HP's best hybrid laptop gets an OLED display upgrade

HP Spectre x360 13

OLED screen are a rarity these days. Although they offer incredible color reproduction and black levels they're prohibitively expensive – and so it's no surprising to see them disappear from devices from TVs to the most recent Motorola Moto X.

However, HP is bucking the trend and an optional OLED 4K display onto it's darling 2-in-1 laptop, the 13-inch Spectre x360.

HP claims the new display will be able to reproduce 103% of RGB color gamut, as opposed to the usual 72% emitted by WLED displays. On top of the fidelity improvements, HP claims the new display technology also makes the existing Spectre x360 13 50 grams lighter.

Other upgrades include the option of adding Intel Iris graphics and a 1TB SSD, making it a pretty incredible media production laptop.

The OLED display-equipped 13-inch HP Spectre x360 is expected to be available in spring later this year, however, HP has yet to divulge final pricing.

HP Pavilion x2 12

Big screen, low price

In the last few months we've seen some excellent new 2-in-1 laptops including the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Spin and Surface Book. The only thing is they're quite pricey and if you're looking for something more affordable HP has introduced a 12.1-inch version of the Pavilion x2.

With a starting price of $499 (about £337, AU$683), the Pavilion x2 comes with some impressive features including a 12.1-inch Full HD display as well as two front-facing speakers. The 1,920 x 1,280 resolution display is not only big and sharp for the price, it also has a 3:2 aspect ratio making it better suited for working on documents and viewing photos.

When it launches on February 7, you'll have the option of configuring it with either an Intel Atom processor or 6th generation Intel Core M chip. Storage options include either 64GB, 128GB or 256GB and HP claims this hybrid should have a battery life of up to eight hours.

From our short hands on time with it, we've loved everything about it and it looks to be a great budget alternative to Microsoft's own Surface 3 and other surface devices if you want to pick up a convertible device on the cheap.

HP Spectre x360 15

Bigger is better

HP is also biggie-sizing its Spectre x360 line up with a new 15-inch model. Like the 13-inch Spectre x360, this 15.6-inch 2-in-1 laptop features a back flipping screen that transforms it into a tablet. Despite being a bigger and heavier platform, this 15-inch hybrid is surprisingly as thin as its smaller sibling, measuring only 15.9mm.

It's also pretty light as a 15-inch laptop, weighing only four pounds even with its completely CNC'ed aluminum chassis. This makes it almost half a pound lighter than both the 4.49 pounds (2.04kg) MacBook Pro and 4.4 pounds (2kg) Dell XPS 15 – of course, both of these machine include dedicated graphics.

Although it's pretty light, HP still managed to cram in a 65 Whr battery inside the HP Spectre x360, which should yield up to The result is up to 13 hours of battery life on the Full HD models and up to 9.5 hours on the Ultra HD models.

Users will get to pick between Intel Core i5 and i7 processors as well as the option of tacking on a 3,820 x 2,160 4K resolution display. The HP Spectre x360 15 can also be loaded up with a 512GB SSD and 8GB of memory.

The HP Spectre x360 15 will launch with base models starting for $1,149 (about £778, AU$1,573) on February 14.

  • Will this be the only OLED laptop we see at CES 2016?
Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee was a former computing reporter at TechRadar. Kevin is now the SEO Updates Editor at IGN based in New York. He handles all of the best of tech buying guides while also dipping his hand in the entertainment and games evergreen content. Kevin has over eight years of experience in the tech and games publications with previous bylines at Polygon, PC World, and more. Outside of work, Kevin is major movie buff of cult and bad films. He also regularly plays flight & space sim and racing games. IRL he's a fan of archery, axe throwing, and board games.