HP has been one of the near prolific PC companies throughout the Windows era, sitting at the summit of virtually market share charts for the past x years. But despite this dominance, HP hasn't been known for its cute laptop designs, instead relying mostly on functionality and functioning to sell its products in large numbers. The HP Spectre deviates away from this philosophy, and it might merely exist the best laptop the company has always created.

The Spectre is a thing of beauty. At x.4mm, it's the earth's thinnest laptop, edging out Apple'south 12-inch MacBook by a few millimeters. Information technology's also very calorie-free for a 13-inch device, at only 2.45lbs (ane.1 kg), making it a perfect companion for the businessman on the go. And the design itself is truly unlike whatsoever Windows laptop I've seen earlier, thanks to a breathtaking hinge and use of premium materials.

Prospective buyers will glad to hear that HP hasn't compromised on internals either. HP offers standard Intel Skylake Core i5 or Cadre i7 processors inside the Spectre – none of this underpowered Core K stuff – forth with a PCIe solid state drive and a collection of the latest USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 3. Bombardment life is an alleged 9 hours equally well, from a 38 Wh integrated battery.

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I'll talk more about the hardware in the Spectre later though, because the real star of the prove is the pattern. It's taken companies a long time to realize how exactly to compete with Apple's clear pattern advantage, but in recent years we've seen Lenovo, Dell, and HP create products that actually stand up upward confronting the polished and well-built looks of MacBooks.

The Spectre features a fantastic complementary color scheme that'due south ane of the best I've seen this yr. Most of the trunk is constructed from a classy black-brown metal, with copper-gold highlights that make this laptop stand out. The gold looks superb alongside the base black-brown color, especially as office of the hinge assembly and around each keyboard fundamental.

The hinge is i of my favorite aspects to the Spectre'south design. Instead of the lid attaching to the back border of the laptop, like many other models on the market place, the Spectre'due south lid separates from the base a few centimeters before this back edge on two thin, curved hinges.

When opened, the lid sits about 5mm above the base of operations with a clear gap between them, giving the illusion that the brandish is floating above the laptop'south lesser department.

The ii hinges slide carefully into a big gold section that occupies the entire rear edge of the Spectre. The sleeky metal stop looks spectacular – it complements the rest of the metallic body so well – but it is a huge fingerprint magnet and requires constant cleaning to look at its best. When you exercise clean information technology, forth the dorsum edge you'll observe a subtle Spectre logo, which is ane of my favorite aspects to the entire blueprint; information technology merely adds that trivial extra impact.

All ports on the Spectre are plant along the back edge. This may not be the nigh user-friendly location while you're using the laptop, but it's clearly a trade-off to keep this device so slim. The Spectre only features USB Type-C ports forth with a 3.5mm audio jack, although different Apple's MacBook, HP was clever enough to include 3 Type-C ports. So yes, you lot can easily charge this device and connect an accessory without the utilise of a dongle.

2 of the USB-C ports are Thunderbolt 3 capable, situated towards the center of the laptop. On the left is a standard USB 3.1 Gen 1 port. Charging is facilitated through USB-C, and whatever of the three ports can be used, which is exactly how the standard should piece of work.

The lack of a standard USB-A port is somewhat annoying considering about electric current accessories will withal utilize the larger USB port, but HP does include a USB-C-to-A adapter in the box. This laptop is so slim that a full-sized USB port would take barely fit along the rear edge so we like how HP has compromised to make it all work. For those wanting to employ external displays, you'll also demand to pick up something to transform USB-C to HDMI for use with today's monitors.

Due to the use of standard Core i5 or i7 CPUs, the Spectre includes a small fan to cool the processor when information technology's running at maximum performance. The fan intakes air from small-scale grates on the lesser, and vents out 2 attractive grills along the back edge. When the Spectre is running intensive workloads, the fan can get pretty noisy, but I didn't notice it the vast majority of the time.

It's also worth talking nearly the new HP logo. It looks fantastic, and revitalizes the make for this flagship product. A smaller version is seen below the display too, protected by a glossy slab of Gorilla Glass.

The speakers that come up with the HP Spectre are branded as Bang & Olufsen, though I don't think they audio significantly better than whatever of the laptops I've reviewed recently. In that location'southward a serious lack of bass, and loftier frequencies are quite pronounced, although midtones and human dialogue sounds quite practiced.

The Bang & Olufsen software utility included does improve audio quality, particularly in films when set to flick way, though the music way doesn't transform the Spectre into even a half-decent music player.