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I bet you think this is nothing but a cute little 12-in notebook but there's

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far more to it than meets the eye now I can check my emails and catch

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up on Fallout and there's even more check this out I can pop off the

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keyboard and trackpad fold the screen kick out the kickstand and now it's a

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massive 17in IMAX enhanced HDR laptop

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with a wireless keyboard and touchpad I mean look at this thing it's hard to

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believe it's started out the size of an M1 MacBook and weighs just half as much

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as hp's other premium 17in offerings and

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the leathery little keyboard is even shockingly usable for a folio style

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device what's not to love well the price

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tag for one thing but we're going to talk about that later first there is so

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much cool stuff crammed into this thing that I just can't wait to show you guys

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just like I can't wait to show you our sponsor Ridge just when you thought

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there well s couldn't get any cooler now they've added Meg safe compatibility so

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you can attach your wallet to your phone absolute mad Lads check them out in the

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description and transform your everyday

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carry looking at it it's hard to believe that the HP Spectre fold packs a 12

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thread core i7 16 gigs of lpddr5 memory

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a terabyte of PCI Express Gen 4 storage from kokia almost 100 W hours of

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batteries and an HDR OLED touchcreen that starts out at a better than full HD

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1920 x 1255 in clamshell mode and

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expands to 2560 by 1920 in tablet and

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desktop mode at an old school 4x3 aspect

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ratio that turns out is actually pretty great for productivity not only that but

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it even outperformed hp's claims reaching a whopping 500 50 nits in HDR

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in our lab man we've got Wi-Fi 6E Bluetooth 5.3 not one but two

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Thunderbolt four ports audio by bang and olivon a 5 megapixel webcam and a

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battery that takes only 45 minutes to get to a half charge this thing should

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be a productivity monster especially if you consider that when it's fully

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charged HP claims the beefy batteries should last you 15 and 1 half hours 14

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and 1/4 hours 13 and 1/2 hours 12 and

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1/2 hours well at least 11 and 3/4 hours

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I I guess you can't be wrong about your battery claims if you just put every

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possible number on your marketing collateral runtime Shenanigans aside

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this thing looks pretty awesome on paper and spoiler alert I ended up kind of

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loving it but my initial Impressions were well I don't want to say negative

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so early in the video so let's call them unpositive out of the box there is a

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learning curve for sure you're reliant on HP software for window Management in

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all of the different modes and it kind of stacks up on top of the default

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Windows management so God help you if you miss the introductory animation that

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shows you the different configs and how to use them once you get the hang of it

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though the magnetic system for holding the keyboard in its various positions is

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pretty fine but what isn't is this clumsy hack of a USB tether it allows

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you to charge the keyboard in desktop mode that's we're looking at right now

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and that's definitely a good thing and the Magnetic connection saved me from

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snapping the connector off multiple times but HP must have known that having

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this loose wire just flapping around on

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what is and I kid you not the most

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expensive laptop in their entire lineup is not a good look not even our new

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cable management gear on LTT Store.com can save this one so I would like to see

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HP find a way to charge the keyboard I either with induction or with Pogo pins

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in the Next Generation instead of using this bajoran earring looking thing and I

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hear you guys it's Bluetooth you idiot unplug it and of course that's the

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obvious solution but the Bluetooth was unbelievably buggy on this thing failing

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to stay paired sometimes when coming out of sleep or switching between modes or

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even failing to pair it all to make it worse I'm getting these constant popups

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about keyboard firmware updates I then dutifully click yes and then it takes me

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to an internal HP website that needs a login but since I'm neither an HP

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employee nor an HP business partner I guess no update for me I mean hey I get

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it HP you've only been selling laptops for longer than I've been alive these

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little details take time to get right to be clear I'm a reviewer and I could

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obviously escalate the issue but my job is to review the product as you would

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receive it and given how otherwise good the keyboard typing experience was the

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connectivity issues were a real Downer with that said I understand some of the

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compromises in this product like the webcam in the age of remote work and

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endless Zoom calls there just isn't an ideal place to put a single camera on a

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device like this it's going to be poorly placed for at least one of the modes now

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the obvious fix would be to add another camera so that you've got one oh I don't

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know right in the middle of the hinge or maybe under the display but there not

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really a lot of room inside this thing for additional Hardware so a tiny webcam

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somewhere more reasonable for a desktop mode would be a welcome addition next

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time but the sideways mounted one realistically didn't bother me too much

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unlike the pen it's usable but it's also

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very losable and this might be an unpopular opinion but I've always felt

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that if you're going to give me a stylus you need to give me a secure place to

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keep it in clamshell mode it's supposed

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to charge at the bottom edge of the fold and it kind of sticks there with magnets

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that is until you pull down the keyboard into extended mode and knock the pen

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into your lap or just I don't know dare to move the machine there's also some

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magnets kind of in the hinge back here but it doesn't really stay put there

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either so I guess it's time to dust off the old high school pencil case roll

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into the meeting with your super nice expensive laptop and also your Pikachu

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zipup I swear though the point of this review is not to trash on this product

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because I really did fall in love with it by the end warts and all there is

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nothing like rolling into that aformentioned meeting and casually

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slipping a 17-in productivity monster out of your tablet sleeve sure it's not

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4K but the 2560 X1 1920 resolution is

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totally acceptable for a 17-in display and obviously there's a crease in the

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middle but has someone who's been daily driving folding devices for the last

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years I promise you guys you'll get used to it quicker than you think and this

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one is particularly non bothersome the

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Spectre fold is just in its element in this environment it's amazing for

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note-taking it's great for multitasking when the conversation drifts off topic

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and it's even great for giving an impromptu presentation in a pinch

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because the screen is quite a bit bigger even than it sounds think about it the

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more square a screen is the more total area that it has per diagonal inch and

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it's also a head turner and a legitimate conversation starter when every other

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NPC in the meeting is using a freaking MacBook it's just that there is a lot

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that I would like to see improved before I spent this kind of money on it the

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weight for instance it's certainly light for a 17in laptop but for a 12 or a 13in

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which is realistically how I used it most of the time it's pretty heavy and

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at just under an inch thick when folded up it reminds me more of the laptops of

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my childhood than modern ones and I mean

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that in more ways than one remember those old glossy screens that had the

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kind of ripple effect under direct light

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yeah HP brought that back I didn't find it too distracting day today but I also

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can't promise that you'd get used to this one like with the fold down the

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middle and that's especially true if you're working an open concept office

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with a bunch of foot traffic behind you on the plus side though that might

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distract you from the cooling fan the thermal design of this machine leaves a

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lot to be desired at idle it's dead

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quiet even silent but should you have the audacity to do anything like say

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conduct a zoom meeting it sounds like well here I'll let you guys

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listen now I could excuse that noise if the performance absolutely rocked and it

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should be pretty good the internals of the Spectre fold are virtually identical

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to the ASUS Zenbook fold same CPU GPU

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RAM speec max resolution and even similar NVMe drives but the performance

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doesn't Rock in virtually every test the

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ASUS Zenbook fold outperformed the HP Spectre fold with the only big exception

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being of course battery life where the HP outlasted the ASUS by an hour in our

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full screen endurance test and more than 2 hours at half screen and this seems to

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come down to Thermal management while HP had an edge in maximum clock speeds a

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seus averaged about 300 MHz faster over

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time and 100 MHz faster at the bottom end HP sent over a disassembled unit for

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us to investigate this was before we got our CT scanner by the way and the

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problem was immediately apparent that's a cooler who do they think they are

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apple with these guts no one expected it to be a gaming Powerhouse and the

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tradeoff for extra battery life is a valid one and one you personally might

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prefer but a shocking number of people do like to play casual games or run

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other somewhat intensive applications and it's always painful for me to see

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Hardware performing less than its best on that note we fired up a couple of

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games then just to see how it fared it got a little confused about what

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resolution it should be using it tried to use desktop resolution in clamshell

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mode for example but repositioning the keyboard resolved that and then it did

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manage a respectable average 60 FPS in both rocket league and DOTA at 1080p so

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not not for gamers confirmed but also not for folks who need something

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completely bug free or for folks who need something very affordable it's

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$5,000 for the one configuration that from our understanding is because Intel

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only has one chip that is able to meet the thermal requirements of this chassis

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however with all of that said if you are that special someone who saw this thing

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and went oh my God that was made for me

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and I absolutely can't wait for the inevitably much better second gen I

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can't say you're the only one now that the review is done and I just auctioned

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my daily driver framework laptop for charity investment disclosure I think I

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might just adopt this orphan designer Breed Puppy and hope that it doesn't get

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prematurely worn out from being folded in half over and over and over again

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while I eagerly await a second gen that hopefully fixes all those little issues

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and brings me to sheer Nirvana gigantic

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screen meeting Bliss just like I'm blissfully telling you

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about our sponsor vessie here in Vancouver the weather can be all over

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the place bright and sunny one day to a sudden downpour the next but thankfully

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we have a secret weapon vessie they claim their shoes are 100% waterproof

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those waterfalls or simply get to work without a second thought head over to

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first purchase if you guys like this video maybe check out the 10 reasons

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that I daily drive a foldable or at least did when I made that video now I'm

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just back on my broken note 9