If the Dell XPS 13 has been conservative in its approach to design—carefully preserving those elements which have proven successful in previous iterations and only slowly and deliberately committing to change every few years or so—the HP Spectre has been anything but. Having undergone a redesign on an almost annual basis, the Spectre is the XPS’ restless and fearless counterpart, discontent to remain familiar and more interested instead in constantly pushing the boundaries of what defines an Ultrabook. Both machines undoubtedly represent the pinnacle of modern ultraportable laptop design, but the appeal of each approach—incremental, constant changes versus minor revisions leading up to major overhauls every few years—is a primarily subjective one.

Moreover, those boundaries are proving tougher and tougher to challenge: it’s hard to imagine laptops shrinking much more than they already have without real ergonomic implications, and even such items as battery life and performance have flirted with the territory of diminishing returns (especially when offsetting factors such as heat are taken into account). And yet they continue to push: today, HP brings us a Spectre x360 which is even lighter than last year's model, weighing in at just 1.25 kg and promising the flexible performance of an Intel eighth-generation Core i7-8550U quad-core CPU, all while operating nearly silently in many cases. Our particular review unit also boasts a UHD touchscreen display with active stylus, 16 GB of LPDDR3 RAM as well as a 256 GB LITEON NVMe SSD, all for an MSRP of $1,300 from Computer Upgrade King USA. Could this be the new convertible to beat?