Hands-On: S$7,199 HP Spectre Fold Is World’s Smallest 17-Inch PC

Mirroring the moves made by the competition, the HP Spectre Fold is the next PC foldable entering the arena. While the overall design is not the freshest we’ve seen in the market, HP is looking to stamp its own take in this space.

Thinner than any foldable we’ve held so far, the Spectre Fold feels premium in hand and is similar to the ASUS Zenbook 17 Fold and Lenovo Yoga Book 9i which we had reviewed earlier.

On first touch, the matte finish texture feels great and aids in a confident hold of the laptop providing the Spectre Fold a grippy surface. This feature will come into play plenty as users work to transform the laptop into various modes to suit their needs.

Measuring 27 x 73 x 0.8 cm unfolded, 27 x 19 x 2 cm folded, and weighing 1.35kg, the HP Spectre Fold wastes no inch of space and packs plenty of heft. It’s rather light with the attached accessories which include a removable keyboard and stylus combining into one complete unit.

At the heart of it all, the laptop is powered by an Intel EVO Core i7-1250U together with 16GB RAM, and 1TB of internal storage. For general web use and light photo editing, this device should perform just fine but gaming will definitely be a concern. Think of this more for spreadsheets than top-end games found on Steam.

Depending on how one prefers to use the device, the keyboard should come into play often. In laptop mode, the Spectre Fold opens up to reveal two 12.3-inch displays that can act as typical laptop display, while the bottom half of the display allows users to park the wireless keyboard which charges via the display. Depending on how the keyboard is placed, the screen will adjust itself accordingly to display information dynamically.

If you need more screen space, opening the screens flat the OLED display shows off its 17-inch OLED display. Based on the brief hands-on on with the device, the Spectre Fold’s screen looks great from all angles and we’ll be curious how the OLED fares under bright sunlight which mobile roadwarriors will be concerned about.

At S$7,199 (available in Singapore Q1 2024) the HP Spectre Fold is definitely not the device for everyone at first glance but we can see it finding its way to the lifestyles of many corporate types. The real test would be discovering if the device can go the distance on a long flight and keep chugging all the way to the end.