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It’s rare to see a desktop-replacement laptop with 2-in-1 capability, but that doesn’t make it a smart idea. HP’s latest exploration of this concept is the HP Spectre x360 16 (starts at $1,249.99; $1,709.99 as tested), the follow-up to a similarly named model from 2022. This large convertible has a lot going for it, like a premium design and a beautiful OLED display, but it’s held back by middling performance. If you can still find one, go for HP’s 2022 model as our standing Editors’ Choice award holder for big-screen convertibles. Until then, our search for a successor continues.One thing to note: Just before we published this review, HP released a critical BIOS update for the Spectre x360 16 that improved its performance. (In our first round of tests with the laptop, it was clearly underperforming, given its component loadout.) Our testing charts in this review reflect the post-update laptop. This update may not be applied automatically to systems already in customers’ hands; you can find the BIOS update on HP’s support pages. That said, the performance improvement still wasn’t significant enough to push the Spectre into the front ranks.
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Configurations: Just a Few ChoicesThe HP Spectre x360 16 (2024) is a premium 2-in-1 laptop, with prices starting at $1,249.99 and featuring an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H processor. All configurations are built around this same CPU, but you’ll find other choices for customization, with your choice of integrated or dedicated graphics, IPS or OLED displays, and additional options for memory and storage.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The base model mentioned above is outfitted with 16GB of RAM, Intel Arc integrated graphics, and a 512GB SSD for storage. It also has the most basic display option, a 16-inch IPS screen with WQXGA 1600p (2,560 by 1,600) resolution.
Pick all of the top configuration options, on the other hand, and you’ll still have the Core Ultra 7 155H CPU but with 32GB of memory, 2TB of storage, and a more capable Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU with 6GB of VRAM. On top of that, you can add a gorgeous 1800p (2,880 by 1,800) OLED touch screen. This top configuration sells for $1,979.99 through HP.com, but Best Buy sells a similar configuration for $2,199, so shop around for the configuration that meets your needs and budget.Our review unit is a midrange model with the same Core Ultra chip and basic 16GB of RAM, but it steps up to a 1TB SSD, an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU, and the OLED panel. It currently sells for $1,709.99 through HP.com.Design: Spectre’s Signature Premium LookThe fit and finish distinguish HP’s Spectre line from other models. The build quality and materials are premium, elevating the Spectre x360 above the otherwise similar Envy x360. It starts with an all-aluminum chassis that is slim (0.78 inch) and relatively light (4.3 pounds) for a 16-inch system.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
That metal chassis comes in two colors: Nightfall Black, which has brass-colored accents, or Slate Blue, which has blue accents. Our review unit has this Slate Blue finish, but it’s more realistically described as a near-black with a bluish tint. The accents highlight what has become a design staple of the Spectre line: angled corners with embedded ports. It’s a chic touch, but you might occasionally forget that an extra port is hidden in a corner, since they are angled away from you when you look at the laptop head-on.Topping it off is that luxe OLED touch-screen panel, which not only looks impeccable but adds 2.8K resolution (2,880 by 1,800 pixels) with HDR support, IMAX Enhanced certification, and a 120Hz variable refresh rate that adapts to different content types.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The 16-inch design places the Spectre x360 squarely in the desktop-replacement camp. It’s decidedly less portable than the smaller HP Spectre x360 14, but if you need a large tablet for drawing or note-taking, that larger size gives you plenty of room for both. And with an included HP Pen, you can do both.Sound from the laptop is also enjoyable, thanks to a quad-speaker setup that combines two front-firing woofers and two top-firing tweeters. The speakers are tuned by sound engineers from Poly, the brand formerly known as Plantronics and Polycom, now under HP’s ownership.Using the HP Spectre x360 16: Enhanced Inputs, Clear VideoEven HP’s keyboard gets some extra polish, with flourishes like a stylized LED power indicator and fingerprint reader in the power button, and a touchpad that supports some distinctive new gesture controls. Compared with the previous model, the HP Spectre x360 16 (2022), the keycaps are 12% larger, and the lettering is easier to read.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
The touchpad is also 60% larger, measuring a spacious 6.3 by 3.9 inches. That massive touch surface is covered in glass and provides haptic tactile feedback. HP has even added some new gesture controls, with zones on the right and left edges of the touchpad allowing you to control audio volume and screen brightness, respectively.The accompanying webcam is just as premium, thanks to a superb 9-megapixel sensor that puts 1080p cameras to shame. On top of that high-resolution sensor, the camera has hardware-enabled low-light adjustment, so it will look just as bright and sharp when you’re kicked back on the couch in a darkened room as it will at a brightly lit desk. It also leverages the AI capabilities of the CPU to enable features like auto-framing and background blur. It even adds a bit of convenient battery saving with a “walk-away lock,” which will automatically lock your PC when you walk away from it, and “wake on approach”, which will automatically wake it from sleep mode when you return.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
As for connectivity, on the left is a USB-A port with Sleep and Charge, plus a 3.5mm audio jack on the slant-cut corner. On the right, you’ll find two Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports (one on the corner) and a full-size HDMI out.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
As mentioned before, the ports located on the angled corners (audio jack on the left, Thunderbolt 4 port on the right) are harder to see, due to the slant, but the angled position might help keep cumbersome cords out of the way. Wireless connectivity is handled by Wi-Fi 6E networking and Bluetooth 5.3.Testing the HP Spectre x360 16: Flaps and Flies, But Also FlopsThe HP Spectre x360 16 is well-equipped with the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU and Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 laptop graphics for extra visual oomph. To evaluate it against the market, we looked at other 16-inch convertibles, like the HP Envy x360 15.6 (2023) and the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360, which similarly combine desktop-replacement laptops with folding 2-in-1 designs. (Also, if you’re wondering what the difference is between HP’s Envy and Spectre lines, you’re not alone.)We also looked at similarly equipped clamshell laptops, like the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i (16-Inch) and the Dell XPS 16 (9640), combining capable Intel CPUs with Nvidia graphics for enhanced capability.
Productivity and Content Creation Tests We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.Our other three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Geekbench 5.4 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).Finally, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Systems, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s famous image editor to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes various general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.
Considering the baseline threshold for productivity use is a 4,000-point PCMark 10 score, the Spectre x360 16 proved itself quite capable. However, the results were more modest considering the results posted by comparable convertibles and desktop replacements. For instance, in Cinebench and Geekbench, it landed right in the middle of the pack despite using the latest Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU. Most interesting is the comparison with the Dell XPS 16 (9640), which coaxed better performance from the same Core Ultra 7 155H processor.Graphics and Gaming TestsWe run synthetic and real-world gaming benchmarks for gaming laptops and other mobile gaming hardware. The former includes two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark: Night Raid (more modest, suitable for systems with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). We also use the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5 to gauge OpenGL performance. These GFXBench tests are rendered offscreen to accommodate different native display resolutions; more frames per second (fps) means higher performance.
The graphics performance numbers above highlight the difference between a system with a dedicated GPU versus integrated graphics. We saw the HP Envy x360 and the Samsung Galaxy Book3 Pro 360 handily trounced by the discrete-GPU systems across our graphics tests. But just as consistent was the fact that other systems posted better performance than the Spectre did from the same hardware, seen most clearly in comparisons with the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i, which had the same graphics hardware.Battery and Display Tests We test each laptop’s battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off. To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure a laptop screen’s color coverage—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
Most similarly equipped laptops last between 10 and 16 hours of battery life; the 16-inch Spectre x360 comes in on the upper end of that range in our video playback test. That all-day (and then some) battery is one of the benefits of a larger chassis, and even for long-lasting models with high-capacity batteries, the Spectre was one of the longest-lasting. The display, on the other hand, while bright and vibrant, is only on par with other equally premium displays that are hard to top. In that context, the OLED panel doesn’t stand out, but only because it has the same premium display quality you’d expect of any desktop replacement with an OLED screen.Verdict: Pretty From All Angles…Save PerformanceThe 2024 reboot of the HP Spectre x360 16 is the latest in a successful string of premium laptops, marked by a luxurious design and a premium 1800p OLED touch screen. Features like AI-enhanced hardware and software, an excellent 9MP webcam, and clever new touchpad gestures all add appeal, but those high points carry less weight at this price. More a concern: Competing systems simply outpaced the Intel Core Ultra processor in this implementation. Even with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 giving the laptop a visual boost, its performance never quite keeps pace with the like-priced pack. The premium design and features count for a lot. But the performance isn’t category-leading, making this Spectre a worthwhile choice for many, but not the standout leader on all fronts that you might have hoped for, given past x360 efforts.
HP Spectre x360 16 (2024)
The Bottom Line
HP’s Core Ultra-based Spectre x360 16 has a sharp design, a dazzling OLED display, and advanced features. Its performance falls short of the premium hardware, though, particularly in graphics tests.
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