New Laptop - New Gaming

Laptop review - HT Spectre XT
September 2012 

That first experience with a new piece of hardware is a rare pleasure. But it's all too easily ruined by unintuitive or unnecessary software. Booting up a new Windows 7 PC can be harrowing. 

First Impressions

The XT's chamfered rear gives it a distinctive appearance
Photograph: Peadar Grogan

The design of HP's sleek new Ultrabook is something of a revelation for Windows hardware. Lest you confuse it with one of the company's range of new ultra-thin 'Sleekbook' laptops, here’s a brief introduction: 

The Spectre XT is 18mm thick at its deepest point. The brushed aluminium lid and palm-rest are cool to the touch. The notebook’s underside is coated with a pleasing rubberized finish. At just under 1.5kg, it’s a notebook light enough to carry and reassuringly easy to hold. 

The laptop has a subtle wedge shape, tapering from its distinctive chamfered rear to its chrome-finished front. Unfortunately weight distribution is off. The laptop can’t be opened one-handed, but the neatly recessed touchpad provides a natural gripping point for your fingers on the front of the device.
Boot-up

The Spectre XT is HP's last major Windows 7 PC. Image: Microsoft

Of course the hardware is just the start. Setting up Windows 7 is straight-forward but the cracks quickly began to show. The horrors of Internet Explorer’s toolbar-laden interface will stand between you and everything you want to do with your PC. My experience went something like this: 

Typing “chrome” into what I assumed to be IE's address bar prompted me to sign Microsoft's privacy policy. While trying to figure out why this was necessary, my attempt to access the internet triggered the Norton security suite pre-installed on the device. A pop-up asking me to register with Norton suddenly dominated the screen. I was frustrated within three minutes of turning the laptop on. 

I immediately uninstalled the two years of free Norton security. As it turned out,IE 9's address bar is now nestled neatly in a tiny box beside the open tabs. The large Bing toolbar I had started typing in is all too easily mistaken for the browser's main interface. 

The work-around only took a few moments, so it's unfortunate that HP allowed the problem to arise. 

With Chrome installed and Microsoft Security Essentials downloaded you're good to go. Drive, Dropbox, Steam and iTunes are only a click away from there. If anything it's a little disappointing how quickly your new hardware can become a perfect facsimile of the old. 

The bloatware is Microsoft's fault. And HP, to their credit, have actually limited the amount of software on board, and some of their additions are welcome. Photoshop and Premier Elements are pre-installed. With other manufactures, the situation can be far worse. So bad in fact, that Microsoft is offering to install clean versions of their OS in the US, for the princely sum of $100. 

Keyboard and Touchpad

The XT's backlit keyboard. Photograph: Peadar Grogan

The Spectre XT sports a back-lit chicklet keyboard and a responsive touchpad that handles two finger scrolling as well as more complicated multitasking gestures with ease. We'll have to wait for 26 October, and the release of Windows 8 to see how well the Synaptics drivers hold up under sustained use however. Gestures are nice to have on Windows 7 but they're far from essential. 

The keyboard is particularly good. The keys provide strong resistance to the touch and the travel isn’t too shallow. The layout of the keys is intuitive, however HP have chosen to hide the Function keys behind their own set of controls for brightness, volume etc. 

Display and Audio

The display is almost all screen, unfortunately it’s also the laptop’s weakest element. The glossy 1366x768 panel can't really compete with the 1080p competitors out there on the market. 

Beats audio ships as standard. The result is some unnecessary branding on the speaker grill and not a whole lot else. The laptop does have four speakers however, two above the keyboard and two on the device's underside, one left, one right, that deliver an above average volume level for a laptop of its size. 

Connectivity

Photograph: Peadar Grogan

Considering the Spectre's dimensions, the selection of ports is impressive. HDMI, giga-bit ethernet, an SD card reader and combined headphone/mic ports adorn the sides. An HDMI to VGA adapter comes in the box; an unnecessary but appreciated measure. There are also two USB ports; one USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0.

Photograph: Peadar Grogan

The 3.0 port is thankfully not colour-coded blue. Everything about the laptop holds to the subdued colour palette HP have defined for the device; the Windows and Intel stickers on the palm-rest are silver and black. The black keys and bezel contrast sharply against the otherwise silver-grey finish. A thin chrome trim around speaker grill and body bring the whole thing to life.

Performance
The model I'm reviewing has a 3rd generation 1.7Ghz Core i5 processor and 4 gigabytes of RAM. The graphics are handled by Intel's integrated HD4000 solution. The wireless network card is blisteringly fast too, getting online almost instantly when woken from sleep. 

The boot times are a genuine surprise. The system benefits from a 128GB flash drive soldered to the Spectre's motherboard. iTunes just opens and the system doesn't need to hang while Steam connects to the net. 

Conclusion

The XT's performance matches its design Photograph: Peadar Grogan

It remains to be seen whether the software situation improves with Window's 8. The level of control that Microsoft has exercised with their OEMs for Window's Phone 7 (managing everything from screen resolution to processor speed), is hopefully a sign of things to come. Of course, only time will tell. Aside from some initial boot up problems it’s difficult not to recommend the Spectre XT to the average consumer. For power users doing design, video or image manipulation work, the small SSD and sub-par screen will rule this laptop out. But for everyone else this is an impressive machine both visually and in terms of performance.