HP’s Spectre x360 13 seems like an improvement in almost every way
HP’s Spectre x360 13 has undergone a fairly drastic makeover for 2019. It’s still very much a Spectre: the premium 2-in-1 has glossy edges, a cleverly placed power button, and one USB-C port embedded into its two diagonally cut corners. But HP has cut away a lot of the excess from the old design, making its latest version smaller. Still, somehow, it feels bigger when you use it. And this model’s trackpad ditches Synaptics trackpad drivers in favor of Windows Precision drivers, like HP’s Envy lineup did earlier this year . That effect is achieved in part by its significantly trimmed-down top and bottom bezels, giving it a 90 percent screen-to-body ratio. The top bezel is 5.8mm thick, seemingly too thin to fit a webcam. But HP has engineered the world’s smallest Windows Hello-enabled IR webcam for that bezel. It’s 2.2mm thick, and while that’s impressive, I’m skeptical that such a small camera will yield good picture quality. The chassis is 23mm shallower than last year’s model,