2024 HP Spectre x360 14 REVIEW - This Changes Everything

*Pricing is still being finalized, but as of the recording of this review, the Spectre x360 14’s starting price is $1,650. Presumably, that’s for the entry-level configuration of an Intel Core Ultra 5 125H CPU, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD. My review configuration with a Core Ultra 7 155H, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD is $1,970, which would be a very reasonable price for a heavily upgraded machine
#HP #spectre

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Video Index:
00:00 Intro
01:17 Specs & Pricing
02:02 Unboxing, Build & Design
05:25 Size & Weight
06:03 Ports & Connections
06:40 Internals & User Upgradeability
07:53 Display
09:11 Pen Support
09:35 The Modes
09:54 Webcam, Mics & Fingerprint Scanner
11:25 Performance and Benchmarks
14:17 Thermals, Surface Temps & Fan Noise
15:33 Battery Life
16:07 Hinges, Keyboard & Haptic Touchpad
18:08 Audio & Speaker Test
20:42 Pros & Cons
21:38 The Score
22:01 Outro

[Luxinatoris]

Always looking forward to your reviews, the coverage is excellent as usual

[devmeena]

Your style of reviewing the laptop is outstanding.. Like showcase by opening the backlid of laptop, also audio caparison with industry standard macbook.... Well done.. Keep it up 👍

[LouisPhilippeBourret]

nice video review!
1 suggestion could be to look at perf (and comparison) when unplugged / running on battery v.s. when using AC

[na]

this just replaced my apple silicon mac and ipad combo- im IN LOVEEEE

[rccc]

This Spectre looks gorgeous. I hope the thermals to be way better than the previous editions and that the fans don't make much noise.

[berntlie]

Best combination of video and (spoken) audio I've seen/heard so far: crisp clear video, natural colors, no sound dropouts.

[medicgaming]

So my take on the 16 inch version so far (1800p OLED, 16/1tb, 4050 55W). I quite like it but it’s not quite as good as I’d hoped in certain areas. First of all, the display: it’s pretty good, gets decently bright, but as with HP their touchscreen OLED displays have this visible ‘haze’ when you look up close. The best way of putting it is that it looks like there’s always ‘noise’ in the display, but from a normal viewing distance, you don’t really notice it. 120HZ, and apparently G-SYNC compatible thanks to the 4050, but haven’t found a setting to suggest that. Pleasant screen to use, but I wished it got dimmer. My Latitude 9330 reaches as low as 0.9 nits which is 1 nits lower than my iPhone, it’s so dim to the point where I’m struggling to see the display when it’s pitch black.
Performance: whilst the Ultra 7 155H is good, I wasn’t expecting the fans to keep intermittently engaging. What makes things worse is the power modes are all over the place. Let’s talk about unplugged: high performance tends to result in the least fan noise, whilst Smart Sense and Balanced engage the fans far more often. Here’s the thing, power saving mode maxes out the fans! There is definitely a bit of work HP need to here. When the laptop’s plugged in, the power modes make more sense.
4050: it’s a low power variant (55W according to Nvidia’s Control Panel) but I’ve found gaming performance to be quite decent. For games that support DLSS 3, it’s going to easily beat a 3050 Ti (85W), but for those without, the 3050 Ti wins, and it’s a sizeable win for some games like TF2. The system cools really well, playing TF2 whilst connected to an external monitor uncapped, and GPU temps don’t even exceed 55 degrees, and the fans are unbelievably quiet (performance mode). They have a higher pitch to them, and more so at lower speeds, hence why I don’t like them turning on and off constantly.
Keyboard and Trackpad: Personally I prefer the Envy 15 x360 OLED keyboard, it just has more travel and is more satisfying to type on, but the one featured on this laptop is still very good. Trackpad is massive, glass but palm rejection isn’t the best. Haptics are quite nice.
Speakers: Honestly a disappointment. My 13.3 inch Latitude 9330 sounds far better. Much greater depth and the clarity of voices is better as well. By the size of the speaker cutouts on the front edge, I would have expected a much beefier system, but they’re nothing special. Not that I own the Envy anymore because of the 1080p OLED display which I deemed too low res when drawing, but the speakers on that were better. You can probably infer that a laptop’s speakers are quite important to me, and it certainly won’t be the case for many others.
Also to mention is the high RAM usage. Even with 16GB of soldered memory (the 32GB option was £300 more at the time I pre ordered) it gets used up an awful lot by HP software/bloatware. I uninstalled the OMEN hub because that was pointless, and would take up around 400MB all the time. Removing that and McAfee the situation has improved a little.

Webcam: Not sure what the hype is honestly. It’s 9MP, sure, but my latitude 2MP webcam is more colour accurate, and looks as sharp if not more so 😅.
It still dunks on Dell’s XPS offerings though, so there’s that!
Microphones are excellent.

I’m still choosing to keep it thanks to its form factor and the fact it plays games well without overheating at all. From looking at the underside, it doesn’t look much different to a Victus machine with the same dual fans side by side.

My overall rating would probably be a 7/10, for the money.

Improvement points, speakers are comparatively weak to even 13 inch premium convertibles like my Latitude, and so better speakers would be nice. Fan curves are odd and power modes are all over the place.

[mihaipredescu]

Great job, as always, Andrew! A real joy and life-saving videos you make. Really grateful for that! Keep it up! I wait for Lenovo new 2024 laptop line, curious about what do they have in store for us.

[Kaolein]

Excellent detailed Test. Thank you very much. I think I now know what I need.

[aaryan_wagh]

Such a massive improvement: I love it, didn't mind the 3:2 aspect ratio from last year that much though

[AhmadQ.]

Great review as usual. Wish you cover the pen performance when it comes for typing and drawing when you review 2 in one laptops. 🎉🎉 Keep up the great work

[antoniovalencia]

Hey Andrew, great review! I just received a customized Spectre but I got several blue screen errors and the laptop wouldn't even load for the first time. Surprisingly, this is the second Spectre I've purchased (prior gen) with the same issue. Wonder if anyone has had similar issues? I'm returning mine but I appreciate your thoughtful comparison to other laptops, your insights are spot on!

[Cybertron]

As always, love your videos!!! Did this newer 2.8k 120hz Oled panel have the same Screen Door Effect like previous generations and a lot of other touch related OLED screens? Because that was the thing that was bothering me most in previous generations. This is especially noticible on white & gray background and lite colors. And for some like me very annoying! In the video it seems that black on the OLED screen isn't black but had rather green-grayisch film over it, is it due to the filming? Or some sort of Antireflective cote ? Thanks!!!

[FerdieSwinkels]

This looks amazing! Thanks for the very in-depth review, just ordered mine thanks to your review :)

[TheTastefulThickness]

Wifi 7, BT 5.4, D.p 2.1. OLED at 120hz. Top tier specs.

[LwPull]

Niiice, thanks for the great review AMD!
I’m surprised the dongle they included doesn’t have an SD card reader, I think they missed an opportunity to make up for it missing from the device itself.
Other than that this ticks all the boxes on my wish list I mentioned in the comments of the thinkpad z14 unboxing - oled convertible with 32gb of ram (you didn’t underline just how stupid fast that ram is clocked to by the way, 7466 is crazy good and helps with igpu) that can do hardware AV1 encoding - something not yet available with a ryzen 7040 or 8040.
Love it. Will wait a bit to see what other manufacturers come up with but unless someone does all this AND includes the SD reader then this is the one for me :))) 👌

[GauravSharma]

Indepth review as always. Thanks Andrew.

[marvnch]

Awesome review! Do you have any insight into how the battery performs when the screen is set to 60hz as opposed to the 120hz mode?

[medicgaming]

I just pre-ordered the 16 inch model with a 4050. £1600 is a lot don't get me wrong, but i'm partial to HPs keyboards; they are quite literally my favourite, excellent comfort for long typing sessions. Delivery in 10-15 days.

[AsthmaQueen]

In your reviews of 2 in 1's please include a diagonal line test, where you draw a diagonal line with a plastic ruler or freehand at different speeds.
Many 2 in 1's struggle with this due to emissions and digitizer. Interested to see how new spectre holds up to this otherwise very good review.
Palm rejection mentions is a plus as well.