HP’s new Spectre x360 is probably the best PC laptop around | Hacker News Reader

HP’s new Spectre x360 is probably the best PC laptop around

arstechnica.com

33 pointsTomte73 comments

As in the old model, the Synaptics touchpad is very wide. It's not terrible by any means, and its glass surface allows your finger to glide effortlessly, But I'm a little disappointed that, just as with the old version, it's not a Precision Touchpad.

One of the best PC laptops you can buy has a trackpad that's "not terrible"? This is why people buy Macs!

Definitely the worst part of most laptops. I often have to tap my touchpad 3 or 4 times to get it to register one click, and that's pretty normal from what I've used. I'm surprised that nobody except Apple makes much of an effort to improve the situation. Maybe it pushes people to replace their computers more often because of how painful it is to use them. I'm sure there's some reason. Probably just inertia and lack of direct influence on sales.

Lenovo has the TrackPoint pointer nub, which is a big part of why I love and buy ThinkPads. I'm constantly amazed nobody else ever picked that idea up...

I've used laptops from Dell and HP with pointing sticks in their keyboards. None worked as well as the ThinkPad ones. Apparently, some of IBM's patents on the TrackPoint are still in vogue. I wonder how much of the poor quality of Dell and HP stick points has to do with that.

HP had some laptops with a blue trackpoint in the past, e.g. the tc4400 convertible.

Agreed. And that's why lousy trackpads never bothered me.But even then, I only use the nub if I'm not working on a surface where I can use my mouse.

Most dell business laptops have one.

You think Lenovo would let them?

There are (were?) similar devices in other laptops, mostly the ones from "professional" lines. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick#Naming_and_bran...

As I recall, Apple has made sure to patent all of its touchpad technologies, making sure only Macs have those excellent touchpads. It seems like any competition would have to make good touchpads some other way :/

Yep. Easily the worst part of every PC laptop I've ever considered buying. Genuinely mystifies me that no manufacturer seems to prioritise it.

After 20 something years I never have changed my workflow when doing serious detail work in a DAW - I need a mouse. Some producers use the trackpad on the Macs, because it's the industry standard, sure, but there are times for me when left hand keyboard / shortcuts and right hand mouse / scroll for zoom and high precision edits by click. With good portable laser mice on the cheap I've never been lacking so far. Then, having the mouse around, it just helps with other computer convenience use. Personal thing I guess.

Same here. I have never been a fan of touchpad and can't imagine using DAW with it.

A coworker bought the skylake spectre x360 13 inches. The touchpad is as good as my mac's. This is the first windows laptop I used that I've felt this way.

The author doesn't compare it to a Apple trackpad, so it's difficult to say which one's better. The author is just a little disappointed that it doesn't have all the features of the Windows Precision Touchpad implementation. It may just as well be that the touchpad is excellent. Besides that the Spectre has a touchscreen, which I often find more convenient than a touchpad. But that's just my personal preference.

I haven't used a high-end Windows laptop recently, and the mid- to low-end ones I've used all have bad trackpads, so I'm assuming that "not terrible" means it's still way behind Apple trackpads.

I use a MacBook, and anything less than a great trackpad would be a dealbreaker for me if I were to switch. (I would potentially be interested in a good Linux laptop otherwise. I guess I could just install it on the MacBook...)

Then again normal pcs have ctrl in the bottom left corner, where it belongs, -or at least a bios option to fix it.

This is part of why people still buy pcs.

OK, I'll bite -- I can see this would be annoying for some people, but it's something you can easily work around. This MacBook has Fn, Ctrl, Alt and Cmd down there, there are plenty of buttons to assign all the functions you want. There's no way to work around a bad trackpad.

Sometimes you want a mouse, sure (and Apple's mice are awful!) But if all you have is a trackpad, it has to be a great trackpad.

> the Synaptics touchpad is very wide

How do people type when the trackpad is very wide? I find myself constantly moving the mouse to different parts of the screen on a Dell laptop I have occasionally used for work.

On macs, palm detection is excellent, don't remember ever having the cursor move while typing (though I'm sure it's happened).

I just tried this out for fun on my macbook, I found it very difficult to get the mouse to move with my forearm/palm even when trying, I had to use my carpal bone instead (which is essentially a point like a finger).

Now that you mention it, I realize I've definitely used mac laptops without this happening! So it's all in the drivers, I guess?

Dell's XPS line of laptops have fantastic trackpads, for instance.

> This is why people buy Macs!

Really? I thought because they "look so nice" and are so "easy to understand". Never heard anyone say: "I bought a Mac because the touchpad is so fantastic".

Yes really. It is a common sentiment. For example:

8 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11078492

8 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1550998

Oh I see. A 3 votes thread with "heavy commenting" and whatever was 8 years ago. It's a century on the internet.

I bought a Mac because the touchpad is so fantastic.

I've used PC's for ten years prior, and wow, what a relief. It's just next level, you can't compare.

What are you doing with that touchpad that it would make you change your whole software infrastructure?

Hell...it's just the touch pad.

It's not so much the thing that makes you switch to a Mac, as the thing that makes you stay there.

Every time I use a Windows laptop I recoil in horror at how unusable the trackpad is. How do ever get anything done?? It just seems bizarre.

(I realize plenty of people do get things done on Windows laptops; I'm just describing the visceral reaction I have, along with quite a few fellow Mac users.)

> How do ever get anything done?? It just seems bizarre.

There is a wonderful thing there since 1941. It's called: a mouse.

I don't know what you do but if I need something done it's either at work, where I have a docking station with all that ergonomic stuff attached to it like a mouse or keyboard, or it is at home where...you probably guessed it already, I have just another docking station and/or a Desktop-PC.

Even if I work on a train and don't have a table, I mostly use my keyboard for work. So I'm curious what involves so much mouse movement to base such a huge change primary on a touch pad.

Honestly, I was just like you. I could never understand those Mac users. Why the hell would they work with touchpad. It's ridiculous and can't even compare to mouse.

About a year ago I was forced to switch to Mac ( forced by work). And, trust me, it is a Big deal. This is one of the things I loved about Mac.

I have a "docking station" (not per se) with wireless keyboard, touchpad and mouse. And I find myself finding using touchpad much more often than mouse. Because it IS comfortable. Obviously, for some specific things that require precision mouse is much better. But for fast workflow, touchpad and its gestures are awesome. Similarly at home, I can use it anywhere without bringing mouse with me. And not struggling with terrible ( admittedly my cheap) pc touchpad.

I think it's that Mac touchpads are really well integrated with the OS.

I could never used multiple desktop on Linux. But after one day on a MacBook Air (that a colleague lent me) it became my natural workflow.

The three-finger swipe on the touchpad that swipe between virtual desktop is awesome. I tried to replicate this on another OS, but sadly I failed.

I bought a higher end Lenovo in 2014 before carrying it around the world for a year while backpacking. It has by far had the best real-world performance of any laptop I've interacted with. (Model: T440s)

The keyboard is a dream, the touchpad is excellent, the hardware is magnificent and a breeze to take apart and maintain. Every time I crack it open (one panel bottom assembly for easy access), I discover some neat piece of engineering I missed the last time. Like the pinhole in the bottom that leads to a button to manually disconnect the internal battery.

And it's durable. It survived a year in my backpack, and I didn't go easy on it. Water damage? What water damage? You can pour a glass of water on the keyboard and it just goes out through to the bottom. Oh, and you can replace that same keyboard in a matter of minutes thanks to a well designed locking system and easy internal access.

I SLEPT on my backpack with this thing inside and it didn't notice. Banged it up countless times. A bit of heavy condensation eventually made its was into the edges of the screen from the sweat off my back in tropical summer weather, and eventually there were a few tiny pin marks on the screen from considerable external pressure (eg. third world buses and my pack getting thrown around and dropped from the roof). I found them easy enough to overlook given what I've put it through.

As for performance, I've been a PC nerd my whole life and the first thing I did when I was a teenager and had a few dollars was build a PC. I'm the sort who overclocks and notices those few extra MHz on my CPU, or that the RAM and storage aren't bottlenecking anything. The laptop runs smooth as butter (I put an SSD in and reinstalled Windows the moment I got it).

It's two years later, so I don't know how their laptops are currently doing, but give the higher end Lenovos a look if you want quality (and performance). Their cheap ones are crap though; you get what you pay for.

On the other hand I have Lenovo's Yoga 3 and that is a real piece of junk. I wonder how it ever gone past qa. Touchpad is a bad joke and screen flickers like a strobe light at a 90s illegal rave party. Not to mention Core M calculator processing speed.

One is branded a ThinkPad, the other isn't.

Isn't a Surface (laptop) from Microsoft a better laptop?

https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/devices/surface-book

It lacks Thunderbolt 3 Ports, but thats about it. I'm waiting for a refresh with Thunderbolt 3 Ports. We're currently looking at furnishing our offices with Thunderbolt 3 Dockingstations so people can more quickly move between Workplaces, so that Port is must for all new Hardware.

I sure think so. It's got a great trackpad and the best keyboard, laptop or otherwise, that I've ever used (with deference to big buckling spring switches), if nothing else.

Strange they don't mention it other than as a reference to "Other things that have Windows Hello"

How can it be best with a low resolution display?

1080p is about as high as one should go on 13" Windows display. Windows has poor and blurry scaling for many apps. Higher and you're paying more and wasting processor power. While Macs have better scaling, performance in high dpi modes is worse than in low dpi modes.

That's a general blanket statement as fact. I went 1800p on 13" laptops 3 years ago. That is as low as I will ever go. I also have a Samsung Tab S2 8.0 for reading and a Nexus 6 phone. My next 13" Ultrabook will be a 4k OLED. Nothing else contends.

For general purpose usage and for gamers it is "fact", but there are certainly people who prefer high dpi displays in Windows. The first thing I did on my Macbook Pro running Windows was to turn off the terrible scaling, and lower the resolution. The panel's upscaling is better than Windows.

I don't mind high dpi on my Android phone since Android handles high dpi well.

Eventually high dpi will catch up in Windows, and I'll be "forced" to accept the horror of a 4K OLED ;-)

Which laptop are you using now?

http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/NP940X3G-K0...

Strongly disagree. I have had multiple 4k laptops and the difference is huge. Scaling does suck for many apps, though.

All the apps I use have high dpi support. I can't imagine going back to 1080p.

1080p on a 13" screen is not low resolution. Maybe 0.1% of the population can tell the difference between that and 4k on such a small screen from normal viewing distances.

You need a lot to power a 4k, I'm actually okay I think with just 2k for laptops as of this point. We can start demanding 4k next year.

What I'm disappointed by is the lack of usb 3.1 type c ports on brand new laptops.

edit: sorry, I was wrong. It seems it does have 3.1 type c ports (I was looking at the chart up-top which mentions just "2×Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.0, headset jack" in the "PORTS" row).

> What I'm disappointed by is the lack of usb 3.1 type c ports on brand new laptops.

Why that comment here when the x360 has full-TB3 Type C ports? (though disappointingly they're on the same side of the machine)

Considering it has Intel graphics, a high-DPI display might be laggy.

My 15" rMBP drives a high-DPI display just fine with circa 2013 intel graphics.

With Window's terrible high DPI support, I don't think I'd choose a 4k 13" screen if it were free.

I wonder how linux support would be for this.

edit:// Just googled and found out

And what you found is.....?

Not GP, but it's seems okay except for the sound which needs a bit of work http://askubuntu.com/questions/600528/is-ubuntu-compatible-w...

As an HP engineer this makes me very happy.

Good! (You should be, esp. if you are the hardware side! I had two unbreakable ones that didn't drive me crazy like my Macbook pro. My comments below are supposed to be read with that in mind. :-)

A little feedback if you want:

Speaking of hardware my two last have been remarkably good (lasting 5+ years). Fan was loud though.

Software has partially been a mess. Esp. the power management driver on my 2012 elite book who could block the entire system for up to a 100ms meaning once every 30 seconds. (Yes, disabled service by service until I found the culprit, then checked and double checked and then made some colleagues happy by uninstalling for them as well.)

(My current laptop is a lenovo and it also has weird lag.)

PC laptops are a thing of the past for me, I prefer the UX of the Chromebook, particularly the stripped down keyboard. I do run Ubuntu and the lack of a delete key (delete != Backspace) has not been a problem. The lack of disk space hasn't been a problem either.

Delighted as I am with my Chromebook Pixel, would I swap for the new HP? Nope. Like an Apple user only interested in computers that run OSX I only want a top end Chromebook next time around. The latest and greatest PC is of no consequence. Maybe the automotive analogy is with Tesla, a Tesla owner is not going to be interested in anything out of Detroit unless it is electric.

Agreed. Since I switched to my Dell Chromebook 13, I haven't found anything that is remotely as good at that price point.

See here for a bit more nuanced review:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Spectre-x360-13-w023dx-Conve...

Seeing it's an HP makes me immediately skeptical. The only thing that you can rely on with that brand is that it will be built with low quality plastic, and it lives up to it's initials: HP- Heating Problems.

With all of that 360 action, I wouldn't be surprised that many users will find the hinges are just going to break because of the plastic.

Is the ram or SSD soldered or upgradable? This is increasingly one of my main concerns when looking at new laptops.

Motherboards are getting close to the size of ram modules. Swapping a motherboard is not too big deal. But sometimes it is hard to find one with desired amount of ram. Price wise there is not much difference.

I am more bothered than any person should be by that intel inside sticker. Paying to watch advertising.

It takes less time to remove that sticker than writing this sentence. On the other site, even literally, do you cover the Apple logo on the back of the screen? Paying to force people watch advertising, very bothering.

Are you sure? I've seen PCs where it took some serious wrestling to get the stickers off cleanly. :)

I understand putting these stickers on cheap machines as they're subsidy machinery, but on k+ machines it's just sad.

Is it normal for these new laptops to not have an SD card slot? That would be a major drawback for me as that's the easiest way to import photos and I don't want to lug around a card reader.

I don't see how is it better than Yoga 910?

Silver keyboard with baby blue back lighting on an all-silver laptop looks like dog shit and shows wear/stains very quickly, reminds me of Toshibas from 2004. Huge bezel. Only 1080p. Ships with McAfee malware. Price is nothing special for the specs (Yoga Pro has had same specs for less money for years). Other than glass touchpad and USB C ports, nothing the Yoga Pro hasn't had for years, and it doesn't have the Yoga's 4k screen.

Your positivism gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

Yeah, take my positivism. I'm pozzing you so hard right now.

I did edit it to be more clear in my criticism of it looking like dog shit.

You might want to look up what 'pozzing' actually means. ;-)

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