HP Slatebook x2 – Software

The good news is that the x2 runs on an almost stock version of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with very little bloatware. You’ve got your five homescreens to fill up with widgets, apps and folders plus an app launcher bar where you can add and remove apps and folders.

HP doesn’t overload the convertible with native applications including a small amount of software like an All-in-One-Remote for wireless printing a HP File Manager and HP Media Player. All are on the basic side and while useful, you will probably want to jump into the Google Play Store to find other alternatives.

There’s the usual Google app suspects already in place including Chrome, Drive and Google Play applications. You also get Box cloud storage, Evernote Skitch, Tegrazone and the Kingsoft Office suite to edit Word documents and PDFs.

As an Android operating system, there’s nothing out of the norm here and while you will probably bypass most of the native apps, it’s a familiar and easy to get to grips Android experience.

HP Slatebook x2 – Performance

It’s here where the x2 really excels. Packing a Tegra 4 CPU clocked at 1.80GHZ with 2GB of RAM to take care of multitasking, it’s an exceptionally slick overall experience. The x2 boots up nice and quick and flicking through homescreens and launching applications is very smooth.

The benchmark tests back this up, although do suggest it lacks behind the Tegra 4-powered Transformer Pad Tf701T. In the Geekbench 3 tests it manages a 2,517 multi-core score, which is less than the Asus convertible (2,894) and the 2,797 scored by the Snapdragon 800-powered Sony Xperia Z1 smartphone.

In the 3D Mark Ice Storm benchmark it manages an overall score of 10,472, lower than the Transformer Pad Tf701T (15,492) once again.

In real world testing, it handles most things with ease. Real Racing 3 runs without any lag or framerate issues. If you jump into the TegraZone app you can truly put the Tegra 4 chipset to the test with games like Riptide GP2. For web browsing and running multiple apps like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook at the same time it perfectly manages without everything coming to a standstill.

In the sound department, HP opts not to take advantage of its Beats by Dre tie-up but does offer DTS Sound. This essentially aims to add an immersive quality to audio, enhancing bass and producing greater clarity specifically for Music, Movie and Voice. Sound on the whole is lacking, particularly in the bass and richness department and there’s isn’t much to separate it from a set of speakers on your average laptop. Even with the DTS Sound switched on you shouldn’t expect to be blown away when you are watching a movie or listening to music on this.