HP Unveils World's Thinnest Laptop, Says Device Will Out-Innovate Apple

HP is directly competing against Apple with its new laptop, the 13-inch Spectre.

The Spectre, which HP touted as "the world's thinnest laptop," is 10.4mm thick, CNET reported. Apple's MacBook Air is 17mm thick, same as the 13-inch Lenovo LaVie. The 12-inch MacBook and the latest Razer Blade Stealth both have a 13mm thickness.

Prior to releasing a new laptop on Tuesday, HP PC Chief Ron Coughlin said that "for years, Apple has been seen as the innovator and the driver of innovation," but now "HP is really taking over that mantle," The Verge reported from the Wall Street Journal.

Design

HP's Spectre ditched the common silver/gray color scheme of laptops, opting instead for a bolder smokey gray color with gold accents, CNET wrote. The laptop's whole piston hinge, which has a bright and jeweled gold color, has been transferred from the rear edge. The hinge is aluminum like the laptop's lid, while the bottom panel is carbon fiber.

That appearance is already seen on plenty of laptops, but is usually displayed on larger devices. HP said that this design combination provides a good balance between weight and stiffness to the Spectre. The laptop clocks in at 2.45 pounds, but the device is still easy to pick up and carry.

The Spectre has a 1920x1080 full HD non-touch screen, with a Gorilla Glass top layer covering the display edge-to-edge, HP's official site indicated.

Specs

Helping the Spectre achieve a thin body is a standard laptop battery flattened down into multiple separate thin cells, CNET noted. It is also equipped with smaller fans to suck air in and through the laptop, instead of propelling hot air out. This cooling system, called hyperbaric cooling, came from Intel.

The Spectre doesn't use Intel's lower-power Core M line of processors seen in the 12-inch MacBook and Samsung Galaxy TabPro S. The laptop is powered by current-gen mainstream Intel Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs, accompanied by 8GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.

Other notable functionalities of the Spectre is a backlit keyboard, glass trackpad, USB Type-C, HP Audio Boost, Bang & Olufsen Audio, battery with 9 hours of battery life, and a next-generation 802.11 ac 2x2 Wi-Fi antenna, which provides "faster wireless speeds and positioned it perfectly to maximize reception," according to HP's website.

Price and Availability

Pre-orders for the Spectre will be available online starting on April 25 from HP's website and Best Buy's BBY.com site. The laptop is priced $1,169 in the U.S., while international prices and availability have not been revealed yet. Best Buy retail stores will offer the Spectre from May 29 starting at $1,249.