Home > Ultrabook Reviews & Laptop Reviews > HP Spectre 13 (Spectre 13t-3000)

HP Spectre 13

Editor's rating (1-5): Discuss this product Where to Buy

Tweet

What's Hot: Reasonable price for an Ultrabook with an attractive metal chassis, fast SSD and high resolution displays.

What's Not: Keyboard doesn't have lots of travel and tactile feel.

Reviewed May 12, 2014 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief (twitter: @lisagade)

Editor's note, May 2016: this model is discontinued. Read and watch our review of the HP Spectre 13.3" that replaces this model.

The Spectre is HP's return to the high line after the Envy line went from metal encased machines with top specs to something more mainstream and affordable. There haven't been many Spectre laptops, and the Gorilla Glass clad Envy 14 Spectre (yes, both an Envy and a Spectre) is probably the most memorable. The Spectre 13 (13t-3000) is both more practical and light, and it takes on the likes of the Asus Zenbook UX301LA, Dell XPS 13, Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus, Acer Aspire S7 and MacBook Air. The Ultrabook has a "truffle brown" lid and a champagne interior, and if that sounds more like interior color options on a Mercedes or the menu at an elegant restaurant, it's because HP wants you to make that association.

Inside it's a standard 13.3" Ultrabook with 4th generation Intel Haswell ULV Ultrabook CPUs with Intel HD 4400 graphics, DDR3 RAM and an SSD drive. The touch screen is IPS quality and full HD--no it won't wow you on specs like those 3200 x 1800 Ultrabooks on the market, but that's actually an ample and practical resolution given the way many Windows programs ignore scaling. And for those who do crave higher resolution, there's a 2560 x 1440 Sharp IGZO panel option that costs only $70.

13" Ultrabooks are often port-constrained given their small dimensions. The 3.25 lb. HP Spectre 13 is better than average with two USB 3.0 ports, an SD card slot, full size HDMI and a mini Display Port to drive greater than full HD monitors. It also has the usual 3.5mm combo headphone/mic jack and a lock slot. Since this is a consumer laptop, there is no docking port. The tapered design is attractive and the display hinge is beefy so there's little bounce when you tap the screen. The screen doesn't tilt very far back, but the wide viewing angles mean you won't need lots of range to get good contrast and colors. Despite the metal bottom, the Spectre 13 doesn't get too hot to handle and fan noise is minimal when doing productivity tasks. Exporting full HD video or playing Civ V will get the fan going (the same is true of most smaller laptops with limited space for cooling), but it's not shrill or harsh sounding.

Control Zone and Keyboard

HP knows that even elegant Ultrabooks have competition, so they added a standout feature. Honestly, it doesn't excite me wildly, but it does make the laptop look a little different from others on the shelf: a wider than normal trackpad with Control Zone navigation areas on the left and right for Windows 8's Charms and multi-tasking areas. HP thought their trackpad might make these new Windows features more intuitive, and while I'm not sure I agree, the tactile feel of the left and right areas helps keep your finger in the center, avoiding accidental app switches or Charms menu activation. The Synaptics trackpad is smooth and easy to operate and the side zones are slightly rough. It behaved well enough as a standard trackpad with support for multi-touch gestures.

The keyboard has a perfectly normal layout with an Fn row that controls multimedia functions (press the Fn key to activate F1-F12), a small embedded arrow cluster with normal size right and left arrow keys and half height up/down keys and oversize backspace, shift, tab, caps lock and enter keys. Backlighting is even and key spacing is good, but key travel and tactile feel are OK rather than top notch. The keys are uniformly shaped with no curves to help locate the fingers and they emit a gentle click rather than the loose, clacky sound typical of cheaper keyboards. Given the rigid metal keyboard deck, there's absolutely no trampolining. It's a perfectly serviceable keyboard with no surprises, but it's not a typist's dream like the Dell XPS and Lenovo ThinkPad models.

HP Spectre 13 Video Review

Display

We have the standard full HD, 1920 x 1080 model for review, and as you'd expect from a premium Ultrabook, this is a sharp and colorful glossy display with IPS-level wide viewing angles. It has wide color gamut and it competes with the top LCDs found on the Sony Vaio Pro, 13" Retina MacBook Pro and Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro in terms of color representation. Contrast is good and brightness is good but not shockingly bright at 284 nits. I still like full HD resolution since it's viewable (if you have good eyes) without scaling, and that means programs like the Adobe CS suite that ignore Windows 8 scaling will still have readable menus. However, if you're craving even higher resolution, the 2560 x 1440 display for just $70 is tempting. It's a Sharp IGZO panel and we expect it be similar in quality to the Asus Zenbook UX301LA that we reviewed with the same IGZO panel.

Advertisement