The 8cx Gen2 is an octa-core part that runs at a base frequency of 1.8GHz and turbo boosts to 2.84GHz it’s almost twice the speed of the 7c in the Samsung. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx Gen2 chipset inside the Folio Elite is closely related to the SQ1 chipset inside the Surface Pro X and a little more distantly to the 7c Gen2 chipset inside the Samsung Galaxy Book Go I recently reviewed. READ NEXT: The best soundbars to buy HP Elite Folio review: Performance and battery life Proceedings are helped by the two upward-facing speakers on each side of the keyboard deck, another feature not common to machines this petite. There’s volume aplenty and even a reasonable amount of bass. Palm rejection worked perfectly when I rested my hand on the screen in tablet mode – a must for me, being left-handed – and the system kept up with my fastest doodlings.įor such a thin and light machine, the four-speaker Bang & Olufsen sound system is rather impressive. It has 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and even tilt support. This is 145mm long, has a programmable two-function rocker button on the side and another on the top that you can use to change slides and the like. The display is also active-stylus-compatible, and HP includes one in the box. The Elite Folio doesn’t even have a fingerprint scanner, which is poor for a machine of this price and ambition. The feed looks dull and grainy, and there’s no support for biometric security. The 720p webcam above the display has a sliding privacy shutter, but that’s the only good thing I can say about it. The trackpad is very pleasant to use and the corner click-action is supremely precise. It’s a quiet keyboard, too, which is just as well because the passively cooled Elite Folio is as silent as the grave. I’ve no arguments with the layout, which is surprisingly spacious considering there are speaker grilles to either side, although the half-height up and down cursor keys are a small niggle. The backlit keyboard is solid and the keys have a decent 1.3mm of travel to them. Both support Power Delivery and DisplayPort video-out, but I’d have liked them to be faster. The rest of the Elite Folio is made from recycled magnesium and is as solid as you’d like, while physical connectivity is limited to two 5Gbits/sec USB-C ports, one on either side of the machine. And, because it’s all one piece and covers both the base and the display, it hides the hinge mechanism that joins the screen mount to the body. On a more positive note, the cover does a good job of looking like leather and makes the Elite Folio appear – when closed at least – more like a book than a laptop. This is one of those idiotic marketing ideas that really grinds my gears: forget the fact that vegan leather is a contradiction in terms, why try to dupe customers with meaningless greenwash when you’re actually using plastic? HP calls the attractive soft-touch covering on the lid and base “vegan leather” when, in fact, it’s just polyurethane plastic. My one problem with the design has more to do with HP’s marketing bods than its designers or engineers. In tablet mode particularly, it looks and feels much less like a laptop that’s been folded the wrong way than most conventional 2-in-1 machines. Despite that, it’s a clever and curiously satisfying design that feels as though it will last. One significant difference between the Acer and HP machines is that the Acer’s display can be used in any position between laptop and tablet, but the HP’s can’t: it just flops about until you position it on the deck and the three magnets in the display engage.

Magnets keep everything firmly in place, no matter which position you’re in. Tilt the screen further back and you can fold it flat, turning the Elite into a tablet.

Hp spectre folio 1w