HP Spectre x360 15 Gets A Redesign For 2017

HP announced a lot of new products at CES today, and one of those is a refresh of its Spectre x360 15 (bl062nr). Originally released back in January of 2016, the Spectre x360 15 is a 2-in-1 hybrid notebook that can be used as a tablet. This redesign is based on a lot of insights HP collected from consumers, which have influenced things like graphics capabilities and display resolution.

For instance, HP found in its customer surveys that 93% prefer high resolution displays – in this case, respondents said that they'd prefer QHD or 4K resolutions over 1080p. With that in mind, the new Spectre x360 15 features a 4K IPS display sporting 8.2 million pixels. HP has also outfitted the notebook with what it calls a Micro Edge display that shrinks the left and right borders around the screen to 4.65mm – again, this change was made because of consumer feedback.

While those may be no-brainers in a world of notebooks that seem to be ever decreasing in size, the decision to include discreet graphics based on that feedback may come as a surprise. The 2017 Spectre x360 15 will be running a NVIDIA GeForce 940MX GPU under the hood, working in tandem with a 7th generation Intel Core i7-7500U and up to 16GB of RAM depending on your hardware configuration. With those components, HP says this is the most powerful Spectre it hass ever produced.

You have a pair of Bang & Olufsen speakers flaking the full-sized keyboard, though it should be noted that the keyboard doesn't feature a number pad. The base model for the Spectre x360 15 for 2017 comes with a 256GB PCIe NVM3 M.2 SSD, though you can pay more to bring that storage up to 1TB. The notebook's 79.2W battery is said to last up to 12.75 hours, but even if you don't get quite that much life out of it, HP's fast charge technology promises to bring you back up to 50% in 30 minutes.

Even though the shrinking bezels on the display make for a notebook that isn't as wide as its predecessor, the new Spectre x360 15 is actually slightly thicker than the 2016 model. The difference isn't huge, but it is noticeable when the two computers are side-by-side.

The increase in size was made to accommodate the addition of discreet graphics and a larger battery, which are both major pluses. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone who would complain about more graphics power or more battery life, and it's a refreshing design decision in world where notebooks can't seem to get paper-thin fast enough.

The revamped Spectre x360 15 will be launching on February 26 in three different hardware configurations. The base model ships with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for $1279. A mid-range model bumps the amount of RAM up to 16GB and includes a 512GB SSD for $1499 – this will be the only model available at retail in the US, while the other two will be available from HP.com. Finally, we have the most expensive model of the bunch, which packages 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD together for $1699.