Both with people and with gadgets, I set store by first impressions. My first glance at the 2018 version of HP’s Pavilion x360 told me that it seems a sedate, solid, no-nonsense laptop. It doesn’t have charisma — which is a pity considering it’s aimed at students and young people. A bit of colour and pizzaz wouldn’t have been out of place.

If it’s also meant for creative professionals, a creative design would have perhaps made for some inspiration. But I suppose it’s a professional-looking machine, a metallic grey with HP’s logo sitting in steely splendour in the centre of the cover.

I suspect I’ve become too used to handling lighter devices — a plethora of tablets and phones — which meant that I found the 1.6 kg of the x360 too heavy. But I bumped into a friend considering an upgrade to just this laptop, along with one or two others, and she found it remarkably light.

I’ll just say I wasn’t happy holding it one-handed, though in both it was fine enough. The difficulty with trying to hold it in one hand may also come from the fact that it is a 14-inch device, a big enough canvas for those creative professionals to play on. It isn’t typical for a device that large to be ultra portable.

Set up for viewing

When you prise open the lid, you’ll of course see that this is not an ordinary laptop but one that converts to a tablet when you push the screen back, back, back all the way. You can stand it up in tent mode to make a presentation, watch a movie, or draw.

There’s a touchscreen of course, because it wouldn’t be a convertible without that and there would be little point in including the pen (stylus) that comes in the box for anyone who feels creative, likes to handwrite, or mark up documents, etc.

The problem with the touchscreen, which I found a little variable in its responsiveness, is that it has a lot of bounce-back when you touch it in its laptop position. The hinge isn’t firm enough to make interacting with the screen easy and I mostly had to hold the screen with one hand while, say, selecting something on the screen or trying to close an application. The screen also tends to tilt back a bit because of the hinge.

While these hinges tend to be strong and can be fixed if they begin to lose their strength, there is often this problem of ricochet that’s a little difficult to work with. Even when in tent mode, the machine splays open a little more than intended and doesn’t feel firm and grounded.

The display has reasonably slim bezels, especially on the sides, but you won’t notice it unless someone points that out as they’re not dramatically reduced and I’ve definitely seen slimmer.

The screen itself is very bright and there’s no problem with viewing angles, a particular relief if you happen to be an artist or a big movie watcher.

But it isn’t the most vibrant. At the bottom edge of the display there’s a broad speaker grille and as the laptop has Bang&Olufsen (B&O) branding, it’s a fair bet that the sound is fairly loud.

The large size of the screen however makes it too unwieldy to be comfortable as a tablet in portrait mode.

Too big for a tablet

You can’t possibly curl up with it to read a book, for example. The tablet mode works much more for being online, working with the pen, and watching movies or photos. That’s something one should keep in mind if buying online without having a good look at the machine.

If it’s a lean-back device you want for reading and browsing and playing simple games on, you need a smaller tablet. If you want a canvas, the x360 is the large tablet that will do the trick.

This year’s x360 comes in several configuration options, based on the eighth Generation Intel Core processors. I saw a Core i5 version.

The price goes up as you look at models that have higher specs, of course. The machine isn’t powerful enough for those who deal with mammoth files and need heavy image rendering at top speed or video editing.

Apart from the B&O speaker, the x360 does have some more bells and whistles. It has a fingerprint sensor for security. Users can also rely on Windows 10’s Hello for access. It has a ‘World Camera’ which is the 5 MP front camera for nice video calls, and lots of ports, including a headphone jack.

Price: Starting ₹50,263

Pros: Soft keyboard, large responsive touchpad, loud speaker, bright screen, versatile form, comes with pen, configuration options and discounts

Cons: Too much bounce on screen touching, a little heavy, staid appearance, unwieldy as a handheld tablet

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