HP Spectre XT TouchSmart Ultrabook Review
by Dustin Sklavos on May 27, 2013 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- HP
- Ivy Bridge
- Spectre
- Ultrabook
Conclusion: The PC Compromise
My esteemed colleague Brian Klug tweeted recently that PC manufacturers can't seem to produce anything that doesn't have some horrible flaw. Everything could be perfect except for one thing that was cheaped out on, and it threatens to bring the whole thing down, and unfortunately his assertion holds water here. The Spectre XT TouchSmart has the makings of a solid ultrabook, but it's let down by miserly decisions on HP's part.
The frustrating thing is that the shortcomings could've largely been avoided. If you gut the Spectre XT TouchSmart, you have an attractive shell, a practical and inobtrusive cooling system, a solid speaker system, great clickpad, workable keyboard, and a beautiful display. From a purely physical standpoint, this notebook is aces. I'm not sure what could really be done to improve the battery life, but that's something I think I'd be willing to take on the chin if it meant everything else was stellar. I'm not a big proponent of Thunderbolt, but the inclusion is going to at least raise an eyebrow for someone.
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Yet it seems like a bean counter took this beautiful shell and just fouled the whole thing up to save a couple bucks here and there. The unit we've tested is a retail configuration, but it's buried in software bloat. HP's Support Assistant seems like a good idea but the execution is a little bit lacking and worse, it's intrusive. You get a free 2-year subscription to Norton, which may or may not be your cup of tea, and I keep wishing WildTangent would just disappear. I'm not sure the bloat is responsible for the system's overall poor hardware performance, either.
Even if a clean reformat would correct the CPU performance issue, you still have to contend with the dire storage subsystem. I'm not a fan of SSD caching and at this price, the Spectre XT should be shipping with a 128GB SSD minimum, full stop. If it were easy to just pop the notebook open and upgrade these things, that would be wonderful, but it's not.
If you're attracted to the Spectre XT TouchSmart, your best bet is going to be doing a custom configuration on HP's site, but even then the upgrade prices are exorbitant. $75 to go to 8GB of DDR3 isn't too bad, but $170 for a 128GB SSD and a staggering $370 for a 256GB SSD is just offensive. I can't help but get the persistent feeling that this was a solid product systematically ruined by a bean counter. The old adage that there are no bad products, only bad prices is certainly true here, but it's compounded by a series of cuts that undermine the product itself every step of the way. Hopefully the Spectre XT TouchSmart is refreshed when Haswell arrives with a more sensible configuration.
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arthur449 - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
You're going to have to qualify your statement about the keyboard, "Typing action is pretty good, but it's about time for HP to retire or revise this design." Apart from the display, the keyboard is one of the most important aspects of a notebook computer. I've recommended HP models to my friends and family members specifically because their use-case required a typing experience that didn't leave them with the urge to (pardon the hyperbole) saw their hands off. Having a consistently competent keyboard is vastly more important, at least in my opinion, than having a newly designed one.mschira - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
2.25kg, low voltage CPU and 2h battery life?Are they joking?
I keep saying, it's not Windows that is the problem it is the hardware makers.
Pathetic.
M.
P.S. mac 15" retina: 2.05 kg, quadcore CPU, GPU, battery life is north of 7h.
I know much more expensive, but still.
tipoo - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
Agreed, it's very much up to the system builders. Granted, IPS displays do suck down more power, but other machines already get better battery life with one. Windows machines are perfectly capable of getting close to or above Macbook battery life, I'm not sure what stops a few of them.protomech - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
It's not really a direct competitor to any apple product.It has the processor of a MBA, display resolution/quality between a MBA and rMBP, price of a 13" rMBP (once you add the SSD), slightly thicker/heavier vs a 15" rMBP).
Unique features are a touchscreen and terrible battery life.
mschira - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
but comparing it to MBA will make it fare even worse when talking about battery or weight.And when talking about price, too.
M.
tipoo - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
Just vaguely curious, if I took out the hard drive in the Spectre XT and put in my Momentus XT 750 hybrid hard drive from my old laptop, would the mSATA cache still work as normal? Would any extra setup be involved?tipoo - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
Ah, crud, even the hard drive is not serviceable?Peskarik - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
"Not user serviceable" - no need to read further3DoubleD - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
I'm starting to wonder if it is possible for PC manufacturers to build a competent laptop or ultrabook. What is it that holds them back every single time?One thing I can think of is that they might not have any guarantee that they would sell very many of that model, so they need to drive their margins up to compensate for lower volume. If that is the case, what if one of the manufacturers (HP, Lenovo, ASUS, ect.) did a kickstarter-like launch. They show us the laptop (theoretical or prototype), maybe get it reviewed a couple times, then we can put our money where our mouths are. If they hit their kickstarter goal, then they can know they will be profitable with that model through economies of scale without aggressively boosting their margins by using crappy parts.
tipoo - Monday, May 27, 2013 - link
Indeed, it's the volumes and R&D and manufacturing costs. With Apple notebooks, they are guaranteed to sell well, plus they are able to get away with high margins on each. Combine the two and the company is comfortable spending a bit extra on manufacturing quality and optimization. With the likes of HP, they have so many different new models they don't know if each will be a hit, plus PCs above 1000 dollars don't sell in anywhere near mac quantities, so they have to cheap out on manufacturing and optimization to play it safe.I wish someone would just take a one time Unibody-like risk, they only had to research that once and were able to get so many years of use out of the design, and it's still arguably the best.