HP Spectre 15 x360 2019 review: Carving a niche in a crowded space | Hacker News Reader

HP Spectre 15 x360 2019 review: Carving a niche in a crowded space

arstechnica.com

43 pointsfeross50 comments

The 15 suffers similar issues as the 13 inch 2019 spectre and other whiskey lake hp laptops - many USB-C devices, including perfectly compliant chargers, cause it to hard lock (firmware/bios bug, not blue screen). In my case, compliant devices (such as phones), EGPU docks, caused the hard lock.

You can test this by bringing an official apple charger and cable to Best Buy. When I bought mine, I was sure it was a hardware issue until I demonstrated it on every floor model laptop by plugging in an official apple charger and my pixel 3, crashing each one instantly.

HP said that they would release a firmware update that fixed this but I don't know if it's out yet. I returned my spectre and bought a razer - this kind of bug is 100% inexcusable.

TLDR: If you purchase one of these, make sure to do it from a place that doesn't do restocking fees, apply the most recent BIOS update, and then test the laptop with multiple USB-C devices (and cables). A shame - I really liked the hardware.

I experienced the same, but have had little luck finding more data about it. Got any details on where they've indicated that firmware update is coming?

In my case, I set up dual-boot on my 13" Spectre. The Macbook USB-C charger has never once locked up the machine when I'm running Linux, but 100% when I'm in Windows, which makes me suspect a Windows driver issue.

I have a google pixelbook which only has usb-c for everything, including power. I have used many different usb-c chargers, including an apple usb-c that I'm charging right now. My android essential also seems to charge on any usb-c charger.

Do you think this problem is found on other laptops outside these hp laptops?

I tested the Dell XPS13 9380, the new thinkpad x390, and the razer stealth 13 - all based on almost identical chipsets.

None of them had the same issue, although Dell did ship a bad TB3 driver which needed to be manually fixed.

I have other USB-C devices, including phone, that charge just fine on any charger.

I called them. The rep seemed un-knowledgeable but offered that as, i suspect, a panacea.

I installed Windows 10 fresh.

Anyways, I got rid of the laptop - sorry HP, your competitors got my $2k :(

Is there anyone else that cannot stand the numpad being put onto a laptop keyboard? The laptop looks good enough but the keyboard layout means I would never get one.

Me too, I use tenkeyless keyboards on my desktops and don't have a need for a numpad in a laptop. I know some people type a lot of numbers but personally I have no use for it, and doing without it allows for better positioning and sizing of the normal keyboard.

I'm on the other side. I like the numpad, but I wish there was another place for it. But then, I also use a mouse!

You can get a TKL keyboard and an external numpad. Then you can put the numpad in some other location around the keyboard/mouse combo.

>I wish there was another place for it.

There is! With a programmable (preferably grid-layout) keyboard, you can have a numpad accessible from the homerow.

Edit: I do realize this can be inconvenient at times, but I primarily use an external keyboard with my laptop.

I want my hands to be in the middle of the laptop. No numpad for me please.

Numpad in the middle of a split keyboard could be somehow sensible.

Then make the split keyboard ergonomic, like ergodox, and add a trackpoint.

Sadly, likely too radical for a business laptop.

Oh yes please! I am a diehard Kinesis Freestyle user and would kill for a split keyboard laptop.

It depends. If you are a cad person that numpad is probably a requirement.

I love having the numpad available. It's just such a better way to enter numbers and do calculations.

That's what an Fn key is for. You can add a numeric keypad right under where the user's hand already is. No need to make everyone type with their hands way off to the side.

Context switching overhead

Fn option is Not nearly as good. Keys aren't lined up correctly and you cant tell where you are by feel.

Definitely. It ruins the aesthetics and is completely unnecessary . If I really, really need one, i'd rather just use an externally dongle'd numpad.

A choice between aesthetics and usability.

I find an off-centre keyboard to be a bigger usability problem than not having a numpad.

The rest of this laptop is horrific and tacky, it's not the worst of its aesthetic issues IMO.

I find it terrible. It moves the keyboard/trackpad off-center.

A lot of manufacturers with poor taste react to that by offsetting the trackpad to the left, so it's only usable with one hand. What really bothers me about most laptops is the fonts used on the keyboards. I haven't seen a good one yet other than Apple's San Francisco.

My issue with the laptop is it looks like the kind of laptop I'd expect to see someone that is wearing a fake Rolex to have.

Completely baseless but it's all I think of when I see it. Just looks like a snobby laptop.

I think it's largely because of the brand stickers.

It depends on whether you want a laptop for work, or for something else. I hate watching people struggle on crippled systems.,

The specs look great except for a maximum of 16GB of RAM. Unfortunately higher-RAM options have been going away, particularly as manufacturers have moved to soldered RAM. The same has been happening with Thinkpads. I have a T460s with 20GB of RAM (4 soldered and 16 added). I could easily get a 32GB DIMM and have 36GB (it's been confirmed to work) and maybe 68GB in the future if 64GB DIMMS show up and work. And yet a few generations later the higher end X1 Carbon is limited to 16GB. I've seen the argument that soldered RAM can be lower-power so maybe that's where the market went. It's a pity because now that CPUs aren't getting faster at a high pace a RAM and SSD upgrade is a great way to keep older laptops working great.

I sure could use more ram on my 2013 MacBook Pro.

To be fair, the 16GB of ram limitation is mostly Intel's fault. Low power memory in the typical laptop is still limited to 16GB. Adding non-LPDDR memory affects battery life significantly and most manufactures are unwilling to do it.

Soldered RAM is default option on lightweight laptops, but there are 'mobile workstations' like Thinkpad P72 (up to 128 GB non-ECC or 64 GB ECC RAM, 4 sockets 2400MHz DDR4 SO-DIMM).

Unfortunately that has happened, but it's not for space or weight really. The T4x0s line has a very similar form factor to the X1 Carbon and used to have only half the RAM soldered. My ideal laptop would use that same form factor and have 2 RAM slots and 3 or even 4 SSD slots. There's plenty of room.

I have the 2018 15" Spectre as my work laptop. It's running linux really well. No 10-key number pad, which I'm happy with. I don't understand this article's complaint about the "small" touchpad. It's fine. You also have the entire touch screen if you like. It's really too big to use in tablet mode, but occasionally I try it just for fun. Overall 15" feels bigger than I'd like to lug around, but it's pretty thin so it's not too bad.

My biggest complaint is that the power button is right next to the USB and headphone jack on the left side, opposite the USB-C ports on the right side. More than once I've pushed the power button on the left while stabilizing the laptop as I push in a USB-C cable on the right side, and then linux does something I don't want it to do in response to that power button push (I know, I should be able to fix that). Putting it on that corner spot for this 2019 model will help with that, but I'd still prefer it near the keyboard like most other laptops I've used.

Just opened the article and saw the display is as reflective as a mirror[1]. Holy cow, how can you even work like that?!

[1] https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/HP-x3...

Having used the 13 in with the same display - it's really bright. Like, way brighter at the same power consumption than any other laptop I've used. It's actually pretty incredible.

But then, I don't make a habit of computing outdoors. Also, I mostly work with a large, external monitor. So I guess it's not as big of a deal for me.

Glossy displays allow higher contrast levels.

Very good to hear about Linux. Pity there seems to be no OLED option: https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/08/dell-4k-oled-xps-alienwa...

How common are 15" laptops at your workplace?

I had to fight IT to get one. For some reason they really really wanted me to have something smaller.

Nobody here can answer your question. Though if you're asking for random anecdotes, I was able to choose.

Smaller is great if you have external monitors. Larger is great if it doesn't weigh more than 3 pounds.

Where I sit, they are becoming the norm.

In my past few companies, 15" Macbooks were standard for engineers. 13" for the rest of the staff.

I think this was more to do w/ the internals than the screen real estate.

I'd prefer a hot 13" something over a 15

I used to, but I got addicted to the extra screen real estate. The usually beefier configurations (the new 6-core, 32 gig machine is very comfortable).

Our typical developer laptop is a Dell XPS 15 max'd out on RAM.

How do you like the xps15?

I have not bought a Dell since I discovered Thinkpad X and T series but it's always good to have options

I have a 9560 as a personal laptop, it's really good.

I wish it was USB-C charging only, and had one or two more TB or even just USB-C ports. The charger it comes with is 130 watts so I can see why they went with a conventional barrel jack charger, but I'd like the option to charge it via USB-C and also use USB-C peripherals, so I can carry just an Apple USB-C charger on trips to charge everything. But otherwise, the port selection is great.

The trackpad is decent for a PC laptop, not great. I wish there was a non-touchscreen option, it seems to make the lid quite a bit thicker and heavier. The keyboard feels pretty good, but the buttons are a little small. Also, the battery gauge LED button is awesome.

I also have an XPS 15 from work, and I run Ubuntu on it. It's a pretty solid laptop.

At first there was a problem with suspend only working sometimes, but after a firmware update it doesn't seem to happen anymore.

At first I didn't like the keyboard and used an external one, but after typing on it daily I really enjoy it. It has a good travel distance and feel, and it's plenty large. I'm glad it doesn't have the 0-9 numpad on the side either, so my hands are centered. The palm rest areas feel comfortable.

Battery life is pretty good. The screen is fantastic and bright. I generally don't use the trackpad, but it seems to work just fine when I have had to use it. I don't ever use the touchscreen.

If you do have a significant workload, the left side of the keyboard heats up rather unpleasantly. (Around the S key.) Sometimes after suspend or otherwise reconnecting on wifi, network-manager gives up, and I have to reboot.

Overall I would recommend it!

I still have an older (2016) x360 I've used as a dev machine running linux (various flavors) since I bought it. Initially there were wi-fi issues on Ubuntu distros, but those have since been sorted out. I've had absurdly good luck with HP laptops lasting much longer than they should.

For reference, have the smaller intel Core i3 model with 6GB of RAM. It is capable of running Dota 2 at 50-60 fps (using vulkan). I use a drop-down terminal with nvim, peppering in vs-code, to develop software in all sorts of languages. You will notice the resource limits with heavier IDEs and bigger compiles though. Good affordable option for people.

I ordered a Spectre x360 in 2018 and the screen had dead lines on it. I RMA’d it and the second unit had screen blotches and dead pixels.

I assune this was because I got the 1080p instead of 4k screen. I wanted 50% more battery life, less fan noise, and not deal with linux HDPI issues. The graphics card was integrated. It was spec’d for 12-16hr battery life. It was a linux laptop of the gods, but I couldn’t risk being stuck with 3rd bad unit.

I’m back on my early-2013 macbook for the time being.

But why only 16Gb RAM max?

And I guess it comes with the specter vulnerability?

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