![]() ![]() ![]() This creates a slight incline, which makes the Folio more comfortable for smartpen usage. As you do so, the top and back of the display push down, and the leather folds under it. To get into this tablet mode, you simply pull the display forward yet again. But there are advantages to HP’s approach, too. The Spectre Folio is no different, and the resulting tablet PC form factor is, of course, a bit big and heavy compared to using a true tablet like Surface Pro. (You can also do so with touch, of course.) And as important, the incline of the display in this mode is perfect for that most classic of scenarios in which you might need to use the PC like this: The cramped quarters of a coach airline seat.Ĭonvertible PCs are designed to be versatile, but they also favor the traditional laptop form factor because this is the way that most people will use the PC most of the time. The touchpad is still available, too, so you can control media playback, perhaps, far more easily. Unlike with other convertible designs, where the keyboard is under the PC and touching the table or surface on which it rests, the keyboard here never moves and is hidden behind the forward-leaning display. Here, too, (less strong) magnets guide the way so that the display falls naturally into the correct position. You can still choose from a range of useful screen angles in laptop mode, for example, and the display stays where you leave it.īut to move the Spectre Folio into a content consumption mode, you actually detach the display panel from the base and pull it forward, at the bottom, so that it will rest in the area between the bottom of the keyboard and the top of the touchpad. These magnets-and the lack of a hinge-do not in any way detract from a usability perspective. Put more truthfully, there is no hinge: Instead, the bottom of the display panel is attached to the keyboard deck by very strong magnets when used in folio and laptop modes. And it relies on a completely different kind of hinge. But the way in which you convert this PC into those usage modes is new and unique. Like other convertibles, the Spectre Folio supports other usage modes related to viewing content and using it like a thick tablet PC. It looks and works exactly like any laptop, though the comfortable, leather-clad wrist rest will be a regular reminder that you’re using something special.īut this is where things get interesting. ![]() You open the Spectre Folio into a traditional clam-shell-style laptop usage mode as you do with any laptop: Just open the display lid, exposing the display, keyboard, and touchpad. In transit, it’s a literal folio, and thanks to the leather, many observers will simply assume you are, in fact, just carrying a folio full of documents. The Spectre Folio is, I think, the most elegant convertible PC design yet. And in using this PC over the past month or so, I’ve become ever more convinced that they’re onto something here. In an interesting twist, this in turn influenced the unique way in which you move the Spectre Folio between its various usage modes. But I suspect that HP’s decision to make the Spectre Folio a more versatile convertible laptop necessitated the more sophisticated design we see here. It is, at least, available in two colors, the Cognac brown on the review unit, which I prefer, and a more purplish Bordeaux Burgundy.įrom a more pragmatic standpoint, adding a leather covering on top of a traditional, clamshell-style laptop would probably be no more difficult than gluing a carpet to a keyboard deck. But you also won’t experience the pleasant patina effect that occurs to other leather products as they age. That’s by design, and the HP-chosen leather will withstand years of use and abuse without discoloring or thinning. It looks and feels high-quality because it is.įrom an aesthetic standpoint, the leather that HP used more closely resembles a basketball than it does the leather used on an expensive wallet, iPhone case, or jacket. There is never any sense that the leather and metal might separate, because they won’t, and there is every sense that this is a single, harmonious creation. Instead, it used leather as the chassis for this PC and then integrated a metal frame, batteries, display, and an incredibly small motherboard into this base. Nor did it glue this material to metal, as Microsoft did, infamously, with the Alcantara. It is, after all, the first thing that anyone will notice, and it is the obvious starting point for any conversation about the Spectre Folio.įrom a design perspective, HP didn’t simply create a convertible laptop and then wrap the outer frame in a leather shell or slipcase.
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