HP Spectre X360 2017 vs 2018 changes i7-8550u + Thunderbolt 3 graphics

[@ctay111]

Great video, very informative! I am ordering directly from HP and am customizing the HP Spectre 360 convertible product 1WB97AV_1. I want to make sure I am getting the latest configuration and also to ask you if you know if this will be compatible with my current "Pluggable USB 3.0" which I use for 2 additional monitors and then I have a 3rd external monitor I plug directly into HDMI on the laptop (currently have late 2015 Envy laptop). The port situation is so different, I don't want to be caught off guard. I think the 8705 might be overkill for me, but I am eagerly awaiting your head to head video, but may have already ordered by then.

[@uwave]

I opted for the 8550u, and have been very happy with it. It is literally 2x the speed of my 2017 unit, with class leading startup time including facial recog with the IR camera. But, I use it as a business tool first, and I need 10 hours of battery (lots of tricks needed to get from 7hr out of the box to 10). Don't believe any manufacturer's "up to" battery rating. Maybe you could see 12.5 hours if you use it with the lid closed playing mp3s or something. I'm putting the final edits on the head to head performance which is a twin video - the 8705 obviously beats the 8550u, but my new friend Eliot who did the comparison of perfs, sent me his videos/screen captures of what happens in XTU while running his 8705G. I sent him my perf numbers on the 8550u to compare HtoH in his video. #1 the 8705g is derated to 45W in the laptop - same as dell - the only other vendor who dared to make a 8705G laptop, and #2 it still approaches 100c, lots of fan spin - which is to be expected. My 8550u seldom tops 45C working lightly, 65c fully loaded. The 8550u always power limit throttles - even with 20 min long video renders in 4K it only power limits and doesn't hit anywhere near 100% fan speed. The 8705G limits on temp, power, and current limiting and sometimes 2 of the 3, which is indicative of a well balanced config that is thermally limited compared with a full 65W device like the intel NUC on gamersnexus channel. HP (and likely dell too) are rolling out firmware changes to the 8705G models to address stability issues & BSOD. My analysis of what goes on inside will be a segue into my perf & battery tune video with the tricks to get improved performance & runtime at the same time from factory tuning. I'm still learning those tricks. Buying right from HP is the way to go because for 2018 they improved the tech support first tier folks who are handpicked for the spectre product line. You will get better support through HP than through the retail channel, plus 2 levels of escalation above them if needed. 2017 first tier support wasn't much to speak of. They're probably supporting $29 inkjet printers now.

[@uwave]

Oh yea - forgot the last thing about pluggable monitor ports (usb / non-TB3 egpu). They're performance limited most of the time. The internal HDMI out will do 4K output @ 60fps to my LG Oled tv since it's hung right off the 620 graphics on chip. I would use it first, and if you really want 2 external monitors, then you're a candidate for an e-gpu. I paid like $390 for my AORUS in this vid early 2017, and the cheapest they are today is ~595 because miners bought them & yanked the 1070 cards out then sold off the carcass once 1070 cards sold for over 600 USD.

[@ComboDamageTV]

Just picked up the 2018 model on Black Friday online. Your review definitely tipped the scale on my decision. Thanks again!

[@KIILew]

Great review! I loved the dry comedic reference to the Die Soon SUX vacuum. Well done!

[@doucefrance5481]

Thank yoU ! I was searching informations about these two same models in vain then I found your video thanks to you and I subscribed

[@MJ-gf5ow]

Same same xD

[@naquiroz]

Great video, you sir answered lot of questions I had. Keep up with the good work!

[@uwave]

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I'm working with another Spectre x360 owner who got the 8705G AMD VEGA system to do a head to head comparison - should be up this weekend. Stay tuned for more!

[@channelofh3560]

One of the most genuine and honest video I’ve seen. Wonder if you should do a specter 13 just the 13 not the x360 13, compare with huawei and the new MacBook

[@Temuch2]

Overall great review! Keep going. I like the HP Spectre a lot and would like to hear more about it.

[@uwave]

I just put up a new video about pcie lanes, and how the 12 lanes from the i7-8550u get allocated - it's a screen grab video with no audio. you can look at my video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXive3atZseVY8U which shows how lanes are assigned before & after plugging in the AORUS GTX 1070 + usb 3 hub. The card reports 4 lanes, but there's a TB3 chip in between that is only fed by 2 lanes.

[@DaveSincere]

You're like the second person to do a review of the 2018 Spectre. Really the first to do something more in depth. I just ordered the Spectre X360 with Radeon Vega Graphics.. It should be shipping on 04/12

[@uwave]

Dave - if you'd like to discuss some optimizations, I've been able to improve the cinebench score from 531 to 649 (but not stable there), however it can run reliably yielding a result of 630 or about 9750 on the passmark CPU benchmark. There are also some changes that improve battery life and speed at the same time. I'd be curious to hear how your AMD graphics system behaves under load and if it can handle the 65W TDP without thermal throttling. This is a first for HP to go with the MCM instead of the two-chip solution in the 8550u + MX150. I put a heavy constant load on the MX150 and found the bottom of the case got quite warm before the right hand fan turned on. Last year, the right fan cooled both the USB-C power input + battery charger and the graphics chip - makes me wonder if they'll need both fans to cool the 65W TDP package. Drop me an email if you want to talk strategy for fine tuning the machine - info at uwave dot com.

[@bracho86]

Great Review, just what I was looking for, thank you.

[@uwave]

Thanks Humberto! One thing to be cautious of is reviews over the past 2 months, which are "reviewer samples" and not the finished machine which just started shipping 3 weeks ago. The early samples are not what HP is shipping to customers and lack the recent changes to the design.

[@fadecto]

I think it is worth mentioning that there is also a late 2017 version of the HP Spectre X360 15 (HP Spectre x360 - 15-bl190nz) that comes with an i7-8550u and has the same housing like the 2017 version in the video. I bought the HP Spectre x360 - 15-bl190nz in Switzerland in December 2017. It is currently (May 2017) still the top Spectre x360 - 15 that you can buy in Switzerland while the 2018 version is not available yet. I am pretty sure that this applies not only to Switzerland, but also to the rest of Europe.

[@uwave]

Lars - it's actually my preferred body style - I miss those side speaker stereo image and seldom use the number pad plus the trackpad on the 2017 was HUGE like a macbook. But - the late 2017 "model year refresh" doesn't have the coaxial & round power jack w/ 90 degree plug & ~10% larger battery. It uses a straight in usb-c connector that (if you use the machine all the time like I do) gets worn out after lots of insertions (probably 2000 would be a lower bound of 6/day - maybe more on a busy day). I wore out 2 usb-c plugs on the included brick, and eventually had to rely on the TB3 box to power my (early) 2017 with the generous 0.5m TB3 cable included. I spoke with a fellow from Sweden who also bought the 2018 just when it came out at a local store circa March 2018. I know it takes a bit of time for HP to stock the retail chain - have you tried hp.com? just be sure the flag icon at the bottom left hand of the page is Swiss for keyboard & power cord localization. Ordering direct from HP is often better than retail thanks to the hardware support HP offers in each continent. Expect delivery by fed-ex within 10days, typically 8 days to your door.

[@fadecto]

Hello uwave! Thank you for the information. The 2018 version of the Spectre X360 15 is indeed listed on the HP website in Switzerland. However, the 2018 version is only available with the Kaby Lake G CPUs (with AMD Vega). Speaking of Kaby Lake G, I think that HP redesigned the housing of the 2018 model because of the Kaby Lake G CPUs which have a base frequency of 3.1 GHz (45W TDP?) while Kaby Lake U has around 1.8 GHz (15W TDP). In other words, the 90W USB-C Power Supply of the 2017 version is enough for Kaby Lake U, but not enough for Kaby Lake G. That is probably the reason why HP took the good old 150W power adapter with the round power plug for the 2018 version. Here is some more information about Kaby Lake U/G: ark.intel.com/compare/122589,130411

[@uwave]

[EDIT: see my most recent edit/reply all the way below] Lars - No 2018 8550u in Switzerland? I'm going to do a video (live stream and archive) on how to navigate HP's MAZE website to order a machine. Even HP employees in support CAN'T order the right machine because, they all look the same. The 2017.5 8550u (ONLY) and the 2018 (w/ 10 key) are right next to each other on my (USA) website, and a friend in Sweden bought the same model I did back in March, so unless it is on shipping hold, it SHOULD be available. I'll do a quick webcam / screenshare live vid and have YT archive it. It's insane! I'll check the swiss page and see if I can find it. About the G series procs, I'm an EE, RF&Microwave engineer - but I did supercomputer design in the 90's when we hit 8GHz digital signals, which are most definitely microwave. I **KNOW** in my heart the HP spectre chassis shouldn't dissipate more than 30-35W with CPU+GPU+power losses (~3.5 W thermal) to last, and my 8550u chip seldom runs the fans, if ever, on battery when tuned properly. Everyone I've met on youtube and in the HP Forums has been surprised at HOW HOT the 8705G runs, which is fine if you want to game with it, but it's not a forumula for success. The G gets a 150W round plug, and the U gets a 90W round plug brick (even smaller physically than last year's 90W usb-c brick). I've seen inside the HP 8705g and the Dell 8705G - dell has 50% more cooling and HUGE fans compared to the HP, and dell throttles it to 45W from 65W TDP spec. The G has been "problematic" at the start for both HP/Dell with BSOD heat problems that looks to be why HP released F.13 and F.14 BIOS flashes in the last 14 days to correct the problem. My guess, and that's all it is, is they are derating the thermals on G systems to throttle sooner, as that chip pushes 95deg-c quickly. With the 2018.5 6-core Intel procs, my gut feel is HP will not sell the 8705G after Oct 2018, in favor of a 6-core intel + NVidia chip. My 8550u never gets into the 65c region, even with heavy workloads like video render. Surfing the net is more like 45c with 24 tabs open. 40c with 4 tabs running. *IF* HP wanted to make a gaming system, they should have "raised" the bottom cover 2mm and put bigger fans in because a 150W supply into an ultrabook chassis is just so wrong, at least to me. Watch for a follow up reply when I check what's up on hp.com - and perhaps a good live stream - be sure to subscribe & bell it so you can get an update when that hits. --- uwave.com

[@uwave]

Lars - I just looked online in Switzerland HP page (I know there's a French half and German half, but apparently Switzerland borders America too, which meant English! Navigating Sweden's page was loads of fun). They're GONE from the hp USA site as well. Both the G and U procs, and the entire 2018 product line isn't there. There's 2 possibilities - #1 they ran out of some sole source component (chassis / display come to mind) that shut down 2018 x360 spectre production 100% and when re-stocked they will accept orders. HP used to take orders with "expected delivery" dates - but the new business model is don't sell what you can't make in 1 week. #2 they're on ship hold. 2018 was a DRAMATIC change from 2017, with 2x the performance in the 8550u and less power than 2017, bigger battery, and all sorts of goodness. With those major changes, came risks. It's entirely possible they had to re-tool something minor in China, for example the trackpads are loose in several shipment units due to a mechanical issue. The dirty fix is open it up and put some tape in to close the gap (Dell also has this same issue for 2018! - like HP they use synaptics pads - tape fixes Dell's problem too). Also, keyboard, trackpad, and battery are common to both the 2018 HP models - so any of those parts could stop shipments. Regardless of #1 or #2 causing their products to disappear, it means HP is working on it, since they aren't making profit when they can't sell. My advice: #1 buy from HP, not retail stores - support is far better because all retail does is box it and ship it to HP. #2 if you don't see exactly what you want - call them and ask why. HP phone support salesforce are great, and they have the power to give discounts you CAN NOT get from the hp.com site, especially in cases like this where it is on production hold in China. That makes NOW a great time to call and get a discount on the unit when they become available. Phone sales will do that to make staying with hP attractive so you don't run and buy dell. Also, while the website will never say why, sometimes the sales people do tell you what's going on i.e. "we ran out of [French localized Spacebars] and will have them in on the 10th of the month" I'm joking, obviously - but really it only takes 1 part. It looks like from what you said earlier, the 8550u went away first, now the 8705G is gone. That could be they ran out of motherboards having only 8705G pcb assemblies, which I suspect are pre-loaded in chassis just waiting for the ram + SSD customizations to go inside the case before they test & ship. Then when those ran out the product disappeared completely. Their website design is tied to the mfg line so that the minute a product can't ship, it disappears from their website. With the website as it is today, it will be more difficult to do a video, but I may find an archive of it when both 2017.5 and 2018.0 models sold side by side. One last note -if the US-ASCII keyboard works for you, AND they are not shipping SWISS-ascii keyboards, then you COULD order the USA system shipped to Switzerland, and use an existing power cord for the 3-pin mini IEC connector you already have, or use an adapter. Tell them you have USA 110V power in your home. The supplies are world-wide standards 100-250VAC 90W 50-60Hz - the keyboard is the only real localized option now for the systems - power cord is a minor issue too me. Always check the USA page to see if it' shipping here and not there. That means your keyboard localization is backordered. Good luck - just be patient and stay on the phone with HP. 0xEFB

[@uwave]

In the time it took me to go to archive.org and find the OLD hp page, HP changed hp.com again with a ship date of ~6/6-ish - 6/12 [12 JUN 2018 ] and the 15t-ch011 is back available this PM - This stuff changes by the hour. OK, so - it's NOT showing up on the drill-down page for Suisse localized web store, which makes me think there's a keyboard localization shortage to blame -or- they haven't updated every country since it just came back in stock an hour ago, and possibly something else because they are changing stock levels as I write this to say "limited stock-hurry" - likely due to a Memorial day sale in USA, with USD 150 discounts. They don't always "PUSH" every model, even though you can buy them and get a ship date, and they will arrive. But they've either removed or hidden them from the swiss localized webpage - I tried. I also tried Sweden, where I'd previously found that exact machine back in March 2018, and it's GONE from there as well, and I tried Puerto Rico, which *IS* part of the USA despite what Trump would think, just Spanish keyboard - and they don't have ANY of the 15t-ch0 series, just the 2017 15-bl and what looks lilke 2016 13-ac models. My BEST advice is CALL them VOICE Monday to Europe HP sales - the pre-sales chat is useless because they cut-and-paste a form letter. The phone staff has a vested interest in making a sale, because they are on commission - www.hp.com is a cash cow for HP because it has no commission. If you can deal with getting your own power cord (off the shelf, cutting off the USA plug and putting on a Swiss plug, or using a universal adapter since the supply is world-capable) AND you can deal with a keyboard that doesn't have keys for everything that say a French or German keyboard would, say "hey, I want to order an hp-spectre x360 - model 15t-ch011 (that's 8550u + 16GB ram + 512GB SSD preconfigured and in stock for delivery to USA right now.) I travel ALL THE TIME to the USA and MUST HAVE THAT COMPUTER!). You can always say to them "Well, this is a waste of my time, DELL will sell me what I want! Why can't HP?" and see what happens. Alternately you could specify 15t-ch000 (model -00 means custom config memory, ssd, pen, home/pro win10 which are the only real options other than software preloads). Now, a secret is the 15t-ch000 is also known as the product number 2FW61AV in the USA - I tried putting that in your webpage and it came back to a pavilion speaker looking thing. Ask to order it under that, just make sure it's a x360 not a desktop machine. The -ch011 is fine, since ram and SSD are upgradable and it has 16GB of ram, but going from 8 to 16 GB later means throwing out the 2 x 4GB sticks it comes with and buying 2 x 8 GB sticks to replace them with. Rumor has it you CAN install 2 x 16GB sticks and the system will recognize it. You need a P00 Philips and T5 torx to open it - I can send you the service manual pdf file (HP no longer has it up last I checked). There is one security requirement banks impose: If it ships to Switzerland, it must be bought with a credit card registered in Switzerland paid in CHF and sold through HP - Europe, not HP northamerica (US+Canada - but not Puerto Rico). I was thinking you could buy it with a hold for pickup in USA at the Fed-Ex office, then use Fed-Ex to redirect it to you before it even leaves china so it never gets sent to the USA, but their security will not allow that. It's definitely worth the (hopefully easy) hassle of getting the truth out of them and/or ordering the 8550u 2018 model - I really like it, despite some early driver issues that they are addressing in the last 2 weeks. Please let us know what they respond with. Without being in Europe, I can't get a human being on the phone from there. Good luck!

[@monitoringreviews]

Nice review! Thanks for commenting with the information on my channel. I appreciate it.

[@maxodgaard1335]

Thx for the review..... did you ever make a battery test compare between them?

[@divyakannandk835]

Hi UWAVE. I have purchased the latest 2018 x360 15.6 along with an Aorus 1080 eGPU and SAMSUNG Odyssey HMD for VR. I have a few questions for you. Is the TB3 4 lanes? How much of a CPU bottle neck do you see with your own x360+Aorus 1080 combo? Is there any performance tuning or setting that you would recommend regarding raising the TDP of the 8550 or such to boost eGPU utilization under heavy VR or GAMING? So glad you are making these videos and answering peoples questions related to the x360. Am switching from a Mac primarily for the GPU performance and bang for buck proposition of Windows hardware right now. and I could use your help to get the most performance out of the 15.6 x360+ eGPU combination

[@uwave]

Divyakannan DK - I think you will be very happy with that package. HP specs are 40 G-bit/s on TB3, but on my AORUS 1070, it specs 40 Gb/s with the 0.5 m included TB3 cable, and drops to 20 Gb/s with the 1.0 m (I don't own a 1.0 m). People who've tested the 1070 on TB3 vs 1070 in a PCIE x16 slot report a 5% performance drop when used over TB3 on most activities. My tests agree with that number, which is all that matters as each game/video app will be affected differently, especially if physics solving 3d rendering work is sent over TB3 to the eGPU, then returned to the intel chip for display on the flat panel. Officially, HP has said in literature it has 4 lanes - but what I find odd is some models - NOT the 15" - have 2x TB3/usb-c ports while others (ours included) only have 1 TB3. This may be where the 2 or 4 lane confusion came from, but I'm just guessing perhaps they split 4 lanes into 2 ports. The one port closest to the hinge has a lightning bolt symbol that does NOT have the arrow at the tip, which is the TB3 trademark. The USB-A on the other side has the same symbol. It's just a charging port, which comes from the factory configured to have 5 Volts while off to charge your phone or other USB-c device. Your AORUS box will have one red USB-A and 3 BLUE usb-a ports; the red is charging voltage when AC is connected. You can always turn off x360 usb ports off in Spectre BIOS so as to not make an expensive power bank out of the unit and drain the bat faster. Only the forward most port has TB3 on these 15.6" 2018 models (same for my 2017) My experience w/ setting up PCIE lanes is confined to the x299 R6E mobo; the spectre lacks any bios setup options. Now, as for performance, what I'm about to say sounds contrary to overclocking wisdom that you increase voltage for faster clocks / better performance. You can't change the frequency; HP locked it in bios and the 8550 will "turbo boost" through 2 speedups described in Intel's specs on the 8550u. One new owner asked me about tearing it open and putting liquid metal heatsink TIM compound in - that won't help and likely will hurt. The i7-8550u is [U]ltra low power, and has only one limiting factor that affects performance in the 2018 x360 - POWER. Mine has NEVER thermal throttled in XTU. Download the intel xtreme tuning utility (XTU) and watch the graphs under heavy sustained load (like Cinebench in the background of this video I made). You'll see with XTU your system exceeds TDP of 15W for a while [~10s] at 3.5+ GHz, then throttles back to ~2.7 GHz for the duration, or until the application drops heavy loading. Dropping voltages to CPU core and CPU on chip intel graphics took Cinebench CPU from 531 out of the box to 652, about 20% better. For games, this is a big win, since the proc isn't doing steady work 100% forever. What is a formula to win at performance is to reduce voltage on both the CPU core and on-chip intel 6xx graphics. By doing so, you save power, which is what invokes throttling of clock speed from turbo. I.e. use less power, and you can stay at faster pre-defined turbo clock speeds longer. And that yields performance. Plus it saves battery - double win. I'm thinking of a spectre owner's call-in live stream for sharing knowledge in a couple weeks. I've been using these for the past 3 years and learned lots of tricks over time. The 8550u is the best spectre yet - let me know what time (in UTC/GMT) works best for you to watch a live program. I've met owners from around the world thanks to KZbin! My public email ===> info [at] uwave [dot] com

[@uwave]

I've now got conclusive info for you - working with another new owner, I did before & after snapshots with HWINFO64 - you can look at my video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXive3atZseVY8U which shows how lanes are assigned before & after plugging in the AORUS GTX 1070 + usb 3 hub.

[@VisualArt3D]

You're cool. You should do more reviews

[@uwave]

Thanks! The problem I see with most reviews is they concentrate on showing the unit, taking the glamour shots on a spinning table or spinning camera, and then reading the spec sheet from the seller. And so you end up with tons of the same review - just like the Die Soon Model SUX that hit the computer (???) review circuit a while back. The more interesting people are fellow owners, some of whom congregate on the HP forums for users.

[@cryptokings5165]

thanks for the review. Very well done!

[@archerman1]

Make a comparison please between the new i7 8550u model and i7 8705G.

[@uwave]

These 8705G equipped units just released to ship (even the 8550u was only released about 4 weeks ago for customer purchase which is how I bought mine from HP.com). I have a friend with an 8705G on order from china, est delivery 15th of this month (April) so I'm interested in seeing the power numbers on that system vs. the 8550u (15 watt) plus the mx150 Nvidia chip. I'm getting about 9 hours of honest productivity right now on the 8550u, which is about 2.5 hours more than my old 7500u machine, plus it's faster.

[@archerman1]

oh ok, just realised that in the UK is for pre-order and shippings start in 10 days. I was thinking of buying the new 8705g 8 ram and 512gb ssd, however the price is very similar to the 8550u with 16gb 1t ssd. Want it for 2.7 and 4k video editing and not much for games so I might go with the 8550U version. Still looking forward for more reviews, cheers.

[@uwave]

I'm learning DaVinci Resolve 14.3, and it runs quite well for video work in 4K (I especially like the 270 MB/s UHS-II reader AND the 802.11ac wireless which is giving me solid 866Mbit/s to the netmetal 5 router on 4 simultaneous channels. The display in the background is the HP dreamcolor 10bit IPS LCD with gorgeous video. I just wish youtube didn't compress so much.

[@leendertpengel4265]

Thanks for your review. I use to have an ENVYx360 and knew of the Spectre 2017, but 2 weeks ago I purchased the Spectre 2018 model and found it interesting to hear that there were some great modifications.Do you know a video that disassembles the Spectre 2018 model? Since I'm planning on upgrading the PCIe memeory module from 500GB to 1TB.Rgds, Leendert

[@uwave]

Leendert - I've poked around inside, for the same reason - moving the SSD. It's easy to get to, located in the corner by the power plug entry. You'll need a T5 torx and a P0 Philips - the Philips screws are under the rear anti skid rubber strip. You'll also need a thin (preferably plastic) tool to insert between the bottom cover and frame to separate them and undo the clips. HINT - when you get to re-assemble them, take a cotton swab w/ alcohol wetting and run it around the grove where that cover seats, because any dirt that gets in there will definitely screw up the process of re-installing the lid. also wipe around the edge of the bottom pan you're putting back, as anything stuck to it will also prevent those clips from re-clicking when it seats. It's an incredibly tight fit. Also, the bottom lid may appear "stuck" in the very center after you get all the edges loose - that's a clip at the RFI can inside to the middle of the pan/cover - just slide the cover back or front depending how you look at it, and it will come undone. The SSD is under a ribbon cable that runs the usb-A port, so you need to unfold the zero force socket clamp, then lift out that cable to get to the SSD. I'd recommend Samsung if you can get a decent price, otherwise HP uses Toshiba this year (2017 had samsungs). You might also take a photo of your battery pack while you're inside - I've seen a 2017 battery that swelled over 1 year - yours should be perfectly flat right now. If you're ok looking inside, take a peak after a year just to check if there's any swelling on your 2018. After you see how much dust came in, you may want to vacuum the grill underneath every month or so - I was surprised at what I found after just 2 months. Hope that helps!

[@user4732_]

Great video thank you! Is the size of the trackpad an issue in your opinion in the 2018 version? I come from Lenovo laptops with a squared shape trackpad. I am concerned about the limited space for a bottom left click button. Is this a fair concern?

[@uwave]

Francesco - the synaptics touchpad (really clickpad is the term) is a bit different. I used to have a real IBM thinkpad (80486 generation!) with the red button in the keyboard, and the trackpad, and the 2 red keys for left/right click. On the Spectre mousepad / clickpad - it performs a great deal of multi-finger gesture functions, even mimicking a scroll wheel in a scroll zone I define under the L / comma to the chassis edge - so a fast swipe downwards is like spinning an imaginary frictionless flywheel for a mouse scroll wheel - you can define LOTS of features, but for clicking: left (major) click is done by just tapping lightly anywhere on the pad surface hard enough to overcome your preference for gestures - for me it's a very light tap. Right (minor or second function pull down menu) clicking is done by forcefully tapping in the lower right corner, pressing hard enough to flex the trackpad surface downwards - because centered under the pad (between B / N keys at the bottom edge of the case) - there's a real tactile switch HIDDEN under the pad surface. When you pivot the pad surface with firm pressure, that switch activates - and if you are pressing in the lower right corner when that switch activates, it registers as a right-click (alternate menu). Tap anywhere light = left click, hard press bottom right = right click. Then there's a grey area - what if you forcefully click somewhere else than the lower right corner? That's a left click by default if you are outside the right click zone - so there's two ways to left click as a result. I reconfigured my "right click zone" to be the entire lower portion of the pad combined with the mechanical switch actuation - because I use right clicking quite a bit personally - and I never use the clicky switch to left click - I always tap. As a result, there are no exposed buttons for left/right - the single clicky switch is hidden under the pad - you must press the entire pad down. The synaptics pad has a great feel to it, and there are many gestures you can configure like 3 finger swipe means close the window, pinch two fingers means zoom in, unpinch is zoom out, twist fingers is rotate, 2-finger tap is 3rd mouse button (middle) - every one of those features is user definable in the mouse / trackpad synaptics driver. I think you'll appreciate it coming from the Lenovo world!

[@JJDeSilva]

Hi, I'm considering buying a 2018 Spectre and just want to know if the laptop has ever got too hot while you were using it? Also what is your opinion on the hinges? Does the screen wobble a lot when typing and can you leave the screen tilted towards the keyboard without it closing on it's own. Thanks & great review

[@uwave]

As for the heat, there are 2 variants of the x360 for 2018, the 8550u (U as ultra low power) and the 8705G (AMD Graphics in chip package). I have the U, and it's very cool compared to my 2017 with package temps hovering under 50 deg C peaking at 65C - but I've met people with the 8705G higher priced option who can see 70C - 99C temps before it throttles. Mine never thermal throttles. The hinges are, I would say, "above average". I **HATE** the screen bouncing around while I type, because I type fast - and to me, it's not a problem. I've owned a 2012 HP Pavilion DV7 that I would say the screen was "bouncy" - but it was a 17" display. You can definitely park the screen in any point from 0 - 360 degrees and it will stay there - but note, it is NOT a one hand opening laptop. Every year, HP seems to re-invent the magnetic catch. There are 2 rare earth magnets in the palm rest and lid that keep it closed tight. You must put a little effort to open the lid, and it's fairly firm in the hinge. Best news is they don't wear out like some company's do. I'm working on an ordering guide to traverse the MAZE of options, because HP.com has the 2017 + 1/2 year model refresh side by side with the 2018 new (w/ 10key number pad) design. I highly recommend buying from HP rather than retail - and I'd say you get your best deal not on the web but by calling their toll free # - say you missed the memorial day sale, etc - they'll sweeten the deal for ya!

[@JJDeSilva]

uwave great, thank you so much for your feedback

[@marty5237]

Nice job! Thank you. Is here a setting that’ll allow me to close the lid while I work off of an external monitor, mouse and keyboard? Please share if so. Thank you. Just bought my 2018 and love it. Blazing fast and gorgeous. Keep up the good work!

[@uwave]

Marty - yes you can do this, but it's not the factory default. Change the settings (gear icon) - system - power & sleep - additional power settings - change plan settings (for the active plan in use - you may want to create a 2nd plan JUST for running with lid shut here, but you can try it on whatever plan is in use first) - then change advanced settings (on this plan only) - new window pops up, scroll down to the (+) power buttons & lid - hit the plus to open that submenu, click on (+) lid close action - from there you can set 2 options on battery and plugged in. You'll definitely want plugged in to be "do nothing" so it keeps running, and you may even want battery the same. If you leave it to sleep when lid shut on battery, and you knock out the power cord, it will go to sleep with the lid shut. I highly recommend you setup a 2nd power plan JUST for running with external kbd/mouse/display since you'll likely find other things that may benefit from tuning there. I've used mine this way quite a bit in 2017 as a portable desktop - hope that helps!

[@marty5237]

uwave thanks so much!!! I appreciate your followup.

[@uwave]

Glad it helps! You'll also likely want to change your power settings with regards to sleeping/waking while on AC power. I found one program (batterybarpro.com) that helps monitor power & change custom profiles from the system tray - it's $4 after a 30 day free trial, and one of my favorite power tools. Marty, I've got a question for you - I'm working on an upcoming video working title "how to get 14 hours on your 'up to 12' hour ultrabook" - but that's not the name yet. What sort of runtime do you get on your 2018 (and which proc did you go for - the 8550u or the 8705G vega?). The reason I ask is just to get another data point - out of the box my 8550u got 6.5 hr till dead. Yes, I have achieved 14 hr under heavy conservation, but the reality is you can get 8, 10, or 12 hours with varying degrees of effort. good news is you can mix / match what to cut and still keep the processor speed + bright display @ 70-80%. Those numbers are for realistic work - email, web browsing, yt video watching, ms-office - if you are rendering 4K video, it will cost more in power. I'm just curious what other people typically get out of the box. My plan is for 2 videos - one basic methods to lower idle power for 8-10 hours on bat, and a second video (live) to get owners together to compare methods (because I learn quite a bit from other owners!). If you've found anything odd going on power wise - I'm all ears. Second question - in your opinion, is it worth cutting out parts of the operating system (like Cortana) if it saves power yielding more runtime?

[@Tiflelbuod]

uwave - been looking forward to your battery saving tips video. In my experience, with a late 2017 8550u spectre x360, I get between 6-7 hours with a general workload (lots of chrome tabs, email, video streaming, etc). This is with the power slider set to "better battery" mode. I used the tool shutup10 in order to disable cortana, but I'm not sure that is has actually increased battery life by a noticeable amount (maybe slightly). Also, after reading through some of the other comments, I was wondering if you could post the amazon link of the magnetic usb charging adapter that you used?

[@marty5237]

uwave 8550 and I've not had time to experiment yet. Will try to get to it. Thanks again for the helpful tips!!

[@fligirda]

great video! Can I charge it using my cell phone usb-c charger?

[@eddieentlebucher1920]

Thanks for your review. I had to return a 2017 Spectre 15 a month ago, 8 days into it with screen flickering issues. Hopefully they will rectify this with the new one. Have you noticed anything like that? I did a Google search after my issue and came up with the phone book.

[@uwave]

Eddie - look at my other videos - the one labeled screen tear (there's no sound, just video). I bought my 2017 right at the beginning of the model year (mar 2017). It took about 2.5 months to get the problem resolved (driver issue) meanwhile everyone was complaining. I looked on the dell and Lenovo forums and they had the same issue at the same time. It turned out lots of people had that issue, and hp support back then just had you run HW diags, roll-back, update, re-install windows, and finally - return the system and get a new one. As a result, there were several of those systems re-sold as re-furb machines on amazon and places at pretty good prices, usually with less than 1 month of use. HP also took their best support people and made an exclusive Spectre support team this year, staffed with competent techs - a world of difference from last year. Ultrabooks are about a 6 month product lifecycle - The 15-bl0xx early 2017 gave way to the 15-bl1xx 2017 refresh later that year with the new 8550u chip, then a whole new case for 2018 dubbed the 15-ch0xx. The problem with such a short lifecycle is if they wait to get all the issues worked out before finally shipping, it's obsolete. So anyone wanting an ultrabook is going to deal with the pains of bleeding edge technology. The alternative, regrettably, is a plastic case system with last year's technology stuffed inside.

[@Gijera]

Thanks for the review. I just purchased the version with Vega graphics. Do you know what kind of battery life I can expect on that compared to the other model without Vega graphics? Also, can you recommend a docking station that is around $200 or less?

[@uwave]

I haven't heard from any real purchasers of the VEGA unit yet, but it does draw more power than the 8550u system. I'm able to get 10.5 hours on my 8550u, so I'd expect around 8 hours on the VEGA system. The chip's factory tuning is limited by power on the 8550u - be sure to run the intel xtreme tuning utility to see what throttles the 8705G. Docking prices depend on functionality. I bought my GTX 1070 for about $500 before the crypto mining craze ate up those units. If you check craigslist or ebay, you might find the empty thunderbolt 3 shells without the 1070 cards from people who bought them just for the graphics cards in mining rigs. Be sure to post numbers on the 8705G system! It should be a hot ticket.

[@Gijera]

Just curious, but why did you choose the NVidia option over the AMD Vega?

[@uwave]

To sum it in 2 words: Battery runtime. The u in 8550u stands for Ultra low power, the 8705G is Graphics performance I don't need. I want to make the SFO-Shanghai trip w/o an AC adapter carryon. Have you got a ship date on your VEGA machine yet? I've been thinking of making a power conserving tips video for new Spectre users - if you'd like to work together on it covering both 2018 versions, please let me know! I know HP promises "up to" 12.5 hours for the NVidia machine (I get 10.5 hrs of honest real work at 50% bright on mine) plus I already have the external TB3 graphics I bought for my 2017 x360. Fresh out of the box, I only got 7 hours so don't be shocked at low numbers your first day. I forgot to mention another very low cost "dock" option which is a usb-c dongle from Amazon w/ USB 3.1 x 3, HDMI, usb-c female power in, usb male pigtail to the computer, RJ-45 Gig-Enet, SD + micro SD (only UHS-1). Since you already have high perf graphics inside, that's a viable option. They run around $50 and can give you keyboard+mouse+display+power+network on one cable without the huge TB-3 box. I use it when traveling plus it works with my usb-c phone. You CAN use it with your 2018 x360, but you'd need to use the included HP AC adapter or buy an HP 2017 usb-c adapter to make it a single plug solution. The 2018 can be powered from all 3 ports. I've heard there are some 4K desk monitors with usb-c to your laptop + usb-A for keyboard/mouse/network.

[@Gijera]

I'm a bit busy with a new job, but what would it entail? I've never really done diagnostics and such to test performance etc, so there's that as well.

[@uwave]

For performance, I use cinebench which tests computational performance. There's a +/- 1% margin of error, so no two runs are exactly the same. Cinebench tests both CPU and GPU so your 8705G should have excellent GPU performance and comparable CPU numbers to my 8550u if they use the same i7 core logic. For power management, I use batterybarpro (.com is their website). Batterybar will show how much power you are using. If you can run both free benchmarks, I can compare your 8705G numbers to mine. My system gave a cinebench cpu of 531 out of the box, but with some performance tuning it reached 649 +/- 1%. The same tuning using intel's XTU software increases performance and decreases power usage. The reason is because performance is limited by power throttling on the 8550u, not thermal throttling. I was able to get the system power down to 7.5-8.0 watts at 50% LCD backlight intensity, which offered ~10.5 hours of real use on the 84 watt-hour battery. HP specifies **UP TO** 12.5 hr runtime on the 8550u, but that is a "best case" test number - probably 10% LCD brightness, wifi off, backlit keyboard off, 512GB SSD, 8GB ram, running ms-word. I try to use "real world" tests of wifi ON, 5GHz, 1TB SSD, 16GB ram, Edge w/ 2 tabs open on one window. If you run Firefox or Chrome, 20 tabs in 2 windows, wifi, backlight, McAffe - then you won't see great battery life. Email me info uwave com and I'll respond from my personal address. There are many features that can be tuned on the Spectre to optimize runtime.

[@SergeiAoutka]

A very nice video. I am considering the 8705G-equipped HP Spectre x360 15 and am anxiously awaiting reviews of the actual models in the next few weeks. I would definitely be using it as a digital audio workstation. I would be interested in some digital audio benchmarks, such as LatencyMon and DAW Bench, together with a look at performance in Cubase 9.5 (a free trial version is available).

[@uwave]

Sergei - funny you should ask - I do FOH wireless systems for vocal mics and guitar packs as well as in ear monitor systems for stage talent and wireless video for LED walls. I hadn't thought about the laptop in those roles, but it's easy enough to test. My guess is in those roles, you'd probably want to lock the frequency down - let me research it a bit. I did make some phone calls today to the engineers who developed the 8705G based x360. Basically, from what I gathered, it's intended to be more of a gaming cross over system. They are supposed to start shipping middle of this month, but beware the power consumption will be higher. What I was told is the 8705G comes with a 150watt DC adapter while the 8550u gets a 90 watt brick. The 8705G base speed is 3.1 GHz turbo to 4.1G, while the 8550u is 1.8 to 3.9-ish (3.93 on mine) which further reduces power consumption. That's a big deal for me as I need the battery life. I'm waiting to hear from a couple friends who have the 8705G on order to see what theirs are like.

[@SergeiAoutka]

For my use, power consumption in terms of battery life will not be an issue. I don't care if I never use the system on a battery. As I am sure you know, there are power plan tweaks in Windows 10 that are useful/necessary for music-making, however. Robin Vincent covers them on KZbin here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mKnXnHivfM6baMk and more specifically for the Surface Pro 2017 here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZypdHyoeMposNE. As he says, for music-making, you want the "maximum" amount of power on "all" the time to avoid clicking and crackling issues. The 3.1 GHz base speed is much more useful than the 8850u base speed of 1.8 GHz. It would just be nice to know that there are no unexpected driver issues on the 8705G-equipped HP Spectre x360 15 when using it with Cubase (before spending more than $2000 for a 16MB, 1TB SSD model). I very much look forward to any insight you might be able to provide after talking to friends when they get their 8705G later this month. Thank you.

[@uwave]

Sergei - For my keyboardist's Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol system (and the DJ's Launchpad), we use HP Z class (Xeon) workstations which have been optimized as your videos highlight to prevent the multitasking of windows from missing a time sample. We also lock processor cores to the production task to prevent windows from task switching the resources away from production. It's under process affinity in task manager and was key to ensure no glitches. In a production, we take the USB data from the input device and run it to 2 machines, primary (dedicated) and a backup (shared). It's also tricky because even though Dante audio is Ethernet based, and can use an Ethernet switch, in production machines we install only [overpriced] Dante dual Ethernet cards optimized for low latency. I use my spectre x360 as a control surface for net connected wireless mics, mixer, amps, and networking plus a separate Z-class Xeon workstation for Dante audio multitrack recording under the mixing console and playback. Because I sometimes need to carry my laptop to a rack of hardware, I optimize for battery life on the laptop rather than the uninterrupted performance needs of audio production. It also continuously logs the sound pressure levels through a performance to ensure the audience can hear when they leave. Even once configured, I encourage you to test for 30-90 min continuous operation, as many portable machines are not thermally capable of running without power saving (latency inducing) features turned on. HP.com allows you to use the machine for 30 days and return it no questions asked if there is a problem in your application. Let me know how it works out!

[@6271isa]

I've just bought the 2018 model from the US and would be using it mostly in Europe. What is the model and the specs of the power adapter? I'd need to buy one with a UK plug. Also, do I need to buy the whole thing or just the wire that goes from the adapter to the wall plug? Thanks, Isa

[@Kiyoshi_9606]

What do you think about the new 2019 versions? I keep my 2017 model because it has great battery life and charged via USB type-C.

[@Tiflelbuod]

In your next video could you talk about some of the modifications you've made in the settings to increase performance and battery life?

[@uwave]

Yes, I've been planning that video for some time now. I have 3 x360's and "tuning" for battery is unique to each machine because no two silicon devices have the same performance. Also, tuning for an 8705G vs 8550u will be different. My thoughts are to do a live stream with a call-in number, screen share & the like because each system is unique. It will be archived on YT for later viewing. Because the clock freq (max) is LOCKED on the x360 bios (as is most ultrabooks) the battery saving techniques prevent or delay the eventual power limit throttle - the result is better performance. What's a good date/time for you - I'm thinking a weekend maybe around 1300 hrs in GMT-7 (PDT) - but there's a worldwide audience here, most of the folks are spread all over! Subscribe and hit the bell so you get notified, and I'll post a quick video about the time and call-in number 24 hrs before hand.

[@Tiflelbuod]

uwave That time sounds fine to me. Thanks for the quick reply. I have one one more question: I have the late 2017 refresh with the older style body and am now slightly concerned about the longevity of the charging ports after seeing multiple accounts that they wear out quickly. Is it the port in the laptop that wears out or the plug on the charging adapter? I plan to keep the laptop for a while so if the ports were to wear out is there any way I could fix it? How long did it take your machine's port to become loose?

[@uwave]

If you plan to keep it for a while, #1 go for the HP total coverage (accidents included) warranty - ANYTHING goes wrong, no matter who's fault it is - HP will fix or replace it. It was probably the smartest move I made! HP stands behind their product. Today I got my (stolen) 2015.5 13" x360 (my 1st) back from the FBI, who zero'ed the hard disk out. www.HP.com said pay us $40+8.95 for a usb-drive w/ OS because you can not download it. I called Spectre support and they emailed me the link to download the usb-drive. Now it's up and running again. That's HP support! The plug on the charger wore out first, and HP replaced the charger free of charge - overnighted me a new one by Fed Ex. Then that one wore out even faster - another new charger. When the 3rd was wearing down (due to the port on the system having worn) HP sent me a new 2018 x360 w/ the right angle coaxial round plug. I had to wait for the 2018 to come out and got one of the first units shipped. Problem fixed. Now, I plug/unplugged my machine AT LEAST 6 times a day, probably much more, and 7 days a week, because that was my work & home machine - and that's not counting TB3 plug/unplugs. I figure I had over 2000 insertions (it's "rated" for 10,000 cycles but the c7 Corvette is "rated" for 30mpg highway) One of the biggest issues is the usb-c plug goes straight in, not 90 deg like the round chargers do. It can put alot of torque on the jack. It took about 9+ months. I always used the rearmost plug for the AC adapter, ESPECIALLY after I realized it was wearing out - reason being the front usb-c is the ONLY Thunderbolt-3 port, so I wanted to save that port for external graphics use or dongle attachment. Also - one thing that goes "bad" is the backlight in the keyboard. This is largely my fault for leaving it on 24x7 so it could backup and update at night while I slept. I'm trying to break that habbit on the 2018. I'll snap a pic of the 2017 vs 2018 back to back keyboards so you can see the difference; the 2017 is now about 25% of the intensity of the 2018.

[@NHK99914]

Great review! I loved the comparison and your personal experience with both models. Thank you for that! I'd love to know about the difference in battery life in real life usage in minutes or hours which shouldn't be much I assume. However, I'd love to know the results. In addition to quad core processors from dual, 12 watt hours more capacity as you mentioned could make some difference.. may be. Thank you!

[@uwave]

Nathan - thanks for your comments. Yes - more battery is always better, but on top of it, intel's 8th gen 8550u is very conservative on power - even on AC it runs cool. In a 4K bright display machine w/ GPU every bit helps. And with 4 cores, it's done "working" in half the time so as to resume low power mode. The 8705G is a different story; I'm working on a head to head benchmark on out of box numbers and after-tuning numbers right now with a friend from the UK. It should be up by the end of the week. I can say the 8705G is faster out of the box - but there's much more to the story- so subscribe for the head to head match! Anyone ordering online needs to be very careful because there's a 2017+1/2 year model (Oct 2017) that has the 8550u, but not the tilt pen, 10 key num pad, and larger battery - it's a 2017 chassis with a proc upgrade only. hp.com has them side by side on the webpage with nothing to indicate which is the 2018 March machine vs. 2017 October machine other than the side of keyboard speakers which were the hallmark of the 2017 gen systems.

[@morecoffee998]

Lenovo has the best charge cable solution that i have experienced, the flat "USB"-style charger fits and stays in place, the round HP connector tends to move around more. Thank you for the review :)

[@F14Defense]

If I can remember exactly, the gal who does Mobile TechReview is saying that the pen drivers in the 2018 13 inch screen model are better/different than the 15 inch model. For example, she says the 13” model supports pen tilt where as the 15” model does not. This might be important to someone like me who has a iPad Pro and wants the bigger screen of the Spectre 15” model, and wants a parallel pen experience. I also think I saw where the pen drivers in the 15” can be updated to make them equivalent of the 13”. All of this matters if you are a photographer / artist, etc. who wants a single device to do a variety of tasks. But doesn’t necessarily want to switch out of the Windows eco-system and/or wants the maximum options in using Photoshop, Lightroom, etc. Thx. Can you possible break down these other details of pen capabilities. Especially if drivers are available from whatever source for the pen functionality upgrading

[@nicolasbenenzon2242]

I couldn't find any video comparing HP Spectre x360 13.3" vs 15.6" 2018 models, neither 2017, I think that would be a great video!

[@thibaldus3]

Any thoughts on the active pen? Also one of the big game changer in my opinion is the fact that the new model now has a gorilla glass screen, which makes me more comfortable taking the laptop with me on the go.

[@uwave]

My first impressions of the pen (2017) weren't great, only because it took more force to push the pen (and make a line) than it would with a normal pencil/felt tip pen. I bought the $30 extra tilt pen this time, and it's somewhat better. I really wish they had a method of drawing a line the instant the tip touched the glass. It's no longer AAAA battery required, using a hidden usb-c port to charge the internal bat. The gorilla glass is incredible. My first Spectre 360 13" 2015 machine dropped from a table to concrete [HORROR!], dented the top left corner of the display but did not damage the glass. My 2017 has taken a couple falls and has a few dents but also ZERO problems. I'll never buy a plastic case again - metal can take a beating!

[@thibaldus3]

@uwave Thanks a lot for the info!

[@suitedjuggler]

Hi, nice review. Can you please do a review of 8705G model?

[@uwave]

When they come out, I'll do a head to head comparison - but mainly looking at runtime. I can get an honest 10.5 hours of real world use from the 2018. The VEGA graphics will likely not offer the runtime I want which is a flight from SF to Shanghai without a charger. I've met a couple people who have the VEGA model on order so we'll do an apples to apples comparison.

[@henrikn915]

Hi, nice review and congrats with being about the first to do a review on the new Spectre x360 15" :-) How do you feel about the new keyboard with the num pad. I have an old EliteBook 8575 with a num pad, and I have really been looking forward to get rid of that. Always irritated me to sit left to the middle of the screen...

[@uwave]

I thought it would bug me also, but along the way I picked up an Acer 2018 Inspire 15 for $400 which also had nearly the same 15" layout. Both HP models have great feel to the keyboards & definitely better than the acer. HP did put in a top of the line trackpad. I define a stripe on the right side as a scroll wheel effect and noticed that it has a smaller "REACH" to use it. What bugs me the most is finding the right arrow key, which used to be in the extreme bottom right corner and now is between the board and the num pad. It's a wash when comparing them. What really bugged me about the 2017 2 core 4 thread was that it was slower than my 2012 HP Pavilion DV7 (17"). The 2018 x360 doesn't disappoint in speed at all!

[@DougieFrank]

Thanks for a fairly usefull review, However I tjink you should mention that the new model has a larger full size keyboard with number pad, & the speakers have moved..

[@uwave]

And the trackpad got smaller, and shifted to the left. 2018 is the year to get by all means!

[@lexlexlexx]

In the three generations that you've had a 2 in 1, do you think the tablet function is worth the price premium? I'm thinking if I'm better off with just a clamshell with touch laptop. Thanks!

[@uwave]

Short answer - yes, it's worth it, but **ONLY** in the 13" size, not 15". My 1st x360 was a 13" -- I used my 2016 13" as a tablet more than I expected, about 10% of the time because it was the size of a paper pad and light enough to carry everywhere. I found myself using the tent mode for video playback on both the 13" & 15". The 15" is roughly 4lbs which is more like cradling a baby in one arm than holding a pad, but I used it that way just yesterday to stand outside and talk with the phone repairman while pulling up network test records. The touchscreen is great on either model, and win10 provides the popup keyboard to avoid unfolding it just for simple typing. Now the bad news: The 13" has a puny battery and (in 2017) you got about 3.5 honest hrs on a 2017 x360 in 13" + 4K which was made exclusively for best buy, while HP sold the 13" only in 1080HD last year. The 2017 13" reminded me of the macbook air it was so light and thin. This year you can get 4K in 13" direct from HP, which I recommend since HP can support it with exchange if needed. Good news is power management is MUCH better in 2018 with the i7-8550u (u=ultra low power) processor, so that proc might get you 5hr (my realistic guess) on today's 13". I'm getting an honest 10.5 hours without much struggle at 50% bright LCD. I thought most of these 360 hinge features were gimmicky at first, but this design has some real versatility - like when I take my laptop but forget my computer glasses I can set it in my lap bent backwards 270deg with the hinge against my chest and the display close enough to read it without Rx lenses and use my fingers to navigate the touch display. But like Steve Jobs, I think the pen is a gimmick although I have used it to take a screen shot, draw big arrows & circles, then email it. Twice. Shopping tip for the 13" - the webpage to order from HP isn't intuitive at all. I was still thinkin of getting a 13" this year, but the matrix of x360 models didn't have the color I was looking for - just Rose Gold if you wanted 13", 4K, i7-8550u. To get that in dark ash / copper you click on the rose gold model 13" + 4K, then change color for $1 when ordering it. Subscribe so as to see my upcoming video on how to squeeze the best performance AND battery life out of these gems!

[@42tancho]

Very good video! I'm so excited for the next version with vega gpu

[@uwave]

Thanks for the words of encouragement! The 8705G is a pretty wild processor multichip module, with 3 big die in one package. I'll be interested in seeing the thermal numbers and power consumption, especially on battery. They should start showing up in about 2 weeks or less.

[@arthureum]

can you possibly review the newest version of this laptop? the diamond shaped one. I heard it has some better video processing power.

[@joelsteve94]

Can you review the 8550U and Thunderbolt 3 a little more in depth? I'm reading lots online about people having issues with Thunderbolt 3 docks not charging the laptop.

[@joelsteve94]

Also, thanks for your reviews of the Spectre laptops. They've been helpful in general and I really enjoy the more technical information you provide (both in video and comments) in relation to other KZbin reviews. Specifically, I'm wondering if the dock linked below will charge the 8550U MX150 version. If you know anybody who has tested it out I would be very grateful for an answer...HP Support has been largely ineffective at helping me find a compatible Thunderbolt 3 dock (keep sending me to other departments OR suggesting USB docks as a solution *sigh*) www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-3-dock/thunderbolt-station-3-plus/#spec

[@uwave]

Joel - I'm doing a joint video with a friend from the UK who bought the 8705G so we're doing head to head comparisons right now (across 7 timezones) to get benchmarks of the two variants for 2018, as well as what thermal limits the 65 watt (!!) 8705G has imposed by HP firmware. There's some neat stuff looking at how the machine manages power with XTU - be sure to sub for that video this weekend. I'll post a quick video on cautions when ordering, because HP's web page is so confusing, even HP has problems with finding the 2017.5 model & 2018.0 model as both have the 8550u and exact same description on the webpage (except the 10key number pad is the 2018.0 machine). About USB power delivery, 2017 wasn't the best year for USB ANYTHING power. I was an early adopter of the first 2017s off the line; the only thing that would power/charge was the HP brick. Reviewers noticed this and publicized it. You'd get a "power source not recognized - use genuine HP adapter" (or something to that effect) error. Even inserting my in-line usb-c travel dongle which passes through HP brick power would not work in early 2017 because it needed to re-enumerate as a daisy-chain device, forcing me to plug the brick into 1 port and my dongle in the 2nd port. **BUT** - HP listened to us very vocal folks, and then fully supported usb-c power delivery in all its glory with a firmware update in about a month. From then on, you could do whatever you wanted with the USB-c ports and it would work (same for 2018). I can charge it from a usb-c power bank (can't run it off the bank), my cell phone charger, and any device that supplies enough power to run (~90W for the 2018 x360 via USB-c) will work, so long as they are power delivery compliant, which caldigit says they are. I did so much charging via usb-c, it wore out the usb-c connector - the only option in 2017. In fact, I even tried having my 2018 x360 charging my 2017 x360 overnight by plugging the 2018 into mains AC (via coaxial connector) - then usb-c to usb-c between their two systems. Next morning, both were full. I noticed caldigit doesn't have 90W, just 85 - which puts it in sort of uncharted territory. My gut feel is it will work on the 2018 because the x360 can and will selectively cut power use - like if there's only 45W, and the system needs 30W - it will opt NOT to charge the internal battery until more is plugged in -or- it's turned off / sleeps allowing that CPU power to go into the battery. I've seen that first hand. My gut feel for your setup working out of the box is based on my travel dongle (seen in my video with the beard and handheld mic) steals 5W off the input DC source from HP's usb-c brick because it powers up before being plugged into the machine and supplies 5W to each of 3 usb-3 ports if need be, then passes what is left over into the USB port on the spectre. That means well under 85W, and now it is supported. Also, the 2018 for some odd reason charges the internal battery faster from my old 2017 USB-c adapter than it does using its own factory 2018 coaxial plug, both rated at 90W. My TB3 dock is spec'ed at 90-100W (max) if I recall; it works fine. Do you have the dock already? If so, HP gives you 30days no questions asked return. I read the product sheet, and it seems like a very simple dock in that it doesn't have a full pcie slot as mine does (GTX 1070 stuffed in there). I'll be posting benchmarks this weekend, so stay tuned because the MX150, while my personal choice, doesn't have nearly the power of the VEGA cpu. If you're buying to run 2 x 4K monitors, you might want to consider a PCIE + GPU vs. just using a simple doc. I bought this 2018 model for 2 reasons - 1 being I had the dock already, and external monitors are best driven by the GTX 1070 - and #2, I want 10.5 hours of real work, and I wasn't confident the VEGA equipped system could deliver that. Right now, I'm at 50% bright (plenty at 0200) and only using 7.5W from the battery, with 8h27m remaining on this charge. So for my use, I wanted a dock that would do it all - potent PCIE graphics, keyboard, mouse, charge+power, audio, and real desk monitors (up to 4 on my eGPU). I would have preferred all that be integrated into the dock solution, but since all I have on mine is 3 x USB 3 type A ports, I put everything on USB which works fine. It works flawlessly on both the 2017 (with new BIOS + f/w + drivers) and 2018 without any assistance at all. Just FYI, when I first plugged my dock + 1070 into the 2017 spectre, it took ~2 hours to download everything & reboot 6 times & flash bios & etc-etc-etc... which was not amusing. The 2018 came with full TB3 support out of the box. And one other tidbit is only 1 of the usb-c ports on both systems is 2-lane TB3, so on my 2017 I always used the non-TB3 to charge, and the TB3 to charge+run on the other port. The 2018 uses so little power that even if I had to charge by USBc, I can run all day. Hope that helps - gut feel is you're fine so long as no eGPU is needed. info at uwave dot com if you want to email.

[@jiujiupan1729]

How do you feel about the 2018 model from the battery life to the noise and heat? I heard lots of complains about conquality control and overheating of the 2017 one.

[@uwave]

Yes, the 2017 has some heat issues when plugged in running on AC - it gets hot on the lap (bottom surface) and the fans are quite loud and spin most of the time doing real work. Power management in the 7th gen i7 wasn't as good at power management as my old 6th gen spectre 13" x360 before it. The 8th gen 8550u is far superior to the old 13" 6th gen and 2017 7th gen. Out of the box, I'm getting about 3 more hours of runtime than my 7th gen, and it runs faster - so a win - win. The u in 8550u stands for ultra low power (15W at max, 1W at idle). What's wild was the 7th gen only had 2 cores to try and save battery, but the 8th gen has 4 cores and really does save battery (plus it's battery is almost 20% bigger) - the fan is very quiet on the 8th gen and does not even spin audibly with short tests like cinebench. I did run a long term (6 hours) test mining crypto on both the gpu & cpu which did finally spin up both fans, which are still quieter than the 2017. The news I got today suggests the 8550u model should be chosen for long battery life, while the 8705G chosen for high speed graphics / gaming / CAD use, usually with the AC cord connected.

[@jiujiupan1729]

uwave thanks a lot, I will wait until someone tests the vegam model to decide which one to buy.

[@uwave]

Jiujiu Pan - here's a very accurate review from an 8705G purchaser. I passed on the 8705G because of the thermal issues it presented. kzbin.info/www/bejne/j36taZ-ZesqWecU

[@jiujiupan1729]

uwave I have noticed that problem and I bought the 8550u model days ago, but I found that my device has strong animation lagging when I use multi finger gesture on the trackpad like switch desktop use four fingers and swipe up use 3 fingers. Do you encounter that problem or it is my own case?

[@ostrichelephantexist]

Read somewhere that they added more to the cooling in the 2018 model so would like to know the heat comparison.

[@uwave]

The fans are certainly quieter. I believe there is a larger thermal mass in the heatpipe system as the fan speed lags the activity on the CPU quite a bit longer than the 2017 7th generation i7. One big change is the efficiency of the charger. Last year, it gave off quite a bit of heat next to the graphics (MX940) chip and would spin up that fan while charging. The coaxial DC port charger seems to give off less heat.

[@ComboDamageTV]

I'd be interested in a video about optimal power settings for this device. :-)

[@TaskSwitcherify]

We've got a new CPU and a new videocard, and we're discussing a slightly different right touchpad button feel? I would structure this review slightly differently ;-)

[@uwave]

The right button actually bugged me on the 2017, because I had to go looking for it, and I right click all the time. On my machine, the performance of the 8550u is the biggest win because it's 2x the core count of last year, which translates to roughly 1.7x performance. Mine has the MX150 which is just keeping up with the times, but the real star this year will be the all new and hard to find 8705G. I'm working with one lucky owner of that VEGA GPU Spectre to get one to compare head to head against the 8550U+MX150 machine. Stay tuned for more!

[@divyakannan2946]

Thanks for the review. I just ordered the 2018 mx150 version today. Can you tell me a bit about the 4k display’s color gamet? Is it any better than the 98% sRGB of the late 2017 13 inch 4k model?

[@uwave]

The only gamut measuring tool I have is the one the x-rite puck that came with my HP Dreamcolor monitor. Ironically, it won't work on windows 10 - only on the monitor's USB port. I can't see any difference in my (early) 2017 and new 2018 displays. I did consider the Dell XPS, which has a slightly better display color gamut, but lacks some of the Spectre's features. When I compared the Dell & HP at best buy, I couldn't see any difference. Both Dell & HP have the best panel I've ever seen. Note though that my buying decision was based on 2 previous great experiences with the Spectre and the fact I had a real 10 bit color monitor for photoshop & DaVinci resovle. With the external NVidia card, I opted for the better battery life instead of the VEGA GPU option - so how you plan to use it makes a big difference.

[@jesseleavitt2818]

I've had my 2018 spectre x360 with i7-8550U for just about a week now and it's experiencing a lot of lag with occasional freeze-ups. I'm looking around the web to see if this is a common issue with anyone who has been using the new 15t-CH000 models. But from your review it doesn't seem to be a normal occurrence.

[@uwave]

Jesse - HP wants to gather data about this specific issue - use the blue question mark logo to open a case - call the 800 (888) number that it gives you - ask them to escalate it to a case manager - it will get you to the US escalation team - they'll handle it from there. This ensures they get accurate statistics on this issue.

[@jesseleavitt2818]

Thank you for your unsolicited help with this issue. I didn't get the chance to take down your detailed instructions before you made your edit, but in any case I will take the advice you have left here. My initial reaction was to return the laptop and order a new one, so as for now, I'm waiting on the arrival of my new replacement (same specs and all). But if the new unit has any issues i'll be sure to get in contact with a case manager at HP.

[@uwave]

Jesse - Sorry bout that - David got the weird voicemails from the net. Also, if a buyer has a problem, the system will direct it to the first HP Spectre level support even if he's out. This bug you describe is showing up on both HP, Dell, and Lenovo message boards from a small percentage of the users. It's likely either a chip problem when intel ramped to production of the 8550u -- or -- some graphics driver wasn't debugged. Not every unit has the problem, so HP is trying to narrow it down, and the statistics they track with the blue questionmark tool feed into that decision process as they can tell what lot number(s) parts went into the build. This info is valuable for getting to the bottom of it. I know of one other x360 user in Sweden who bought his retail with the same problem. A very similar problem happened last year (2017) with a display driver issue that affected all the i7-7500u graphics across all the system builds. Search for 2018 screen freeze on dell's user forums and you'll find your exact description in there too!

[@gstoe5560]

PLEASE HELP! I replaced my keyboard and track pad with another spectre x360 keyboard and track pad. The computer is not recognizing either and they are not working however, if I plug a usb keyboard in and open the BIOS before the computer starts, they work perfect but only in the BIOS. F5 light and caps light even are on but once the computer OS starts up they go dead. What do I do? Thanks

[@uwave]

When you say you replaced them on the machine - did they come from the identical model system? What was the reason they had to be replaced? water damage? The f5 light key dates to the late 2015 / early 2016 timeframe with a 6th gen core i7 proc. If the lights work, the keyboard has power. If it works in bios, then it's working. My guess from what you said is the replacement keyboard/trackpad may be a newer generation / different driver. To get past this, I'd plug in a generic usb keyboard/mouse to the usb - then you can download updates from the hp support assistant in the system tray. You might be best to go into the device manager, delete the internal keyboard & trackpad, then reboot - it should re-install the drivers from scratch when it wakes up automatically. If that doesn't work, then the motherboard may have been damaged, but I doubt that if it works in bios.

[@gstoe5560]

Yes I tried everything you mentioned. The trackpad finally started working after the updates and driver reinstalls but no luck with the keyboard still. And it was water damage. I think the computer I took the keyboard and trackpad from must have been windows 8. And then I put them in my Windows 10 laptop. I doubt they are exactly the same model as the keyboard and trackpad are silver but my laptop I put them in is the black version. They came from a "broken for parts" spectre x360 I got on ebay that had no ssd. Someone online said that this is a problem in Windows 10 so I'm probably out of luck. At least the trackpad works tho. Thank for your response!

[@uwave]

That's a unique machine now - two tone! It's very odd that a machine will work in bios setup (without any drivers loaded) but then fail in windows 10. When any mfg does something "different" they end up with custom drivers. HP & Dell have lots of custom drivers. You might even look for the driver that goes with the computer you grabbed the keyboard from, and force install it on your machine it went into. Since the board isn't an exact replacement, that may be why windows isn't happy but bios is. Do you have the model number of the "for parts" system and your machine like N5503UA#ABA [example] printed on the bottom of the chassis? Also, look for the model (e.g. 15t-bl000, ch000, ac000). I can look through the service manuals for the two products and see if there's something different. Also, fyi - there's nothing really water-damageable inside (but coke coffee tea sugar are all bad news). Circuit boards are commonly cleansed with ultra pure (deionized) water in manufacturing to get the flux residue off after soldering. It's not the water that hurts them - it's what is inside the water. I've fixed spilled on boards by removing the offending fluid with soap like simple green, then rinsing first with tap water, then final rinse with distilled water from the store (water isle). Once rinsed in distilled water, they can come back to life if you get rid of the residue. since it's already broken, it's not like you could hurt it - always worth a shot. Just be sure to let it air dry for a couple days after you rinse it good with distilled water. Keyboard designs are generally very robust because they get dirt under the keys as part of their normal use. Liquids form salt (and sugar!) bridges between conductors - that's the culprit. Once cleansed, I would expect it to return to operation.

[@gstoe5560]

I'll see what the models numbers are and post them once later today or tomorrow. I will try cleaning it. It was just water that spilled. Thanks for all your help!

[@gstoe5560]

The S/N for the machine I'm using is 5CD6321HGF and product number is V8T99UA#ABA. The S/N for the machine the keyboard came from (that won't work) is 5CD51S4LRD and product number is K6C18AV. I also have another x360 that just randomly stopped turning on and don't know why but that S/N is 5CD51520G7 and product number is L0Q52UA#ABA. Also, should I peel off the plastic backing of the broken keyboard before I wash it with soap and water?

[@jonathansingh8661]

Thanks. Do you know if the 2018 can handle 32GB RAM?

[@uwave]

It's socketed, so potentially it could. Naturally, HP doesn't support such a mod, but I've opened the 2018 up and yea, thought a couple times about a 32 upgrade. Anyone bought the dimms to do it?!! speak up and let us know!

[@joelsteve119]

Can you do a review on the late 2017/early 2018 model with the 8550U and its Thunderbolt 3 dock?

[@uwave]

See my comment below to the other Joel Steve - I presume you're on a different email/system. I can show how versatile it is in a quick video just plugging in, getting 3-4 desk monitors, unplugging w/o shutdown + reboot, then plugging back in. I was amazed at how well TB3 integrates, even when devices suddenly disappear because the cable was removed. I'm planning a vid next week on content creation on battery in 4K with color grade just to see how long it takes. I can do that where my desktop is and illustrate how effective the TB3 e-GPU box works. I forgot to mention, HP sells an OMEN graphics accelerator if I recall - and they stand behind it for support, even on the spectre class machines since it is an approved peripheral. I just got the Aorus from amazon because I was in a hurry.

[@dreamether7808]

I actually like the 2017 layout much better than the 2018 version. The track pad off to the side looks really awkward and looks as though it would feel weird to use. I ordered the 2017 with all the latest specs...I'm just worried about issues with heat and coil whine that people seem to be having with the 2017 model :/

[@uwave]

Even some 2018s have coil whine. My system is normally very quiet, but one benchmark stress test (pcmark if I recall) really made the coils sing. I also loved the 2017 layout - it was very "MacBook" ish with the good speakers, and huge pad that I segmented into scroll wheels (virtual). I found a GREAT product to protect the usb-c plug you'll need for charging - it's a magnetic usb-c connector from amazon, like the old apple magsafe chargers. The nice one is $30ish and carries all the usb-c contacts over magnets -- there are charge only ones with just 5 contacts for $18ish. HP copied the usb-c for everything idea from apple in 2017, but just because apple used usb-c for power doesn't mean it's a great idea. My 2017 wore out the connector in 10 months. Unlike apple, HP stood behind their machine - they sent me a check for what I paid for my 2017 (buyback) and sold me a 2018 with the round plug. I see all these people whining on youtube how apple won't fix this or charges way too much, claims a warranty was void, etc - HP just did the right thing - replaced the (IMHO mistake) of usb-c power cord with the 2018 round cord. But, I totally agree with you, the 2017 was the nicest layout - I seldom use the 10 key, and the 2018 speakers don't sound nearly as good as my 2017.

[@Shriastu]

It there any possibly way for fixing coil whine? Please help_/\_

[@dreamether7808]

@@uwave Thanks for the charger suggestion! And I'm happy to report that I've had zero issues with the 2017 model so far. it's quiet as a stealth jet and there is absolutely no coil whine.

[@uwave]

Ser Fa - coil whine comes from switching power supplies, ex - you need 5 Volts DC for, say, usb power, but the battery has 11.3 Vdc, so a FET (semiconductor fast switch) turns 11.3v from the battery on/off very fast as it heads for the USB port, and a coil is on the output (5V side) to filter the on/off peaks into constant 5Vdc (with the help of a capacitor). This is used in everything today, because it's efficiency is well over 95%, it's small, and cheap. The bad part is coils generate magnetic fields (like a speaker does), which can cause metal parts to move (like a speaker's cone) - if the FETs are switched on/off near a resonant frequency - the sound will be louder. Steve over at Gamersnexus has a good explanation of power phases. Even 2 laptops of the SAME model don't sing at the same frequencies. As an engineer, if someone told me I had a requirement that my product didn't sing with coil whine when the switching power supply kicked into high gear, I'd say back "well - then you gotta give up something - either battery life, OR I need a bigger product to include more FETs, more Coils, and it's going to cost more" No laptop product manager will tell a design engineer it's better to make an absolutely quiet product and sacrifice price, size, & weight. Lastly, on my system, when I'm running enough power (eg pcmark) to generate coil whine, the fan kicks in pretty soon because of heat, and that noise is louder than the coils. If you have a laptop that is REALLY LOUD - then send it back, because there's variation between units, and if you got a bad one, the next one will probably be ok. The only laptops I know of that are not subject to coil whine are the ruggedized ones from Panasonic (Toughbook series) - but they're $6K for an obsolete laptop by today's standards. Sorry there's no easy solution!

[@uwave]

I do miss my 2017 chassis - you got a sweet machine with that usb-protector now. If you can run all the tests on pcmark w/o whine, then it should pass the test. On the 2018s, the speakers face the table below (or lap), and that grille above the f keys is for cooling the switching power supply, which is right under that - it has no speakers inside those openings. I was fiddling with my power settings the other day, and managed to run the system off a 5W usb power bank plugged into the c-port with my phone's charging cable - so they have a use even on the 2018 system since HP kept the usb-c power delivery on both ports - apple can only charge on 1 of their usb-c ports, which makes me think they have a worse problem with wearout- though apple may buy better ports. Enjoy your "HP MacBook" - you got a great combination, and please let me know how you like the magnetic usb-c connector - I'm considering getting one as well!

[@thibaldus3]

Okay I already posted the question on another comment thread, but I'll post it here too so that you see it: According to notebookcheck, the device used PWM to control the brightness. Has it changed for the new model?

[@uwave]

thibaldus3 - I think you mean this annoying "feature" on by default from the factory and very irritating to the user: lifehacker.com/disable-windows-annoying-adaptive-brightness-feature-on-1567886994 If by PWM you are referring to the digital pulse width modulation to set display brightness from 10-100%, then I can say most all backlit LCDs use PWM at a frequency far above what the eyes can see ~1000x-10000x per second - BUT - I suspect you are referring to the VERY IRRITATING effect of the display changing perceptual brightness while you use it very suddenly, 2-4 x per second which drives the eye nuts, making it all but unusable for viewing photos & video because every time you look at it, it's a different intensity. That's an intel-Microsoft "power saving" feature where (as I understand it) the system senses total light from display and adjusts several times per second (as opposed to PWM which is ~10,000x / sec) making your eyes strain. All 3 of my spectres did that out of the box, drove me nuts until I found out why and turned that factory default "FEATURE" off! - it's top of my laundry list of factory defaults that need changing ASAP.

[@put.mudrezov]

youtube search > PWM problem

[@mrmaaical8727]

Thanks for the review. I love drawing and so I’m looking forward to buy 2 in 1 laptop, 13 inch. I’m confused whether I buy dell XPS 2 in 1 or Spectre 360. Please help

[@uwave]

I'm the wrong guy for any advice here - but I can say that out of the box, the HP Tilt pen (+$30) still takes way too much pressure to register a mark on the sketch-note-pad-thingy-app. When I sign my name, the upstrokes don't register - same as the 2017 pen which used a AAAA battery. The 2018 pen is usb-c rechargeable. It's ok for drawing a circle around a webpage in red. NOTE however, I haven't tried to customize the pen at all. I recommend first learning about the Dell & HP pens online - then with that knowledge visit Best Buy (or a local store) and compare them. The pen didn't factor into my decision at all - because I never used the 2017's pen. Besides, my "art" looks like a 2-year old's finger paintings.

[@ritiknaitam8490]

Please cover solid work performance

[@Fahad-xl9qf]

Would appreciate if you can let me know whether differences in vega and non-vega model is related to only powerful graphics card. I am looking to buy one with powerful CPU and overall performance but not able to decide whether vega has also more powerful CPU compared to non-vega model. I am not much into gaming but really would like to use my laptop for heavy applications and heavy multi-tasking. Also, please share you experience with the typing on the keyboard because in my line of work I have to regularly type with fast pace. Thanks again.

[@uwave]

Fahad, The VEGA (8705G) chip is very impressive if you play games on the road for 2 hours, but it comes at a cost of battery life and system thermals. That chip regularly hits 96-99 deg centigrade and eventually thermal throttles slightly because the cooling system can't keep up. The 8705G chassis gets HOT. The fans scream under heavy load. The alternative (8550u ultra low power) proc is not quite as powerful as the 8705G in cpu compute, but it runs on 15W. The MX150 from Nvidia is ok for video editing, but not nearly as powerful as the AMD graphics for 3D gaming. The 8705G chip from both HP & Dell is throttled back to 35 (of 45) watts TDP because you can't cool 45W in an ultrabook package. The 8550u can run 25W for brief periods, then throttles to its 15W rated power yielding very decent performance under 50C most of the time not even needing fans unless you have a long (3+ minute) job. The 8705G won't be able to realize the performance numbers of, say, an intel NUQ with the 8705G because the NUQ has 1" (2.5cm) thick fans x 2 and the x360 has maybe 6mm thick fans, probably closer to 5mm. I've been working on the techniques to maximize runtime on the x360 (probably applies to the XPS as well as they are 98% the same thing) and have demonstrated 10.5 hrs of real world use in 2018, up from 6.5 hr in 2017's u series proc. (ignore all mfg's claims of "up to" 12+ hrs unless you plan to play mp3s with the lid closed) 2hrs is "up to" 12hrs. For performance, my system uses the Nvidia 1070 e-gpu on thunderbolt-3 because if for some reason I need that kind of performance, the external power is really good to have, and the e-gpu will outperform the internal graphics 100% of the time. The MX150 can render & publish 4K UHD video in realistic timeframes (~1.3X real playing time) I would not be surprised if the 2019 spectre had Intel's new 6-core chip as an option. Personally, having used x360s since 2015, it's really sold as more of a business machine than a gaming machine, so the 8705G is a stretch of the chassis + battery. HP should have stretched 2mm more out of the chassis and installed bigger fans in the 8705G package. I'd be surprised if either HP or Dell offer that option next year. Still, the 8705G is the fastest spectre ever to date. The 8550u is the best balanced configuration available with 16G ram + 2T ssd, 9260 MIMO wifi, and UHS-II sd reader. You can always drop the display "down" to "only" FHD and game at reasonable rates. FHD was fine for 46" diagonal HDTVs and still looks great in a 15.6" LCD panel.

[@abhinavgera5396]

Sir ,does the 2018 version's fan also make loud noise as the 2017 version ? I am thinking of buying this laptop in a couple of days. Please , reply as soon as possible

[@uwave]

The 2018 is MUCH quieter. Running the cinebench test in this video, its fan doesn't even spin, while the 2017 spins very loud through the test. The 2017 gets hot just surfing the net in my lap, but the 2018 runs cool - runs faster - and runs longer on a battery. I get an honest 10.5 hours on the 2018 with 2 tabs open in edge on wifi. The 2017 got at most 7 hours. Plus the 2018 is faster! It's a great machine.

[@abhinavgera5396]

+uwave thanks for the speedy response . now i am thinking to buy lenovo yoga 720 . what do you think about it?

[@uwave]

There's really not much difference in Hp, dell, Lenovo in performance & price - it's what features you really want/need. The dell XPS has a nicer color gamut LCD, but gives up the I/O ports on the Spectre, which also has better I/o than the yoga 720. The 2018 x360 also has a really nice FHD camera - something the Dell isn't good at. Also, the x360 has a full UHS-II SD card slot, which may not sound like much, but the UHS-II is > 270 MB/s = over a gigabyte every 4 seconds. I can insert a SD card and backup SSD > SD slot with 256GB UHS-II SD cards. There are also external thunderbolt SSD backup drives that would handle this, but they are huge by comparison to SD cards. I can also take 128GB cards out of my camera and read them straight into the x360 on the road so the SD UHS-II card was a big deal. I avoided the 8705G VEGA cpu/gpu combo because I wanted long battery life. I get 10.5 hr of "honest" use (50% bright, wifi-802.11ac, backlit keys on) - which is a reasonable number.

[@abhinavgera5396]

+uwave first of all thanks. i have never come across a person who is that quick in responding. and in that detail. xps is out of my budget that 's why i am not even considering it. and the newer version of hp spectre x360 2018 one that one (with 8705 g processor) isn't yet out for sale and the previous version gets a little bit hot. i know lenovo yoga's build quality is not good in comparison to xps and of course spectre (it's one sexy piece of metal) but the specs lenovo is giving in my budget are better than them so i'll stick with lenovo yoga 720 hope my new laptop doesn't make me feel bad about this decision .😂 Because it's costly and i would need it at work. xps price with configurations i need is around 2500$ where as spectre and yoga are on some discount right now so they are around 1500$

[@uwave]

I can always type slower in responses :) - Sometimes the best HP deals are by calling their sales number direct on the phone because web prices tend to be higher - direct phone sales can offer prices lower than the hp.com site. That's how I bought my last 3 x360's. It is best to combine a holiday sale + phone call. Right now, I would AVOID any machine with the 8705G Intel+AMD (except maybe the NUC Hades Canyon) because the power demands can't be met in a laptop. The i7-8550u chip is Cool, and FAST - plus you can increase performance 15% and decrease power 13% by undervolting it using the intel XTU (xtreme tuning utility). Another discount option is the "refurbished" machines that come out ~6 mo after a new model (Lenovo, hp, dell) is released. The reason is some problem (usually a driver) caused early ultrabook shipments to be returned (regardless of brand - usually an Intel problem). They can't be sold as new, so a reburbishment company buys the returns cheap, updates the drivers, offers a limited 30 day warrantee, and sells them as refurbs. They are not covered by HP any more, because they were warrantee returns HP scrapped out. If you plan to keep a machine, I recommend buying an HP total coverage warrantee. Don't buy from Amazon - the "links" you see in other reviews are marked-up refurb systems often that put money in the reviewer's pocket. Another less expensive path is to buy a "simple" machine like the Xiaomi mi-book / mi-book pro. They're ~$1000 but lack the 4K display, I/O ports, memory and SSD size you'd get from Lenovo or HP.

[@ilanSniping]

Hello ! I am planning to buy the new hp spectre x360 with the i7 . I would also like game on it so I wanted to know if I can buy an external gpu like the aorus with a 1070. My question is how to connect them and set it up ? Do I just have to plug the egpu on the laptop and that’s it ? Thx

[@uwave]

For 2019, there are 2 versions to choose from in 15.6" - the 8565U and the new 8750H 6-core processor with the GTX 1050 graphics on board. Both units can use an external e-gpu, but for serious gaming the 6 core proc would be substantially faster. The only sacrifice is battery life - and money! Either machine accepts the Aorus 1070 from Amazon or Newegg. HP also sells an OMEN branded e-gpu holder, which you could drop a 1080Ti into, then plug in the thunderbolt port. Hope that helps!

[@ilanSniping]

uwave thanks a lot !

[@sunnysam69]

What is the difference between 15-BL112DX and 2018 model? I have already ordered 15-BL1.

[@uwave]

Sandesh its a great question because the HP site is hard to tell which machine is in the photos - The BIG difference is the BL1xx and CH0xx is the model year. The BL1 is 2017+1/2 [called middle year product refresh] - it gets the new i7-8550u which is a major upgrade in speed and battery life. BL0xx was the first 2017 model with the i7-7500u. 15t-ch0 is the first 2018 year machine. Your BL1 has only a USB power connector and the stereo speakers on each side of the keyboard, and it has a HUGE trackpad, like a macbook pro. The 15t-ch0xx is all new for 2018 with down facing speakers and number pad and smaller trackpad. They removed the USB power adapter on the 15tch-0xx though the machine still can run and charge from USB power like with a desktop thunderbolt 3. HP now uses a round plug/pin adapter on the 2018 ch0xx models. In the video, I show why this is a big deal. Over time, the USB doesn't grip as well and falls out easily. (mine is 15t-ch000 which means it's a custom order not off the shelf which ends in 06 07 etc) - but the 15-bl1 has the great sounding front facing speakers, nice keyboard layout (centered - not shifted to accommodate the num pad) and it has performance comparable to my 15t-ch0 machine. You just need to take care of the USB connector. Note ALSO the 2018 year has the i7-7805 VEGA graphics, which drains the battery faster. I didn't order that. They have the same display panel, which is very nice! Hope that helps!

[@sunnysam69]

uwave Wow, that was a nice comprehensive answer. Thank you so much for your reply.

[@uwave]

Oh - one last thing - always plug the power adapter in the rearmost [by the hinge] USB-c, and save the frontmost USB-c for Thunderbolt use. This way the wear and tear of charging is NOT on your TB3 plug. (both plugs have a lightning bolt symbol, but take a close look - they're different. One is a power out symbol for charging phones - same symbol as on the left side USB port. The Thunderbolt symbol is trademarked, and looks different (see my blue display in the video). Only 1 of the 2 ports has TB3 on my 2017 and 2018, though some people confuse the two symbols because they look the same.

[@sunnysam69]

uwave Sure I'll take care of it. Thanks so much for the reply. :-)

[@Bill-uv4hs]

I have two questions . 1. Real life battery life in 4k resolution. Mine 2017 i7550u between 6 to 8 hours . 2018 really 12hours? 2. Screen color range. sRGB and RGB. Mine 2017 i7550u 104%sRGB 64% RGB which is too narrow comepare to XPS 15 2018 2in1 188%sRGB. 100%RGB. For photographers and video producer.

[@uwave]

12 hours MAYBE if LCD backlight at 10%, running ms-word, wifi turned off, backlit keyboard off, no USB, 4GB ram, 360GB SSD. REAL world, it's much better than the 2017. I can get 10.5 REAL hours of work, wifi ON, backlight 50%, keyboard light on, 16GB, 1TB SSD, no usb, no sdcard. My 2015 2K display 13" [33 cm] x360 got 12 hours of video watching over wifi with the processor slowed to 400MHz. Also turn off the charging while off in the BIOS feature that provides 5V to the usb when the system is powered down to charge your phone - no sense in using your x360 as a power bank. Factory default is ON, which is wrong! The 4K display isn't the problem - it's windows, and specifically the browser. If you really want to save power, get an adblocker and stop the webpages with all the video ads playing from ever loading. Also, keep browser tabs to a minimum (1 to 4 tabs open, just one window). In that real world configuration, it takes about 7.6-8.5 watts on an 84 Watt-hour battery. Also be sure to defer battery waste until plugged in (leave it turned on while charging so it can do virus scans, updates, housekeeping tasks on AC power). You can easily force this behavior by setting windows "low power" mode to 100% battery instead of default = 20% (I think). It means when you unplug you'll get the "Your battery is low " popup, and it will tell you there's "only" 100% left. Don't leave usb drives or SD cards plugged in unless actively reading them. Even a tiny USB drive can draw 0.5 watts. There is more power tuning in the registry, processor (Intel XTU), and graphics to optimize it for ultra low power operation. That's a new video by itself.

[@essendon6498]

Please do a teardown and re-paste the cpu and gpu with liquid metal, can you tell if the heatsink is made out of aluminium or copper? Also are you able to undervault using XTU? this is for the 8550u model. Thanks :)

[@uwave]

Jeremy - undervolting is a MAJOR win for both performance AND battery life. I can drop it delta -0.145V under (variable) nominal to about 0.795 idle 0.995 running. It bumps the cinebench from 531 out of box to 652 avoiding power limits. The power savings are substantial yielding 10.5 hrs of REAL use 50% bright + wifi + edge w/ 4 tabs open + minor edits in Resolve Studio. The 12.5 hr spec must be 10% bright and wifi off, running ms-wordpad. Performance tuning with XTU shows it's always POWER limited instead of THERMAL. You can run PL2 for 96 seconds with 10ms bursts to PL3 + PL4. There's no package "lid" as these are bare die flip-chip w/ TIM to copper heatpipes, thus with no thermal throttling, a TIM change is contraindicated. Liquid metal forms nasty alloys with lead free solder - see louis rossman's video on shunted graphics card resistors falling off after LM shorts. If it ain't broke - don't fix it!

[@essendon6498]

Thanks for the reply, you can use nail polish or scotch 33+ electrical tape over the resistors to avoid issues with the liquid metal (grizzly conductonaut) but I can always use grizzly kryonaut if I want to be safe. My spectre X360 should be coming in tomorrow. If I can get to perform as well as the mi notebook pro I'd be very satisfied kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXqkpImirdWjq5o. One of the main reasons why I chose the HP over the xiaomi is that it has the full TDP variation of the MX150 1D10 over the 1D12.

[@uwave]

I'm really impressed with the Xiaomi books - it's a pricing sweet spot for people who, honestly, don't need all the ports the x360 & XPS offer. It's thin, and light, but "only" HD 1920x1080. I pay about $6 for a win 10 pro license which is no big deal to nuke it out of Chinese and fresh install win10 north America us-ascii. Honestly, UHD in a 15.6" display is sort of overkill - 2K would be enough - that's what my first x360 13" had and the display looked just as good. I have a gaming laptop with a 1080 17" display - works fine, but not nearly as nice as the spectre IPS display. If you decide on using liquid metal, amazon has a silicone dope 1oz bottle for $7 or so to protect the board - it will be more inert than nail polish or vinyl tape. I object to that because when you hit microwave frequencies, dielectric constants of any "add ons" can play on the coupled noise, especially if they surround bypass caps trying to remove those frequencies from the power planes in the package. Silicone dope is less likely to be an issue. Another non-metallic but more expensive TIM is called graphoil and made of a sheet of graphite. I've used that on commercial equipment. My MX150 / 8550u machine doesn't thermal throttle EVER, so for me there's not much gain from improving upon the TIM, especially considering there's no "lid" in between already - just silicon then TIM then copper heatpipes. Now, the VEGA machine at 65W TDP is getting some bad press on youtube for it's heat output, hot bottom, fan speeds that sound like a jet engine spooling up, etc. My unit came with a 90W AC brick - the VEGA has a 150W (!!!) brick, which is ALOT of power dumped into the small case with 2 tiny fans. They may be shopping for those external fan trays to go under the notebook.

[@essendon6498]

I just received my machine a few hours ago and I can see what you mean, It is very quick to "power limit throttle". You mentioned that you were able to avoid/postpone this throttle by undervaulting, I set the core voltage to -0.100v and set the turbo boost power max and short to 35.00W, also tried a few other configurations and wasn't able to change the power limit throttling issue. So how did you avoid the power limits? Also I assume this is an HP bios setting they have implemented causing this.

[@uwave]

Hey Jeremy! In all the testing I did, my unit NEVER thermal throttles, and the numbers are always safe, so that's why I feel TIM changes are contraindicated. I can't wait to see the numbers on the 8705G variant - it may very well thermal throttle with TDP of 65W. I don't think it's HP bios doing the power throttle, but rather intel's "safety mechanism" that's documented on the i7-8550u spec sheet for power levels, and timing, and average power throttle which is what finally gets you power throttled on long runs. Frequency is locked, but in ultra low power that's fine. I can deal with it. I used cinebench cpu test as the test benchmark. On my machine, - 0.145 from nominal is borderline at room temp. -0.140 is safe. There are more ways to delay the onsent of power throttle, but it will happen. Please send your email to info [at] uwave [dot] com and I can go into more detail. I don't want to have a public discussion here on youtube comments! 0xEFB

[@mrsaeedali]

does hp x360 15t vega model support egpu??? Help please

[@nicolasbenenzon2242]

Hi uwave, I'm ordering a Spectre x360 13.3" from Amazon, how can I check that it's the latest model? Thank you.

[@uwave]

I'd work backwards from hp.com to get a product number you want then find what amazon is selling it for. HP can ALWAYS beat amazon pricing with a phone call, and you'll be better off warranty wise buying direct since HP can swap out your unit if there's an issue, while buying from amazon means you must deal with HP repair after the 30 days. HP also gives you a no questions asked return for 30 days so it's no different than amazon. So on hp.com under 13" x360 I see there's a 1zx32av_1 product which is a 2018 x360. I searched for that number on amazon and came up with a $1372 price, then configured the same options (FHD not 4K, 500GB SSD, 16GB ram, dark ash color) and hp.com said it would be $1410, so amazon is cheaper by $38. Call HP's order number on hp.com and ask them to match+beat amazon's price. They will. Note that you can customize the options at hp.com, while amazon stocks only the most asked for options. You can ensure you are getting the 2018 model by the processor number - all 2018 systems will have 8th gen intel core (ex i7-8550). 2017 used the i7 7th gen. There's one 13" model that comes with an i5 this year. You're smart to get the FHD vs. 4K display as it uses considerably less power. I have a 2015.5 model 13" w/ the old i7-6550 and a 2K display which is very energy efficient. Hope that helps

[@nicolasbenenzon2242]

Thanks uwave! You're awesome, really helpful, I jumped into similar conclusions about FHD. I need 1TB SSD. I can't buy it from HP because they do not accept international debit/credit cards or PayPal account, only US -.-"!

[@uwave]

HP has a bunch of these rules - I ran into them with folks from Switzerland who wanted customized options and a special keyboard. HP divides the world up into regions, which sort of makes sense when repair is considered. The other half is fraud prevention - if it gets delivered to country X, the credit card must be from country X as well. They also have limits on what models go to certain countries. The good news is you can upgrade the SSD yourself in the future with just a T5 torx driver and P0 Philips. When you get your unit, be sure to subscribe as I am working on a video about HOW to get the "up to" runtimes out of the machines. Out of the box I got 6.5 hours - not the 12.5 claimed, then managed 8 with some work, then 10, and with some good decision making I managed to get 12 finally. Best of all, I was able to do it without dimming the display all the way down or turning off wifi, which are what HP says you need to do to get "up to" 12.5 hr. The settings out of the box are not ideal for runtime so the video will cover what to change and the impact, if any, those changes have. It will also cover how to make tradeoffs and usage tips the human needs to be mindful of. I forgot one item comparing the amazon deal which was the win 10 pro license that was included at amazon and left out of my HP quote. I never specify pro when buying because I can upgrade for ~$6-10 using scdkeys.com. All of my personal systems run pro, which is one step towards power savings since it makes turning off cortana very easy in 10 pro. I think you'll really like the 13" - I got my stolen 2015.5 13" x360 returned. It's a great size machine and makes my 2018 15.6" feel massively heavy!

[@nicolasbenenzon2242]

Will take that into account and will check that video! +1 subscribe, thanks uwave!

[@nicolasbenenzon2242]

Hi uwave, I got my spectre x360 13" i7 16gb ram 1tb ssd as I mentioned you, but I connect it to my monitor everytime and I'm not happy at all with the definition in my monitor (4k 60hz usb c to hdmi cable) and performance (Google Keep is slow opening large notes :( ), it does fan noise everytime too and the charger does a metallic sound when the laptop is fully charged, should I change it for the best specs 15" or its way too heavy? I have the best 13" specs. Thanks

[@uwave]

OK - starting with the monitor, you'll have MUCH better external performance using the usb-c for Thunderbolt-3 rather than usbc-->hdmi on a cable. The thunderbolt 3 is ACTIVE, the usbc to hdmi cable is almost passive, because it relies on the internal graphics (intel on chip graphics) to send video data out the port+cable. Thunderbolt 3 gives you an external chassis + desktop size GPU (1070 on mine) with multiple monitor ports AND usb-A ports for keyboard+mouse, and it powers the x360 over the single usb-c cable. Fan noise is a function of how much work you are doing. Are you running 3D games? It will run the fan heavily. Also, if I recall the 13" does NOT have a dedicated GPU inside - the 15" has a Nvidia 150 GPU inside, plus an external HDMI port right off the GPU. I need to hear the metallic sound when battery is full - it should not have a sound unless, perhaps, the battery is swollen and pushing on the fan - see if you can record it and put it on youtube, then send a link to me here. This is the first time I've heard a noise from a full battery - but it's crowded inside the x360. NEXT: weight & specs I bought a 2015/2016 13" w/ 2.6K display and love the light weight, but without a GPU it doesn't do much beyond youtube/Netflix videos. My 2018 15" has the GTX 150 and much better graphics, plus a larger display + larger battery. Check to see if you have Thunderbolt-3 on your 13" - if so, your best bet is an E-gpu box (they're cheap now that the cryptomining has fallen). It will have MUCH better graphics than your 13" and it will have external monitor ports. It will give you great graphics at your desk, and light weight on the go - best of both worlds. I bought the gigabyte e-gpu w/ gtx-1070 from amazon for $380 and use it to "dock" my 2018 x360. Be sure to check if you have thunderbolt-3 on your 13". If not, I'd get the 15" if you don't mind the weight AND added thickness. It's right at 2kg which makes my old 13" light as a feather, and thinner as well!

[@nicolasbenenzon2242]

@@uwave thanks a lot for clarifying, I'm really struggling deciding hp spectre x360 13" i78550U with integrated or 15" with i7 G 3.1ghz and 4GB dedicated card, they cost me about the same, because 13" 1TB SSD and 15" 512GB, I don't mind that difference, 512 is OK. The real question is if dedicated card and better processor are worth the weight. What do you think? It's really noticeable for user experience that improvements? I do not play games, do not do 3D renders often to consider it, do not edit videos often, I'm a software engineer, use lot of Chrome tabs, develop software, websites, apps and read a lot. I've noticed that large Google keep notes are slower to load without dedicated card, that surprised me, do you know the cause? Does Chrome use dedicated card? Thank you a lot uwave. Forgot to say that I'm in Argentina, that thunderbolt 3 graphics isn't available here :(. The fan noise happens every time it's connected to power (its a failure some hp spectre 13 get) it's really really loud, I can hear it from 6 meters of distance.

[@uwave]

Nicolas - I've been planning on making a Spanish language channel for digital microwave internet links targeting Latin America - I setup a uwave latinamerica channel a while back but haven't got any content ready for it. Do you think it would be useful? The main stuff I do is run last km (however many - up to 50km) from the internet source to the home/office that lacks fiber or cable. Quick note, don't sweat the 512GB, you can change your SSD very easy on an x360 - you must buy an NVME (Samsung pro or toshiba) - you must make a usb recovery drive to re-install win10 and have your SSD backed up OR buy a caddy to install it external via TB3, you need a Philips + torx T5, then 6 screws out, bottom off, undo a zero insertion force cable, one screw, ssd comes out, then reverse & re-install with a bigger ssd. 30 minutes at most. I just had to do a doublecheck on your missing TB3 - I thought I might have confused the thunderbolt 3 in the "spectre" (not the x360 - the 10mm thick spectre that opens ~145 degrees on hidden hinges) - but I *did* double check and the 2018 x360 13" DEFINITELY has Thunderbolt 3 - and all HP does for international "localization" is change the power cord, change the keyboard for language, and stock the nearest repair depot with parts for what models are sold nearby. That leads to some dumb (IMHO) product feature changes, like the "country" of Puerto Rico can't get the same device model YEARS as the USA, even though PR is part of the USA - right now they are buying 2016 hardware, not 2018 in PR. AND HP has a mfg plant in Aguadia, PR, USA. Please send me your email so I can figure out what HP is doing to Argentina - my public address is info uwave com - I'll check it in 24 hr. and email you back from my private mail. If you can, please send me the product link that says they don't support TB3 in Argentina - I'm without words for how HP could do such a thing. Don't worry about translating - I speak/read/write Spanish, and I'd rather not trust google translate. Here's the US 13" spec: www8.hp.com/us/en/campaigns/spectrex360/overview.html?jumpid=in_r11260_us/en/psg/premiumfamily/spectre-x360-tab-learn-more-bottom#spectre-x360-13 TB3 isn't just for video - if you want to back up 1TB fast, you can hook up a TB3 ssd external and do a FAST disk-disk copy at 3GB/sec over TB3. It boggles the mind HP could remove TB3 for a given country, because it would involve a major product change, even if all they did was turn it off in firmware - way too much work! - my guess is they don't list the feature for whatever reason - maybe even a difficulty in translation of "thunderbolt 3", maybe marketing in the America's sector (inc. south America) didn't push that feature - but something's wrong!. TB3 is what differentiates a spectre x360 from an elitebook x360. OK - fyi, the 8th gen 8550u was the first [I think - maybe the 2nd if 2017 had it] to have native 4K support for video playback in the 620 intel graphics, and even if you have a GPU, the intel cpu drives the LCD, so the GPU has to send image data through the cpu to get to the LCD. That means the cpu does almost all the work for 2D video playback, 2d graphics most of the time - my ctrl-alt-esc resource manager tells me the GPU utilization and what processes are using how much -usually it's close to 1% except for DaVinci Resolve. You won't see any difference until something such as a UI that has 3D elements gets used (possibly chrome does something there to wake up the gpu). Chrome is heavily hardware optimized, so it might offload to the GPU little stuff. The data path back through the cpu is why you souldn't use an e-gpu for games viewed on the internal lcd, especially with only 2 lanes of TB3 on the x360 (just fine for an egpu+e-monitor, not for going both ways on the TB3). We need to figure out where & why the TB3 got dropped on your 13" x360 before you make a decision! I can run my 2015 13.3" i7-6550u on win 10 without a problem, until I do video rendering. Editing is slower - and I notice it, but rendering is painfully slow without the GPU. My 15" w/ the nvidia internal takes (on battery) 1.8 watt-hours of battery pack (=84 watt hours total) per MINUTE of video rendered at UHD 4K x 60 fps. It takes about 2.5x the length of the video, so rendering 10 minutes takes ~25, with the GTX 150 gpu. I didn't benchmark it, but I did try it on my 13", and it took essentially way too long. The 13" however is so thin and light I hardly notice it, while the 15" feels like i'm picking up a slab of copper. My advice: if you have only 1 computer and no home / office desk, make it the 15" - if you have a desktop that's modern w/ gpu - then the 13" is great when away from the desk. I have a 2015 13", a 2018 15", and 2 desktops - 1 HP elitedesk w/o gpu (also VERY slow for video) and 1 home-made Asus motherboard w/ 2 x Nvidia 1080Ti + intel extreme series proc + ssds designed for big video render jobs which flys through video in less time than the video length. If I'm traveling, and MUST render video - the only machine I'd ever take is the 15" w/ gpu. If I had only a 13" w/o gpu as my only computer, but had the TB3 e-gpu box (AORUS or HP or razer), then I'd be able to render video just as well - if not better!- as with my 15", provided I'm at a desk, and I'd likely setup a second monitor if I did that just for extra screen space. Last thing to consider, the 15" has ~84 watt-hours of battery, the 13" has ~59 watt-hours - and for video rendering on battery, I let the display go black to not draw power, so I've got longer runtime than the 13" simply due to the larger battery pack. As for LCD displays, the 1080p LCD is more than enough on a 13", and saves power - but only if you buy the 1080 stock; don't plan on ordering the 4K then configuring for 1080 to save power, that doesn't work. In 2015, my 13" x360 only had a 2.6K LCD display option, which was plenty sharp. You can't tell 2.6K from 4K by eye, but there is a battery hit for the extra transistors you must run on all those pixels, even if you only run 1080p in configuration -- those transistors equate to power drain, as does the gpu if you use it. I've been doing a power optimization on my 15" 4K 8550u x360 - I can now run on only 5W of power making some major changes to configs, which means I can power it from the usb-c with just a cell phone charger instead of the big brick, with 14+ hour runtime on battery. In the power analysis, I did an A-B comparison between Edge & Chrome - More Tabs = More power, and Chrome ALWAYS uses more power than edge to do the exact same thing on the exact same tabs + same websites up. It's because Chrome "does more" for you (and also watches your content so google knows your personal habits). I may look at chrome configuration in the future to turn off what I can. There's not much you can do about it, but the good thing is it's not night and day, more like 0.3 - 0.4 watts more at most - still enough to notice if shooting for 5W TOTAL. FYI, 15" out of the box usually gives 6.5 hours to most new users with factory configs - I've been tweeking it to make a video on maximum runtime both for the x360 and Dell XPs shooting for 12+ hours. Fan noise is a necessary evil of thin laptops, with thin fans, which must spin faster with more blades - Dell has the same issue. Good news is saving power means the fans seldom turn on just doing web stuff - like me typing this. My system doesn't even feel warm. Bad news is one of the ways I save power is by telling windows to DEFER non-urgent tasks until I get on AC power - as a result when the plug goes in, the fans come on because windows has 12-16 hours worth of housekeeping tasks to run now that AC is present. When I plug in, the cpu utilization hits 100%. I can say, having opened up several of my machines, (subscribe for a great new video on power + insides) - these fans pull in dust like a vacuum cleaner. In just 2 weeks since new, my 15" had about 2.5 mm of dust blocks stuck inside, and I keep a clean house. Dell patented a neat idea to "fling" the dust particles to a diverter "chute" so they don't go through the heatsink fins on the XPS. I'm not sure how well it works, but I can say - you need to vacuum the air vents every 2 weeks. Let's get the HP Argentina specs figured out - I can't believe they omitted TB3 - last thing I'd advise is go pick up a 13" and a 15" in the store if you can find one - THAT is a night and day difference! --EFB

[@nicolasbenenzon2242]

Sincerely, me as a user does not have a specific "need" for KZbin videos, I just search for what I need on demand, I rarely can't find anything. It's a little bit subjective but my advice is choose what you like more, doing english or spanish videos and focus 100% on growing that channel, once you get traction, then you can think of expanding to other languages. Coming back to the other thread, there were a misunderstanding, when I refered to the TB3 graphics I did not mean the port, I mean the external TB3 graphics you showed in the video that adds up an external graphics card to the machine, that's the thing that's not available in argentina haha, I think I have TB3 in my actual HP Spectre x360 13" because I charge the laptop with USB C and have the USB C to HDMI cable that I mentioned to connect to my monitor. I think I've decided to go with HP Spectre x360 15" with i7 G and Vega. I really can't stand the loud fan noise that my actual HP does when connected to power, this will be gone with the new 15" I'm right? The conclusions I take from your answer is I'm trading portability, lightness and battery to gain performance, a better view in my monitor (this is true? I'll really notice a difference in quality? I've tested with my desktop PC who was a dedicated card and connected via DVI and did not notice a huge difference with my actual spectre), and get rid of this loud fan noise. It makes sense the trade off? I see you've deep knowledge in the topic so I value a lot your insights.

[@nicolasbenenzon2242]

I really can't understand how a $1600 notebook does a super loud fan noise everytime it's plugged in. Do you know how to fix this? When the notebook is on battery it's very quiet. Would apprecciate help with this.

[@diokosa7001]

I was planning on getting this laptop however I heard that it suffers from terrible thermal throttling can you confirm or deny this because it would be a real pain to buy it only to find this problem and have to send it back

[@antong3987]

What is the available storage on the 2018 model with 512GB nvme? As in - the net yield...

[@uwave]

It's been a while since I used a 512 (true 512G -- be careful of the 500GB/512GB) but I want to say ~470GB from memory, mainly because HP puts a drive D with ~14 GB off limits with your recovery volume in case the op-sys is corrupted, you can boot from D: and re-install win10 to drive C without the need for a boot-usb drive. If you create a boot-usb drive, it just contains what is already on drive D, and once you do that, you can wipe D and recover that 14GB. So on this machine, I ordered it with a "2TB" which is 2.000TB, not 2048GB, and it has 1.84TB free on drive C - with the difference being the 14G for drive D, and probably a hibernation space in there as well. I checked a friend's 2015 w/ 500GB and it has 465G on drive C - same deal with a recovery drive you can dispose of after making your usb recovery drive. Hope that helps!

[@antong3987]

Thanks for that. And is the 2TB drive you have a full-bore nvme or is it 'governed' to less than speed? I just purchased the 2018 Spectre based upon your review and I am considering installing a 960 or 970 but not sure if I should simply go 'Evo'.

[@uwave]

2 parts tl;dr - first paragraph is on speed, second is on install info for 2018. The 2018 x360 uses Toshiba's 4-lane full NVME that HP buys 100%, which is lightning fast - roughly 2.8 - 2.9 GB/s (GigaBYTEs not bits!) on sequential read. The "difference" in Toshiba vs. Samsung top of the line is that the Toshiba has a smaller write buffer, slowing to 700+ MB/s on a 4GB sequential write. All different capacity Toshiba offerings have the same speed. It's not quite as fast as the top of the line Samsung PRO 960, but it's more than adequate for pulling in large videos into video editing software. Note, the UHS-II SD card slot has 1 PCIE lane dedicated to it, and runs ~280 MB/s read OR write, so its best to copy the card into the ssd. Basically with Toshiba, you trade off ultimate speed while writing for larger capacity at the same cost, which I'm ok with. I run Resolve with big (multi-GB) files with no slowdowns, and no proxy files. Last note, if you plan to buy a drive, you **MUST** buy a NVME drive, the SATA drives won't be recognized by the system. The x360 is easy to swap disks, just make sure you have a usb-drive with your HP win-10 recovery ready to go. 4 Philips screws hidden under the rear rubber foot, + 2 Torx T5 at the front diagonal by the speakers. You'll need to walk around the edge and pop the snaps, then the tray will seem hooked on something in the center - shove it front to rear to unhook that part. There's a ribbon over the ssd you need to pull, just flip up the zero force lever and it comes right out - you only need to open 1 side. swap the NVME then put some alcohol on a q-tip and get all the crud out of the edge where the pan drops in - just a little dust will make re-assembly impossible. Hook the center first by sliding front/back then once it's latched in the dead center of the tray, walk your fingers around the edge, squeezing until you hear a click at each snap, then put the screws back in. On removing the rubber foot, it's a 2-part foot - there's the rubber which comes off easily (try not to stretch it), and under that there's a double sided adhesive tape. If you can (I didn't) try to get both the rubber foot and the adhesive off at the same time. If that doesn't work, get some double-sided cellophane tape and make a new adhesive layer to seat your rubber foot into. Do the alcohol regardless of how long you've owned it - I said "I've only had it 2 weeks - can't be too dirty" - but it was. Also watch out - those edges are razor sharp. Takes about 45 minutes. Please post your crystaldiskmark when you get it done!

[@antong3987]

Good insight. Thx !

[@damovee]

looking into an 8705g and the aurous 1080 egpu. a review would be amazing!

[@uwave]

To understand the 8705G, see the gamer's nexus youtube channel under the intel hades canyon nuc (same chip as the VEGA x360). It's a 65W package (i7 8550u =15w). The x360 has an 84 WH battery. I need the runtime more than the graphics, so the external box wins - plus the gpu doesn't heat the cpu up that way and thermal throttle. I've met a couple people with the 8705G on order, so I'll try to compare the two chips when they get theirs - but Steve's review is likely what you'd expect from HP.

[@JJ-id3rn]

I WANT TO SEE A REVIEW ON THE HUAWEI DATEBOOK X PRO

[@uwave]

Muhammad, That looks to be a very comparable machine to the 2017.5 x360 with its 8550u and usb-c + combo TB3 port, nice big trackpad, full stereo speakers, touchscreen (though 3000x2000 isn't a 16x9 standard it really fills the lid to the edge) - and from the looks of it with their i5 it should have EXCELLENT battery life. too bad nobody has them in stock! I have some concerns ever using usb-c as the only power port, which is why I took the plunge to go to the 2018 x360 with the round port. There are 2 trains of thought - ship it now, and re-flash it later with bios fixes as needed to support the early adopters --OR-- put ship holds in place and wait until all the bugs are worked out to fill the distribution channel. Huawei looks to take that 2nd approach, which means no units are appearing for sale yet. Since I'm on the HP ultrabook bandwagon, I don't think I'll do a Huawei review unless some local source pops up with them in stock.

[@JJ-id3rn]

uwave Yes it certainly would be a great comparison to the HP spectre 13" x360 and the dell XPS 13. I'd very much like to see you review it and compare it against other laptops on the same category, but yes the availability is a problem and that's really troubling as I live in a 3rd world country and I'm not able to gain access to it. I can't even purchase it through European markets as it's not available there either

[@uwave]

There's a fellow on here from Switzerland who can't get the 8550u proc in the Swiss 15" package, yet Sweden can get that combo! - when I went looking around, I saw HP lists Puerto Rico as a "country" - even though it's part of the US, uses US money, doesn't need a passport to travel to/from the USA. Even so, HP has severely limited models for sale in Puerto Rico. Where are you from? The 13" models (dell/hp/Xiaomi/lg) are soo thin and light, nearly 1/2 the weight of the 15.6". I almost bought a 4K Hp spectre in 2017 from best buy (retail store) instead of HP (who only had 13" in 1080, no 4K as it was an exclusive to best buy). I checked around, and word was the 13" w/ 4K went through battery in just a few hours - so I stuck with the 15" in 2017. I looked again at the 13" in 2018, but the performance wasn't what I wanted like the 15" offered. The 2016 model I owned in 13" had a 2K (1440p) display, which was a very nice compromise with crystal sharp text and no major power hit, but they quit offering that. Maybe I should take a camera to the best buy store and film them running performance benchmarks!

[@JJ-id3rn]

uwave Thankyou for the replies they are all really great & helpful! I'm from Malawi, a small country in Africa but I buy most of my laptops from the United Kingdom, There are a lot of HP spectres for sale but very few Huawei Matebook X pro's. Do you know where I can find a Huwaei Matebook X pro in the U.K. for a reasonable price point?

[@uwave]

What's the internet infrastructure like there? I've done digital microwave links for several remote countries to go the last 25km wirelessly (big dish - not wifi type) where wires don't exist. I did a quick search, and that Huawei design is not available anywhere here. Zero stock, and no estimated date for arrival. One alternative machine I considered that's similar is the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air 13" with the core i5. It is a beautiful machine, just lacking the performance of the i7 systems and I/o capabilities. I seriously considered buying it several times because it's 1/2 the price of a spectre or XPS. I've stayed with the Spectre because my first unit (2016 13") fell 1 meter to concrete and still ran perfectly - just had a ding in the corner of the metal case. They're built like a tank. Did you check out hpshop.co.za - they have the 13" x360 w/ 8GB + 512G ssd for R24999 (I'm not sure if that's a good deal or not!) - I also tried regular Africa, and it bounces me back to the USA page every time I go shopping for the x360. HP's worldwide pages are odd because some countries don't get certain models, likely due to support not wanting to stock too many parts for EVERYTHING. I can see why you've got to run the UK route - but they have everything available on that website. Did you also check out the LG gram? It's specs are similar to the matebook X pro. Personally, I think the XPS is a nice machine, equal to the spectre, but it's way overpriced. Ideally, you'd buy direct - that way if you ever have a problem, HP (or whoever) sends you a fed-ex (usa) box with packing material, you fill it out, fed-x picks it up, sends it overnight to repair (wherever that is) - they call you if needed, fix it, and ship it back. It's about a 6 day process. I'm not sure what your security situation is, but there's also available a "lojack" (tracer) system for x360s if they get stolen - it will locate your machine even if the thief re-initializes the disk and re-installs windows. My 2016 x360 13" was stolen, and is now with the police. I should be getting it back soon. I don't know about your technical abilities - or if you have friends who are good with their hands, but HP publishes their service & repair manuals in PDF in case you mainly want to upgrade ram or ssd or replace the battery if it wears out (none of mine have even worn down noticeably) The matebook is based on a core i5 and the i5 LG gram is about $100 USD less than the matebook. The i5's are good for long battery life! At one point, HP had an i5 based 360 type (maybe not spectre) machine in 13" that was reasonably priced as well. Given your remote location, these are all things to consider. One thing I like about the Xiaomi is it has NOTHING in the way of logos on the back of the lid or the keyboard - just plain! It kind of says "nothing special here" with that clean look, versus a flashy HP or DELL or APPLE logo. It's interesting to learn about all the different countries internet systems - please tell me more!

[@digbyhaslock7067]

I have got a question about styluses. I lost my stylus for my 2017 spectre and I was wondering if you/anyone had good ideas for a stylus as I would want one that does not lag and feels similar to a pen or pencil

[@uwave]

Digby - subscribe and tune in for an upcoming live cast on performance & battery life tuning - I'm going to giveaway an HP pen (your choice of the AAAA battery version or the usb-c rechargeable tilt pen). Send me your email to info uwave com and I'll give you a chance to pick the time - it's my first live stream, so I don't expect many viewers if even 1 - it's going to be an archived video on YT once I finish. Caution - I tried my 2018 tilt pen on my 2017 unit, and it doesn't work - something is different about the display panel plus the pen must be enrolled by Bluetooth on the 2018, but the 2017 pen design works on the 2018 chassis just without the tilt feature. Other ideas are to buy the Microsoft pen, which is an option for the 2017 that people report as having better feel. Pen users seem to indicate that is the best pen by far and infinitely better than the HP branded pen for artistic use. What I dislike about all the HP pens (for artistic purposes) is they don't register with very light pressure when the tip is in contact with the display glass. To me, it should work like using a charcoal pencil on paper - it should make a very faint line if it touches the glass. This means upstrokes in signatures just get dropped completely. I've not been able to find a setting for this - maybe you can help me if I'm doing something wrong or not configuring it properly. Also, for 2018 the leather-ette case has a loop for holding the pen next to the Velcro.

[@RyanZinter]

Does the I5 version have thunderbolt 3?

[@Nu11nV0iD9]

I could've sworn the one with the mx150 also had the rounded hinges and the only one with the sharp hinges was the one with the AMD Vega m gpu? Eh either way I'm deciding between those two versions but unsure if there is a difference in cooling and if one stays cooler than the other.

[@uwave]

2017 was rounded hinges (all models) - 2018 built on that "transformers" theme of angled edges. What you are likely seeing is the 2017+1/2 model (Oct 2017-ish) which had round hinges + 8550u - and could not get the 8705G since it wasn't out yet. I opted for the 2018 model year 8550u+MX150 mainly for battery life/heat output. It's confusing because they still sell the 2017 model in 2018 - it lacks the number pad / wide keyboard. The 2017 ran HOT, my 2018 runs very cool (and much longer) - AMD buyers are noting the rapid fans, bottom plate heat, short battery life, and faster performance. I have performance numbers in - will have a video up by Monday with a channel partner comparing MX150 vs VEGA x360s. Next week/weekend I'll host a live stream q&a with synopsis of the AMD situation. Subscribe and join us - format will be call-in conference call + live stream on YT.

[@Nu11nV0iD9]

uwave Yea HP was showing the 2017 version instead of the 2018 on the front page when I was looking so it really confused me. Thanks for clearing that up and all the extra info. I'll be sure to check out the comparison when it's up.

[@PNSP]

Is the thunderbolt 4 lanes or 2?

[@uwave]

I believe it is 4. Do you have a good diagnostic to test? The reason I ask is on my external GPU box, it changes speed depending on length of the cable. 0.5 m cables get 40 (suggesting 4 lanes) - but 1.0 m cables get 20. As for framerates, I get 95% of the speed of my desktop with the same card installed. Also, FYI, there are some reviews that say it has 2 thunderbolt 3 ports, which is wrong. Only the forward most port is thunderbolt-3 capable.

[@PNSP]

I have purchased one, exactly the same model as yours. I ran a HWinfo64 and the only PCI Express Root port that is Hot-Plug Ready shows 2x lanes and the other 10 lanes is distributed as follow: X4 is for Internal Gpu, X4 for SSD X1 for wifi, X1 is for something else... That means it is 2 lanes, if I am not mistaken .

[@uwave]

I'm going to hook up my external graphics box today or tomorrow - I'll run hwinfo64 once it's plugged in and let ya know how it "enumerates" once booted. FYI each x360 has a different TB3 config - I believe the 13" have 2 x TB3, but my 15.6" model only has 1 x TB3 (the other port has a similar bolt shaped icon, but it's the always-live power output for charging phones symbol, not the trademarked TB3) Only the forward most port is real TB3. I had heard that's why this model had 4 lanes and others have 2, but it's not definitive. Could it possibly de-configure the internal MX150 and free up those lanes when external GPU is attached, otherwise use only 2 lanes for say an external TB3 SSD backup solution? I'm just speculating that the MX150 is superfluous once an external is attached. On my x299 desktop system, reconfiguring lanes is a cold boot proceedure and not "on-the-fly" like TB3 which can impressively hot-plug the eGPU.

[@PNSP]

uwave Please do let me know what the result is when you connect the egpu as the result will dictate whether I will keep the laptop or not. I know that the different Spectre x360 will have different port. Thus, I have the exact same module as yours, with the numberpad and one tb3. I have seen and read in different sources that It does have 4 lanes. Thus, from What I saw is that 4 lanes is used by MX150. As you mentioned, I am not sure if those lanes could be free up. Normally you have to configure the BIOs to free it up as It is not hot plug capable. Please do let me know the result as I dont have egpu on hand to test it Cheers

[@uwave]

OK - will do - someone borrowed my TB3 0.5m cable, but I should have it tomorrow. Can you post the process you use to get a lane count? If you are in a hurry - you can buy from HP and return in 30 days with return shipping paid by HP. If HP's website says 4 lanes and it isn't they'll definitely take it back. I had called HP pre-sales engineering support to determine if I wanted the 8705G or the 8550u proc, and the engineer was able to give me the straight scoop there, so that's another authoritative option.

[@kel19961]

I don't know if this is common, but my laptop (spectre x360 15 2018) has crazy lag when running it in full resolution. I have to reduce it to 2048x1152 Anyone have the same issue or know how to fix it? Already updated all the drivers and tried disabling panel self refresh

[@uwave]

Kelvin - when you say lag, are you referring to frames out of sync with audio / gameplay keyboard/mouse inputs? I.e. you press the fire button and the muzzle flash arrives a few frames delayed? Or - are you referring to the display periodically freezing perfectly still for a period of time then suddenly working again? Early 2018 systems (before the 8705G came out) had a screen freeze issue with some LCD panels and had to be replaced by hp service. The symptom of freeze is the display stays perfectly still, but the system processor still is working, playing audio, accepting mouse inputs - but the display doesn't change. Then [3-30 sec later] suddenly the display catches up with everything else going on and jerks with the updates of what happened while it was frozen. This happened to the first (~Early March 2018) deliveries. I had one of those and shipped it to the quality manager at HP as one of the first problems they had to chase down on the 2018. If you can film it with a phone, put it on youtube and I'll look at what's going on!

[@kel19961]

Thank you for the responce, as requested, here is a video of the lag(not very apparent, due to 60fps camera) kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6qyqamlgZh0qrs The lag is especially great whey clicking task view, choosing pathway to save a file/download location. Interestingly, I think that I have an idea about the issue. DWM. EXE takes up 97% of you resources, as shown in task manager.

[@uwave]

There's several possible causes here. sorry if this is long, but it's complex - not a TL;DR I'm afraid. I'll give you a way to find out what's really going on at the bottom of this - same methods I use. You can email me a pic of what's happening and I'll let ya know what is likely the cause. Good news is this is not a hardware issue - it's a config issue. Before addressing the x360, first, my LG TV with youtube app installed in LG-webos has the exact same lag you see (where lips don't sync with audio for the first 3 seconds) which is caused by the youtube app needing more cpu horsepower than the LG tv offers. Priority 1 is keep the sound smooth - priority 2 is sync the video frames with sound samples. That second priority gets dropped occasionally. After starting and buffering, sometimes my TV eventually catches up and looks good - but starts off bad like yours, except on my TV -not my x360. KZbin has a peak internet bandwidth issue around 1930-2130 every evening that can cause this, but I see your lag as being a shortage of CPU power because my tuning for battery life did the exact same thing to my 2018 x360 laptop, as well as my 2015.5 x360 with the 6th gen core i7. As for the x360 - there's a lot going on under the hood to sort through. 1st problem (3% chance) is the new windows GUI with the frosted glass effect, which eats cpu when task switching like never before. Do you have 8GB or 16GB of ram? Changing tasks like you do in the video with only 8GB will do a page fault to SSD for cached ram which is very slow. I give that about a 5% chance of being the cause. HP should only sell these with 16GB, but that's my soapbox to stand on. I doubt that's your issue, though - but that's easy to disable the GUI effects which waste power + cpu time. There are power configs in win10 that de-prioritize smooth video. That's the 80% chance of causing your problem. These lags normally come from power savings, which is normally (NOT ALWAYS) set to conserve when on battery - but it CAN be set conserve power on AC if you want to see the same performance w/ or w/o AC present (or you are running "AC" from an external usb-c battery bank and don't want to waste external charge like being plugged in to an honest wall socket). Easiest way to check this is compare AC vs battery and see if the performance is different - but even if not - drill down the menus to check what's going on on how yours is configured. Settings (gear icon lower left corner) -->Battery-->change battery settings for playing video--> try turning off/on each setting on that menu to see if it helps or hurts. Then drill down a different path to settings->system->power&sleep->additional power settings->change plan settings (for whatever plan you have selected, e.g. HP power plan)->change advanced-power-settings-->processor-power-management [AND] multimedia-settings. Trust me, drilling down 7 menus deep is easier than running regedit, which has even more options. I FINALLY managed to get an HONEST 12 hours of REAL work on my 2018 x360, after tweaking ALL of the options available and measuring the power draw changes of EACH option. When I finished, I got 12+ (12.5 really) hours of online, wifi, web browsing, email, and video playback on a single 100% charge which is MUCH better than the 6.5 hours I got "out of the box" from HP. The way the product ships (and I'm picking on HP but Dell is equally to blame on their xps systems) you are lucky to get 6.5 hours. I'm writing a video right now for how to double your battery life and still use the machine for real productive work. If you succeed, you will get poor video playback, especially at startup of the playback. Out of the box settings, you could get 12 hours ONLY if you ran an mp3 player into earbuds with the lid shut, display off, and nothing else running - but judicial choices of power plans + settings will let you really utilize the machine as it was intended in a business environment for 12+ hours. No way in hell you'll ever get 12 hours of gaming, though. The spectre is really a business machine that can play games. THE GOTCHA IS that your videos will look like yours do when setup for best bat life. For me, I accept that because #1 I know I can undo my settings and get smooth playback and #2 I want to have 12 hours of use on a plane from SFO to Shanghai without plugging in. So, I'm willing to accept the judder / lag on video playback. Please compare AC and battery - and try changing the options I listed here in the settings drill down menus. You can also try closing some (most all) windows so just one youtube window is minimized/maximized. If that works better, you have a ram issue. I think you can get it back to near perfect, because I see the exact same thing you do after I throttle my CPU and put every power conserving trick into play - and it didn't happen until after I went for maximum power savings. BTW - what kind of bat lifetime are you getting? Have you made any changes from factory? Also try to hit ctrl-shift-esc and check your memory usage (how many gb of 8 or 16 are in use, and how much % of cpu is busy when this happens). That will point you in the right direction. If you want to get a headstart on my battery tuning process, install Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (aka XTU) as well as batteryinfoview. XTU will tell you if your machine is throttling due to power limits, current limits, or thermal events. Setup the left side graph to plot those throttle behaviors as colored lines (you need to add them to the default) and scroll the graph x axis speed to a 1 minute scale (fastest - sees all events that way). Then with XTU running in the background, switch tasks like you did in the video, let the machine stall/jerk like it did, then go back to XTU and see which (if any) events happened to throttle the CPU. You can do a windows-printscreen on that and get a picture in your screenshots directory. The benefit of this will tell you #1 what is the limiting factor causing the lag behavior, and #2 it will show what your CPU utilization was at the time, along with other tuning parameters. XTU impacts your machine at less than 1% cpu load, so it's safe to run in the background. If you grab an interesting screen shot - email it to me to info uwave com then put a reply here and I'll look at what's going on. I use batteryinfoview to log your power usage (in watts) every 15 seconds for optimizing battery powered apps - it won't help here, but if you do change power settings, it's a fast way to do A/B comparisons. If you're hitting 100% cpu load in XTU, give it the left handed 3 finger salute ctrl-shift-esc and look at the processes running and how much they are eating - you can grab a win+print-sc on that list as well.

[@gustavorobertojaramillover8416]

What about this laptop due to overheat?

[@boxertest]

excellent review

[@JackRabbit72380]

Do you know where I can get a good deal on a top tier model

[@NovaZero0000]

I took a chance moving from my 2011 MacBook Air to the 2017 15” HP Spectre 360. What a mistake. This HP was lagging, it kept shutting off until it finally wouldn’t boot up. I had to fight to the corporate level to get a refund! I was so excited to try the hinged laptop with the touchscreen... not worth it at all when the unit sucked. Awaiting my refund via paper check and I’ll just spend the money and get a new MacBook pro. At least I could actually complete my work and not lose it.

[@Mipso96]

idk what your model was, but I'm happy with mine. I just switched from macbook air 13' 2014, never going back lol

[@singhharpreet2988]

Wander Lust

[@youwish3566]

Review external graphic for 2017. Tnx

[@kmwong1786]

How about making a hackintosh of it without replacing parts

[@uwave]

Check out Tom's Hardware x360 guide: www.tomsguide.com/faq/id-3366808/spectre-x360-hackintosh-guide.html

[@laceb100]

Could you please see if it will charge from a type-c battery pack? My 2017 does from my ravpower 20100mah unit and its really helpful for me. Thankd

[@uwave]

Caleb - great question! In 2017 I bought a usb-c bank just to find out. The first usb-c x360's shipped (March 2017ish) were very picky about seeing HP's adapter and nothing else. I couldn't use a passthru USB-c (female) to USB-A + RJ45 + usb-c (male, pigtail) adapter as the computer would complain it's not an HP power source (even though the hp source was plugged into the usb-c female). In response to complaints, about June 2017 HP released new firmware, which fully complies with USB-c PD (Power Delivery) allowing it to charge/be-charged by even a small power bank or cell phone charger. I could put power IN one usb-c and charge (OUT) my usb-c power bank on the other port. The 2018 x360 can charge from EITHER the barrel connector on the left or the usb-c on the right or both simultaneously [doesn't help speed it along - charge rate is determined by how full the internal battery is and how much power the CPU is using]. The Thunderbolt adapter powers the system and does video+i/o over one cable. Charging from a small (under 90w) supply will take FOREVER if the battery is empty, but you can do it if you have the time. I've even topped it off from my usb-c phone charger.

[@xdude0272]

My Sister got the new 2018 hp specter x360 15 (the 15w U processor). I'm happy to say that it worked with my Anker powercore+ 26800 pd which workers up to 30 watts. However it only seemed to charge up the laptop effectively when the laptop was closed (obviously).

[@uwave]

Yes, I've done that with mine - closed and off you can put a few hours of charge in overnight. It's not ideal, but in a pinch it will work. In 2016, HP sold an external battery with the round connector to plug in your spectre x360 and top it off - but that was a dedicated power bank.

[@laceb100]

Awesome, thankyou for the replies. I got my kaby lake g model about a week ago and it does charge from a battery but only if its powered down. I am having a weird issue where it will not charge my note 8, instead my note tries to charge the laptop no matter what setting the phone is in

[@uwave]

Caleb, I'm working on a new video just about USB-c power delivery. I tried charging my 2017 x360 from my 2018 x360 with only a usb-c to usb-c cable, and it worked, but it was sensitive to which jacks the ends got plugged into - which I didn't expect. On the speed of charge, I *can* charge my laptop with my cell phone charger - either the 2017 or 2018 since the 2018 still has usb-c power in + out. It takes all night to get 30-40% charge up without the HP 90-100W supply! Great in a pinch, I guess. When the system is plugged in, I can charge the power brick via usb-c under certain conditions. Power delivery is a whole new ballgame, leaps beyond quick-charge from qualcomm, which is a great video subject. Subscribe and click the bell to get notified when that video posts in a week or so. I'm also doing a quick video about content creation on the Spectre with Da Vinci Resolve Studio. I have an owner of a 8705G who's working with me on a 3-part series on how they compare with my 8550u head to head performance testing, how to tune them for 15-20% better performance than out of the box, and how to stretch the battery as far as possible in runtime, without sacrificing usability. We're 8 time zones apart, so it's not easy. I'm also considering a spectre owner's live stream, with live call-in by phone instead of texting. I'd like to have more than just me available, i.e. a panel of owners - or we might make a giant conference call of owners by voice (no way to run video conf calls unfortunately) - We'll see how that works out, but my first tests proved better than I expected. Let me know if you're interested and what times of day/week work for you. 0xEFB

[@baljazz]

Does this work with other pens?

[@uwave]

This is hearsay, but when I bought my 2017 model I complained on a Spectre user group that the HP pen didn't stroke even when the tip was touching the gorilla glass. The response from the community was that a Microsoft surface pen worked much better on the 2017 x360 for artistic sketching. My 2017 pen (NOT-tilt) works on my 2018 (with tilt) - BUT - my 2018 tilt pen doesn't work on my 2017 x360 -maybe because I don't have the tilt drivers loaded on the 2017. My advice - search for people who use the microsoft pen on x360s, ask what model pen, and what model year x360 - or - just buy a pen and take it to best buy to try out. I'll use a pen on the galaxy note tablet, but my workflow doesn't benefit from a pen since I can type FAR faster than I can write. I hope that points you in the right direction - otherwise the HP pen works, and if I intended to use it I would be checking into how to make it more sensitive. it takes the pressure of using a cheap ball point pen, and I was looking for the feel of the Gal Note pen which just takes very light pressure (contact) to indicate a mark. If I were an artist, I'd want something that mimics charcoal or paintbrushes.

[@baljazz]

uwave so you can use different pens on it? Will all pens work on it?

[@uwave]

I've used the official HP pens a total of 3 times, so I'm not the right guy to ask, but HP has an official owner's forum where people try all kinds of things, and some odd combos really do work (like charging from a usb-c power bank) -- and some don't work at first, or do start to work with the right drivers installed. Pens are like that - so I'd recommend this HP site. You don't have to be a present owner to register, but you'll likely find much better pen conversations there. It's where I heard first mention of the microsoft pen being better. Note - HP model #'s reflect the year in the letter e.g. -ac0xx a=2016, -bl0xx b=2017, -ch0xx c=2018 Number after letter indicates major release within that year (e.g. mid year product refresh or major option change like VEGA vs. MX150 graphics) h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Video-Display-and-Touch/Surface-pen-on-new-2017-spectre-x360/td-p/6056757

[@alanjohnson8085]

Thank you!

[@haroldlopez2406]

I want to see what's inside the TB3 box

[@uwave]

I've already torn into it - will post a video later if it's of interest. There's quite a bit of logic on the TB3 to pcie x16 card slot + USBs.

[@yatheesh999]

Do they have same LED panel. Or does the new one covers more color gamut!? What about the new tilt pen!? Does it has coil whine like old spectre!?

[@uwave]

Same panel - essentially equivalent to the apple retina display technology with IPS & 4K UHD stuffed into 15" so really nice looking fonts come out. Color gamut is very close to the old (2017) spectre x360 -- a beautiful display to look at. I bought the tilt pen - big feature is usb-c recharging and a click button on the eraser side. Personally, I don't like the pen because it takes too much force to make a track, so my upstrokes sometimes don't show. I haven't figured any way to fix that, so if you know how, I'll give it a shot. I haven't measured the color space because I have the dreamcolor 10bit calibrated monitor for critical work that I connect to the thunderbolt 3 connector. As for coil whine, it's better than the last one - virtually silent to my ears (and the fan is MUCH quieter, which is really nice). The biggest win is the full 4 core / 8 thread capability AND better power management than the i7-7500 chip for video work. I'm getting into the rec.2020 color space, so this is a good portable solution. To sum it up - one of the fastest ultrabooks on the market (even before tuning)

[@yatheesh999]

uwave have you thought to upgrade ram on older spectre to 32GB!? If it does support 32gb it be a beast on wheels!!☺️

[@uwave]

Would you be interested in the repair and service manual for the machine? I have a pdf of it. I haven't popped the hood on it yet, but it should support the laptop dimms (HP offers several ram loadings as you saw on their webpage). 16G is really enough for most work - even my desktop which supports 128G only has 16G in it right now. The problem with doing mem upgrades like that is I end up with 2x 8G modules that I'd have to sell on ebay or craigslist; I don't want to deal with all the scammer buyers there so unless I see lots of swapping lag to the SSD, I'll likely just stick with 16. My guess is that the 16G sticks are just too costly right now with DRAM prices so HP is catering to the more executive user and not the heavy SQL / CAD user who would appreciate a 2 x 16 setup.

[@thibaldus3]

@uwave According to notebookcheck, the device used PWM to control the brightness. Has it changed for the new model?

[@hurtzz-lz5gl]

15-BL112DX Which one is this one^

[@uwave]

15-bl indicates it's a 15.6" display, bl means 2017 chassis model, but the 1 after bl (bl1) means it's a LATE 2017 (end of year) revision, which included the MUCH faster, and lower power i7-8550u (8th gen) versus the bl0 early 2017 that I show in the video which had the MUCH slower i7-7500u with only 2 cores. The 8550u has 4 cores. The 15-bl package has the side stereo speakers, but no 10 key keypad. Those are the best speakers a spectre ever had. It also doesn't have a round charging plug to the best of my knowledge, which means treat the USB power input nicely. I used mine daily - always plugged in and out, and just wore out the connector. The 15-bl1 will have better runtime than the 15-bl0, but not as good as the 2018 (newest) 15t-ch0 with a larger battery. Next 2 numbers [12] specify a configuration package, which I don't have info on. Usually it means a certain SSD and memory size, which are about the only real options. Last, the DX is a country specific keyboard, not US ASCII.

[@kevin4914]

Please make one for 8705G

[@uwave]

It's in the works - I found a couple owners to compare with. Subscribe w/ bell icon to hear when it posts - thanks for watching!

[@TheLoganRocha]

Review the 2018 model! ( 8705G if possible)

[@uwave]

I really want to compare the 8550u and 8705G. beware of 2 month old videos because they are reviewer samples, not production models! I have a friend w/ the 8705G on order (only the 8550u was shipping when I bought mine) so that will be available in about 2 weeks. We're in different states, so subscribe and i'll post an announcement of a live video when we do apples to apples comparisons. The big difference is the 8705G uses more power from the same battery giving shorter runtimes. For me, that's the wrong way, so I'm sticking with the 8550u chip. I've found a tuning setup with intel extreme tuning that gives me 14% better runtime as well as a 16% performance boost. Watch for a very short video to come in the next day with a head to head comparison with an HP elitedesk 800 w/ i7-7700 from 2017. The desktop wins, but not by much at all ~672 vs ~642 cinebench scores.

[@dannggg]

Just ordered the one with Vega graphics but mines ship the 25th.

[@uwave]

Please post a review on it when it arrives. GamersNexus had a great review of the $1000 USD Intel Hades Canyon NUC which uses the same i7-8705G

[@Temuch2]

You should better make the announcement at the end of the video. I was booted of listening to you waiting to hear what I am interested.

[@uwave]

Next video I'll cut right to it. I'm trying to do an 8550u vs 8705G direct comparison next.

[@luxxz3626]

i love you

[@sorinmarkov2223]

E-GPU with HP Spectre 2018

[@uwave]

OK - will do - that's an easy one since I have both on hand. I can do it with / without the external GPU & monitor.

[@sorinmarkov2223]

uwave: Great, thanks, because I would like to buy the HP spectre x360 but with Vega M graphics and use the Gigabyte E-GPU with it. I think the HP 2018 version without Vaga GPU should perform similar when using E-GPU.

[@uwave]

Jakub Tibensky - There is a GREAT video on the Intel Hades Canyon NUC by Steve @ GamersNexus (check out his vacuum video too!) - the $1000 NUC is the same chip as the 8705G spectre x360. The external graphics FAR exceeds the VEGA onboard in his review (I have an Nvidia 1070 and 1080ti board - the box in this video is the 1070), and to me represents the better solution. Steve posts a review on his gamersnexus site (not just for gamers - Steve really knows what he's doing). I decided I wanted runtime more than graphics in a laptop, and opted to stay with the 8550u (u= ultra low power). There's a hidden corner link at the vacuum part of my video which takes you to Steve's video, then look for his Hades Canyon review that just published yesterday. Keep in mind the x360 has a 84wh battery which is 1.2 hours at 65w roughly. That's not realistic to me to even attempt.

[@sorinmarkov2223]

uwave: Thank you very much for your suggestions, I will definitely check Steve's video and I think you are a good guy doing great job helping others, so keep it going and thanks again. :)

[@uwave]

I've now got conclusive info for you - working with another new owner, I did before & after snapshots with HWINFO64 - you can look at my video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eXive3atZseVY8U which shows how lanes are assigned before & after plugging in the AORUS GTX 1070 + usb 3 hub. There's no audio, just screen video capture.