HP Spectre Fold Review: Dragging The PC Into The Future

sponsored by delete me the first laptop computer hit the market over 40 years ago and ever since then we've been Shackled to the slow evolution of the same core conceit screen up top keyboard down low hinge in between Yahoo well it only took one encounter with a flexible display to convince me that the future of computing would be foldable the Lenovo X1 fold and Asus Zen book fold pioneered the notion of a laptop that could become a portable desktop and today HP is flexing its own multimodal PC that's sleeker and more mature than anything that's come before at a price that sadly guarantees you'll never see one out in public speaking of being out in public even as somebody accustomed to carrying around unreleased or otherwise precious gadgets I was extremely conscious of the $5,000 payload dangling from my clenched fist as I walked from the HP briefing to the ferry back to Brooklyn if the Spectre fold were the first laptop with a flexible display maybe its $5,000 price tag would at least be understandable it would still be utterly unjustifiable for reasons I'll get into but it's not hard to see how a machine like this can Captivate when I share photos of it on social perched in different postures for different settings there's always someone who says it looks like something out of sci-fi and it does that's the magic of a PC with a flexible screen it can start out no bigger than a 12 and 1/2 in clam shell open up into an absolutely monster 17-in mobile workstation or split the difference with a 1 and a half screen workspace concept that adds more display area by bumping down the keyboard which also gives you clever little wrist rest the magnets hold it firmly in either orientation while also informing the OLED screen which sectors it can shut down very smart it's the extra time spent on the small stuff that elevates the Spectre fold above the competition namely a Lenovo that squandered its promise with a bug plagued performance right out of the box and an Asus whose ponderous size largely nullified its design Ambitions Lenovo later found something truly great in its dual screen yoga book 9i but that's a machine you need to assemble with a detached keyboard that adds a measure of bulk to the equation the HP by contrast folds into its own footprint with the keyboard sandwiched neatly between and it borrows lenovo's trick of wirelessly charging it while it is so docked and despite the need to be thin enough to fit in the gap between the screen sides these Keys actually boast a fair amount of travel while the Bluetooth connection is strong enough to keep the double Letter Bug to a minimum even the trackpad is passable I forgot my travel Mouse on more than one occasion and I could still get work done without feeling too confined the only complaint I have is a familiar one from other notebooks with detached boards there's no backlight and that's no good there are always more trade-offs to a foldable than to a conventional device but HP did a nice job of keeping many of those to a minimum to make up for having just two USB ports there's a dock in the Box to pad them out with a broader range of options the speakers pack huge sound despite the bezels being Slimmer than on other foldables and the moving Parts feel quite dirty the company gave us a look inside the machine during our briefing and took the opportunity to point out that the frame extends all the way up to the hinge gutter Also the battery is smartly split not just across the PC's two halves but asymmetrically so with the heavier half down on the bottom side to help anchor it when you're lap topping there's a physical privacy shutter on the webcam Bravo as well as security features like walkway autolock unlock on approach and lurker detection I despise lurkers and rounding up the included perks there's an active stylus in the box that magnetically docks and wirelessly charges one sacrifice I expected to see I actually didn't battery life over about a month of testing the Spectre fold routinely cranked out 7 to 8 hours of endurance even when I spent the majority of a day in full-on 17-in workstation mode with the whole display illuminated granted it doesn't get as bright as I'd like which probably helps but that's still excellent endurance for a machine this flexible but even in a hypothetical world where this cost half as much as it actually does the HP Spectre fold was never going to be Mr Mobile's mobile workstation how software squanders this Hardware's promise after [Music] this it's been a little over 6 months since I first told you about delete me the simple service that gives control of your personal dat data back to you in that half a year delete me has reviewed over 4,000 listings from data Brokers across the web for me and it's removed my personal information from almost 80 of them what kind of listings well we're talking private information like my physical address history my property and court records even the names of my family members now scrubbed from nearly 80 data Brokers archives without me having to do any work on my own that means delete me has saved me almost a full day searching and removing my personal information from the internet and because data Brokers are Relentless delete me is too they'll repeat the process every 3 months as long as you're subscribed delete your personal data from the web visit joinme.com mrmobile and use code mrmobile for 20% off thanks to delet me for sponsoring this video it's never been easy to make software for foldables a witness the long road Android has had to travel to make its pseudo tablet experience even passable but the difference is in that world manufacturers seem more empowered to make the changes that Google at the platform level can't or won't not so much it seems in the world of Microsoft I've learned through hard experience that windows will always find a way to complicate if not totally ruin a foldable in an effort to justify the price of this thing HP painted a half heart picture of jet setting Executives for whom money is No Object and mobile flexibility is the name of the game Rich guys well it's hard to imagine such a person finding this acceptable and then there's the 1.5 screen mode in theory this could be nearly as useful as the Asus zenbooks I enjoy so much but in practice there are very few ways to make meaningful use of this space because windows doesn't really know how to to its credit HP makes an effort to build on Windows snap but unfortunately the effectiveness varies depending on how each program is coded so in 1.5 mode I I end up more impressed by the Palm rests than the second screen here and the hardware has inevitable compromises too in tabletop workstation mode the webcam isn't just off to the side it's rotated to Portrait because of the sensor orientation so you effectively need to take your video with a smaller screen and that's unfortunate also the kickstands offset position means it needs to stretch further back to hold up the machine in a stable position which means it leans back just a bit too much finally each time I try a folding computer I'm amazed all over again that a company with the ambition to build a revolutionary device like this doesn't have the will to refuse the licensing agreements that mandate these ugly stickers and basically make it look like any other PC when it's closed closed and I'm Gob smacked that a $55,000 machine comes pre-loaded with the scareware that even grandparents shouldn't be falling for anymore can you peel off the stickers yeah can you uninstall that shovelware sure but you shouldn't have to and you shouldn't have to to round out the complaints with the obligatory spec shaming yeah that's a 12th generation core i7 in there from February 2022 when I asked HP why it didn't go with the newer processor the company said it's simple the design of the Spectre fold called for a 9 watt CPU and there is no 9 watt CPU in Intel's 13th generation that plus the lack of a dedicated GPU means you won't be using all this screen area for intense gaming or video editing it just can't hang just like every foldable PC hp's CEO kicked off the company's imagine event by saying two things that really stuck with me first that we've entered an era of flexibility where people can work from anywhere and our machines should reflect and enable that and second that HP is having fun again the Spectre fold embodies both of those statements and even though it's priced beyond the ability of any sane sober person to justify it's at least exciting as a Herald of things to come but until HP or some other manufacturer truly Dives in with both feet with a great combination of design power and pricing well we're never going to see that future properly realized this review was made possible by a Spector Fold review sample provided by HP but as always I gave the manufacturer no copy approval rights which means they didn't get to see this review ahead of time nor did HP provide compensation or have any editorial input whatsoever please subscribe be to the Mr Mobile on YouTube if you'd like to see more videos like this until next time from Michael fer thanks for watching and stay mobile my friends

Channel: MrMobile [Michael Fisher]

Views: 143,985

Keywords: foldable laptop review, best foldable laptop, best flexible display laptop, hp spectre foldable review, hp fold review, hp foldable review, best folding laptop 2024

Id: WlahZrTwdUU

Length: 10min 12sec (612 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 15 2023