Looking for an Intel Core i7 laptop? HP Spectre X360 and Dell XPS 13 are two laptops that are worth-considering. They come with the identical specs. Both Spectre X360 and XPS 13 are powered the 8th generation of Intel Core i7 processor which has the clock speed of 1.60 GHz. They also have the same screen size, each of which 13.3-inch.
Actually, both Spectre X360 and Dell XPS 13 come with several variants. On the market, you can find a Dell XPS 13 that is powered by an Intel Core i5 instead of Core i7. When you are conducting an online research, chances are you will also see difference detail specs. The unit that is covered in this article is Dell XPS 13 9360. You can see the detail specs on the table below.
As mentioned earlier, both HP Spectre X360 and Dell XPS 13 (or Dell XPS 13 9360 more precisely) are two laptop units that are powered by the 8th generation of Intel Core i7 processor. Although the processor might look superb, but be it HP Spectre X360 or Dell XPS 13 have never aimed at gamers. Instead, those laptops are projected to be a high end business laptops. The reason why those two laptops are less ideal for gaming is due the the graphic they use. Those units use Intel HD Graphics. Following are the detail specs of those laptops.
Specs
[table id=35 /]As you can see, the detail specs between HP Spectre X360 and Dell XPS 13 are not much different. They are powered by the same processor, Intel Core i7, and use SSD as the storage medium. One of the fundamental differences, as you can see on the table, is the display technology.
HP Spectre X360 adopts a touch screen technology while Dell XPS 13 doesn’t. It is because Spectre X360 is intended to be a convertible laptop whereby you can turn it into a tablet mode by swiveling the screen into 360 degree.
Design
There is a fundamental difference between HP Spectre X360 and Dell XPS 13 in terms of design. As mentioned, Spectre X360 is convertible laptop. While you can use it as a traditional laptop, you can also turn it into a tablet when you need to. Dell XPS 13, on the other hand, doesn’t come with the same concept. It’s purely a laptop. No chance to turn into a tablet.
In general, be it Spectre X360 or XPS 13 have a fancy enough design. No wonder because the two are basically a high end laptops.
- HP Spectre X360
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The design of HP Spectre X360 looks elegant and fancy, combining grey silver and black. On the laptop mode, this unit looks great with an ergonomic keyboard and wide touchpad. Since it’s a convertible laptop, you will see no power button nor indicator lamp on the surface. Instead, power button is placed on the edge. The edges of the bezel (left and right) are thinner than the top and the bottom sides. The HP logo looks elegant on the center of the bottom of the bezel.
HP Spectre X360 comes with a super flexible yet solid hinge. You can easily swivel it to turn your device from the laptop mode to the tablet mode. HP Spectre X360 itself adopts aluminum material. The body of Spectre X360 has undergone some changes than its previous model. The older model has a curved design while the new version is a pair of hard-angled pieces when the laptop is closed. The overall body of Spectre X360 is thin enough, not reaching the number of 1 inch. It’s pretty easy to fall in love to the design of this laptop.
- Dell XPS 13
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The design of XPS 13 also looks elegant enough as well as modern. It also combines grey silver and black. The difference, Dell puts the black on keyboard and the grey silver on the lid. Within a few years, Dell hasn’t changed the design of XPS 13 significantly so the design of the XPS 13 that is covered in this article is not much different to other variants of XPS 13.
I said that Spectre X360 has a thinner bezel edges. You will see even thinner bezel on the XPS 13. Not just on the edges (right and left sides), the top side of the bezel is also thin. This gives no space for a webcam. Does XPS 13 have no webcam?
No modern laptop without webcam. XPS 13 also has a webcam, but instead of on the top side of the bezel, the webcam lies on the left side (on your point of view) on the bottom side of the bezel. Unlike Spectre X360 that has no button on the surface, you will see a power button on the right side of surface of the laptop. Overall, the design of XPS 13 is great enough. Looks elegant and fancy with lid and bottom surface of XPS 13 are made from CNC machined aluminum.
Performance
Unless you use your laptop to run a game that requires a high spec graphic card, the performance of both Spectre X360 and XPS 13 are not disappointing. No wonder because the two are powered by Intel Core i7 processor. In addition, they also use SSD instead of HDD, which affects the overall performance.
- HP Spectre X360
The overall performance of Spectre X360 is not disappointing. It’s because this laptop comes with a high enough specs. When used to run Google Chrome with multiple tabs open — include Giphy, Slack, TweetDeck, Google Docs and a 1080p YouTube video — I was still be able to switch from a tab to another one without any problem. Spectre X360 did’t show any lag. At the same time, I also opened several apps, including LibreOffice, text editor, music player and GIMP. The graphic performance is also not so bad. This laptop was able of running the Dirt 3 racer at 56 frames per second. It also performed well enough on 3DMark’s Ice Storm Unlimited graphics test, with a solid score of 79,528, which exceeds the 58,980 category average.
- Dell XPS 13
With the identical specs, the performance of Dell XPS 13 is not much different to its competitor Spectre X360. You can also use this laptop to run Google Chrome and open a dozen tabs at once. At the same time, you can also play a 4K video. You will keep be able to switch between windows, as well as tabs, without any delay. During the test, this laptop was able of running the Dirt 3 racer at 56 frames per second. When used to convert a 4K video to 1080p using the HandBrake video transcoder, this laptop was able of finishing the job in just 19 minutes and 35 seconds. On the spreadsheet macro test, XPS 13 was able of matching 20,000 names with their addresses within 3 minutes and 9 seconds.
Software
Both Spectre X360 and XPS 13 are powered by Windows 10. Other than that, the two don’t offer too much applications. This is a much different than Chrome OS and Linux based Linux where you usually can start working on documents right away. Spectre X360 offers Support Assistant to allow you to download required drivers and Recovery Manager to manage backups and creates recovery disks.
Same as Spectre X360, XPS 13 also doesn’t offer much applications. Dell offers Help and Support app, as well as Waves MaxxAudio control panel for sound. In addition, Dell also adds trial versions of McAfee SecurityCenter, Microsoft Office and Dropbox.
Price comparison
From the specs table above, you see that Spectre X360 has a more spacious storage capacity. It also comes with a convertible laptop. Logically, it is sold higher than XPS 13. Apparently, not so. The price of X360 is a bit lower than XPS 13.
Click here to check the price of Spectre X360 and here to check the price of XPS 13.
Conclusion
[table id=37 /]Both HP Spectre X360 and Dell XPS 13 are high end business computers. They are powered by the 8th generation of Intel Core i7 processor. As a result, the performance of those two laptops are superb. For a business laptop, what offered by the are excellent.
A serious enough issue regarding Spectre X360 is the battery life which much shorter than its XPS 13. Conversely, if you often use your laptop to make a video call, Dell XPS 13 is not the best choice. The placement of webcam which below the screen is not so good for your interlocutor. But when it comes to performance, be it Spectre X360 or XPS 13 are not disappointing.