HP’s Spectre x360 bulks up to add power and battery
LAS VEGAS – Being thin isn’t everything.
HP’s convertible Spectre x360 Windows 10 touchscreen laptop was one of the thinnest and lightest ultra-books on the market, but the latest 15.6-inch model is indicative of a pair of fresh laptop trends: more room for power and performance, and brilliant 4K displays.
HP unveiled the Spectre as part of its new lineup of portables, all-in-ones and curved systems/displays on Tuesday at CES.
Where the last HP Spectre x360 15.6-inch model weighed roughly 4 pounds and was 16 millimeters thick, the newest model weighs 4.4 pounds and is 17.89 millimeters thick. Not huge differences. In fact, you might not even notice them, but HP executives told us that the added chassis space affords room for discrete Nvidia graphics and 23% more battery.
This is also the first x360 with a 4K, nearly bezel-less display that packs 8 million pixels onto the 15.6-inch (measured diagonally) screen, which adds up to about 282 pixels per square inch. It’s now backed by an Nvidia GeForce 940MX GPU. As with previous Spectre x360s, that screen folds all the around to the back and is, naturally, a touchscreen.
The new laptop will also join the steady march to USB-C. There’ll be two USB-C ports (with one of them backed by thunderbolt 3-level performance). Fortunately, for the port transition-averse, the convertible will include a standard USB port. There’s also an HDMI port and IR camera for Windows Hello facial-unlocking technology.
Other highlights include a wide glass-covered trackpad, backlit keyboard, Bang & Olufsen speakers, an all-aluminum chassis and the ability to charge 50% in 30 minutes.
The system, which ships in February, will be an Intel Core i7 CPU and start at $1,279.
HP EliteBook x360
HP has not completely walked away from the profile race. Its new 13.3-inch EliteBook x360 is, at 14.9 millimeters thick and 2.48 pounds, the world’s thinnest business convertible, at least according to HP. It's also claiming that the laptop can provide more than 16 hours of battery life.
Like the Spectre, this Windows 10 touchscreen offers a 4K display. It also comes with a USB-C port (for datae and charging), along with two standard USB 3.0 ports, a Micro SD slot, a smartcard reader, HDMI-out and a digital pen for use with Windows Ink.
In addition to the built-in IR camera for Windows Hello support, the HP EliteBook x360 adds a fingerprint reader and an integrated PC privacy screen mode.
Running an Intel Core i5 or i7 vPro CPU an SSD drive and up to 16 GB of DDR4 RAM, the system ships before the end of January. Pricing has not been set.
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