HP Spectre Folio Is A Radical Leather Laptop Tablet

The HP Spectre Folio was revealed today with a fully leather-clad exterior on a PC with multiple transformations in the mix. This PC is part of an initiative at HP to "reinvent the PC" and – if what we're seeing here turns out to be everything they've promised – they might well have gotten on the right track. This is what HP calls "the world's first leather convertible PC."

This release is such a big deal at HP, they code-named the project "Godzilla." You'll never find the PC called Godzilla anywhere publicly, but keep that in mind. To HP, this is HUGE. HP suggests that the HP Spectre Folio is really, truly made with the stripped and treated exterior pieces of cows, for real. As their product page suggests, "Product exterior and outer keyboard is 100 percent genuine full grain leather as of 9/18/18."

"The HP Spectre Folio is the PC reinvented, achieving the perfect balance of luxury design and cutting-edge engineering," said Alex Cho, President, Personal Systems, HP Inc. "It combines sophisticated style with incredible versatility to deliver an Always-Connected PC experience our customers are looking for."

Under the hood in this PC is an 8th-gen Intel Core i7 processor with 8GB LPDDR3 SDRAM with Intel UHD Graphics 615 GPU. Internal storage rings in at 256GB PCIe NVMe M.2, Solid State Drive style. There's a front-facing camera HP calls "HP Wide Vision FHD IR Webcam" that's paired with integrated dual array digital microphones. This camera sits above a relatively high-end display.

The display is 13.1-inches diagonally with IPS LCD technology. This display is micro-edge WLED-backlit, is a touchscreen, and has FHD resolution. That's 1920 x 1080 and its covered with Corning Gorilla Glass NBT. The touchpad on this device works with HP Imagemap with multi-touch gesture support.

The keyboard is a full-size set of keys in the island style. They're backlit, and they're able to fold up in different configurations with the rest of the folio. Around the edges of the PC are 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports, 1 USB 3.1 Type-C port (data transfer only), 1 USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-A port (HP Sleep and Charge), and one headphone/microphone combo jack.

The box contains the PC itself and an HP Digital Pen in dark ash silver (in its first iteration). This PC also includes a single USB-C to USB-A dongle – for all your old and new device plug-in needs.

And again, as HP says, this PC comes with " Durable chrome-tanned leather craftsmanship effortlessly merges timeless design and modern innovation"

This PC will be put on sale immediately – sort of. Pre-orders start on October 1st at Best Buy online and at HP dot com. The version of the HP Spectre Folio described above will be available at Best Buy (at select locations) and at Best Buy online starting on October 29th, 2018. That's with the Cognac Brown exterior and Intel Core i7 processor inside.

Cognac Brown with Intel Core i5 will start at around $1,300 USD, while the Cognac Brown with Intel Core i7 AND LTE will start at around $1,500 USD. There'll also be a Bordeaux Burgundy version available starting in December, and a 4K display edition available in December, too.