HP Spectre x360 14 (2023) Laptop Review

The HP Spectre x360 14 has a sleek, premium design that fits easily into most professional work environments. It has a silver-color aluminum chassis with diamond-cut corners at the back, thin bezels, silver-color keycaps, a glass touchpad, and a chrome HP logo on the lid. On the bottom, you'll find a pair of speakers near the front and air vents near the back. There are also air vents on the back of the laptop. It's available in three colors: Natural Silver, Nocturne Blue, and Nightfall Black.

The HP Spectre feels well-built. Its all-aluminum chassis feels sturdy, with no obvious gaps in the construction. However, there's some flex on the lid, display, and keyboard deck, more than expected for a premium all-metal laptop. The finish doesn't scratch easily. Fingerprints and smudges aren't a problem on the silver model, though it's likely worse on the darker color models. The feet feel strong and stick firmly to the bottom.

The HP Spectre has good hinges. They feel smooth when opening and closing the lid and are very stable, exhibiting almost no wobble when touching the screen or typing aggressively. There's too much resistance to open the laptop with one hand; however, that's somewhat normal for a 2-in-1, as the hinges need to be stiff enough to prevent the laptop from collapsing in tent mode and to keep the screen still in tablet mode.

The HP Spectre 2-in-1 and its power adapter are compact and lightweight.

The HP Spectre x360's serviceability is mediocre. Accessing the internals is relatively easy; you only need to remove four torque screws and undo the clips holding the bottom panel with a prying tool. The screws are of two different sizes, so keep them organized. Unfortunately, the RAM isn't user-replaceable. The storage slot supports M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 SSDs.

You can see the maintenance and service guide here.

• HP Spectre x360 14 laptop
• 65W USB-C power adapter and cord
• HP Rechargeable MPP 2.0 Tilt Pen
• Extra pen tips
• Laptop sleeve
• Documentation

The HP Spectre x360 is available with the following displays:

• IPS 1920 x 1280 60Hz Touchscreen (400 cd/m²)
• IPS 1920 x 1280 60Hz Touchscreen (1000 cd/m² with integrated privacy screen)
• OLED 3000 x 2000 60Hz Touchscreen (400 cd/m²)

Although HP markets this laptop as a 14-inch model, the screen is actually 13.5 inches. Both the FHD+ (1920 x 1280) and 3k (3000 x 2000) panels look very sharp. The latter is technically sharper, with a pixel density of 267 PPI; however, the difference isn't immediately noticeable on such a small display at typical viewing distances. Also, the 3k display will consume more power. Like all OLEDs, the 3k display is susceptible to permanent burn-in with static elements like Windows' taskbar, though it's unlikely to be an issue for those viewing varied content.

The 3:2 aspect ratio is great for productivity, as the increased vertical space lets you see more information at once, reducing the need to scroll. It's also well suited for tablet use, as it makes the screen feel less narrow in portrait orientation.

The HP Spectre x360 is only available with 60Hz displays, which is typical for a productivity laptop. The FHD+ IPS panel has a slow response time, causing visible ghosting in fast-moving scenes. The 1000 cd/m² FHD+ panel will perform similarly. The 3k OLED panel likely has a faster response time, as most OLEDs do.

The FHD+ panel has a good contrast ratio. It's at the higher end for an IPS panel but relatively low compared to other display technologies. Blacks still look gray in dim settings at this contrast level. For the best dark room viewing experience, go with the 3k OLED panel. It has effectively an infinite contrast ratio as, like all OLEDs, it can turn off individual pixels to produce perfect blacks.

The FHD+ display gets bright enough for use in most indoor environments but not quite outdoors in broad daylight. It's very dim at the lowest brightness setting, which is great for dark room viewing, as it's easier on the eyes. The other FHD+ display has an advertised brightness of 1000 cd/m², so it's a much better option for outdoor use. The 3k OLED panel has an advertised brightness of 400 cd/m².

The display handles reflections well. Its glossy finish mostly struggles with direct, mirror-like reflections, so it's best to avoid having bright light sources directly behind you, like a lamp or open window during the day. These reflections are visible even with the screen at maximum brightness.

The FHD+ display's black uniformity is decent. There's a little bit of clouding here and there, which is only visible when viewing dark color content in a dim setting. The 1000 cd/m² FHD+ display will likely have similar uniformity. The OLED display has perfect uniformity since OLEDs can turn off individual pixels to produce perfect blacks.

The FHD+ display's horizontal viewing angle is okay. The image dims and washes out relatively quickly as you move to the side, so you need to be more or less directly in front of the screen to get the best accuracy. The 1000 cd/m² FHD+ display has a much narrower viewing angle due to its integrated privacy screen. This privacy-protection filter makes the displayed content harder to see from the side, similar to the one on the HP ENVY x360 13 (2020). The 3.5k OLED panel will likely perform better regarding color washout and brightness loss, but it'll struggle more with color shifting.

The FHD+ display's vertical viewing angle is okay. Like the horizontal viewing angle, the image dims and washes when viewing from above and below, so you need to look at the screen more or less straight on to see an accurate image, which can be challenging in tight places where you don't have much room to tilt the screen, like on a bus or airplane. Again, the vertical viewing angle on the 1000 cd/m² FHD+ display will be much worse due to the privacy screen, and the OLED panel will likely perform better regarding color washout and brightness loss but struggle more with color shifting.

The FHD+ display's out-of-the-box accuracy is decent. Most color inaccuracies are minor and hard to spot. The white balance is a bit off at higher brightness levels where there's too much red. The color temperature is slightly warmer than the 6500K target, which is not enough to make much difference visually. The gamma follows the sRGB curve loosely; dark scenes are too dark, and some bright scenes are too bright.

The FHD+'s color gamut is excellent. It has full sRGB coverage, meaning it can produce all the colors in this commonly used color space. It has great DCI P3 and Adobe RGB coverage but not enough for HDR video production or print photography. The 1000-nit IPS panel has the same color gamut, while the 3k OLED panel has full DCI P3 and Adobe RGB coverage.

The FHD+ IPS panels are entirely flicker-free, which helps reduce eye strain. The 3k OLED panel likely flickers, as most OLEDs do.

The HP Spectre has a great keyboard. The layout is fairly standard, so it's easy to get used to. Key spacing is good, but the whole keyboard could have been bigger, considering the amount of space available on the deck. The keys are stable; they wobble a bit, but not enough to affect the typing experience. They have a good amount of travel, don't require much force to actuate, and provide relatively satisfying tactile and audio feedback. You can adjust the backlight using the F4 hotkey. The backlight is white, leaning on the cooler side. Like most keyboards with light-color keycaps, the white backlighting can make the legends harder to see in well-lit settings. If this is an issue, go with the Nocturne Blue or Nightfall Black color.

The HP Spectre has a great touchpad. Size-wise, it's large but could be a tad bigger. It tracks all movements and gestures well, and there's no problem with palm rejection. It doesn't always register touches around the edges, which isn't necessarily bad, as it's where most people are more likely to accidentally touch when typing. The buttons feel satisfyingly tactile, but you can only click in the bottom half of the touchpad.

The speakers get very loud with minimal compression artifacts at max volume. They sound clear and natural, with good instrument separation and a decent amount of bass. They don't sound as full as the Apple MacBook Pro 14 (M2, 2023) but are easily among the better speakers in the Windows world.

The webcam's video quality is great. The image looks detailed and well-exposed. The colors are true to life, but the tint is slightly unnatural. Voices sound loud and clear, albeit a tad hollow. The microphone's noise canceling feature works well in removing background noise, but it's pretty aggressive and causes a 'fade in' effect when you start speaking, so the first few words might be hard to understand for the person at the other end. You can turn off this feature at the cost of more background noise during calls. There isn't a physical privacy cover; however, you can disable the camera using the key next to the power button.

The HP Spectre x360 has a good port selection. The USB-A port supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 data transfer speed (up to 10Gbps) and Sleep and Charge. The latter lets you charge a mobile device even when the laptop is in sleep mode. Both USB-Cs support Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gbps data transfer speed and two 4k displays at 60Hz), USB4, USB 3.2 Gen 2, DisplayPort 1.4, Power Delivery 3.0, and Sleep and Charge. Power Delivery lets you fast charge the laptop and other PD-compatible devices connected to the port.

The wireless adapter is an Intel Wi-Fi 6E AX211. Wi-Fi 6E has faster speeds, lower latency, and less signal interference than previous Wi-Fi standards. However, you need a router that supports Wi-Fi 6E to benefit from these features.

The HP Spectre x360 is available with the following CPUs:

• Intel Core i5-1335U (10 cores/12 threads, up to 4.6GHz, 12MB cache)
• Intel Core i7-1355U (10 cores/12 threads, up to 5.0GHz, 12MB cache)

Both CPUs are low-power processors typically found in thin and light productivity laptops. They both have a hybrid architecture with two performance and eight efficiency cores; the only difference is that the i7-1355U has faster clock speeds, giving you slightly better performance. These CPUs can only handle light, general productivity tasks like web browsing, text processing, video playback, spreadsheets, and presentations. If you have a more intensive workload like programming or video editing, it's best to get a laptop with a more powerful H-series CPU. You can find these high-performance CPUs in relatively thin and light laptops like the Dell XPS 15 (2023).

The HP Spectre is only available with Intel Iris Xe. This integrated GPU can only handle light tasks like web browsing and video playback, not demanding workloads like video editing or 3D graphics. You can play some older or puzzle-like games, but you'll likely have to play at a lower resolution or with low graphical settings to get smooth gameplay.

You can configure this laptop with 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB of RAM. The memory isn't user-replaceable.

You can get this laptop with 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB of storage. The SSD is user-replaceable; the slot supports M.2 2280 PCIe Gen 4 SSDs.

The HP Spectre x360 has an overall great score in the Geekbench 5 benchmarks. The Core i5-1335U's multi-thread performance is good but worse than expected for this particular CPU, as the tuning really limits the performance to keep the laptop cool and quiet. The overall performance is still good enough for general productivity tasks, but don't expect to do anything intensive like programming or video editing. You can get slightly better performance by switching to the Performance mode in the HP Command Center app, though at the cost of louder fans. The Core i7 will only perform slightly better. As for the GPU-intensive workloads, the Intel CPU's integrated graphics perform poorly and aren't suitable for heavy computing tasks.

The Intel Core i5-1335U has strong single-thread performance, but its multi-thread performance is on the slower side. For heavy, sustained multi-threaded workloads, it's best to get a laptop with an H-series CPU, like the Lenovo Slim Pro 7 14 (2023) or the Dell XPS 15 (2023).

The performance in Blender is mediocre. Neither the CPU nor the integrated GPU is suitable for 3D rendering. A laptop with a discrete GPU is best if you need to work in Blender. Even an entry-level model like an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Laptop GPU can render 3D images much faster. If you want even better performance, you can get a laptop with an NVIDIA RTX GPU, as the RTX models support Optix hardware acceleration, significantly boosting performance.

The HP Spectre performs poorly in the Basemark GPU benchmark. Its Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics can only handle simple, puzzle-like games or older titles at 1080p, and even then, you'll have to play at a lower resolution or with low graphics settings to get playable frame rates.

The 1TB SSD's performance is outstanding. The sequential write speed is a bit slow for a PCIe Gen 4 SSD but acceptable for a thin and light laptop designed for general productivity. The 2TB SSD is likely faster, as larger SSDs tend to perform better, while the 512GB is likely slower.

The HP Spectre x360's battery life is outstanding. You can easily get through a whole day of light use on a full charge. Models with the 3k OLED panel will have shorter battery life, likely around eight to nine hours of light use.

Borderlands 3 isn't playable. The gameplay is extremely choppy, even with low graphical settings. The CPU and integrated GPU can't handle such a demanding game. You can expect the same performance in other similar titles.

Since Civilization VI is a strategy game that doesn't require fast reaction time or precise aiming, it's perfectly playable at 30 fps, which you can get by lowering a couple of graphical settings. The turn time is long, though. Upgrading to the Core i7 won't improve the turn time significantly.

CS:GO runs poorly on the HP Spectre at 1080p with high settings. Although the average frame rate is good, the game stutters a lot due to frame drops. It runs more smoothly with low settings, but there are still noticeable stutters.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider isn't playable on the HP Spectre x360 2-in-1 at 1080p, as it's too demanding on a low-power U-series CPU and integrated graphics. The gameplay is choppy, even with low graphical settings. You can expect the same performance in other similarly demanding titles.

The keyboard is cool when idle and only gets mildly warm under load. Likewise, the fans are completely silent when performing lighter tasks and barely audible under more intense use. These are results obtained in the Smart Sense mode, which automatically adjusts the fan speed and temperature target. This feature also takes into consideration the battery status and ambient temperature. Other profiles are available in the HP Command Center app, like Balanced, Cool, Quiet, Power Saver, and Performance. The app includes a slider that lets you manually adjust the target surface temperature.

The HP Spectre's performance over time is outstanding. Neither the CPU nor the GPU gets particularly hot under load. The CPU starts throttling only a few minutes in, slowing down significantly in the first 15 minutes; however, its performance goes back up once the fans kick in and bring the temperature down.

The HP Spectre x360 has many pre-installed applications, including:

• Bang & Olufsen Audio Control: Lets you change the audio profile and tweak the EQ.
• Concepts: Sketching and drawing app.
• Dropbox promotion: Ad for Dropbox file hosting service.
• Duet Display: Software to connect and manage external displays.
• ExpressVPN: Link to virtual private network service.
• HP Command Center: Lets you tweak the laptop's performance and fan speed, optimize network performance, and view system information.
• HP Connection Optimizer: Lets you optimize your network performance.
• HP Display Control: Lets you calibrate the display and change the color profile.
• HP Documentation: User's manual.
• HP Enhanced Lighting: Adds a virtual light ring on the screen to improve lighting during video calls.
• HP Pen Control Plus: Lets you change the buttons' function on the stylus.
• HP Smart: App for HP printers.
• HP Support Assistant: Lets you access information on how to repair and diagnose issues. Also contains guided troubleshooting via a virtual assistant.
• HP System Event Utility: Lets you see the system's information and run diagnostics.
• Intel Unison: Lets you connect your smartphone to the laptop, allowing you to send and receive messages, view photos on your smartphone, and transfer files, similar to the MyPhone app.
• McAfee: Antivirus software. Requires subscription.
• myHP: Settings to optimize audio and video quality during video calls.
• OMEN Gaming Hub: Lets you access your installed games, HP rewards, and picture gallery. It also lets you see system information like CPU and GPU usage and temperatures, optimize the PC, and change the power profile.
• Solitaire & Casual Games: Solitaire, FreeCell, Spider, Mahjong, Sudoku, and other casual games.

The HP Spectre x360 has a fingerprint sensor and a facial recognition IR camera. The fingerprint sensor is next to the right Alt key. You can use either to log in quickly, authorize purchases in the Windows Store, and auto-fill saved passwords on supported websites.

This laptop supports pen input and comes with an MPP (Microsoft Pen Protocol) 2.0 stylus. It supports tilt and 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity, and it charges via USB-C. There's a slot on the laptop sleeve to store the pen for transport. The pen can attach magnetically to the side of the screen, but it isn't very secure, as the magnet is fairly weak.