HP Spectre x360

Fyi, I owned the QHD version of this and it worked just fine on apps that wouldn't scale by setting resolution at FHD and scaling at 100%. Why not have a screen that can handle both resolutions for the very small price premium and no other downsides to running the QHD screen at FHD. The measured difference in brightness in both published reports (eg, notebookcheck.net) and using my Spyder 4 was about 200 nit, hardly detectable by human eye.

 

I tried that first on the QHD but running it at FHD is not as clear/crisp as a native FHD screen. The brightness is definitely noticeable between the two units. Price was not an issue for me...just the brightness and scaling issues.

 

I am almost set on getting a QHD laptop, and based on all I have read I am still a bit concerned about the x360. It does seem that the difference in brightness is not huge, but noticeable.

The questions I have is: is this software (driver /optimization issue) or is this a flaw with the hardware? (if it is the later, will be hard to make the purchase especially since my best buy does not have the QHD)

 

Well I went to Best Buy and since they wouldnt show me the spectre x360 QHD screen I just bought the QHD model, opened it next to them. Went to the FHD model they had and compared brightness. It really is the only way to find out if it is bright enough for you. It is noticeable and even in FHD the screen isnt quite bright enough. I returned the QHD within 15 minutes and bought the FHD one.

Another thing to consider. Most battery test were made at 50% brightness or 75%. Hardly ever at 100%.
I do like it sometimes to set it to 100% and battery drains quickly. Since 75% on the FHD is OK for me but nothing below, I would have to keep the QHD on 100% all the time. Which means a battery life of ....

They had the Asus UX 303LN at the Microsoft Store and the mustard definitely is still there. I mean the thing was next to the XPS 13 and it really is noticeable. But I gotta say the Microsoft guys hated me for googling YELLOW images on all their laptops

Other options I found: Lenovo LaVie 360; Thinkpad Yoga`s (convertible, FHD AND graphics card); lenovo flex 3 (360 convertible + graphics card)

Anybody got opinions on any of those 3?

 

After reading about the issues on the lavie Z (which seemed interesting) I am fairly set on buying the x360 however I have a few questions for folks that have it

- one of the options is the Microsoft Signature edition at the microsoft store, given that unlike the typical configuration here in Canada it comes with a 256GB SSD, however by talking to the people at the microsoft store and looking at it it seems that besides no added software (mcafee etc.) which is great, it also does not come with anything else, like no HP recovery manager etc. so I am unclear on how I could restore it to factory settings in that case: has anybody bought it from the MS store here? what did it come with?

- in general I always install windows fresh (this would be my first 'store bought' pc in forever, haven't done it since the vista days iirc) however these days with the 'we don't give you recovery media / clean install media' I am not sure how I would do so, I have found posts with people with computers where reinstalling with the Microsoft image will work automagically by picking the key from the BIOS and others where this does not happen: has anybody here installed windows fresh on the x360? how did you do it? how was your experience? what drivers (and from where) did you have to download to get things working?

- another option rather than the MS store is best buy, which is $150ish cheaper but has a 128GB drive, in that case I might just get a 500GB on my own and install it: how easy is it to open the x360 to do so? does it void the warranty?

- at the MS store I was trying things out and as much as the touchscreen (FHD) seemed to work fine, the trackpad didn't seem as precise as say a macbook's, there were some hitches here and there, is it an issue with the computer in general or maybe it was a display model problem?

- And finally I have never had a windows convertible, how do folks here use it? do you set it up to hibernate on open/close? just sleep? if you just sleep it how long does the battery last? I tried sleeping it and hibernating it at the windows store and it restarted really really fast which was quite surprising; unfortunately though it seems it does not support the new windows 'active sleep' or whatever it's called because when I did powercfg /a it just had sleep, hibernate and fast start

 

Without getting too specific or lengthy [EDIT: forget keeping it from being lengthy - it's a disease those eho know me here have long been aware of!] , I have a couple of responses to cover both of your posts. Pardon me if I treat both as if they were a single post by one person, just for efficiency's sake.

1) As far as the QHD screen appearing less clear set to FHD, was that done from memory or A/B side-by-side? Either way, I'd posit the following : over the next year or two - arguably even now - the % of times you need to downscale to FHD will be much lower IMO than the % of times you will miss out on the truly magnificent apprarance of UHD content if you have an FHD native screen. Even the amazing sharpness of images and video that you currently need to partially downscale (say, to read tiny text) but which do so very well will provide you with incomparably better results than a screen that maxes out on FHD, regardless of the content. (Another advantage of QHD+ is with primarily textual content to set resolution to 1600x900 and scaling to 100% and you will have 4:1 pixel density compared to a native FHD screen, which at best could provide 1.2:1 density. What you get here is pretty much what Apple does with all Retina-enabled content and its what started the love affair with UHD displays on 13" - 15" laptop displays.)

2) If you are a bright screen freak (count me in ) you have to assume you'll be using approx 75%-100% brightness, or whatever gets you to around 225 - 275 nits, in daylight, whenever your eyes just can't get by without their "fix!" (note that we are a tiny minority: most keep brightness at around 150 nits!) I think you'll find that, regardless of a backlight's maximum strength, most displays will consume about the same amount of energy to deliver 250 nits on your side of the screen, given the same pixel density (see above for some pro/con on UHD displays). Thus your battery life, adjusted for the brightness your eyes will seek, will be mostly a factor of the size of the battery inside (few exceptions such as Thinkpad X and T models noted). Even Apple, which does run somewhat more efficiently due to hdwe/sftwe integration, owe much of their spectacular battery times to superb miniaturization of internal hdwe components/modules, leaving room for whopping big batteries. Moral of this story: as long as a model you are considering gets bright enough for you, even if it takes nearly 100% of the brightness setting, then it's fine for you. This probably means a 250 nit or brighter screen. For those sunlight monsters w/375-400+ nits, you're really only getting an opportunity to use far more brightness than your eyes and battery can handle well. There is no inherent benefit of being able to use your screen at 60% of max brightness if that level is around 275 nit. Thus, I would consider, say, the HPx360s sufficiently bright for the vast majority of even bright-screen-freak users; you just have to run it at max settings. For the minority that wants (or needs) 300+ nits, there are a small number of models to suit your needs. (if you also need all-day battery life, try to love one of those Thinkpad 400 nit screens with batteries poking out the back!

3) “Mustard yellows." They are simply no longer a significant problem. You must do some/all of the following if your device mfr (eg, Asus, with the 303 LN, and Im going on your reporys hete, no personal knowledge or experience) hasn't had the decency to bring its hdwe/firmware up to date:

1) Get Samsung's patch and run it; this will eliminate 100% of the yellow weakness except: at the very brightest setting while plugged in and the brightest 2-3 settings on battery. Those remaining issues are, a) minor - you wouldn't notice if you weren't made aware or were a graphic artistn b) 95% fixable, using a Spyder 4 color calibrator (or "poor man's version using software and trial/error) and by using higher power settings on battery (if you are sufficiently OCD about this to sacrifice an hour of batery time!) and, c) bbacking off one notch - or more - from the brightest screen setting.

Personally, I wouldn't buy a current model computer that didn't have these corrections hardwired in because that's just lazy and probably a cost cutting move - ie, buying a lot of old screens. That Asus model has you over a barrel because it's the only true "Ultrabook" with decent discrete graphics at a low price. If you're interested in one for gaming you're probably less interested in color accuracy so you'll be fine anyway. If you're concerned with both, you can take the steps I outlined above and be fat and happy too .

(The yellow thing was always overblown. A few years ago, both Sony and HP were using the same LG IPS 15" screen which showed reds as orange and violet as blue. It was bad enough to earn itself a genuine "-gate" suffix, as in "Orangegate!" Took them almost a year to get LG to fix it and meantime they sold tons of Envy 15s (when Envy was a true premium brand) and Sony S15s (the last of the fully user-servieable under 5 lb 15" quad core (not ULT) laptops. Not only were they fantastic products, even the screens were 9/10 at the time (3 yrs ago 15" IPS screens were rare) other than the red/orange issue. The Samsung QHD+ never even earned a "mustardgate" scandal title and both they and Lenovo (Yoga Pro 2) sold every one they could make.)

Happy hunting and pardon my cellphone keyboard typos!

 

As for me: I very often shut it down since it boots insanely fast (about 4 seconds) or if I have some tasks going on I just close the lid.

 

Wow you can type that much on a cellphone. That is INSANE
Ok so assume I would need to run the QHD model on 100% brightness all the time. The Battery would maybe even come down to just 3h !? I mean with my brightness settings on my FHD model I am struggeling to get more than 5-6h out of it.

I am a scientist and the convertible/tablet functionality is important as I read a lot of scientific papers. Using the Dell Active Stylus (third version) this surprisingly works very well. So I would really want a convertible with a discrete graphics card. But the graphics card is not really for gaming, but rather for scientific calculations of say a multi electrode array in the brain that usually runs with the GPU rather than the CPU.

Anyway. Since I do make Photoshop figures etc. for science, color accuracy is important and therefore any mustardy problem is a no-go.

My dream laptop would be: Convertible, 13-15 inch QHD screen (better than 1080p, but with 300nits, good color accuracy), discrete graphics card, 512 GB SSD, 8+GB RAM and >5h battery life, <4.5 pounds.

If anyone finds anything like that, let me know
Anybody ever tried the lenovo thinkpad yoga 14?

 

also, as a P.S. if you put the x360 in tablet mode and you connect it to an external display, can you use the internal keyboard? meaning, say I have a large monitor on my desk, can I put the x360 face down and use it as a keyboard connected to it? or when you put it in tablet mode the keyboard deactivates no matter what

 

Running the screen in non native resolution is never as good as running the native resolution. It is visible to me, just like the brightness difference.

The apps I use all day do not handle scaling well so I would never use it in QHD since I would need to enable scaling. Many line of business apps do not handle scaling well based on my experience (I run a network/computer services firm). I love the sharpness of QHD and 4K but until all of my apps work well with scaling it's not the right option for me. This was the same issue when the Retina Mac's first came out...many apps actually looked worse.