HP Spectre X360 is on sale again.
Title says it all.
Link to the Officeworks deal: 13-AE054TU i7-8550U/16GB RAM/360GB SSD for 1897 (with eBay 5% off PULL5 coupon) or $1997 instore.
JB also carries a slightly different variant : 13-AE010TU i7-8550U/16GB RAM/512GB SSD for $2293
Agree on this comment. I'd go one step further and say the XPS 13 probably has an edge over the Yoga 920 unless you absolutely need a 2-in-1 or active pen support.
The return rate on Yoga 710/720 and 910/920 was atrocious.
Also, a couple of years ago, my HP rep told me that the Spectre serie, being a premium brand, came automatically 1-year on-site support.
We were advised not to tell this to customers in order to sell extended warranties though.
Probably worth checking with HP directly if its still the case.
AFAIK it doesn't come with an onsite warranty. But you can buy a 2 year onsite warranty for just $59.
I think it is still worth checking with HP. The 2 year onsite might be cheap because the 1st year is already included with the Spectre?
And the HP rep said its only available with the Spectre (not Envy nor Pavilion) and business laptops. It is just something that was not well known.
I just checked by logging into HP support site; mine bought from office works a few weeks back says one-year off-site hardware warranty on their site. JB's one may have a different warranty, but doubtful.
I'm yet to buy the 2-year warranty.
Regular XPS is not a 2-in-1, and the XPS 2-in-1 uses a low power dual core Y series CPU, so neither XPS models are direct competitors. The Yoga 920 is a bulky 14" notebook, with a less than impressive screen again not comparable (oh and that gaudy hinge, who came up with that ????).
The X360 gets equal first (with the Thinkpad X1) in the current Notebookcheck ratings for a 2 in 1, beating the Yoga 920. If you want a strict laptop though, you'd probably be better off with the XPS as you say (But it's probably unlikely you'd be looking at X360's anyway).
Which of these 2 in 1s have the best pen for sketching/drawing?
I don’t use the pen, so haven’t looked too much into it. But from what I have read it uses an n-Trig active digitizer, similar to Microsoft Surface Pro series computers. The one I got in the box is the older generation that runs on a single AAAA battery, but some people (especially in the US) have got a newer pen that comes with a built-in rechargeable battery.
Information out there is a bit sketchy, looks like the older one supports 1024 pressure levels and the new one supports 2048. Most reviewers say the Microsoft Surface pen is better (and it has 4096 levels), but the good thing is, you can use that pen with the Spectre because it uses the same technology.
The Australian models come with a n-trig pen with 1024 levels of pressure. There are two buttons on the side of the pen, none on the top and a AAAA battery.
The other pen is the HP tilt pen. This has 4k pressure levels, a button on the top and a rechargeable battery. It also has a presentation mode where you can use the pen as a magic wand air mouse. I just bought one of these and can recommend. They're about $120 AUD. I think it's a worthy upgrade. (I have a Spectre x360 at home)
Note - the other HP pen that has a two button rocker switch on the side plus a button on the top uses the Wacom protocol and does not work on the spectre. These only work on the Elitebook. (This is what I use for work)
Hope this was helpful.
dp
It was $2197 on their eBay site when I posted the deal yesterday. They must've corrected the price today.
Updated the OP. Thanks.
A good deal is in the eye of the beholder but a) this laptop is not a patch on the Dell XPS 13 or the Lenovo Yoga 920 and b) HP have the worst customer service in the world (maybe after Optus)