HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) Review

Do You Actually Need a 2-in-1? I Spent Two Months Finding Out

Nobody asks this question before buying a convertible laptop. Seriously. You see the 360-degree hinge, watch someone on YouTube fold it into tent mode for a Netflix session, maybe catch a demo of someone sketching on the screen with a stylus, and your brain goes "yeah, I'd use that." But would you? How often? Is the extra weight and cost of a convertible hinge and touchscreen worth it if you end up using laptop mode 90% of the time?

I genuinely wanted to answer this for myself, so I made the HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) my daily driver for eight weeks. Used it for work, for drawing, for binge-watching, for reading. Forced myself to try every mode in real situations, not just controlled tests. What I found was more nuanced than I expected.

The Hardware at a Glance

HP packs the Spectre x360 14 with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H — 22 cores total with Intel's AI Boost NPU for Copilot+ PC features. No discrete GPU here; you're running Intel Arc integrated graphics. 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM. A 1TB PCIe Gen 4 SSD. The display is a 16-inch OLED touchscreen at 2880x1800 with 120Hz refresh. And HP includes an OLED Pen with 4096 pressure levels in the box — no separate purchase needed.

Price: ₹1,39,990. That positions it against the Dell XPS 15 and the MacBook Air M4, both of which offer different trade-offs. More on those comparisons later.

Design — HP's Most Beautiful Laptop, Full Stop

I'll say something I rarely say about laptops: the Spectre x360 is gorgeous. Like, stop-and-stare gorgeous. HP calls it "gem-cut" design and that's not just marketing speak. The bevelled edges where the chassis meets the hinge, the dual-tone finish combining dark and light metals, the subtle rose gold accents on the edges and around the speaker grilles — it all comes together in a way that makes other premium laptops look plain.

The CNC aluminium chassis is rigid and premium-feeling. At 2.12 kilograms, it's heavier than I'd like for a daily carry, especially since 16-inch non-convertible laptops exist at 1.8kg or less. The hinge mechanism adds weight and bulk. That's the physical reality of 2-in-1 engineering — the 360-degree hinge needs to be sturdy enough to hold the display at any angle, and it needs to survive tens of thousands of open-close cycles without loosening. HP's hinge passes that test with confidence. It moves smoothly through every angle and holds firmly wherever you stop it.

Available in Nightfall Black and Pale Brass colour options. I had the Nightfall Black, which pairs dark metal with gold accents. In a boardroom or cafe, this laptop gets noticed. A colleague asked me unprompted what laptop I was using — that almost never happens.

The OLED Touchscreen — Star of the Show

A 16-inch OLED at 2880x1800 resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3 colour coverage, Pantone Validated, with Dolby Vision HDR support. Those are the specs. Let me tell you what that actually feels like in use.

Colours are alive. That's the simplest way to describe it. Editing photos in Lightroom on this panel made me realize how dull the IPS display on my previous laptop looked by comparison. Blacks are absolute — pixel-off black, which means dark UI themes and movie scenes have a depth that IPS panels can't replicate. The 120Hz refresh makes scrolling through web pages and documents noticeably smoother than 60Hz, and it's one of those things you stop noticing until you go back to a 60Hz screen and everything feels sluggish.

Touch responsiveness is excellent. Windows 11 has gotten better at handling touch input over the years, and on this display, taps and swipes register instantly. Pinch-to-zoom in photos, scrolling through web pages, tapping through presentation slides — it all works without the lag that plagued earlier touchscreen Windows devices.

The HP OLED Pen is the real differentiator. 4096 pressure levels, tilt support, low latency tracking. In Adobe Fresco, the pen feels responsive enough for serious illustration work. I spent a few sessions doing rough sketches and annotations on PDFs, and the experience was genuinely pleasant. Not iPad-with-Apple-Pencil level of perfection — there's a slight parallax between where the pen tip touches and where the line appears, maybe 1-2mm — but close enough for practical use.

For note-taking in meetings? Brilliant. Fold the display flat, grab the pen, and you've got a 16-inch writing surface that feels more natural than any note-taking tablet under ₹50,000. My handwriting still looks terrible, but that's my problem, not HP's.

The Four Modes — Which Ones I Actually Used

Laptop mode: 85% of my usage. This is the default, and it's where the Spectre feels most natural. Keyboard on the desk, screen facing you, just like any other laptop. The keyboard has good travel — maybe 1.4mm — and the key spacing is comfortable for long typing sessions. Backlit, naturally. The gem-cut styling extends to the keyboard area with subtle angular details on the keycaps.

Tent mode: 10% of my usage. This is where you fold the laptop so the keyboard faces down and the display faces you like a triangle tent. I used this for watching movies in bed and for following recipes in the kitchen. It's a great hands-free viewing angle, and the Bang & Olufsen speakers fire toward you in this position, which actually improves the audio experience. Worked well during a few video calls too, when I wanted the camera at a lower angle on a coffee table.

Tablet mode: 4% of my usage. Folded fully flat as a tablet. At 2.12kg, it's heavy for a tablet. Your arms will tire within 15-20 minutes of holding it. But resting it on a desk or your lap for pen input and reading works fine. I used this mode mainly with the stylus for quick sketches and signing documents.

Stand mode: 1% of my usage. Keyboard down, screen propped up like an easel. Used it once for a presentation and forgot about it. Niche use case at best.

So here's the honest breakdown: the 360-degree hinge and touch capabilities added genuine value for me in tent mode and occasional tablet mode. Was it worth the extra weight and cost compared to a traditional clamshell? I'm... still not sure. Which I think is an honest answer.

Performance — Enough for Most, Not Enough for All

The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H is a capable productivity processor. My daily workflow — Chrome with 20+ tabs, Outlook, Teams video calls, OneNote, occasional Lightroom sessions — ran without any noticeable stuttering or delays. Intel's AI Boost NPU enables Copilot+ PC features: live captions during video calls work in real-time, Windows Studio Effects provides background blur and eye contact correction for the webcam, and AI-powered photo enhancement in the built-in Photos app is surprisingly useful.

Where things get thin is GPU-intensive work. Intel Arc integrated graphics handles video playback, light photo editing, and basic UI rendering fine. But Blender? DaVinci Resolve with colour grading and effects? Gaming beyond casual titles? You'll feel the absence of a discrete GPU quickly. Lightroom is usable but not snappy during heavy brush work. Premiere Pro timelines with multiple 4K clips and effects layers start stuttering.

This isn't a complaint — HP positioned this as a premium productivity and creative convertible, not a workstation. But at ₹1,39,990, some buyers will expect more GPU capability than what's here. If your creative work goes beyond photo editing and light design, you need to look at laptops with discrete GPUs. The Dell XPS 15 with its RTX 4070 handles those workloads noticeably better.

I tested Cinebench R23 multi-core and got scores in the expected range for this chip — competitive with AMD alternatives in the same power class. Single-threaded performance is strong, which is what matters most for the snappy, responsive feel in day-to-day use. Sustained multi-core performance holds up reasonably well, with maybe 10-12% drop-off after extended loads. Fan noise during heavy tasks is audible but not aggressive — a steady hum, not a whine.

Battery Life — Genuinely Impressive

An 68Wh battery in this chassis delivers 10 to 12 hours of mixed productivity use. That's with Wi-Fi connected, brightness at 60%, a mix of browsing, document editing, email, and video calls throughout the day. On lighter days with more reading and less active work, I pushed past 11 hours.

This is where the lack of a discrete GPU actually becomes an advantage. Intel Arc's power efficiency at idle and during light tasks is excellent, and the bigger battery capacity takes full advantage of that. Compared to the Dell XPS 15 with its RTX 4070, you're getting 2-3 hours more battery life from the Spectre.

HP's 140W USB-C charger gets you to 50% in about 30 minutes. It's compact enough for daily carry. HP's adaptive battery management adjusts charging patterns based on your usage to extend long-term battery health — a feature that probably matters if you're keeping this laptop for 4+ years.

Audio — Better Than Expected

Bang & Olufsen quad speakers with 4x5W drivers. Positioned flanking the keyboard on either side. This is probably the best laptop speaker system I've heard on a Windows machine outside of the MacBook Pro's six-speaker setup.

There's actual bass response, not just the thin, tinny output most laptops produce. Vocal clarity in podcasts and video calls is excellent. Stereo separation gives movies and music a sense of space that makes you forget you're listening to laptop speakers. At max volume there's minimal distortion. I watched several movies and a few episodes of shows without once reaching for my headphones, which is rare for me on a laptop.

Connectivity

Thunderbolt 4 ports (two of them), one USB-A 3.2 port, a microSD card reader, and a combo audio jack. Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 for wireless connectivity. HP QuickDrop enables wireless file transfers between the laptop and your phone — it works, though AirDrop and Nearby Share are arguably more polished.

HP Wolf Security provides hardware-enforced security features that might interest business buyers — self-healing BIOS, firmware protection, and isolation technologies. For personal use, it's overkill, but it speaks to HP's attempt at positioning this as a dual-purpose personal and professional device.

Full Specifications

Webcam and Video Calls

The 5MP webcam with IR for Windows Hello is above average for a laptop. Image quality in well-lit rooms is noticeably better than the typical 720p or even 1080p webcams on competing machines. Colours are natural, noise is well-controlled, and the wider aperture captures more light in dim settings. Windows Studio Effects (powered by the NPU) adds background blur, auto-framing, and eye contact correction without taxing the CPU.

For professionals who spend two or three hours daily in video calls — and from what I've seen, most white-collar Indian professionals now do — the webcam quality on the Spectre genuinely makes a difference. You look more polished without needing an external camera. Auto-framing keeps you centred when you shift in your chair or lean to grab a document. Eye contact correction subtly adjusts your gaze to appear as though you're looking at the camera even when you're reading notes on screen. These are small touches that compound into a more professional video presence.

Durability and Long-Term Considerations

The 360-degree hinge is the mechanical component I'd worry about most on a convertible. Moving parts wear out. HP rates the hinge for tens of thousands of cycles, but over four or five years of daily flipping between modes, some loosening is possible. I can't test long-term durability in an eight-week review, obviously, but the hinge mechanism feels well-engineered with smooth, confident movement and no play or rattling at any angle. Previous Spectre x360 models have had good reliability records, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

OLED burn-in is the other long-term question. HP includes pixel-shift technology and panel refresh cycles. For normal use with varied content, burn-in is unlikely to be an issue within the laptop's useful life. If you display the same static dashboard or taskbar in the same position for 8 hours daily for years — maybe a concern. For most people's varied daily use patterns, I wouldn't lose sleep over it.

So — Do You Need a 2-in-1?

After eight weeks, I still don't have a definitive answer. And I think that's because the answer genuinely depends on how you work and what you value.

If you take handwritten notes in meetings, sketch ideas, annotate documents with a pen, and watch content in bed using tent mode — yes, the convertible form factor adds real value. The included stylus and that gorgeous OLED touchscreen turn those experiences into something a clamshell laptop can't match. Tent mode for kitchen recipes alone has become something I'd miss if I went back to a traditional laptop.

But if you're honest with yourself and 95% of your usage is typing at a desk with the laptop in clamshell mode? The extra 300-400 grams from the convertible hinge, the ₹15-20,000 premium over comparable non-convertible machines, and the compromises (thicker chassis, heavier build, no discrete GPU) might not be justified.

I think the Spectre x360 14 is the best convertible laptop in India right now. Beautiful design, fantastic display, great speakers, solid battery life, included pen. If you know you want a 2-in-1, stop looking and buy this. The real question — the one nobody asks before buying — is whether the 2-in-1 form factor itself fits your life.

I'm eight weeks in and I still use tent mode for movies and the pen for occasional annotations. Are those worth ₹1,39,990 and 2.12kg in my bag? Honestly, some mornings when I'm rushing to a meeting and the backpack feels heavy, I think about a lighter clamshell laptop. Then I get to the hotel room that evening, fold it into tent mode, prop it on the bedside table, and watch something on that OLED display before sleeping — and I remember why I picked it.

Maybe the real answer is that a 2-in-1 isn't about constant multi-mode usage. It's about having the option when you want it. Like a car with all-wheel drive in a city — you don't need it daily, but when you do, you're glad it's there. Whether that occasional utility justifies the premium and weight trade-offs over a traditional laptop is something I lean toward yes on, but I genuinely understand why someone might lean the other way.

Price in India

The HP Spectre x360 14 (2024) is priced at ₹1,39,990 in India. Available on the HP India website, Amazon India, Flipkart, and HP World retail stores across major cities. HP occasionally runs bundled offers during sale events that include extended warranty or accessories — worth timing your purchase if you're not in a rush.