HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000) review – the jewel in the 2-in-1 crown

Behold, the flagship of HP 13-inch 2-in-1 laptops – the Spectre x360 13. This is a big upgrade to the previous version, as it now features even slimmer top and bottom bezels, which ultimately results in a smaller footprint. Not only this, but you are dealing with an extremely thin piece of machinery, made entirely out of aluminum (and glass for the display).

Additionally, it comes with the latest and greatest from the ULV arena – the Intel Ice Lake lineup. The maxed-out version of the notebook features the Intel Core i7-1065G7 and its integrated Iris Plus G7 graphics card. Yes, there is no dedicated GPU on it, but the G7 is quite the performer when it comes to light gaming – truly the best Intel has to offer.

As a 2-in-1 this is truly an artist dream – it offers two kinds of displays – one 1080p and one UHD. Both of them have IPS panels and have the option to be equipped with the Sure View feature, which should block unwanted attention to your screen’s content.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-spectre-x360-13-13-aw0000/

Contents


Specs Sheet

HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000, aw1000) - Espec

  • IVO M133NVFD R2 (IVO8584)
  • Precisión del color  3.7  1.0
  • HDD/SSD
  • hasta 4000GB SSD
  • Ranura M.2
  • 1x 2280 PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4  Ver foto
  • RAM
  • up to 16GB
  • OS
  • Windows 11 Pro, Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro
  • Batería
  • 60Wh, 4-cell
  • Material del cuerpo
  • Aluminum
  • Dimensiones
  • 306.8 x 194.5 x 17 mm (12.08" x 7.66" x 0.67")
  • Peso
  • 1.28 kg (2.8 lbs)
  • Puertos y conectividad
  • 1x USB Type-A
  • 3.2 Gen 1 (5 Gbps), Sleep and Charge
  • 2x USB Type-C
  • 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps), Thunderbolt 3, Power Delivery (PD), DisplayPort, Sleep and Charge
  • Displayport mini
  • Lector de tarjetas
  • microSD
  • Wi-Fi
  • 802.11ax
  • Bluetooth
  • 5.0
  • Conector de audio
  • 3.5mm Combo Jack
  • Features
  • Lector de huellas dactilares
  • optional
  • Cámara web
  • HP TrueVision HD Camera
  • Teclado retroiluminado
  • optional
  • Micrófono
  • Dual-Array Digital Microphones
  • Altavoces
  • Stereo Speakers, Bang & Olufsen
  • Unidad óptica

Todo HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000, aw1000) configuraciones

#CommissionsEarned

What’s in the box?

The packaging of this notebook is quite premium. Inside the box, you will find two compartments. In one of them, there is a fancy protective sleeve, which comes as a gift. Then in the other, you will find another box. Inside it, you would see the optional Pen, as well as a 65W USB Type-C power adapter, and the laptop itself.


Design and construction

As we mentioned, the HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000) comes in an aluminum outfit in either the striking blue color, a deep black, or a more subtle but still premium Silver color. This laptop is extremely thin, going to 17mm at its thickest point, and weighing only 1.31 kg. The build quality, itself is amazing – no twists and squeaks on the body, nor the lid. Also, a significant characteristic of the design here is the double-chamfered edges.

Speaking of the lid, surprisingly, you will be able to open it with a single hand. Unnaturally for a 2-in-1, the hinges are very balanced and the display stays put in an upright position, without any unnecessary shaking. Now, the latest model of the Spectre x360 13 features its camera above the screen and has an optional IR face recognition system. We also enjoy the tiny logo, beneath it.

One thing that we feel is not alright with it is the Sure View feature. Interestingly enough, the other device, equipped with it – the HP Elite Dragonfly G1 – also didn’t work properly. When we press the proprietory key, the only thing that happens is the screen goes dimmer. That’s it.

Anyways, let’s continue with the base, and take a look at that keyboard. It takes a huge amount of the area there and has rather big keys for a 13-incher. Additionally, the spacing is good, key travel – long, and feedback – clicky and satisfying. Frankly, it is one of the best keyboards around.

Just beneath it, there is a rather long touchpad. Its glass surface makes for a good gliding and the tracking is really accurate. Moreover, our model features a fingerprint reader, placed just below the “Down” Arrow. It is extremely fast and accurate.

Lastly, on the bottom plate, you will see the speaker cut-outs and a huge ventilation grill. Hot air, on the other side, leaves the chassis from a subtle spacing on the backside of the laptop’s base.

Ports

Keep in mind that this is an extremely thin laptop. However, HP has been quite clever in designing the I/O. On the left side, at the edge, you are going to find the Power On/Off button. Then further down goes an Audio Jack, followed by a USB Type-A 3.1 port which is utilized via a spring cover, similarly to how some manufacturers put the RJ-45 connectors. Honestly, we are wondering why nobody (especially Apple) haven’t think of this. Nevertheless, on the other side, you will see two Thunderbolt connectors (one placed at the edge), and you can use both of them to charge up the notebook. Additionally, there is a hardware camera kill switch and a MicroSD card reader.


Disassembly, upgrade options and maintenance

HP has once again tried to surprise everybody by hiding some screws. Three of them (Torx-head) are clearly visible, but after you remove the back feet you will notice four more, this time – Phillips-head type. Then pop the panel with a plastic pry tool and you should be able to see what’s inside.

The cooling features two heat pipes, leading to two different heat spreaders and then having two fans. Quite the cooling potential it has.

Unsurprisingly, there are no RAM upgrade options, but you still have the possibility to upgrade the storage via a single M.2 PCIe x4 slot.

As of the battery – it takes more than half of the space inside this machine.


Display quality

HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000) is equipped with a Full HD IPS touchscreen panel, IVO M133NVFD R2 (IVO8584). Its diagonal is 13.3-inch (33.78 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080p. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 166 ppi, their pitch – 0.15 х 0.15 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 50 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels). One important feature of this device is its Sure View technology. Its purpose is to block unwanted viewers from seeing the content of your screen. A key role in that place the backlight and an additional light directing layer.

We apply these photos to evaluate the viewing angles. The 45-degree photos are taken with higher exposure than the front-facing one.

The maximum measured brightness is excellent – 815 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 880 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 17% in the top left corner where the brightness is 960 nits. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 6060K – warmer than the standard 6500K temperature for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 6250K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 34% Brightness (White level = 139 cd/m2, Black level = 0.06 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color-sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is excellent – 2360:1.

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.

Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.

Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.

The yellow dotted line shows HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000)’s color gamut coverage.

Its display covers 91% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.

Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.

We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.

Below you can compare the scores of HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).

The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.

The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.

Response time (Gaming capabilities)

We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.

We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 28 ms.


Health impact – PWM / Blue Light

PWM (Screen flickering)

Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.

HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000)’s display backlight uses PWM for brightness adjustment, and on top of that does it with a low frequency. This is especially uncomfortable in a low-lit environment, where you use the laptop with a brightness level of around 140 nits. Then, the backlight lights up to the maximum level but stays alit for only 15% of the time, while during the rest of the 85% it is turned off. This is explicitly harmful to the eyes and the brain in our view.

Blue light emissions

Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.

Conclusion

HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000) has a touchscreen display with an IPS panel, excellent maximum brightness, very good contrast ratio, and wide-enough color coverage. Sadly, the backlight presents a decent load to the eyesight, most prominent when the brightness slider is at a position, distinctive to working at the closed environment. Thankfully, our Health-Guard profile targets and eliminates this issue. Also, the luminance unevenness is way too high. On the bright side, our Gaming and Web design profile help it achieve accurate enough colors for design purposes.

Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000) configurations with 13.3″ IVO M133NVFD R2 (IVO8584) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS panel.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Además de recibir perfiles eficientes y respetuosos con la salud, al comprar los productos de LaptopMedia también apoyas el desarrollo de nuestros laboratorios, donde probamos los dispositivos para elaborar las reseñas más objetivas posibles.

Trabajo de oficina

El perfil Trabajo de Oficina debería ser utilizado sobre todo por usuarios que pasan la mayor parte del tiempo mirando trozos de texto, tablas o simplemente navegando. Este perfil pretende ofrecer una mayor nitidez y claridad manteniendo una curva de gamma plana (2,20), una temperatura de color nativa y colores perceptualmente precisos.

Diseño y juego

Este perfil está dirigido a los diseñadores que trabajan con los colores de forma profesional, y también para juegos y películas. Design and Gaming lleva a los paneles de visualización a sus límites, haciéndolos tan precisos como sea posible en el estándar sRGB IEC61966-2-1 para Web y HDTV, en el punto blanco D65.

Salud-Guardia

Salud-Guardia elimina la perjudicial Modulación de Ancho de Pulso (PWM) y reduce la luz azul negativa que afecta a nuestros ojos y a nuestro cuerpo. Al estar adaptado a cada panel, consigue mantener los colores perceptivamente precisos. Salud-Guardia simula el papel, por lo que la presión sobre los ojos se reduce considerablemente.

Consigue los 3 perfiles con un 33% de descuento


Sound

HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000) has a crisp sound with a very good quality. Its Bang & Olufsen-tuned speakers produce soun that is clear of deviations across the entire frequency range.


Drivers

All of the drivers and utilities for this notebook can be found here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-spectre-13-aw0000-x360-convertible-pc-series/29100376

Battery

Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. The battery here is a beefy 60Wh unit.

We got 15 hours of Web browsing and nearly 13 hours of video playback – not bad.


CPU options

As of yet, you can purchase this notebook with either the Core i5-1035 G4 or the Core i7-1065 G7.


GPU options

So, there is no dedicated GPU, but the improved integrated Irus Plus G4 and G7 should give some capabilities


Gaming tests

cs-go-benchmarks

CS:GOHD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings)HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings)
Average FPS79 fps53 fps33 fps

DOTA 2HD 1080p, Low (Check settings)HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings)HD 1080p, High (Check settings)
Average FPS94 fps46 fps29 fps

Temperatures and comfort

Max CPU load

In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.

Average core frequency (base frequency + X); CPU temp.

Intel Core i7-1065G7 (15W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000)2.93 GHz (B+125%) @ 97°C1.97 GHz (B+52%) @ 76°C1.85 GHz (B+42%) @ 76°C
HP Pavilion 15 (15-cs3000)2.94 GHz (B+126%) @ 93°C2.03 GHz (B+56%) @ 77°C1.91 GHz (B+47%) @ 67°C
Dell Inspiron 15 35932.78 GHz (B+114%) @ 97°C2.31 GHz (B+78%) @ 93°C2.04 GHz (B+57%) @ 90°C

Rather high temperature, but also decent frequency, maintained by the Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000).

Comfort during full load

We measured a maximum temperature on the outside of 42C. It is important to say that the fans were pretty quiet even after 15 minutes of Prime95.


Verdict

We appreciate the changes HP made to their Spectre x360 13 devices. While it retains the double-chamfered edges that make the laptop look sleek AF, it is now considerably smaller in area. Additionally, the speakers were moved from the front to the bottom plate, which can be seen as some sort of a downgrade, but there is literally not enough space on the base for them.

Sadly, our second encounter with the Sure View system of HP was equally unsuccessful and uninspiring as the first one. Instead of narrowing the viewing angles to protect you from unwanted looks, when you press the dedicated button, it does nothing but to dim the display. Yes, we can feel that there is something different with the display, as colors and brightness are both uneven, even when you look directly at it. No matter if the function is turned on, or not.

Nevertheless, we think that this laptop is a truly great product. It has a lot of power, despite the 15W chip and the integrated Iris Plus Graphics G7 enables you to play some titles on low detail levels. Additionally, it is a great surprise to see how HP managed to put a USB Type-A port on it. Practically, they use a solution, similar to the RJ-45 spring gate that you have to lift in order to attach a cable.

HP Spectre x360 13 (13-aw0000) has a touchscreen display with an IPS panel, excellent maximum brightness, very good contrast ratio, and wide-enough color coverage. Sadly, the backlight presents a decent load to the eyesight, most prominent when the brightness slider is at a position, distinctive to working at the closed environment. Thankfully, our Health-Guard profile targets and eliminates this issue. Also, the luminance unevenness is way too high. On the bright side, our Gaming and Web design profile help it achieve accurate enough colors for design purposes.

Another impressive thing about it is the two Thunderbolt connectors, both of which can charge the unit. This comes in great contrast to the ASUS ZenBook Flip 14 UX463, which has only one USB Type-C port and it isn’t even Thunderbolt certified. By the way, HP also sports a MicroSD card reader.

Honestly, the only disadvantage in addition to the Sure View system is the soldered memory. While this is an unpleasant trend of the last several years, some manufacturers just have to do it, simply because there is not enough space.

How about the input devices? Well, the screen is incredibly fast in recognizing your inputs. It should work great with a Pen but we would love to read some of your comments on that, especially if you are an artist or a designer. While the touchpad is pretty good with its wider surface area and glass surface, the kudos here go for the keyboard. It has a long travel, clicky but not loud feedback and a spacing decent enough to result in a great comfortability overall.

As the battery life is just the icing of the cake – 15 hours of Web browsing and almost 13 hours of video playback, it surely will last you through a hard day at work. So, personally, we really liked the notebook. Great build quality, aggressive but stylish looks and it just screams premium at your face.

Pros

  • Its keyboard is backlit and great for typing
  • Great performance output
  • Very high maximum brightness
  • Covers 91% of sRGB and has accurate colors, especially with our Gaming and Web design profile installed
  • Has two Thunderbolt 3 connectors
  • Supports PCIe x4 SSDs, WiFi 6 standards
  • Strong and premium build
  • Great battery life


Cons

  • Sure View doesn’t work as promised
  • Uses harmful PWM to adjust brightness at all levels (our Health-Guard profile fixes that)
  • Prominent unevenness in the luminance across the screen
  • No RAM upgradability post-purchase

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-spectre-x360-13-13-aw0000/

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Steve Prince
Steve Prince
3 años hace

HP say that their Sure View feature dims the screen making it difficult for the contents of the screen to be seen from the side but still allowing the user in front of the screen to read the content. Therefore, the feature does what HP claims it should do.