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Utter FLEXIBILITY beyond the hinge!

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Recently purchased the new spectre x360, gold accents, ash look. I had a very old but reliable dell that I had upgraded and made last 6 years but it was showing its age. I could have done one more thing to stop it overheating - replace the thermal paste - but I couldn't be bothered and decided I wanted something lighter. Have gone for the i7 16gb model to future proof but have kept the 1080p screen instead of 4K for battery life. As expected the battery life is brilliant, but then I would say that as I was used to having an hour and a bit with my old dell! I can get 7 or 8 hours streaming youtube videos, and productivity tasks seem to be even easier on the battery. Can easily last all day with careful settings - I keep the brightness down and it does not take away from the screen.

The touch screen is handy and the pen is something I am getting used to. There is no dock for the pen but there is a MAGNET to hold the pen on the laptop near the trackpad when not being used. I like the keyboard - good typing experience. And the features such as backlight on/off, volume, screen brightness are all well integrated. The side volume rocker is well positioned for tablet x360 modes. The power button is small and I need to get used to its position on the side but not a problem really. Trackpad is excellent and multi-gestures are as one would expect for this price.

One issue is that I would have liked a fingerprint scanner as well as windows hello camera but this is forgivable. I prefer to use my password anyway.

The main reason I wanted this laptop was the compatibility of the USB-PD charging. So I had already purchased the RAVPOWER 26800 type-C charger as it could potentially charge laptops. It has the right power output but it is still hit or miss as to whether a really good laptop will charge via USB-C connected to a battery pack. Macs definitely seem to charge and have been for a year or so but initially in 2015 other laptops were not charging without their proprietary chargers let alone via battery packs. I wanted a new laptop that would definitely do this. HP had initially locked out this option on the 2016 models but encouragingly last year they had offered an update to allow 3rd party chargers. So asking around on the inteet I found that many of this years models are also not adopting universal usb-c PD compatibility. Google pixel and macs work fine but of course one has to be very careful about the charger being used as there is potential to fry the hardware. The famous google engineers list does list the RAVPOWER battery as probably OK but was to stay away from the charger that comes with it.

The options for a laptop that could be charged on the go included Samsung series 9 13 and 15 in laptops - but alas the 13 inch is under-powered but has the trick of being able to be charged by any old phone usb micro-b charger (with a usb-c adapter)! The 15 inch does not apparently charge over usb c and I could not confirm whether battery pack usb-c charging was possible. Another option was the lenovo x1 carbon that would probably charge over usb-c and boasts antifry protection but could not confirm that it would work with a battery pack but is not as pretty as the spectre. The Dell XPS 13 looks pretty cool but again could not confirm if it would charge in this manner - some said yes, some said no. So GTRUSTED eventually confirmed that the spectre could charge via the ravpower and I was convinced that I wanted this laptop - especially given the ports were true thunderbolt ports.

In the box comes a usb to etheet connector - but who really needs that these days - and the pen with included aaa battery... nice touch. It's very light and sleek, no problem fitting in my bag and has lightened my carrying load. I carry my RAVPOWER battery pack and this gives me a full extra charge of the laptop when I am out so will easily allow me to be out all day without the need to carry my charger. I can top up my phone and the laptop, never run out of juice regardless of how heavy I use it. Truly all day use. When I come home at night i can plug into the wall USB-C charger that comes with the device or alteatively plug into the anker 5 port usb c charger. This flexibility of charging and on the go charging with battery bank has been sorely missing from the laptop arena and we are so used to doing this for our phones that it seems strange to have to worry about finding a wall socket for our laptops - but we do. Well I don't need to think about that anymore. I have an old galaxy note 4 and it works fine and I have no plans to upgrade at the moment as it has a removable battery. I don't worry about forgetting to charge my phone as there are usb chargers dotted around the house and I have a battery bank that can charge it many times so if I have no battery in the moing it does not really trouble my day. On the other hand, I really resented having to carry my laptop charger around as they are so unwieldy and big and awkward to fit in bags. For me this is a big deal and makes the whole point of a light and portable laptop a reality - whole day battery life without a wall socket.

It's not that slow to charge either - takes about an hour and 30 mins to charge from the wall and maybe about 2 hours to charge from the battery pack, again while being used. Having a charged battery pack is all you need even if the laptop and phone are both dead! Device portability is taken to a new level with this flexibility and especially since the battery pack can be charged with micro-usb (albeit at a much slower rate - so would recommend using the anker usb power port or the usb-c wall charger to charge the battery - its fast!).

I've said enough about all this now, I can see the genuine advantage of having USB-C everything. But remember that you need to research the compatibility for the source, the device and the cable - use the google engineers list. Get the good quality stuff, don't fry your devices!

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