HP Spectre x360 13-aw2139TU

Design

HP Spectre laptops are some of the most striking, and perhaps contentious, slim-and-light models we review all year. In HP Spectre x360 13-aw2139TU Flexible dual hinges allows you to convert it from a laptop into a tablet. They are stiff enough to prevent the screen from wobbling when you tap on the glass, yet flipping the panel around to transition into tent or tablet mode doesn’t require much force. It strikes the right balance between sturdy and practical.  A “Diamond-cut” on rear corners much like on other Spectre laptops, Power button located on the left corner. It is not a combination fingerprint/power button, Because of the tapered front, there is a huge gap between the base and lid when flipped into tablet. Speaking of practical, there is a fingerprint sensor on the deck just below the arrow keys.

Performance

Equipped with an Intel Core i5-1135G7, along with a hefty 08GB of RAM. The HP Spectre x360 is a great little performer, with Windows 10 feeling fast and responsive. The HP Spectre x360 13-aw2139TU has enough muscle to run demanding workloads without getting hanged. The biggest upgrade on the HP Spectre x360 over the previous model are its components and performance, with the laptop being a showcase for Intel’s latest EVO mobile processors.

Display

OLED offers deeper colors, higher contrast, and significantly faster black-white and gray-gray response times than IPS to minimize ghosting. Unfortunately, this seems to come at the cost of brightness as the OLED display maxes out at around 350 nits compared to 400 on the IPS configuration. Picture quality is good, but we think it could have been better. When displaying an all-white image, there is some graininess to the picture likely due to the overlying glass touchscreen layer.The 13.3-inch, 1080p IPS touchscreen is a good one if you don’t mind the traditional 16:9 aspect ratio. It gets bright enough to use outside on a sunny day and the colors are punchy. Getting back to the aspect ratio, many premium laptops released in the past year use 16:10 or 3:2 ratios to allow for more vertical screen real estate. Which method is best comes down to personal preference, but tall and narrow is certainly trending. The touchscreen was very responsive

Keyboard

The HP Spectre x360 13-aw2139TU is at heart a pretty straightforward laptop. It’s a good job, then, that HP has the basics aced. For one, it has a very good keyboard. There’s plenty of key travel, zero flex to the keyboard plate, and meaty-but-quiet feedback when you press the keys. This is not necessarily what you’d expect from a style-driven portable laptop in 2021. But HP has not forgotten this element is pretty important for those who actually work eight hours a day in front of the thing. The touchpad is trimmed down more substantially to fit the Spectre x360 13’s shape, but is still very good. It has a smooth textured glass surface, and a confident clicker that isn’t affected by pressure places around the pad itself

Battery

The HP Spectre x360 13-aw2139TU has a 60Wh battery the same size this series has used for a few generations now. It’s a mid-size battery that lasts very well considering the laptop uses an Intel CPU.

Audio

With luxury audio brand Bang & Olufsen quad speakers doing the tuning. They sound fine, with a decent punch.

Verdict

The HP Spectre x360 13-aw2139TU is a laptop focused on quality. Its build is exceptional. You get the cool and hard feel of aluminium, very low-flex panels and a non-wobbly convertible display hinge. Its keyboard is far better than the thin, clicky designs used in plenty of slim laptops. And while the weight isn’t dramatically low, this laptop’s footprint is among the smallest in its class.