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

arstechnica.com

31–40 of 51 posts

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

#31
post #23
post #7

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.

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

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

#33
post #27

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 hardw…

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?

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

#34
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.

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

#35
post #2

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.

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

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

#36
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

#37
post #2

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.

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.

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

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

#38
post #34

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…

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

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

#39
post #10

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…

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...

Glossy displays allow higher contrast levels.

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

#40
post #27

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 hardw…

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 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 :(

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