyboard i love it personally i like that we’ve got the numerical pad but that’s to be expected with a machine of this size even though it’s fairly small and light for a desktop replacement esque machine granted again the gpu is not you know a high

ultra high end gpu it’s still one that i believe for most users for the broadest audience is going to do the job quite well in addition to that you know as i just stated the trackpad touchpad i’m perfectly happy with could it be bigger sure that’s why they’re making it bigger uh but i have no complaints about that what i do love about the keyboard same thing besides the actual key travel and chiclet style are the dedicated mute buttons so you have a dedicated mute button for the system audio which gives you an led indicator which i would not trade for the world because it’s a pain in the ass to have to go look to see whether things are muted and make sure but with that light you don’t have to wonder and then the same applies to the microphone and privacy these days that is an important thing of course we also have a kill switch for the webcam which as i’ve mentioned i wish was better same pretty bad webcam that you’ll find in the 13t but that’s a product of them making it you know shrinking it down to that size to get it into that tiny bezel and that’s a trade-off i’m willing to live with would i like to see them improve it of course another thing i’d like to see them improve the speakers uh the bang olufsen b o speaker array that’s across the entire deck here it can get loud but it’s mediocre at best and that seems to be

another thing it shares in common with the 13t is just that you know no one can touch that lenovo 940 c940 audio performance with that sound bar i wish that it could because this and the webcam are probably my biggest complaints about this machine and if those are the biggest complaints you know how good this machine is now when it comes to inking uh it’s solid i mean my fiance is the artist not i for me i would just be doing note taking but to give you an example of what some of that inking looks like just go ahead and open that up and you can see a sketch this was a quick sketch that she did and i may incorporate it uh incorporate the inking video uh that we put together for the channel that she did i shouldn’t say we i just put it on the channel right um into this video or just link you to it i’ll decide in post but uh you know her input on it was that it was good but she prefers the tab s7 so that gives you a good idea and i think this applies to really all two-in-ones is that it’s great to have the versatility of the touch screen and the pen input it’s great to have the ability to flip the entire uh display around and work on it in this mode it’s great to have all the different modes tent mode all those things but you know she ran into enough issues with palm rejection and then just you know sketchbook not being the greatest piece of software to work with i mean those are more windows problems than they are hp problems that’s not something i blame on hp and that reminds you that if digital art is really what you’re after these machines none of the two-in-ones are ideal they’re serviceable but not ideal that is the takeaway and if you look for online content you’re gonna see there’s not a

tremendous amount i mean it’s it’s kind of wacom or bust these days and so while this is integrated and it’s a good extra value i’m not going to tell anyone they should buy it just for this purpose especially based on her input as i mentioned you’ve got you know tent mode you have of course media content consumption like that that we were just doing or drawing because it can go completely flat the whole idea is that you have that 365 degree hinge and you don’t have to worry about anything the screen getting scratched here because we do have bumpers or the keyboard getting damaged when it’s in the mode it just was in which is consumption or of course drawing now in terms of battery life i mentioned you can charge this with a 65 watt type c charger and it’ll do the job but you will not get full performance nor will it charge as quickly in order to do that you’re going to want to use their included 135 watt brick which i have here which is fairly large about twice the size as the 65 watt but there you’re gonna get the true quick charge capability which again hp quotes at fifty percent in up to thirty minutes a little over an hour is going to get you fully charged up and if you want full performance this is the way to go so if you’re doing any photo or video editing rendering you want to use the supplied 135 watt uh power adapter no question about that now in terms of i o that’s another

thing i want to address because this is a two-in-one that acts as a desktop replacement and if this is going to be your primary all-in-one machine which i think it’s incredibly competent and capable of being you have to be aware of what’s on board so let’s take a quick look i’ll flip it again and we’ll start with the left side of the machine which you can see right there we’ve got a full size hdmi 2 dot uh oh i believe it’s b so i mean if you were looking for 2.1 you’re not finding that on this generation of machine but completely capable right next to it is the actual port for charging with that 135 watt adapter three and a half millimeter headphone jack uh microphone jack combo ventilation then we go to the other side of the machine and we’ve got uh two type c ports here but only one of them is a thunderbolt 3 port be aware of that then a type a port the type a and the type c that are not thunderbolt are still completely competent they’re just not thunderbolt 3 ports so be aware you know some machines have two ports capable of the 40 some don’t in this case you’ve got 140 lane and then you’ve got 210s so just be aware and then more ventilation here and then a micro sd card slot right there i wish we had a full size sd card slot i don’t know why really no one except for vaio does this anymore i mean there are a few other fringe

manufacturers i think msi there are a few out there but i wouldn’t buy those so that’s an issue in terms of heat and battery life that’s another thing i know a lot of you are going to be wondering about so battery life is actually i was impressed i wasn’t expecting with this 15.6 inch 4k amoled to get great battery life but i legitimately got anywhere from five to seven hours depending on my usage so that is really impressive for a desktop replacement with all of this hardware a dedicated gpu that can game can really cut down uh you know render times again depending on the software use i was using vegas but the same would apply to adobe premiere so that’s pretty promising in my opinion would it like to see a battery that could uh go the distance even beyond that sure but is that realistic no not so much not at least right now maybe with tiger lake but again the i you know i don’t know if it’s 350 or 400 nit brightness that you have here which right now i don’t have all the way up if i take it all the way up it was close to all the way up you can see and then how dark you can get going to the lowest level the amoled is just beautiful i mean it’s the star of the show don’t get me wrong the cpu is great um again that’s not tiger lake great but it’s great uh for here in 2020 even if it’s not a leap from the previous gen and the gpu you know it’s been around the block so it’s not fresh brandt’s bank and new but totally competent capable for i think anything that anybody would plan on doing with this machine so we’ve gone over uh

display performance uh the pen the inking experience is solid i would say it’s about as good as it gets in the pc realm uh pretty much the same as my experience with the 13t but i think a little bit better just because of the extra horsepower that always is going to help you know headroom with the actual internal internal processing power is going to benefit you there keyboard is great the dedicated kill switch i didn’t mention uh which is right next to the type a port that is something that really i don’t know how i bothered with laptops before that existed i mean you know a lot of manufacturers just incorporate like lenovo and it’s not a knock against them just a little switch that you flip and it just covers it this actually kills the power to it i like hp’s approach here it’s smart it’s what manufacturers should be doing more of just like the mute buttons for the microphone and speakers having an led notification light i mean i think that’s just a no-brainer i mentioned these feet are going to prevent the keyboard from getting scratched they’re also going to prevent the screen from getting scratched or imprints from the keys themselves now when it comes to uh how hot this machine gets over that five to seven hours of battery life it can get pretty toasty and that is another thing it shares in common with the 13t i was hoping that wouldn’t be the case it doesn’t get very loud through the course of this video i know i haven’t been doing anything but you know a lot of people can complain with the lenovo c940 convertible that fans

would kick up when you were doing nothing and that that did happen on occasion not a lot for me i don’t really see any of that here which is promising i think that’s a good thing and i have been using this again as a daily driver workhorse for i don’t know if it’s a month but it’s it’s right around there somewhere around there so that says a lot but when you are putting it through the paces when you are gaming at 1080p uh when you are rendering video or doing photo editing you are going to see this machine get hot hot enough that you do not want it on your lap and even though the ventilation is all pretty much on the side i do not recommend having it uh you know on any sort of surface that can in any way block ventilation i mean that applies to any machine on earth so that’s not unique to this one but something you need to be aware of and you know tiger lake shows a very big leap in performance from what we’ve got here but remember the 14 inch spectre that was just revealed and i’m glad that i waited to do the full review because had i done it and then that had been revealed i wouldn’t be able to give you any insight on my thoughts with that i think it’s a really promising machine and it’s an in-between between this and the 13t and both of these machines are going to see tiger lake eventually although i know they said with the 13t it’ll be first quarter of 2021 so i mean that’s not that far away right whereas the specter 14 is

going to launch before the end of the year but remember as i mentioned that machine is not going to have a dedicated gpu that machine is not going to have a 4k uh resolution so if you prefer having if you don’t care about the gpu and you don’t care about having a 4k 16 by 9 aspect ratio which is a matter of personal preference then that might be the machine that’s worth waiting for it’s about to launch i’m sure there are going to be inventory issues with it too because this thing has been selling out for a reason there is no other machine i mean i’m waiting for a lenovo refresh and it’s coming but there is no machine that directly competes with this in my opinion between the display processor gpu uh the actual weight of it battery life i mean it just checks every box and frankly had it been available when i was shopping laptops at the end of 2019 i probably would have gone with this but i don’t have regrets because the 13t still can go places even though we’re in a pandemic and i’m not traveling and that’s why i said i probably would have gone with this so if i knew we were all going to be trapped in this bit of covet hell then you know portability would not have been as important to me and i would have liked the versatility of the extra horsepower both on the cpu and gpu side and when it comes to connectivity you know intel wi-fi six chipset on board is best in class it’s

the standard right now bluetooth connectivity has also been great so no real complaints i mean at the end of the day the only thing that i can tell you is an issue or are issues with this machine again audio performance i wish was better wish we had a better webcam especially in a pandemic which i’m sure hp i hope they’re addressing in the 14-inch and future uh refreshes of the spectre lineup and then you know people can argue that the the trackpad is too small but that’s pretty much it and i don’t have a problem with trackpad uh the audio again i wish was a little bit better because when you have such a gorgeous uh 15.6 inch amoled with true color accuracy like this it’s something to behold and if you’re a content creator like myself or you do any form of color proofing this is a phenomenal display to have if you don’t do any of those things it’s still phenomenal and it makes everything else look like trash so these are things you need to be aware of as i mentioned gaming on this it is not a gaming laptop with this gpu but it’s certainly capable enough that you can game would i ever choose this for gaming no but if i was traveling with it it would be fine whereas my 13t it can game but rudimentary you know you’re talking about being able to run things versus not here you actually could run things at 1080p and get

decent frames depending on the game and its settings so i could have you know thrown cinebench and all sorts of benchmarks at you crystal disk on the one terabyte intel nvme that’s all a load of crap at the end of the day it comes down to real world experience and my real world experience with this has been great and i i do recommend you know instead of upgrading the internal nvme drive go out and get yourself a portable one yeah they’re expensive but they’re all different price points whether you go with severant or you get something that’s a little bit slower that’s not thunderbolt 3 capable like the old sandisk these will be completely competent and solve your internal storage problems and i don’t think it’s worth for most of you out there i’m not putting myself in that same group but for most of you i don’t think it’s worth the extra money to invest in upgrading uh the internal nvme drive at least through hp if you want to do that on your own that’s a completely different story you might have an nvme sitting and waiting so that’s a totally different story of course you know

traditional content consumption on here is going to be easy peasy you’re not going to this machine is not gonna sweat it’s a beast of a four point two three or four point two four whatever it is uh pound machine and again i’m sad to see it go because it the fit and finish on it the build quality the display they’re all great and we’ve come a long way here in 2020 uh it’s been a real crappy year but i have to say when it comes to tech it’s been a real solid one and hp has done a great job with this refresh again i wish it had come out last year but it’s here now and if you can find it in stock and you’re wondering whether it’s worth the money it is and as i’ve said waiting for the tiger lake refresh it’s one of those things where that’s going to be sometime next year because you know this has been out for several months but it hasn’t been out a year so keep that in mind and you’re not going to see a refresh so quickly and tiger lake does show a tremendous amount of promise so i’m all for it i’m very excited about what we’re going to see in the 13t and the 14 but the truth is is that if you’re always waiting for the next latest and greatest you’ll always be waiting so if you need something now and you can get this in stock you will not be disappointed with this in my opinion it pretty much checks every single box i’ve told you the weak

points it does get pretty hot when it’s under load i didn’t really notice any true throttling or performance issues hibernation some bugginess here and there but you know there are updates uh fairly regularly from hp to address those things and i haven’t been having problems with that you know out of the box initially some issues but i feel like that happens with every manufacturer and again that 14 inch version that was just announced it doesn’t for me it doesn’t feel like it directly competes with this since it doesn’t have a 4k display the 3×2 aspect ratio is for a different customer than myself personally and in addition to that no gpu option so i don’t see that as a direct competitor at all remember this does not come with a pen so if you plan on utilizing pen input you’re going to have to purchase that separately you can bundle it on hp’s website i do recommend the tilt pen over the regular one only because i prefer not having to rely on quadruple a batteries so keep that in mind and then just for you know a point of

reference here is the 13t seated on top of the 15t and you start to get an idea a little bit of dust there of the footprint difference and that’s one of the reasons i still love the 13t is that this can fit in places that you know the 15 just isn’t going to make it like in camera bags i have that were originally designed for tablets only this can actually make it which is amazing but you know it’s it’s not the machine this is no question about it are they separate are they worlds apart no they are not when it comes to battery life they’re not worlds apart uh you know processor not worlds apart but at any rate that’s a different video that’s not today’s that’ll be a much shorter comparison uh then this in-depth full review look at this and before i wrap it up one other thing that i would be remiss not to share is the carry case which is essentially the same one that came with the 13t hp has been bundling these now for a while faux leather does the job you want something that’s going to protect the machine and just give you the ability to you know keep it you know slim and as light as you possibly can and that’s exactly what this case does and then in addition to that you have the ability right here to pocket your pen of choice and you’re good to go and that’s it and folks that is the hp spectre x360 15t for 2020 i highly

recommend it if you’re on the fence get off this is in my opinion as i stated at the top of the video the best two in one of its kind on the market right now and of course it will improve like every uh spectrum model has but if you’re looking for the best option right now you will not be disappointed with this machine as i said i am sad to see it go because i have used it as a workhorse and i have my desktop so i don’t need a desktop replacement but a lot of you do and if that’s what you’re looking for this is going to do the trick without breaking the bank because even though it’s almost two thousand dollars after tax god knows desktop replacements go much higher than that especially if you turn to manufacturers that will rip you off and i don’t feel hp does i don’t feel lenovo does but some i some companies that will remain unnamed like to charge insane prices uh for underpowered equipment any questions or comments please feel free to post them hit that like button and as usual please feel free to subscribe and please stay safe later

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