If you’re pricing out a new 13-inch laptop, you’ve probably considered the HP Spectre and Dell XPS lines—particularly the HP Spectre x360 and the Dell XPS 13.
Both of these laptops are the core workhorses in their respective lines, which are kitted out to appeal to higher-end consumer and business audiences. Hewlett Packard often wins corporate bidding due to its more budget-conscious pricing, though you give up some fit and finish to make those cost breakpoints. Dell machines tend to be more solidly built, but also tack on extra cost to cover those details.
All of the Hewlett Packard Spectre line commonly available are touchscreen 2-in-1 models, meaning that you can flip them over on their hinges and use them as tablets (or in table-tent mode for video viewing.) The XPS 13 does come in a 2-in-1 version, but it’s a bit pricier. I’ve stuck with the standard laptop edition for this review to keep the models in a similar price range. Here’s how they compare:
Hewlett Packard (HP) Spectre x360-13t
The Spectre x360 13t includes a 13-inch screen with HP’s distinctive cut-off corners. This one comes with a dark chassis and gold accents. It draws its power from a quad-core 8th Generation Intel i7-8550U processor, 16 gigabytes (GB) RAMand a 512GB PCIe NVMe Solid State Drive.
Graphics processing is provided by an integrated Intel UHD 620 graphics processor (standard equipment on most laptops in these two lines.) The price tag is quite reasonable for a 2-in-1 with these specs, but the x360 isn’t going to win any medals for sturdy construction.
New Dell XPS 13 9380
The New Dell XPS 13 9380 comes with newer hardware inside, but no touchscreen or 2-in-1 capabilities outside. This model is a handsome rose gold exterior—with a silver interior.
This unit includes an Intel Core i7-8565 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and a fingerprint reader (which can be used to turn on the laptop). It has the same onboard Intel HD Graphics 620 processor as the Spectre x360, which means that like that model, it’s capable of handling some light photo editing and similar tasks. The screen is a true 4K, and pleasant to look at. You’re paying for better build quality here, though the HP has a minor edge on hardware.