With the feature turned off, songs such as French Montana's 'Pop That' sounded hollow and lacked bass. HP's Beats Audio gives the Envy Spectre XT's four speakers-two on the deck, and two on the botom-a much needed boost.

The ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A blew the competition away with a 423 lux rating. With a lux rating of 176, the Spectre XT's screen was brighter than both the Lenovo IdeaPad U310 (148 lux) and the Sony VAIO T13 (163 lux), but fell behind the ultraportable category average of 223 lux and the MacBook Air's 268 lux rating. Viewing angles were also fairly limited, with images washing out when viewed at a roughly 45-degree angle. With this machine, you can't even upgrade to a higher-res panel.īecause it's glossy, the Spctre XT's display also produced a significant amount of glare when used in brightly lit rooms. While a bit more expensive, both the $1,199 MacBook Air (1440 x 900) and the $1,050 ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A, with its jaw-dropping 1920 x 1080 display offer a sharper picture than the Envy Spectre XT. However, we'd prefer a higher resolution. As with other recent Envys, the bottom has a soft-touch coating that felt great as we were carrying around the notebook. The sole design flourish on the Spectre XT's brushed metal lid is a small, raised HP logo in the bottom right corner. The handsome look gives the system an industrial feel, similar to the ASUS Zenbook UX31A and MacBook Air. Click to EnlargeUnlike the Envy 14 Spectre, the Envy Spectre XT's chassis is an all-metal design -no glass-coated lid here.

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