Laptops have become seriously cheap in recent years. There was a time when trying to buy a laptop for under £300 would have absolutely limited you to underpowered machines with little to no efficiency and bad built quality. Now the landscape has significantly changed as the market is filled with super-budget notebooks that are worth buying for anyone who doesn’t want to break the bank.

HP x2 10.1-inch entered the scene a few years ago and was an instant hit with its 2-in-1 laptop that could easily change between laptop and tablet modes through its detachable screen. The hybrid laptop came with a 10-inch screen, decently powerful Intel Atom processor, and OneDrive cloud storage to make up for its low RAM and storage. It was an excellent deal for a Windows machine that could turn into a tablet.

Today we’re going to review it and see what sets it apart from other 2 in 1 laptops. So, without any further ado, let’s just get into it.

Specifications

Design

Our HP x2 is in bright sunset red colour that looks really clean and fiery. Its body is made of plastic but is quite sturdy. This was a pleasant surprise because we weren’t expecting a solid build after seeing its price tag. The HP x2’s controls, Windows and power buttons, are all placed in the top right corner. You can also find the volume rocker there as well.

Converting the HP x2 from laptop to tablet is easier than it looks. Just take hold of the screen while holding the keyboard down, and pull upwards. A good bit of engineering with some magnets keeps the two halves together. While working in laptop mode, we aware never worried about either part separating out of the blue. But this doesn’t mean we had to use excessive force when trying to take them apart. There’s no wobble or rattle here unlike most budget 2-in-1 laptops. 

The HP x2 is thinner and lighter than most of its rivals, weighing only 2.62 pounds.

Display

The screen on the x2 isn’t the best out of all the HP laptops because its resolution is only limited to 1280 x 800. This means watching TV shows or movies in high-resolution is going to be hard to enjoy on this display. But let’s all remember that this laptop, after all, costs less than £300. At least the display panel selected by HP has good colour and comfortable wide viewing angles.

In the end, you can still enjoy this screen’s display as long as your resolution demands aren’t very high.

Audio

The speakers on the HP x2 were a welcome surprise. This small unit includes Bang & Olufsen tuned speakers located on the sides of the 10.1-inch screen. They are front-facing so their sound won’t get lost and will project towards your face. Our listening experience with them was wonderful, and we heard no odd notes of distortion. The best thing is that HP x2’s speakers can easily project clear sounds across a room.

Performance

The HP x2 comes with an Intel Atom x5-Z8350 processor, 2 GB RAM, and 32 GB eMMC flash storage. You can try to double the storage to 64 GB if you want extra storage. This configuration isn’t going to give you the most powerful performance in the world, but we suppose you weren’t looking to edit videos or play heavy games on this laptop in the first place.

What you can easily do on this device are web surfing and media streaming, but again you can’t watch the videos at their highest setting due to the sub-HD display. Multitasking revealed a bit of stutter which wasn’t that surprising as we encountered that in other laptops at this price range too.

Connectivity

You’ll find different generations of connectivity on the HP x2. There is a traditional USB 2.0 port and reversible Type-C port. The interesting thing about this USB Type-C port is that it also doubles as the power jack.

There’s also a micro HDMI port for external display, as well as a standard headphone/mic combo jack. Lastly, there’s a front-facing HP TrueVision HD webcam for online video calls and chats.

Battery Life

The HP x2’s battery is very long. Our tests got a runtime of 8 hours and 30 minutes out of the device as we continuously browsed the web. That’s certainly not bad for a super-budget laptop and is better than most of its rivals.

Verdict

The HP x2 is a budget device but it certainly doesn’t feel like one. It’s a slim and sturdy 2-in-1 laptop that delivers decent performance for its price range and long battery life. This is the ideal laptop for kids or parents that want a budget-friendly machine to use at home or on the road.