HP Elite X2 1012 Review – Superb! 9 out of 10
We are delighted to bring you the first in a series of blogs around the HP Elite X2 1012 – the newest Hybrid from HP to have hit the market. Our contributor for these blogs is Anthony Layng, a practicing solicitor with Kilroys Solicitors based in Dublin City Centre.
Anthony, an avid technology user has been putting the tablet through its paces for the past few weeks and he shares his thoughts and views with us on how it has performed. The first of these blogs posts focuses on the sheer usability and functionality of the tablet.
“The HP Elite is simply a gem of a tablet. It is spot on in terms of build, specification and functionality. It’s designed and built for actual users.”
I’m truly amazed by the first tablet/laptop hybrid which feels no compromise. It’s attracted a lot of favourable attention. The Elite works even better for me for my use, in real professional life, than the nearest comparable tablet device.
Clients and colleagues ask me what is it and are so impressed by the look of it and the features. It gets a lot of positive and surprisingly enthusiastic attention.
- Now that I’m used to the keyboard, it is as good as if not better than the majority of laptop keyboards, never mind the Type Keyboard 4 for the Surface, which had been a huge improvement over the Type 3 Keyboard. (The trackpad on the Elite keyboard is especially smooth and usable)
- I’ve used the Elite for hours, continuously and with very little interruption. It never gets hot or even warm. An Apple iPad, even the Pro, runs much hotter. Its nearest competitor, the surface can get really hot: never so with the Elite.
- The Kickstand is easy, usable and strong. It will take a lot of abuse.
- The Elite is amazingly durable. I never feel that it is a delicate laptop which I have to be ultra-careful with. I feel that I can throw it into a case or bag and not worry if someone accidentally knocks it over. It gives the impression that it’s almost indestructible. It means that you can feel confidence and not fuss about the device.
- The security measures are amazing. Network Administrators will be very happy. The Elite is designed for a highly secure professional and corporate environment, vPro etc.
The M5 processor runs really cool and is a perfect balance of decent power level and low energy consumption (Skylake processor as used in the Elite is more energy efficient in real world use than Broadwell and the previous chips) (I’m very impressed that the chip has 4mb of level 3 smart cache and supports DDR4 fast speed RAM.)
- I attended a commercial Mediation yesterday 07.45 AM to just after 7.00 PM. Despite intensive use for substantial parts of the day, I had just over 30% battery level left! (I was using only OneNote and no Browser but that’s seriously impressive.)
- Browser wise, Edge is less power consuming than Chrome
- The Wacom AES active pen and digital ink performs better, more smoothly and more fluidly for handwritten notes than the Surface N-Trig set up.
- The USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt interface is future proofing at its best (perfect for high speed storage media and external GPUs)
- The travel keyboard for the Elite really blows its nearest competitors keyboard out of the water. (1.5 mm travel instead of 1.33 mm gives a more laptop like experience.)
My role as a lawyer primarily involves a lot of text and some numbers. I don’t do heavy graphic works or video editing. An i7 or even i5 in a Surface Pro will out-perform the M5 for highly intensive processor tasks (e.g. video editing) but at the cost of much lower battery life, a very busy and noisy fan and a very hot plate effect at the base of the tablet.
There is one test which I have not performed yet. It may be an unfair test. I use Dragon Naturally Speaking Premium 13 (voice to text) which is really processor intensive and generally will not work on a very low voltage chip. It would require both cores (dual core) to work at maximum turbo rate up at 2.2 to 2.4. It would be interesting to see if the Elite could manage that. (Dragon usually works better on a high powered desktop Workstation on an high spec and very fast i7 or an Xeon with level 3 smart cache of 6mb upwards). If the Elite could handle Dragon even for light use, say 3 to 6 pages of dictation at most, that would mark it out as a dream general purpose tablet/laptop hybrid.
One complaint but this complaint applies to every Windows PC. The update installations for Windows 10 can be a little slow, download is fast enough, but the process of installation is slow when you just want to use the device promptly. So do the updates before you need to use it or else disable the updates (if you can) if about to start a meeting. This applies to every PC, laptop, and Windows based tablet. Microsoft wants to force all users to use Windows 10 and to have all updates kept up to date for security reasons.
I can give the HP Elite X2 1012 an unqualified and unreserved recommendation. It deserves to be in every solicitor’s and accountant’s office and in every corporate environment. I can’t say enough positive things about it.
Usable and useful at the highest level.
The Future of Technology in Irish Law Firms – A Morning Briefing – Thursday 7th Apr.
Join us on the morning of Thursday 7th Apr. for a technology briefing focused exclusively on the legal sector in Ireland. See the Elite X2 1012 in action and hear our guest speaker (and blog writer), Anthony Layng of Kilroys talk about the Elite X2 1012 in more detail.
Tony will also talk about Microsoft One Note (2103 and 2016) for “Knowledge Workers”: What is it, what does it do, and why is it such a valuable asset to the legal profession. Find out why every law firm should be using the technology.
Hear also from Microsoft and HP on the day.
For more details on the agenda or to register for this event, click here.
About the Author
Anthony Layng is a practicing solicitor with Kilroy’s solicitors based in Dublin City Centre. He holds a Law Degree from Trinity College Dublin, a Diploma in Employment Law and a Certificate in Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law.