HP ENVY x360 15 vs HP Spectre x360 15: Battle of Heavyweights

Do you want to find out which laptop is the best between the HP ENVY and Spectre? Read this HP ENVY x360 15 vs HP Spectre x360 15 comparison.

At First Glance Comparison

HP has been undeniably one of the leading icons in the laptop industry and tech world as a whole. The role HP has played in catering to the various needs of PC users cannot be overemphasized.

With their numerous unique offerings, they have contributed to the laptops currently being used to cater to professional, gaming, and even personal needs. Both the HP ENVY and Spectre x360 15 are two of HP’s products that serve some of these purposes.

While they may cater to the same needs, these laptops do not belong to the same category. As we always have in the tech world, these laptops also belong to different hierarchies.

In this case, the HP ENVY x360 15 belongs to the lower, hence less expensive laptop line. Meanwhile, the HP Spectre x360 15 belongs to the most flagship line-up.

Although the flagship line-ups are supposed to be outrightly superior to the lower line-up’s laptops, this case is quite different. The HP ENVY x360 15 is one of those few laptops with enough weapons in its arsenal to go gun blazing at its more expensive relative.

If their spec sheets are anything to go by, the HP ENVY x360 15 looks like a worthy competition to the HP Spectre x360 15. In fact, the HP ENVY delivers everything you’d expect from a premium laptop.

The incredible amount of value that the HP ENVY x360 15 seems to be offering is what has inspired this comparison. Moreover, the HP Spectre x360 15 doesn’t seem like a laptop that would easily yield to pressure from the competition.

Every part of the laptop from its specs to its stunning design suggests so. Above all, the HP Spectre x360 15 has to justify its price tag by offering better performance compared to the HP ENVY x360 15.

Who comes out victorious in this face-off? Read on to find out.

Design, Dimension, and Weight Comparison

I can assure you that the HP ENVY x360 15 doesn’t look like one of those laptops you would normally get for this price range. It is so beautiful that you will end up perceiving HP’s intended minimal design approach as an elegant one – Yes!, that’s how stunning it looks.

With its anodized all-aluminum chassis, anyone would easily be convinced that the HP ENVY x360 15 is a premium laptop. In addition, the HP ENVY x360 15’s uniform Nightfall Black color scheme elevates the overall appeal of the laptop.

Even though its Natural Silver color scheme model wasn’t as appealing to me as the Nightfall Black color scheme, its outer aluminum casing looks very clean because of HP’s minimal design approach. 

If the HP Spectre x360 15 wasn’t in the picture, the HP ENVY x360 15 would be the best premium-looking laptop in the room. After all, the HP ENVY x360 could easily win against many laptops when it comes to the design aspect.

Moreover, you will rarely find a laptop that is as elegant as the HP Spectre x360 15.

Although both the HP ENVY x360 and Spectre x360 15 share the same design pattern, a closer inspection of the two laptops reveals the gap in quality between them.

Take a closer look at the more expensive Spectre laptop and you will discover that the laptop has a more detailed design. Its faceted corners, chamfered edges, and chrome-lined touchpad are some of the details of its construction.

All of these give the HP Spectre x360 15 a distinct and angular appearance. Its Nightfall Black color with copper accents further aids its appearance just like it did with the HP ENVY.

Like the HP ENVY x360 15, you can also buy the HP Spectre with other color schemes. These color schemes include Poseidon Blue with a brass accent or Natural Silver.

Unlike the HP Spectre x360 15’s gem-cut design and colored chrome edges, the HP ENVY x360 15’s design is simpler. Aside from the attractive chrome HP logo on the lid and a stylish ENVY inscribed on one of the hinges, the design of this laptop is basic.

It is another one of HP’s laptops that is beautiful but yet doesn’t really crave attention. Its design is neither flashy nor excessive in any way.

For the most part, the HP Spectre x360 15’s design is also simple. However, its design is a bit more adventurous compared to the HP ENVY x360 15’s design.

It is one of the most adventurous designs you would see on a laptop that’s not primarily designed for gaming. Unlike the HP ENVY x360 15, it is not a laptop that wants to go unnoticed amidst other beautiful laptops – it craves attention. 

Despite the fact that the HP ENVY was built using the anodized aluminum unlike the Spectre x360 15’s CNC machined aluminum, the HP ENVY x360 15 is quite sturdy.

The lid barely gave in when I exerted little pressure on it. Meanwhile, the laptop’s keyboard only had little flex.

As you would expect, the HP Spectre x360 15 is very solid. It is so well-built that there was no form of flexing, bending, or twisting anywhere in the lid, chassis, or keyboard deck. 

Both laptops feature twin hinges that make it easy to open the laptops with one hand. These hinges have a solid construction that makes switching between laptop, tablet, or tent mode smooth.

In fact, these hinges make the 2-in-1 functionalities of the laptops more enjoyable. They help the display stand firmly in any of the three modes you choose. 

Overall, the HP ENVY x360 15 doesn’t have a build quality that is as strong as the HP Spectre x360 15’s. Nonetheless, it still has a fairly sturdy build.

In terms of size, the HP ENVY x360 15 boasts of 88.7% screen-to-body ratio. Thus, it has reasonably thin bezels.

However, its bottom bezel is a bit thicker than the other bezels. Considering that the laptop is a 360-degree convertible laptop, the slightly thicker bottom bezel was well within my expectations.

Compared to the Spectre x360 15 with a 90% screen-to-body ratio, the HP ENVY’s bezels four bezels are still slightly thicker.  As a result, the HP ENVY is slightly wider and taller than its premium sibling – the Spectre x360 15.

The Spectre x360 15 measures 359 x 246 x 18.9 mm while the HP ENVY measures 356 x 251 x 17.9 mm. 

Though both laptops are relatively light, the HP ENVY x360 15 weighs more than HP ENVY x360 15. The HP ENVY weighs 2040 g while the HP Spectre weighs 2010 g.

It appears that HP has made use of the same keyboard on these two laptops. Personally, I don’t have any issue with that.

After all, it offers one of the best typing experiences you’ll find on a laptop with a form factor that’s similar to that of these two laptops. The key-spacing on both laptops’ keyboards also considers those with large hands.

HP stretched the keyboards from edge to edge of the base chassis. This made it possible for HP to include full keyboards that include an extra column for home, page up, page down and end keys.

There’s also a fingerprint reader built into the keyboards. It is positioned on the right side, next to the arrow keys.

Each key is large enough, hence you won’t make the mistake of simultaneously tapping on two keys with one finger. The clicky keys also have a two-stage backlighting feature that makes it easy to type in dark settings.

When I ran the 10fastfingers test on the HP ENVY, I was able to beat my usual 68 – 80 words per minute average. I scored 92 words per minute.

On the HP Spectre x360 15, I surpassed my average score even further with a score of 98 words per minute.

The touchpads on the HP ENVY x360 15 vs HP Spectre x360 15 are both responsive and large enough. HP says they are 19% larger than the ones on their predecessors.

They are both assisted by precision drivers, hence they respond quickly to Windows 10 gestures. Though they are both awesome touchpads, the Spectre has an edge. 

This is because its touchpad is built with smooth glass whereas the Envy uses textured mylar plastic. 

In terms of ports, the HP ENVY offers 1 Type-C port, 2 USB 3.1 ports, and 1 HDMI 2.0 port. Meanwhile, the Spectre x360 15 comes with 1 USB Type-C port, 1 HDMI port, and 1 Thunderbolt 3 port.

Overall, the HP Spectre x360 15 is in a league of its own when it comes to design and build. In its defense, the HP ENVY x360 15 is not a poorly designed laptop either.

The HP ENVY x360 15 would win this section against most laptops, but not when it is pitted against the Spectre x360. Moreover, not very many laptops are comparable to the Spectre x360’s in terms of elegant build.

Therefore, the Spectre x360 15 scores a nine in this HP ENVY x360 vs Spectre x360 design and build comparison. Meanwhile, the HP ENVY x360 15 scores an eight for its beautiful design.

Processor (CPU) Performance Comparison

Surprisingly, both the HP ENVY x360 15 and HP Spectre x360 15 feature the exact same processor specifications. They both feature a quad-core Intel Core i7-8550U processor.

In addition, both processors have base frequencies of 1.8 GHz and a boost frequencies of 4.0 GHz. 

When I discovered that HP ships both laptops with the same processors I was really surprised. In fact, I couldn’t resist the tingling sensation that came with the urgent drive to test both laptops’ performances immediately.

As a result, I prepared both laptops for real-world performance and synthetic benchmark tests. On the real-world test, both laptops chewed up the everyday tasks I threw at them.

Operations like web browsing, video streaming, emailing, and document editing were all carried out smoothly on both laptops. Even when I decided to test them with more complex computing tasks, they still displayed sufficient power to handle the tasks.

These complex tasks included video encoding and rendering – I will talk more about these when we get to the benchmark aspect. If you intend to carry out intensive computing tasks on either of these laptops, you will barely encounter any major issue.

To my surprise, the HP ENVY x360 15 turned up with a lot of better benchmark results than its premium sibling. The first benchmark test I carried out was the Cinebench R20 test.

In the multi-core aspect of this test, the HP ENVY x360 15 scored 3350 points. It surpassed the Spectre x360’s 1278 points.

Even in the single-core aspect, the HP ENVY x360 still outperformed the Spectre x360. The HP ENVY x360 scored 480 points while the Spectre x360 scored 362 points.

In addition to that test, I also ran another Cinebench test. This time, it was a lower version – the Cinebench R15.

On the multi-core aspect of this test, the HP ENVY x360 15 still managed to outperform the Spectre x360 15. While the HP ENVY scored 1485 points, the Spectre x360 scored 1083 points.

The same was the case in the single-core aspect. The HP ENVY scored 184 points whereas the Spectre x360 scored 170 points.

In disbelief of this utter dominance, I decided to move on to a different synthetic benchmark. This time around, I carried out the test on the Geekbench 5 synthetic benchmark.

On the single-core aspect of this test, the HP ENVY x360 15 came in behind the HP Spectre x360 for the first time in this comparison. It scored 1204 points, while the Spectre x360 scored 1457 points.

Just as I thought the tide was finally changing, the HP ENVY x360 leapfrogged the HP Spectre x360 again in the multi-core aspect. While the Spectre x360 scored 4996 points, the HP ENVY scored 6851 points.

Furthermore, our HandBrake video editing test which proved to be a bit tricky for the Spectre x360 was no issue for the HP ENVY. It took the Spectre x360 18 minutes to convert a 4K video to 1080p.

Meanwhile, the HP ENVY x360 coverted the video in 8 minutes.

In conclusion, the HP ENVY surprisingly outperformed the Spectre x360 in almost every aspect of the synthetic benchmark tests I ran. As a result, the HP ENVY x360 scores an eight in this HP ENVY x360 vs Spectre x360 processor performance comparison.

Meanwhile, the HP Spectre x360 15 scores a seven.

Memory (RAM) Performance Comparison

Just like their processors, the HP ENVY x360 15 and HP Spectre x360 15 also come with the same RAM specifications. HP offers the same 16 GB DDR4 SDRAM for the two laptops.

They also both have two RAM slots. The only notable difference between both laptops’ RAM specifications is the maximum RAM size they each support.

While the HP ENVY x360 15 supports maximum RAM size of 16 GB, the HP Spectre x360 15 supports up to 32 GB maximum RAM size.

When I tested both laptops on the real-world RAM performance test, they had enough power to handle my demanding workloads. I had 40 Google Chrome tabs opened, with four of them streaming YouTube videos while I was editing on Google Docs.

With all of the above operation running, the two laptops operated smoothly without hiccups.

After this test, I moved on to the synthetic benchmark test aspect. At this point, I had braced myself for whatever turn of events that was awaiting me.

After all, it was this same way both laptops performed excellently on real-world performance tests in the processor comparison. Only for me to get completely taken aback by the turn of events when I moved on to the benchmark aspect.

Without further digressions, lets move on to the subject at hand.  

I tested the HP ENVY x360 15 and HP Spectre x360 15 on PCMark 10 benchmark test. In the essential aspect, the HP ENVY outscored the HP Spectre. 

It scored 9510 points, while the HP Spectre scored 9477 points.

In the productivity aspect, the HP Spectre x360 still wasn’t able to surpass the HP ENVY x360. Its 7196 point was still behind the HP ENVY’s 7928 points. 

Though their benchmark performance was a bit close in this aspect, the HP ENVY x360 15 performed better than the HP Spectre x360 15. Hence, the HP ENVY x360 15 scores an eight in this HP ENVY x360 vs Spectre x360 RAM performance comparison.

On the other hand, the HP Spectre x360 15 scores a seven.

Storage Options and Performance Comparison

You are probably wondering if the two laptops feature the same storage configurations as well. Quite contrary to what we’ve been getting so far, HP offers different storage configurations for the two laptops. 

Though the storage capacity HP offers for both laptops are different, they still share some similarities in terms of their storage. One of these similarities is the availability of SD card options for both laptops.

While the HP ENVY x360 15 supports 1 multi-format SD media card reader, the HP Spectre x360 15 doesn’t support a multi-format type. It supports 1 regular microSD media card reader.

Moving on to the storage specifications of both laptops, the HP ENVY x360 15 comes with a 512 GB PCIe NVMe SSD. Meanwhile, the HP Spectre x360 15 is equipped with a 1 TB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD. 

As usual, I carried out both real-world performance and synthetic benchmark tests on the HP ENVY x360 15 and HP Spectre x360 15. On the CrystalDiskMark test, both laptops shared the spoils. 

The HP ENVY x360 15 recorded a sequential read speed of 1645 MBps and a sequential write speed of 1761 MBps. Meanwhile, the HP Spectre x360 15 offered a sequential read speed of 1660 MBps and a sequential write speed of 1422 MBps.

Moving over to our file transfer test, the HP ENVY x360 15 took 15 seconds to copy a 4.97 GB multimedia file. It copied the file at a rate of 319.1 MBps.

Similarly, the HP Spectre x360 15 also took 15 seconds to copy the same 4.97 GB file. It couldn’t offer better than the HP ENVY x360 15’s transfer rate. 

From the various tests, we can conclude that the difference in both laptop’s storage performance is not very clear. Even in the real-world performance test, neither of the two laptops could outperform the other.

Hence, both the HP ENVY x360 15 and HP Spectre x360 15 score an eight in this HP ENVY x360 vs Spectre x360 storage performance comparison.

Graphics Card Performance Comparison

In this aspect, the HP ENVY x360 15 and HP Spectre x360 15 differ in everything. HP equipped the ENVY x360 15 with an integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620 card.

This graphics card has a base frequency of 300 MHz and a boost frequency of 1150 MHz. Sadly, this graphics card does not come with a dedicated VRAM.

On the other hand, the HP Spectre x360 15 comes with a dedicated NVIDIA GeForce MX150 card. It has a base frequency of 1469 MHz and a boost frequency of 1532 MHz. 

Unlike the HP ENVY x360 15’s graphic card, the HP Spectre x360 15’s graphics card is equipped with a 2 GB GDDR5 dedicated VRAM.

Going by its graphics card specifications, the Spectre x360 ought to deliver a much better graphics performance than the HP ENVY x360 15. Let’s move further to find out.

The first test I carried out on both laptops was the 3DMark 11 benchmark test. In this benchmark test, the HP ENVY x360 15 couldn’t get close to the Spectre x360 15.

While the HP ENVY scored 6366 points, the Spectre x360 15 scored a more impressive 8930 points.

On the real-world gaming performance test, the HP Spectre x360 ran GTA V at an impressive frame rate of 153.1 frames per second. The HP ENVY also offered good frame rates, but it was no match for the Spectre x360’s – it played the game at 97 frames per second.

When I ran The Witcher 3 on both laptops, the HP Spectre x360 was able to play the game at 90.7 frames per second. On the other hand, the HP ENVY ran the game at 21.5 frames per second.

I further tested both laptops with Dota 2 Reborn. The HP Spectre x360 offered 73.5 frames per second when I ran the game.

When I played the game on the HP ENVY x360, I was able to get frame rates of 34.7 frames per second.

Without any doubt, the HP Spectre x360 completely wins this round. After all, it outperformed the HP ENVY x360 15 in both real-world performance and benchmark tests.

Therefore, the HP Spectre x360 scores a nine in this HP ENVY x360 vs Spectre x360 graphics performance comparison. Meanwhile, the HP ENVY x360 15 scores a seven.

Battery Life and Performance Comparison

Although both the HP ENVY x360 15 and HP Spectre x360 15 feature the same battery types, the battery capacity they come with differ. The HP ENVY x360 15 features a 3-cell, 52.5 Wh Li-ion battery. 

Meanwhile, the HP Spectre x360 15 comes with a 6-cell, 79.2 Wh Li-ion battery. From their battery capacities, you can already tell that the HP Spectre x360 15 will most likely offer a longer battery life.

In practice, I decided to test both laptop’s batteries to determine how long they last. As always, our battery test involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi with medium screen brightness.

On this test, the HP ENVY x360 15 lasted 11 hours and 55 minutes. Meanwhile, the HP Spectre x360 15 lasted for 13 hours and 25 minutes.

Going by these results, it is safe to say that both laptops can last close to half a day of work time. Depending on how you use the laptops, you could even get them to last longer.

For instance, when you are carrying out computing operations that do not require the use of the internet, you can expect the laptops to last longer.

Besides, you can reduce your battery consumption rate by reducing the screen brightness of your laptop.

In conclusion, the HP Spectre x360 15 has an edge over the HP ENVY x360 15 in this aspect. It offers a longer battery life.

Therefore, the HP Spectre x360 15 scores a nine in this HP ENVY x360 vs Spectre x360 battery performance comparison. Meanwhile, the HP ENVY x360 15 scores an eight.

Our Rating Summary

Conclusion

In conclusion, both of these laptops are excellent. They are both highly functional and powerful laptops. 

You can use the two laptops in three different modes. Couple their versatility with the incredible amount of power they have to offer, and you will have two impressive laptops. 

Choosing between both laptops will ultimately come down to what is of more priority to you. If you want to buy a more budget-friendly device that improves basic productivity, the HP ENVY x360 15 is the better option. 

Though it may not look as premium as the Spectre x360 15, the HP ENVY x360 15 is also a good-looking laptop.

The Spectre x360 15 on the other hand, will be more suitable for handling graphically intensive operations while serving as an excellent productivity machine. Though it’s true that it is more expensive, its price is still attractive compared to other premium notebooks’ prices.

If you want a laptop that can handle more of the graphically intensive workload, then you should consider the Spectre x360 15. Asides from that, the Spectre x360 offers a more elegant design, glass touchpad, and Thunderbolt 3 port.

Though the Spectre x360’s performance falls a bit short behind the HP Envy’s, the Spectre battery lasts longer on a single charge. Add these advantages together and you will discover that the decision to buy the Spectre x360 is not bad too.

Based on our comprehensive review and comparison of HP ENVY x360 15 vs HP Spectre x360 15, we recommend:

Although we recommend the HP Spectre x360 15, you can consider the HP ENVY x360 15 if you want to spend less:

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