If you’re looking for a premium, ultraportable laptop, there aren’t many options to be found in the Windows world. Apple’s been owning this segment of the laptop market for so long that it almost feels like other companies have given up. But they haven’t, and HP is trying its hardest to change that perception with the new Spectre.
In terms of premium design and ultraportable features, the Spectre is as good as you can get. It’s super thin (the thinnest in the world, according to HP), super light, and super well-made. It’s made of aluminum and carbon fiber and even has some coppery-gold bling in case you forget that this isn’t your run of the mill bargain bin laptop. It’s priced premium too: the Spectre starts at $1,169, and the unit I’ve been testing sells for $1,249. In case you haven’t figured it out, those are Mac prices and HP is putting Apple’s computers – namely the MacBook and the MacBook Air – squarely in its sights with the Spectre.
It’s easy to compare the Spectre to the MacBook just based on how thin it is, but a more accurate description would be that the Spectre takes the best hardware features of the MacBook and mates them with the best hardware features of the MacBook Air. The Spectre weighs just under two and a half pounds and is a mere 10.4mm thick when closed, making it just as portable as the MacBook. But it still has a 13.3-inch display, full-size keyboard (with real key travel), and Intel’s more powerful Core i5 and i7 processors – features that are found on the MacBook Air, not the MacBook.
The Spectre’s design is eye-catching, but it can be polarizing. The dark brown metal finish stands out from the sea of silver aluminum laptops, and the details in the speaker grilles and the logo on the lid are handsome. But the display hinge, while very fancy and cool-looking, is clad in a shiny coppery-gold finish, and it’s definitely not a look for everyone. It’s also very prone to picking up fingerprints, which makes it go from "premium" to dirty-looking in just a few minutes of use.
EYE-CATCHING, POLARIZING DESIGN
The 13.3-inch display on the Spectre is larger than the MacBook’s 12-inch screen and it’s higher-resolution than the MacBook Air’s panel. At 1080p, it won’t win any awards for pixel density (and in fact, the smaller MacBook actually has a lot more pixels), but it’s plenty sharp enough for its size. It’s also bright with good viewing angles and covered in Gorilla Glass 4 for durability. The biggest limitation I’ve found with the display is actually due to the hinge: it doesn’t tilt back far enough for my needs, making working on the Spectre while at a standing desk more awkward than it should be.
Despite the Gorilla Glass, the Spectre’s display isn’t a touchscreen, which is a bit odd for a high-end Windows 10 laptop. While many other Windows machines attempt to be more than a laptop by transforming into a tablet, the Spectre is content with just being a very well executed traditional laptop that expects you to interact with it solely through the keyboard and trackpad. HP says that a touchscreen panel would have made the Spectre thicker, so it was omitted in the pursuit of thinness.
In terms of other traditional laptop qualities, the Spectre hits the right marks. The keyboard is comfortable with good travel and backlighting. I had no trouble getting up to my usual speed typing on it. Likewise, the trackpad is smooth and glassy and tracks very well without making the cursor jump around erratically. It’s smaller than the trackpads on Apple’s computers or even other Windows machines, however, and that can make it feel cramped. I didn’t miss a touchscreen on the Spectre very much… until I got frustrated with the small size of the trackpad and wished I could just reach up and poke my finger at the display.
The Spectre is also more powerful than you might expect
GOOD STUFF
Super thin and super light
Comfortable keyboard
More ports and power than the MacBook
BAD STUFF
Small trackpad
Mediocre battery life
Tinny speakers
Hinge has limited rotation
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