Laptops

HP Spectre x360 13 (2020) review: An elegant convertible

Small but terrible?

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I live in a world where beauty matters above all. I can’t seem to like something if it isn’t pleasant to look at, or if it doesn’t match my aesthetics. When HP sent over the Spectre x360 13 (2020), I was flabbergasted. I’ve never seen a laptop that made me feel… underdressed.

Head-turning elegance

In a glance, the HP Spectre x360 13 (2020) is astounding to look at. It looks premium, it made me want to dress up in suits. This refreshed laptop comes with a cutting-edge design, and it looks even more polished compared to its predecessors.

Admittedly, I fell in love the first time I saw it. The Spectre x360 13 speaks to me on a spiritual level, with its brushed metal and copper finish — which looks like rose gold in certain lighting conditions — it’s a color that my 2017 self would appreciate but I’m more into white and silver now.

Nonetheless, it looks sexy and gorgeous, especially if you bring it in cafes and your meetings. It feels weird to find people in awe while looking at my laptop instead of me. Definitely a head-turner!

Naturally, there’s an impression of a pretty laptop as frail and fragile. This laptop defies the conceived notion since its sturdy yet slender chassis feels robust. It’s small, lightweight, and impressively thin, too! I find it funny that it fits inside my PacSafe sling bag and people were surprised when I take my laptop out of my small bag.

Even though it’s not the thinnest and lightest, the Spectre x360 13 is still easy to carry and bring wherever you go. Using it for almost a month, my back didn’t feel any pain compared to when I’m using a 15-inch Windows laptop or a 13-inch MacBook Pro.

Well-thought details

What I love about the Spectre x360 is how HP thoughtfully crafted and refined it is. Just like the Dell XPS 13, I always stress the importance of details. It’s always the little things that make a laptop premium — from convenience, portability, security, to ease of use.

For starters, the Spectre x360 put a blazing-fast fingerprint reader to unlock my laptop — if it accurately scans your fingerprint. In the occasion that it didn’t read your fingerprint, you can still access your laptop through a pin or password unlock.

Its keyboard is excellent for typing, too. Despite being relatively small, HP didn’t cramp its keys, evenly spacing it while keeping it soft to ensure a quiet experience.

About its touchpad, it’s smooth and responsive for a Windows laptop. Surprisingly, I found it easy to glide my fingers at it and when I’m feeling lazy to navigate the touchpad, I can always stick to using its touchscreen display.

When you take a close look at its edges, the Spectre x360 is really beautiful. From its glossy, exemplary hinge and gem-cut design, to its subtle buttons and ports that easily blends into its frame — it’s difficult not to love it.

Found on its left side is its power button, audio jack, and a covered USB 3.1 Type-A port which ate my colleague’s flash drive. To prevent similar incidents, I opted not to use it anymore.

Luckily, HP packed a dongle with two USB Type-A ports, a USB-C port, and an HDMI port. It proved useful since the laptop’s right side comes with a USB Type-C port on the right, and another USB Type-C port for charging on the upper corner.

Both HP’s dongle and charger come in a gorgeous braided cable. Frankly, it’s the best set of cables I’ve had in a while and the fact that HP put a lot of effort even in its accessories proved they take their premium laptops seriously. It also has a microSD card reader which I barely used, and my favorite — the webcam kill switch.

Like a gorgeous secretary

The HP Spectre x360 13 is a premium convertible. Attached to a beautiful hinge that flexes smoothly, this 2-in-1 laptop gives you a beautiful tablet to use like you’re some kind of gorgeous secretary.

Thanks to its lightweight form factor, it’s a breeze to switch from laptop to tablet mode. HP provided a tilt pen — powered by AAA battery — to help you navigate and write notes quickly.

Apps are also simplified when in tablet mode. It’s supposed to be easy for anyone to handle but even with my past experiences with convertibles and my long stint with this laptop weren’t enough for me to fully grasp its tablet mode.

I still get confused with the tools, buttons, and software available — but that’s just me. Here’s to hoping that the next generation of Spectre laptops come with less pre-installed software. As of now, the Spectre x360 13 runs on Windows 10, packed with software like HP Command Center, Microsoft Office 365, ExpressVPN, and McAfee LiveSafe.

Don’t let its size fool you

The Spectre x360 13 is a powerhouse for a relatively small laptop. This is where the adage “don’t let its size fool you” comes in. This laptop is powered by a 10th-gen Intel Core i7-1065G7, with Intel Iris Plus Graphics, and 16GB LPDDDR4 RAM, and 1TB SSD storage.

During my stint, I was able to handle multiple tabs in Google Chrome — a power-hungry browser. Additionally, I can run multiple apps and software alongside Chrome such as Spotify, Netflix, and Adobe Creative Suite. Yes, you can edit with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Lightroom. To an extent, it can handle Premiere Pro but expect for it to heat up.

The biggest struggle I had to deal with is how the Spectre x360 13 heats up. It tends to get scorching hot, which proves impossible for you to put it on your lap or on your arms when in tablet mode — unless you want to fry and toast your arms or your parts from down under.

It’s also noisy when its fans start working to dissipate the heat, even when situated in a desk or a cooling stand. At best, the laptop is perfect for presentations, meetings, browsing, and entertainment.

Despite having a 13.3-inch screen, it comes with 4K resolution and AMOLED panel — guaranteed to deliver better visuals. It’s also strengthened by a Corning Gorilla Glass NBT, enhancing the screen’s scratch resistance.

The HP Spectre x360 13 carries two audio speakers from Bang & Olufsen. It’s not the best speakers you can get but it’s more than enough for your entertainment usage.

Lastly, expect this small laptop to have a lot of juice throughout your day. When I was working remotely, I had the HP Spectre x360 13 last for 12 hours, allowing me to be productive and finish my tasks.

It comes with a small 65W Type-C power adapter, so you can expect it to recharge itself faster than you do when you try to recover from your week-long fatigue.

Is this your GadgetMatch?

With a whopping starting price of PhP 79,990 (US$ 1586), it’s difficult to recommend an expensive laptop since there are cheaper yet more powerful Windows laptops out there. If you have the money to spend, I would even suggest getting flagship Windows laptops like the Lenovo Yoga S940 or Dell XPS 13 or a MacBook Pro for more focus on power and productivity.

But if you’re keen on getting the HP Spectre x360 13 2020 because you fell in love with its looks, then you can maybe talk yourself into buying this laptop. After all, it looks elegant, premium, polished, and delivers decent performance, packed with plenty of features to like.

Features

DUO more with the ASUS Zenbook DUO 2024

Make things easy

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ASUS Zenbook DUO 2024

We are fans of what ASUS did with their latest dual screen offering — the ASUS Zenbook DUO 2024. The Zenbook Duo isn’t exactly new. ASUS has been adding extra screens to their laptops whenever they can — but never quite like this. 

You see, ASUS managed to put a literal second display but still make it compact enough to fit most bags with provision for 14-inch laptops. As cliché as it sounds, the Zenbook DUO 2024 is an engineering marvel.

However, it’s more than just a gimmick. In our review, we noted how the form factor lent to a slight boost in productivity despite us not maximizing the product just yet. With that, let us share with you our favorite things about the ASUS Zenbook DUO 2024. 

A unique mode for every scenario

A built-in, sturdy kick-stand unlocks the many possibilities available to the Zenbook DUO 2024. Some of the modes are: Laptop, Dual Screen, Desktop, and Sharing.

Each one lends itself nicely to different work and media consumption scenarios. Don’t feel like showing off? Keep things discreet and save some battery life with laptop mode. 

Need two screens? Switch to either Dual Screen or Desktop mode to take advantage of more screen real estate. 

Presenting something to someone across the table? Sharing mode lays the laptop flat allowing for easier viewing. 

 

The ability to morph to different modes depending on your needs is astounding. The best thing is that it is both functional and can serve as an ice breaker.

TWICE Momo and LE SSERAFIM Chaewon <3

Oh and we’ll never tire of sharing how the Desktop mode is perfect for watching two K-Pop fancams at the same time. 

Screen Xpert for the dual displays

This form factor won’t work without the right software support backing it. To that end, ASUS made Screen Xpert. What it does is essentially let you adjust the layout of the apps according to your needs. 

You can have up to four (4) apps live viewed at the same time. For our part, we usually only divided the screen to two, using one to reference a review guide or press release while writing news articles and/or reviews. 

But if you’re monitoring certain things, this will be pretty helpful having multiple windows laid out right away to get a quick overview of things is a godsend. 

Zenbook DUO 2024

The best thing is that a lot of these functions work intuitively. There’s a single button you can press to easily switch what’s displayed on the two screens. 

If you want more granular control, you can have the Screen Xpert floating bar ready at your disposal. Here you can control the brightness level of each screen individually. You also have the ability to change the orientation of each screen to your liking. 

There are also App Switcher and App Navigator functions to give you a better, more seamless way to layout the apps you use so that it’s most efficient for your needs. 

AI, Copilot, and more 

 

Something we didn’t mention much in the review is how the laptop is built with the AI age in mind. Powered by Intel Core Ultra 7 155-H, this thing is equipped with an NPU chip to aid in on-device AI tasks.

There’s stuff that happens in the background like making sure the AI-related tasks are processed with the NPU while the main CPU handles the rest. In the simplest terms, the Intel Core Ultra 7 is smart enough to delegate a task to the chip that will best execute it. That results in a more optimized overall performance.


Copilot is one of the biggest AI additions to any Windows machine. The possibilities are close to limitless. For our part, we’ve only really played around with Copilot Designer. But there’s so much more that you can do with it. Just remember to always check the results. Every AI output still needs a human touch. 

AI is also present in other functions like noise cancellation and the camera. AI Noise Cancellation makes sure you can hear and be heard no matter what scenario you’re in. It’s perfect for remote workers who do not exactly have control over their immediate surroundings.

Meanwhile, AiSense Camera works not only as a Full HD IR camera. It also automatically detects the lighting levels in your environment and adjusts brightness levels accordingly. You also get functions like auto-framing and background blur. Lastly, there’s the slightly creepy Eye Contact feature that locks your gaze to the camera. It can be a bit disorienting so maybe pick the occasions when you’ll use it. 

GlideX 

Working beyond this dual screen laptop? ASUS also made sure to equip the Zenbook DUO 2024 with software that makes adding even more screens a no-sweat task. 

With GlideX you can easily connect your Zenbook DUO 2024 with smartphones, tablets, or even another PC. Even better, it’ll give you the option to control everything from a single device. 

DUO more 

For a first-of-its-kind device, the ASUS Zenbook DUO 2024 is pretty darn polished. That’s thanks largely to the company experimenting with dual screens long before releasing this dual screen machine. 

The Zenbook DUO 2024 literally lets you do more, providing options for flexibility that will help you optimize your workflow so you can finish your tasks more efficiently. This is more than just a gimmick device, it’s actually helpful and that’s because ASUS took the time to fit it with the proper software support. 

More on the ASUS Zenbook DUO 2024 here. 


This feature is a collaboration between GadgetMatch and ASUS Philippines.

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Laptops

Qualcomm announces Snapdragon X Series laptop processor

High performance, fast responsiveness, better power efficiency

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Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon X Elite laptop processor in a bid to match competitors like Intel, AMD, and Apple. It is the flagship platform as part of the Snapdragon X series, which also includes the X Plus variants.

The X Elite processor focuses not only on high performance and fast responsiveness, but also power efficiency for multiple days of battery use. Additionally, it is AI-ready, harnessing the power of the Qualcomm AI Engine and integrated Qualcomm Hexagon NPU.

Game-changing performance, efficiency

The Snapdragon X Elite processor has a 4nm SoC architecture and 12-core Qualcomm Oryon CPU to optimize demanding workloads. The processor also features up to Dual-Core boost for fast responsiveness. Qualcomm will also integrate its Adreno GPU so laptop brands can deliver stunning graphics for immersive entertainment. Moreover, the processor also has a low-power consumption mechanism to support multi-day battery life on just a single charge.

Built for AI

Next, the Snapdragon X Elite platform is tailor-made for today’s laptops that utilize AI. The processor leverages the Qualcomm AI Engine and an integrated Qualcomm Hexagon NPU. These shall work together to deliver transformative experiences for creativity, video conferencing, and more. The processor is capable of running Generative AI LLM models over 13B parameters on-device at blazing-fast speeds. The AI Engine also  supports Windows Studio Effects, and many other AI-accelerated applications to support users’ various needs.

Furthermore, an updated Micro NPU inside the Qualcomm Sensing Hub will allow for enhanced security, login experience, and privacy. It also has the ability to wake the device up when in sleep mode. Sensitive data, meanwhile, can stay on the laptop with increased security.

Smarter user experiences

To give users a better idea of how capable the processor is, here are a few benchmarks. Laptops running on the Snapdragon X Elite can seamlessly play UHD graphics at 120fps, and up to 5K content at 60fps. It will let you record yourself at 4K HDR with up to a 64MP built-in camera. It will work hand in hand with up to 64GB of DDR5 memory, and can support download and upload speeds of up to 10Gbps and 3.5Gbps, respectively.

In terms of connectivity, the platform supports Bluetooth 5.4 and Wi-Fi 7 with HBS Multi-Link for seamless connectivity. Snapdragon Seamless also lets users to easily switch between devices.

Snapdragon X Plus

Snapdragon X Plus

Alternatively, Qualcomm is also soon introducing the Snapdragon X Plus processors. They have just two less cores at 10 Qualcomm Oryon CPUs, and offer up to 3.4GHz of processing power.

Much like the X Elite, Qualcomm promises the X Plus to deliver topnotch processing across CPU, GPU, NPU, and Micro NPU for the PC class that will be housing them.

Moroever, these platforms fortify AI processes to make it easier for users, whatever their computing needs may be.

Release date

There aren’t concrete reports yet about its official release date and what PC brands have already committed to use the platform. But there is an interesting Reddit thread here that connects the dots and also mentions when Windows 12 is expected to release. For now, what Qualcomm intends to do with the Snapdragon X Elite processor sure sounds promising. It’s definitely meant for higher tier, gaming and creator-level laptops.

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Features

LOQ and LOAD: The Lenovo LOQ 2024 is for gaming and more

Your entry to PC Gaming

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Lenovo LOQ

Get your game on with the Lenovo LOQ 2024. This capable laptop is your entry point to PC Gaming and a lot more.

It comes an absolutely affordable price point: PhP 48,995.

You get capable hardware and the hood to support gaming and more. The Lenovo LOQ 15IAX9I runs on the 12th Gen Intel Core i5 processor and Intel Arc Graphics.

Those are key to bringing unreal graphics to this segment. Supporting latest tech like DirectX 12 Ultimate, players are able to enjoy high frame rates on the Lenovo LOQ.

Creating content? It comes with AI Advantage to help boost performance. Engines and accelerators boost the media processing workloads especially for creatives. It also works with Intel’s X Super Machine Learning, Leading to images that are as close to reality.

The laptop supports a configuration of up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD Storage.

As for its display, the device has a large 15.6-inch, Full HD panel that is more than enough for gaming, video editing, content consumption, and whatever else you do on a laptop. This display has 144Hz refresh rate, 300 nits brightness, and anti-glare.

Videos come out clear, crisp, and realistic. Audio is punchy and as loud as it gets. Windows Sonic elevates it more when you use headphones. And it just takes a few minutes to render HD videos on editing software.

As it runs on Windows 11, if you are going to use it for work, you can take advantage of various features. The Lenovo Vantage Widget is there for constant reminders, Copilot will help you organize your tasks, and Microsoft Edge is there for casual browsing.

There is an assortment of ports at the back for easy connectivity. And as this is meant for gaming, we put it to the test. Racing that looks better with high frame rate? Check. Shooting titles that require heavy work? Not a problem. You can play all your favorites and not worry about performance.

Best of all, it takes less than an our to juice up this laptop all the way to 100%.

So, whether you’re looking to get started with PC Gaming, or an upgrade for work and entertainment needs, the Lenovo LOQ has you covered.


This feature is a collaboration between GadgetMatch and Lenovo Philippines.

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