- Design
HP build quality with a big beautiful OLED display that can flip around into tablet mode? Did I mention the ability to add a discrete graphics card? Say no more! C'est magnifique!
We have seen some CoPilot+ PCs make their way onto the Australian market but not everyone thinks that they, nor the world, are ready for that just yet. AI might be the next big thing but is it really ready for the primetime?
For a vast majority of us there’s not much of a need to CoPilot+ and lucky for us there are plenty of options available. HP sent us one such option recently, the HP Spectre x360 16, a big, bright and beautiful laptop that has left us incredibly impressed.
The Spectre x360 range from HP is the premium convertible laptop range with 360 degree hinges and touch displays of either 14- or 16-inch in size. The HP Spectre x360 16-inch laptop we were sent is their most premium Spectre laptop with a touch 2.8K OLED display, with 32GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H 3.80GHz processor and a NVIDIA GeForce RTX4050 GPU.
The Spectre range can cost anywhere from the top end $5,148 (review laptop) down to just $2,999 for the 14-inch Ultra 5, 16GB, 512GB version.
Hardware and design
Our HP Spectre x360 16 in Nightfall black aluminium with their ‘sandblaster finish’ and while it sounds spectacular it is just marketing speak. It is black. It does have stylish edging though to make it less of a black block.
I quite like this styling. Without being over the top it is an elegant design that looks good without being gaudy or cheap. Speaking of cheap, which it is far from, it does not feel cheap with the premium build quality exactly what you would expect from a brand that has been making laptops for a long time.
The HP Spectre x360 16 is HP Spectre x360 weighs 1.95kg which, although not the lightest laptop around, is easily manageable if you were carting it around for personal use.
As with so many laptops these days, there are not a lot of ports on this laptop but there are enough. There is a single USB Type-A port, a full sized HDMI 2.1 port, a headphone/microphone combo jack and two Thunderbolt 4 with USB Type-C 40Gbps ports.
I’m not sure what else you may want to connect but this is enough for any productivity laptop in 2024. Connectivity-wise the Spectre x360 16 supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 and while Wi-Fi 7 would be nice but at this stage real world speeds won’t make that much of a difference.
The keyboard is a laptop keyboard with minimal travel, which I actually prefer. It is not as pronounced as the keyboard on say, a MacBook Air but it is really easy to type on accurately and with speed.
One of my must-haves is a backlit keyboard and luckily the HP Spectre x360 16 has this. There are three brightness settings for the backlight with one of them being off (if you call that a brightness setting).
The touchpad is massive, HP’s biggest ever in a laptop and its great although if you like the left and right click it is difficult to reach all the way to one side quickly with such a big touchpad.
As you may have guessed from the name and the pictures you’ve already seen in the review, the laptop lid rotates around a full 360 degrees. There is some stiffness to the hinge on the laptop but this means that it will not shake or wobble or fall out of the position you are using it in.
The hinge not only allows you to use the laptop in tent style but also as a tablet – the Spectre x360 16 does support pen use and although HP did not send a pen for me to try I would definitely be buying the pen to use with this.
Performance
The review version of this laptop is specced to the highest level possible so you’d expect it to handle all my productivity purposes easily – and it did. I was able to run all software needed, including video editing software (this laptop did have a Nvidia GeForce RTX4050 GPU installed) without any issues.
Using the HDMI port or the Thunderbolt 4 ports I was able to easily drive a 45-in LG OLED curved gaming monitor.
Whether you need this much power is up to you and what your requirements are. If you are a creator you will most likely want the discrete GPU but for standard productivity purposes I doubt it. Obviously this would change the price extensively too.
The camera supports Windows Hello login which I love and wish all laptops had it.
Display is beautiful
The display is beautiful to look at, as many OLED laptops are these days. Its specs are:
40.6 cm (16″) diagonal, 2.8K (2880 x 1800), OLED, multitouch-enabled, 48-120 Hz, UWVA, edge-to-edge glass, micro-edge, anti-reflection Corning Gorilla Glass NBT, Low Blue Light, SDR 400 nits, HDR 500 nits, 100% DCI-P3
The high resolution display is a pleasure to use with accurate colours that pop and deep blacks and I can see why HP recommends it for creators.
The brightness is just 400nits but that is incredibly bright inside and can be used relatively comfortably outside but you may have issues with glare outside at times, as you would with most laptops.
Battery and charging
I was able to easily get a day’s use of the laptop doing basic work, playing some basic games and listening to music. Not sure what more you could ask for but I’m super happy with that. It wouldn’t be often I’d be away from a charger for that long.
The HP Spectre x360 16 supports HP Fast Charge and, with the laptop off, you can charge from 0 to 50% in about 45 minutes – according to HP. In my testing, with the laptop on (but lid closed), I was able to charge from 8% to 61% in 39 minutes so you can be sure HP’s statement is fairly accurate. Another 23 minutes will get it to 80% for that extra bit of peace of mind.
Should you buy it?
The HP Spectre x360 16 is an expensive laptop but you get what you pay for. The OLED display is extremely high resolution and produces amazing colours and incredible blacks. The hinges are solid and allow for full 360 degrees of rotation of the display and the full tablet use.
The laptop is designed for high end users who want to create, and with the inbuilt discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX4050 GPU it can process large videos with ease. It is relatively portable, even though it is packed full of goodness and is a 16-inch laptop, making it incredibly useful for creators on the go.
If you want to check it out, you can head to the HP online store, or the usual retailers.
