Recently, I have been asked by a friend for recommendations for a Laptop to buy and he has his eyes on the new HP dragon Fly, an expensive 2-in-1 ultraportable. He asked me if it was worth the money. This led me to think and notice something interesting. HP is one the companies that keep releasing extremely unusual and classy 2-in-1 Laptops. Some of their computers offer a non-traditional awesome design. But the question is: Is HP really producing good 2-in-1 tablets/Laptops? This is the question I will try to answer in this article.
I have personally noticed that HP follows the same algorithm/pattern frequently for almost each of their 2-in-1s .
Foreach non-traditional 2-in-1 product ADD new sexy design feature Make people overhype for it and overprice the product (1K+) Release in US Sleep 1 month Release in Canada + put an announcement on European websites with a "buy soon" sleep 2 months release in Europe While (people still hyped) Keep selling for insane price if people figure out design flaws: break Remove product from website and get rid of remaning stock for 700-800eur/USD on bestbuy, amazon, RueduCommerce…etc
Now that our HP Function is ready let’s test it and see if it gives the correct output :D!
HP elite X2
An overpriced master piece for business. While it looks very promising it actually never succeeded to compete with surface pro devices.
Design: Nice
Something special? Best 2-in-1 tablet style Laptop with a really comfortable keyboard.
Flaws/issues: the battery life isn’t brilliant, and it’s going to cost you a substantial amount of money. Even though it’s a business model, the cost is not justifiable even for companies since they have much cheaper alternatives like the surface pro.
Sadly, this tablet ended on sale like you can see here:
Currently, their latest model is the G4. It sells for around 1500$, but trust me, it might end up on amazon for 800$ in less than a year.
HP Envy x2
same as above. But it was a consummer-grade 2-in-1.
HP Spectre Folio
A very classy Laptop!
Design: Extremely nice
Something special? First leather laptop in the world.
Flaws/issues: Performance: ( Slow as a turtle. Overheats like an oven.), made of animal leather, and lastly the leather breaks apart very quickly (4-6 months of regulrar usage). For the very same price you can get a surface pro 7 if you find a nice discount on BestBuy along with it’s type cover. Surface pro has a much better perfomence for the same price range.
The end: I don’t see the “buy now” option anymore on HP’s website. It got discounted and even reached 750$ on BestBuy :
https://slickdeals.net/f/13382311-hp-spectre-folio-leather-2-in-1-13-3-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-8gb-memory-256gb-solid-state-drive-cognac-brown-900
HP spectre 13
Another overpriced machine that used to sell for 1500$/eur. It was a promising ultraportable that had good specs.
Design: surely perfect!
Something special? Lightest laptop in the world (at the time of release at least) with an extremely cool design specially the black/gold color.
Flaws/issues: Overheats like an oven! Not usable. Extremely poor battery life 3-4 hours. I had the chance to own this one myself.
The end:
A year ago I would not even dream to get this laptop for under 1K. Now you won’t find it on HP.com, it ended up selling for discounted prices (~800 euro) on rueDuCommerce (FR) and currys PC world (UK). I got one, it had issues, I requested another unit and the replacement unit had the same issues, it felt really nice to type on the keyboard of this computer and it was very light but I ended up returning it due to overheating issues. Even HP’s technical support kind of told me indirectly that this computer is so thin that they screwed up the cooling/venting.
HP spectre 13 x360
This one was a great success though. They surprisingly managed to keep releasing this model since 2016, they kept releasing newer upgrades with better look yearly, the price of this laptop didn’t drop as fast as it did with the aforementioned ones. Seems like people took longer to figure out the flaws in this laptop.
Design: a very good sleek laptop, the desing improved over years with their final model being the gem cut one. The black/gold and posseidon blue colors are so charming.
Something special? Lightest 2 in 1.
Flaws/issues: Somehow the same issues that the non x360 model had but less noticeable.
The end: It seems like HP is finally trying to get rid of this machine as well. The price dropped to 730$ For the lowest model (Compared to 1400$ a year ago).
Conclusion:
Do not hype for HP’s unusual devices. They occosioanlly release weird special non-traditional 2-in-1s but sadly they’re always filled with design flaws and they lose their value very quickly. It takes a year or 2 for the price to drop by 50%. This is not the case for some competitors like Microsoft and the surface pro.
P.S: I’m only talking about 2-in-1s that are so controversial or have untested designs. Probooks, elitebooks…etc are for exemple enterprise grade Laptops that are extremely good and have been tested since years. Hp pavilion and envy series laptops are also traditional laptops that are quite good and have no siginifant flaws/issues. Not to mention that HP laptops in general has one of best keyboards in my opinion.