Buying a used 2020 HP Spectre x360 off eBay: Good deal with big problems!

I needed to upgrade my 2018 HP Spectre x360 15 to something faster and a bit easier to carry around, so I ended up scouring eBay for a replacement. I found one that had a bad trackpad, I assumed it just needed a battery.

This video doubles as a How-To on replacing the battery and changing the thermal paste on your x360.

It also details what to look for when buying from eBay, specifically when it comes to replacement laptop parts.

These are great laptops but don’t buy one unless you’re willing to repair it yourself or pay to have it repaired.

[SimiCantStandYaBits]

I know your content is more shorts focused but wish you'd do more videos like this. Its very relaxing.

[phantomgunz]

As a tech enthusiast and fellow technician who has seen plenty of those HP Spectre units die, do NOT buy them, unless you know how to repair them. Cramming high-ish end parts into such a small chassis definitely has some downsides when it comes to heat. They overheat fairly easily, the SSD's tend to fail early, the performance suffers due to thermal throttling too.

[Misspellednumbers]

Ngl, this would've been a nice video to see in 2020. I bought mine for roughly $1600 at Best Buy because of its beauty and became terribly attached to it. Of course, I am the average consumer w/ no laptop repair knowledge, so that very last point really digs deep considering I take it in for a yearly checkup at minimum. 😅 Though, with a reliable and trustworthy technican near me who'll gladly take my money, I'm gonna see who'll give up first: my wallet, my technican, or this laptop.

[CivBase]

That is a nice looking laptop. Shame about the soldered RAM. Curious what your thoughts on the Framework are. Seems like it could be a viable alternative, though definitely at a higher price.

[mattthemouse]

So here is some craziness:

My hp Omen 16 had died. Nothing I did made it work. The power light came on for a second and died. No post or even a screen coming on. I thought it was dead.

That was 2 months ago. I started seeing your videos 2 days ago.

Last night I tried to trouble shoot (again) by removing the boot drive and booting (again).

When I hit the power button, the light stayed on. Then the screen came on with a cmos error (common). Then it worked.

Craziest part is that same day I was looking into sending it to you to look at. Totally crazy!

[Liams-tech]

So I’m not the only one who absolutely adores older ThinkPad keyboards

[Zebra_Paw]

I literally got one for free because it fell on its side and power button was stuck. Owner didn't want it anymore because of what they were quoted to replace the frame.
I soldered two wires and a small external power button. Gave that to my friend who can now enjoy a convertible 4K touch display, an excellent keyboard, excellent audio, and just excellent build quality too!
Now I will agree throttling for no reason is a big issue and HP does that a lot

Your spicy pillows are amazing :) but if you don't want one that's why you use 18650 batteries

[esnho]

I’m here from the shorts, but I loved this longer video.
I used to be a technician something like 15 years ago, and I am a power user looking for powerful laptops that can handle my poorly written generative live visuals.
I’ve always loved Asus laptops, recently I’m appreciating Apple M1s (except for the part where there’s no nVidia card).
Now I’m saving for a TUF laptop but this video makes me think that also high end HPs can be give a chance.
Live visuals are an hobby for me so I don’t like to waste too much money, let’s see!

[jmc]

It's always fun listening to you hate on bad PCs but it was nice hearing you excited about one you liked and being proud of something of yours 😊 recently just upgraded myself.

[score]

I love it too. It's such a good laptop.

[LordOcelot]

Been in this industry for over 30 years and your disclaimer at the end earned yourself a sub. By all means people, get this laptop. I call it job security!

[a.g]

i have an hp envy x360, and i agree with what he said. The display is hands down absolutely BEAUTIFUL, and the laptop over heats like crazy and needs a thermal paste replacement. To anyone who is watching this, if you are planning on buying this kind of laptops, wether the x360 or the spectre, please immediately change the thermal paste if you can because it extremly over heats at times, sometimes even when watching youtube, and secondly, for some reason hp has by default disabled always on cooling fan through the laptops bios. So i suggest you entre the bios and set the cooling CPU fan to always on enabled .

[Renzy]

I just am disappointing with the hinge design as well as its thermals other than that its an amazing laptop, and probably the best looking out there, i hope they arent scared to make a thicker one with some more powerful hardware inside

[thebutterflybuddhas]

That year of laptop just felt awkward in general. It felt like the specs you got just couldn’t justify the price and it’s hard not to feel that way today. I got a steal of a deal last year with a laptop that had a 9750H, 1660ti Mobile and had 64gb of memory (that I bought after) and it cost me only 400$. Caveat being it wasn’t a touch screen but I personally don’t really care for that feature much- so 400$ was a screaming deal. Ended up trading it back for a desktop, as the 9750h and that 1660Ti mobile just had horrible performance compared to its desktop counterpart- thermals aside.

[Brainy]

Secret pro tip for those who have overheating Intel laptops.

Check to see if you can set your cpu to max out at 99% cpu in the power options. This disables turbo boost and will significantly bring down temps. This will slow down the PC a bit though. I had to do this as a kid with a Fujitsu that overheated and shut down when gaming. (Thermal paste did not fix sadly)

[LaczPro]

It was an amazing video. Right now, I have some days with my "new" HP 255 G8. It's nowhere near the level of beauty of that X360, but I love that modularity from HP laptops (that's why I always go back to HP, regardless of being HP. They have their moments, and I think we can agree on that).

The fun part though? I noticed there are a lot of parts from other models of HP laptops that should work with mine, and my laptop's motherboard has some connectors that aren't available for any of the options of this model, but they're definitely available in other lines of laptops that use that same mainboard. I'm having a blast checking what else I can find that might work.

The best ones so far? A backlit keyboard in Spanish and silver (my laptop is darker gray), the stupid palm rest that goes with it can have also a fingerprint scanner that isn't available for my 255 G8 (but the motherboard has the connector) can be made of metal, which is super cool, and the fact that I can use the main M.2 slot, and a SATA or SATA to M.2 adapter in a space where a hard drive can go (but it wasn't included on this one... But it can be added) for more storage.

[aqshay]

im literally binge watching all your long form content, theyre so knowledgeable

[jimmyl]

I have the same one, just with the MX330. Got it in August 2022 for around $800, easily the best laptop I’ve ever owned.

[CantankerousDave]

I have a 2017 HP Spectre x360 13" that's still going strong despite its 4C/8T i7 CPU. Its got a great screen and its battery life is outstanding, so it's a great mini machine to have on the go that's powerful enough to do most things.

[phoenixofmetal]

I have an Envy x360 from the late 2010s and I was honestly surprised to crack it open and not see the battery becoming a collection of spicy pillows after not using it for years after getting a desktop.