HP Spectre x360 15 (2020) hands-on review

We’re at CES 2020 and we got some hands-on time with HP’s latest Spectre x360 15, and boy is it gorgeous. From the trimmed down bezels to the beefed up graphics, the Spectre x360 15 might be the best laptop to beat in 2020.

HP plans on launching the Spectre x360 15 sometime in April 2020 and is slated to start at $1,599.

HP Spectre x360 15 (2020) design

The Spectre x360 retains the same luxurious design, with its stunning Dark Ash Silver hood comboed with its mesmerizing copper luxe accents. It still sports the same sleek diamond cut edges, but now the footprint is smaller than ever.

Opening it up revealed a shorter deck with incredibly thin bezels on the display, but the keyboard remained intact, remaining as big as it was before. The Spectre x360 is 13% smaller than the previous model, and now it boasts a 90% screen-to-body ratio.

This might just be one of the best looking consumer laptops to date.

HP Spectre x360 15 (2020) ports

This baby is packed with the same ports as before, stringing along a power jack, an HDMI port, a headphone jack, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, one USB Type-A port, a privacy camera kill switch and a microSD card slot. I still desperately want an extra USB Type-A port, but that’s just me.

If you need more ports, take a look at our best USB Type-C hubs and best laptop docking stations pages to properly expand.

HP Spectre x360 15 (2020) display

Once again, the Spectre x360 comes with a gorgeous 15.6-inch, 4K OLED panel, but this time you have the option between a normal screen and one with anti-reflection glass.

The anti-reflection glass did a good job of reducing the glare in person, but at the cost of brightness. I still prefer the original panel, despite the glare.

HP Spectre x360 15 (2020) keyboard and touchpad

The Spectre x360’s keyboard felt the same as the previous model, as it was pleasantly clicky and offered neatly spaced out keys. The matte palm rest was also soft and comfortable to use.

The touchpad was smooth to the touch but it still didn’t feel as premium as some of the ones I’ve tested in the Elitebook series. However, it was still responsive to my gestures.

HP Spectre x360 15 (2020) specs

The Spectre x360 can come packed with up to a 10th Gen Comet Lake Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD + 32GB of Intel Optane memory, a 4K OLED display and the latest Nvidia Graphics.

This machine is also slated to come with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 for more seamless connectivity. On top of that, the Spectre x360 also comes with an IR webcam for Windows Hello, which will allow you to easily sign into your laptop simply by walking up to it.

HP Spectre x360 15 (2020) battery life

HP claims that the Spectre x360 will get up to 17 hours of battery life, which is insane if proven to be accurate, as the previous HP Spectre x360 (15-inch, OLED) lasted 7 hours and 46 minutes on a charge. 

The company explained that it is using a low wattage OLED panel to account for the excess battery consumption from the 4K display. No worries, the actual display didn’t seem to be compromised when I saw it in person, as it was still plenty bright and colorful. We’re excited to see how this low-wattage panel plays out on our own battery test.

Bottom line

I am super excited to get more hands on time with the HP Spectre x360. Now that the bezels are trimmed down and we might be getting better battery, this might just be a laptop I actually buy for myself. Stay tuned for our full review and benchmarks, and check out more of our current CES 2020 coverage.