HP Spectre 13 (or simply HP Spectre) is the new talk of the town as far as laptops are concerned. The device was unveiled last week and it boasts being the thinnest ever laptop the PC industry has ever seen, put aside Apple’s MacBook Air.
According to many tech pundits, HP’s Spectre is out to kill the MacBook Air and if this is just the beginning, there might be some truth in this. Apple is known for its expertise when it comes to ultra-thin designs. The 13-inch MacBook Air is still a thin laptop, but it is nowhere near what the 13.3-inch HP Spectre has to offer.
With the two devices battling tooth and neck for the top spot in the portable PC world, here is a quick look at what specs and features the HP Spectre and MacBook Air have to offer as well as their prices.
Display features
Apple’s MacBook Air has a screen size of 13 inches with the LED-backlit technology behind it. The screen offers a resolution of 1440 by 900 pixels; however, there is no problem when working with resolutions of 1280 by 800, 1024 by 768, 1152 by 720, 1024 by 640 as well as 800 by 600.
On the other hand, the newly released HP Spectre 13 comes with a 13.3-inch IPS screen size that is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass technology. The display has a Full HD resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels, which according to some of the latest releases such as Dell XPS 13, is still very low for a 2016 laptop.
Processing power
Despite coming in with what is now the thinnest laptop in the world, HP has managed to pack the Spectre 13 with quite heavy hardware. There are two variants of the device: an Intel Core i5 variant and another with Intel Core i7. The device further adds an Intel HD Graphics 520 card and a massive RAM of 8GB.
As far as the hardware specs are concerned, the MacBook Air comes with two variants: one that packs a 2-core Intel Core i5 CPU clocked at 1.6GHz and another that comes with a 2-core Intel Core i7 CPU clocked at a speed of 2.2GHz. Turbo Boost can help bring the speed up to 3.2GHz. Apple installed an HD graphics card inside the laptop as well as added a 4GB RAM, with room to upgrade it to 8GB (at purchase).
To the point where most have been waiting, HP Spectre 13 is just 10.4mm in thickness and weighs only 2.45 pounds. In comparison, Apple’s MacBook Air is 17.2mm thick and weighs 2.96 pounds. Even when compared to the 12-inch MacBook Air (13.1mm), the new HP Spectre still stands head high above the others with respect to thickness.
Price
Following its launch last week, preorders for the new HP Spectre 13 will kick off later this month at an estimated cost of $1169. On the other hand, the 13-inch MacBook Air costs $999 in the Apple Store.
The MacBook Air 4GB cannot be upgraded to 8GB. The memory is soldered directly to the motherboard.