Every manufacturer has products it creates simply to keep its image of being innovative alive in your head; they’re not really expected to sell much. HP tends to do it a lot less than other manufacturers, seeming to concentrate more on perfecting concepts others have presented rather than planting a «First!» flag. Based on our brief, initial hands-on with it, the HP Spectre Foldable PC exemplifies this: It’s one of the slickest examples of a folding or dual-screen laptop we’ve seen. (We dislike the name, though, so we’ll just call it the Spectre Fold. So there.)
HP bills it as a three-in-one since it can be used as a 17-inch tablet, a laptop or a 17-inch desktop PC. At $5,000, it’s clearly not intended for a mass market. But HP threw in almost all the features and design nuances it could think of and packed them into an ultrathin, multifunctional portable. You can preorder it now from Best Buy, and HP expects to ship it in limited quantities (another sign of a market test run) starting in October on HP’s site and at a small set of Best Buy brick-and-mortar locations.
HP combines and improves upon several different types of designs we’ve seen. Unfolded, the OLED screen is a 17-inch tablet with 1,920×2,560 resolution and DisplayHDR True Black 500 and new (for laptops) Imax Enhanced certification. Perched on its long edge using the built-in kickstand and paired with the bundled Bluetooth keyboard, it’s intended for desktop use, much the same way detachables like the Microsoft Surface Pro 9 work without the keyboard physically connected. Unlike Microsoft, HP bundles the stylus and keyboard with the Fold, though.
If you fold it at an angle, you can use it in one of two ways: with the keyboard sitting completely on the bottom half of the screen mimicking a 12-inch clamshell laptop or with it sitting on the bottom half of the screen but pulled toward you, leaving half of the screen visible, mimicking an Asus ZenBook Pro Duo (but with the touchpad/wrist-rest section tilted down).
There is magnetic inductive charging for the stylus like the Surface Laptop Studio, snapping onto the screen edge in front of the keyboard, and for the keyboard at the point where it snaps onto the front bezel. Those magnetic points also help with some automatic behaviors. For instance, when it senses the keyboard movement it can change the screen layout, utilizing Windows’ Snap feature. But the big benefit is that when you «close» it with the keyboard sandwiched between the sides, it will automatically sleep; having to jump through a lot more hoops before it’s ready to travel is a big annoyance with some other devices.
HP split the six-cell, 94-watt-hour battery into two parts on either end of the display for improved balance when you’re holding it, such as for tablet use.
There are some drawbacks. Because it’s thin and how the electronics are arranged, there’s no place for a cell antenna, so it’s Wi-Fi only. When you fold it in half, there’s a 0.2-inch/3mm gap; it’s intentional since that’s where you sandwich the keyboard for portability. The gap also enables its thin hinges and presents fewer issues for the screen. But without the keyboard, it’s potentially vulnerable to damage.
Because it’s got quite a bit of electronics inside, the screen’s not exceptionally thin — about 8.2mm, roughly the thickness of the iPhone 15 Pro but thicker than an iPad Pro 12.9. It’s also heavier than the LG Gram 17, even without including the keyboard (the LG weighs just under 3 pounds, while the Fold weighs 3 pounds without the keyboard and 3.6 pounds with it). The bezels are relatively thick for a screen in 2023, but with its quad speakers and full laptop innards, there needs to be someplace to put them. Plus, you don’t really want something that will be easy to fumble because there’s no place to hold it. It’s not really heavy or really thick, but if that’s your need or aesthetic, it’s a consideration.
While a magnetic attachment looks slicker, I’d much prefer a garage or some other more secure way to dock the stylus; I’ve lost two Apple Pencils so far because they’ve flown off the side of my iPad Pro into some black hole I’m convinced lurks in my bedroom.
Other specs include:
- Intel Core i7-1250U CPU
- Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics
- 16GB LPDDR5-6400 RAM
- 1TB NVMe SSD
- 5-megapixel webcam
- 2xUSB-C/Thunderbolt 4
- WiFi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3
- 3 lbs./1.35kg without keyboard, 3.6 lbs./1.62kg with keyboard
- Rated 12-hour battery life
Although it has just two USB-C ports, they are well-placed for charging when you’re using it in laptop or desktop mode. Also, along with the keyboard and pen, HP includes a USB-C hub with two USB-A ports, an HDMI out and a USB-C port for power delivery. The whole device has the fit and finish of HP’s other premium Spectre laptops. Looking at it closed, no one would ever suspect it’s anything other than a compact laptop.
