Best 2 in 1 Convertible Laptops for Programming 

HP Spectre x360 vs Surface Pro 4 Comparison of Best 2 in 1 Convertible Laptops for Programming 

Convertible laptops are one of the most popular devices among programmers as they can access a program from multiple angles with one device. If you are in search of a convertible laptop, you need to consider one of the best surface pro alternatives. Microsoft Surface Pro 7 is one of the best 2- in -one laptops nowadays. Although it is reliable, it is not completely free from flaws. The tablet mode is ideal when it comes to high-level system design. Tent mode proves to be useful when reviewing the code with colleagues, and the laptop mode is inevitable for real programming.

In this article, we are going to compare HP Spectre x360 with the Surface Pro 4 from Microsoft. 

The convertible device is more advantageous for web developers as they need a convertible laptop for coding. 

The two convertible laptops offer the 2-in-1 form-factor in different ways, they are both equally helpful to developers searching for adaptable laptops for programming. 

 

HP Spectre x360 vs Surface Pro 4 Build Quality and Display

To do a comparison, we will try to focus only on the 13.3-inch HP Spectre x360. Additionally, there’s also a 15.6-inch version, which weighs approximately 4.43 pounds. When you realize that the Surface Pro 4 weighs just 1.73 pounds, you can conveniently see that the HP falls under a different category. The 2.86 pounds heavy 13.3-inch version of the HP Spectre x360 is too lightweight to compete with the Surface Pro 4, primarily because it does not have a detachable keyboard. If you want to enjoy a pleasant typing experience with the Surface Pro 4, you need to buy the Surface Pro 4 Type Cover. The cover adds 0.68 pounds of weight, which makes the total weight of the laptop to be 2.41 pounds.

Microsoft contains the Surface Pen rather than a keyboard. An active stylus for natural writing and drawing, with the Surface Pro 4. HP also provides an identical pen. The HP Active Stylus. The Surface Pen functions much better than the HP Active Stylus, being more delicate and accurate. You can draw using it just like you do with a professional graphics tablet. Whereas the pen from HP can only be suggested for web browsing and taking notes.

The Surface Pro 4 has a 12.3-inch PixelSense display with 2736 x 1824 and a 3:2 aspect ratio. The HP Spectre x360 has a 13.3-inch display with 1920 x 1080 pixels and a 16:9 aspect ratio. HP is more suitable for multimedia consumption for being more extensive. While the Surface Pro 4 provides more vertical screen real-estate for documents, text editors, and web pages. The higher resolution also makes the display more crisper, but it does not mean that the HP Spectre x360 looks pixelated—1920 x 1080 pixels is more than sufficient for a 13.3-inch screen.

As you can realize that each of the two laptops provides a varied set of characteristics, making it impossible for one to choose one. Developers are supposed to remember that the Surface Pro 4 won’t be useful to them in the absence of either an external keyboard or the expensive Type Cover. The more productivity-oriented 3:2 aspect ratio, however, is ideal for providing you with your favorite IDE displayed at full-screen.

HP Spectre x360 vs Surface Pro 4 Inputs

The HP Spectre x360 blows the Surface Pro 4 out of the water when we talk about connectivity. The HP has two USB Type-C ports with Thunderbolt 3 support and one standard USB 3 port. Thunderbolt 3 provides data transfer speeds up to 40 Gbps, four lanes of PCI Express Gen 3, and eight lanes of DisplayPort 1.2, makes it possible to connect to any dock, device, or display, having billions of USB devices. Because of the high level of adaptability of Thunderbolt 3, people often refer to it as “the one port to connect them all.”

The Surface Pro 4 only carries a single full-size USB 3.0 port. You can also find an audio jack, a Mini DisplayPort, and a microSD card reader, but a single USB port is very restricting no matter how you perceive it. You plug your USB mouse, and you’re out of available USB ports.

HP Spectre x360 vs Surface Pro 4 Performance and Battery Life

Both laptops can be provided with an Intel Core i7 processor, up to 16 GB of RAM, and both contain an integrated graphics card. You can find the Surface Pro 4 with up to 1 TB of SSD storage space, whereas the HP Spectre x360 only comes with up to 512 GB.

 

Given how identical the specific features of the two laptops are, you can anticipate them to function roughly the same way. The only thing we recommend is to choose a version with an Intel Core i7 processor, specifically, if you frequently work on codebases and niche applications. When you run a virtual machine to check your software in a different environment is when you come to know the advantage of having an i7 instead of an i5. 

 

The battery inside the Surface Pro 4 is rated at 5087 mAh, which is 9 percent lower than the 5547 mAh battery in the Surface Pro 3. Other than that, Microsoft is capable of elevating the battery life of the latest Surface Pro with the help of a software update and various driver optimizations. The HP Spectre x360 has a 4912 mAh battery, but battery life is cancellable. If you restrict your utilization of the battery, you can receive a whole day of use out of the Surface Pro 4, but providing over 6 hours with the Spectre x360 isn’t a convenient thing to do. 

HP Spectre x360 vs Surface Pro 4 Comparison Verdict

For developers who intend to have a 2-in- one for no other purpose but coding, the Surface Pro 4 is a hard sell. You can find it more useful when you want to mix things up and rely on a single device for a variety of purposes, such as multimedia utilization, to take important notes, to plan your projects, and other stuff. Yet, all those tasks can be performed conveniently on the HP Spectre x360, which provides you with much better performance for a very less amount of money. You’ll have sufficient money for a portable laptop charger to recompense for the weak battery.