How Did HP Fail This Hard? - HP Spectre x360 2019 Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
2,387 words · ~11 min read
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you know i like my razer blade stealth and all but i'm also a giant nerd and
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always drooling over the next big thing so i wouldn't mind upgrading it and
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since razer wasn't able to scratch that itch with their last blade
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itself i've been looking elsewhere for my greener pastures
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now the surface laptop too it's nice
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but i really want Thunderbolt the macbook pro let's take a screenshot oh
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oh you're in trouble yeah no
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dell xps 13 well you know what that one's close it's definitely on my list
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of things to try but hp i've been both hearing and even
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experiencing really great things about their x360 line for quite some time in
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fact last time i looked at one two years ago i called it the best two in one yet
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but now that i have the 2019 versions of the
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13 and 15 inch spectre x360s in my hands
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it's clear to me that my search isn't over yet because i wouldn't really
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recommend buying either of these
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something i would recommend buying though is our sponsor private internet
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now the non-square corners of the new x360 lineup might be a little bit
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polarizing but for my part at least on the 13-inch anyway
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i actually kind of like it it's unique and i mean honestly the look of this
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thing overall is decidedly premium like it's
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it's almost screaming for that first big bonus check that a young professional
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takes home from their first job out of school on the right camphor you'll find a
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Thunderbolt 3 port with fast charging noise so far so good and on the left is
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the power button where we actually encounter the first problem at least
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with the 15 inch version with the power cable plugged in and
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pointing backwards you know where it would normally go you
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actually can't easily reach the power button like it's not impossible and hp's
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rational is that it allows you easy access to the power button in either
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laptop or tablet mode
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but they also could have placed it literally
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anywhere else along this edge or oh i
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don't know this edge and it also would have been
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accessible and avoided the power cable issue
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fortunately what helps make up for this is the decent i o on both models they
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managed to squeeze a full-sized usb type-a onto the 13-inch along with
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type-c Thunderbolt 3 micro sd and a headphone jack and the 15-inch even gets
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a full-size HDMI port on top of all of that and i mean
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just you know what i actually love the style of these
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things they managed to look really slim and sleek while still having full-size
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ports and being eye-catching without
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ending up being like tacky or gaudy
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unfortunately while the look is very premium the build quality is only
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good like it's better than a typical MSI notebook but
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it's not on the same level as the likes of dell microsoft or apple the aluminum
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chassis is rigid but not
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stop the aluminum chassis is rigid but not
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quite as rigid as its carbon fiber and magnesium counterparts and there's some
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mild flecks in the palm area and it's got a screen that is
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wobblier than my weird uncle on a friday night
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or well any night performance wise though there's some
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good news both of these laptops are standouts the 13-inch has a dual fan
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cooling design that allows its quad-core processor to hang with the likes of the
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xps 13 putting light video editing or
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photo editing easily within reach and for those needing a bit more power
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stepping up to the 15 inch looks like a great way to go rocking a 6 core core i7
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8750h and an NVIDIA gtx 1050 ti the
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larger of the spectres is able to hang with the xps 15 for professional level
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performance or even light gaming
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is what i would say if this display here didn't have some of
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the raunchiest pixel response times that
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i've seen in the last five years
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like seriously i bet the camera could pick
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this up no problem without even switching to high speed i'm talking 30
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FPS mode just moving the mouse pointer
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around on the desktop makes it look like i've got pointer trails enabled and that
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is on top of the display having a little
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more input leg than i'm used to now neither of these things are really
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noticeable on the 13 inch so that's
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well i don't know i don't want to say good because you don't really get any bonus points for meeting basic
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expectations but what is noticeable on
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both models are the top and the bottom
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bezels everywhere else in the industry hp's
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competitors are moving either to slim bezel 16x9 displays or taller aspect
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ratios so that mobile users can make the most out of the screen area
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hp seems to have clearly missed the memo
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here also very dated the 360 degree hinge
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design this is a situation where hp basically
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shot themselves in the foot by creating maybe the best convertible design ever
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with the spectre folio i was really hoping that with this complete redesign
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of the x360 we would get that hinge
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with a quad-core processor and without
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the polarizing leather finish but no it's just a regular convertible
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laptop with a wobbly hinge and those
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little feet that get in the way of the left control and the right arrow key
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back to the displays though response times aside i do have some good things
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to say here both of our models are equipped with brightview displays that
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feature HDR support along with excellent color accuracy and contrast and i'm a
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pretty big fan of their sure view displays as well now these two units
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don't have this function but basically it's a toggleable privacy display which
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is great if you want to keep your information private in a public place
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and as far as i know hp is the only one that offers that function
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are they yeah i'm not aware of anyone else you know what just correct me in the
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comments if i'm wrong anyway they also don't just look good
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they feel good too with excellent touch support along with a really great
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drawing and writing experience coming from the included pen something that
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isn't bundled with basically every other laptop on the market
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but now we've come to the point in this review where i need to address a time in
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the past when i was wrong
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or more accurately i was being facetious
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i said that the pen holder on the spectrefolio was so bad that maybe they
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just shouldn't include one at all well
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no no it turns out that this having literally no way to attach the
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pen to your system at all is in fact
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worse something is better than nothing
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so okay hp you win
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sort of the webcam falls considerably short of the surface laptop but
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fortunately in this massive forehead they were at least able to fit Windows
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hello facial recognition which saves hp from having to listen to me complain
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about the location of this fingerprint sensor
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why isn't it on the power button oh wait i guess they didn't get saved
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from it at all i did still complain about it that's a shame anyway you don't
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have to use it the speaker grille placement above the keyboard looks
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really nice and the speakers themselves are pretty good but while that lost
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keyboard space at the top isn't a problem for the 15 on the 13 it means
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that anyone with big hands is going to end up resting uncomfortably on this
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actually surprisingly sharp edge what makes this more frustrating is that
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otherwise this is quite a good keyboard the keystrokes are long and quiet and
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although the feel might not be quite as crisp as the surface laptop i still
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really appreciate what hp has done with the switches with me being able to get
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up to full speed very quickly what is simply unacceptable though is the
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trackpad and that's what actually inspired the title of this video it's
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the same unit on both models which means that it's a pretty good size on that 13
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inch and they both have very serious
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palm rejection and acceleration issues
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for some reason hp has opted to use
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synaptics as touch pad drivers instead of the Windows precision ones and the
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experience is just awful like here watch
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this if i move slowly
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close to the edge
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it's actually several centimeters of movement before the track pad even
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registers my finger being there it's so bad that when i
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first used this machine i i assumed it was broken and that we
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would have to delay our review so we could wait to swap it out for another
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unit but then both of them behaved in exactly the same
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way now as it turns out this dead zone can
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be tuned in the synaptic software but then you get palm rejection issues
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because that's how it does it and it also turns
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out that other laptops do have a similar
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dead zone like on the surface laptop it turns out there is roughly a centimeter
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on either side that isn't immediately activated but the thing is that between
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alex and i we've been using the surface laptop razor blade stealth many other
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laptops for years and just like never
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noticed it whereas on these hp's it was apparent to me within about 30 seconds i
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was like something is wrong
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oh it's like not working because it's a full two and a half centimeters on both
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sides so
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since what the software is said to out of the box does appear to be the better
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solution compared to turning palm rejection off at all the spectre x360
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2019 ends up with the dubious honor of
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tying the MSI gs75 for
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worst track pad i've seen in years something that is particularly
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unacceptable on a non-gaming device where you aren't expected to regularly
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plug in a mouse speaking of plugging in one area where
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the x360 13-inch really shines is in the
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battery life department with its 60 watt hour battery it delivers some truly
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incredible time away from the wall after a full eight hour work day writing this
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script with no plugging in the x360 13 inch still had 70 of its battery left
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when it was time to head home as for the 15-inch model well it's no
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slouch either lasting through the workday handily but it's 84 watt-hour
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battery can't quite compete with the 97 watt hour one in the dell xps 15.
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bottom line time then overall neither the x360 13 or 15 inch
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did it for me on paper it should be a pretty clear decision to take this over
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something like a surface laptop too it's got better battery life better
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performance better connectivity and better security features all for a very
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similar price and it does feel like hp
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has spent a lot of time working on the details of this machine
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kind of like there's a laptop design rubric created by a consumer study that
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the engineers have made sure that they get top marks on
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the only problem is that when you take a couple steps back from these things and
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just use them the issues that we've talked
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about especially the trackpad are really
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hard to ignore all i can hope for is that this is
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something that hp can fix through software updates
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and redesign in 2020
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yeah or that speaking of 2020 you won't have to wait
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