Kept Light Photography

Photography and Writing by A. Cemal Ekin

HP Spectre x360

HP Spectre x360, it looks gorgeous, but seriously flawed laptop!

This is a much delayed product review, actually a fair warning to those who may be interested in the very nice looking, and potentially (but not actually) very good 2-in-1 laptop: HP Spectre x360. Over 10 years ago, I had a very poor experience with an HP product and never considered their computers for my personal use or to recommend to clients. After reading some very good reviews of the x360, I went to my local store and looked at it first hand. It looked very nicely designed, had good specs, and the weight was within my range, under 3.5 pounds. The convertible feature added a nice, but not terribly important feature for me. So, I bought one.

After installing my standard set of applications staring at it very nice screen, I noticed that I kept skipping clicks on the touch pad when I simply tapped the surface. Using the two, and three finger gestures on the pad was supposed to make the use simpler, but it was not consistent. In the middle of a two-finger scroll of the screen, it would decide on its own to scroll in the other direction. Then, I started having sound problems which would stop for no reason at all, no sound. Not only that, it would also disable applications that used sound like the media player. The solution for all these problems was a reboot which would fix the issues, albeit temporarily.

I lived with these problems for a while and on 7/21 I posed a question on the HP forum, hoping that someone from the technical department would answer the questions. On 8/2, I added another post asking if the HP staff looked at these forums. Still no answer. My message on this forum on 8/14 I indicated that this was a terrible support option. That day a forum moderator replied and indicated that he had brought my posts to the attention of the support personnel and that they would contact me for more information. Later that day I received an e-mail asking me for some contact information as well as the serial number and the like. The message was from:

Jeff Christopher
Executive Customer Relations
Hewlett-Packard Company
Palo Alto, California

The saga continued for another couple of months and my Spectre x360 still has a very lousy touch pad and the sound is still quirky. So, Jeff, Emma, I would like you to know that you dropped the ball horribly. Emma, you did not even call back as you promised. HP, you will never see me as a customer again. And, if that does not make you shake in your boots I don’t know what will!!

I tried to get a printed copy of the forum correspondence but for some reason everything printed gibberish. I ended up doing it the hard way and cleaned the resulting document as best as I could. Here is a PDF copy in case the forum thread disappears one day.

The verdict: This could have been a very good laptop/convertible. The touch pad is all but useless, I guarantee that you will miss at least 40% of your tap-clicks if not more. During daily use, that is awfully frustrating. If you are willing to use a mouse with it all the time or use the touch screen, you may be happier. My recommendation is to look elsewhere, there are alternatives from Lenovo, Microsoft, Toshiba, Dell, … And the support from HP, terrible! My earlier experience has been reinforced.

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Comments

  1. You have just proven that my decision some 15 years ago was correct. My last notebook from HP was an Omnibook, bought in May 2000 (I had paid extra for a 64MB RAM extension!).. Frustrated for many reasons I cannot recollect now, I decided to stop with HP and I have never bought any HP notebook again. One good reason not to buy HP hardware is that they also come with too many unwanted software, most of which you cannot remove easily, if any at all.

    Currently I am using Sony VAIO laptops for quite some time. It is a pity that they are discontinued. I hope my 2 year-old still-strong-and-capable notebook will last for some more time.

    My main worry is that I am a keyboard man, coming from DOS and punch card days. One day keyboards will disappear and I do not know what to do then.

    Thanks a lot, Cemal, for sharing your thoughts and feelings about your experiences.

    • Haluk, I am a VAIO person too but they no longer make one as you said. My last VAIO is still running but I needed to replace it for various reasons, mainly battery but speed was a concern too. I started using VAIO laptops back in 1995 and have used them until this HP. In fairness, the specs and other features of x360 are quite nice, especially the battery life. But a laptop is as good as its worst feature, in this instance the touch pad.

      Cemal