HP goes for bling with new super-thin, copper-accented Spectre notebook

Back at this year's CES in January, HP showed off its new sleek and slim Elitebook Folio G1, which echoed the design of Apple's new MacBook. That device is part of HP's business lineup, and now the company is introducing the new HP Spectre for regular consumers to ogle at. However, the Spectre has a few different tricks in its small, dark frame, including CPU power up to Intel Core i7, three USB Type-C ports, and up to 9.5 hours of battery life.

All of the Spectre's features revolve around its design. HP already has the Spectre x360 convertible laptop series, but with this notebook the company focused on making it as thin as possible while retaining power, efficiency, and battery life. The Spectre measures 10.3mm, making it even slimmer than Apple's 13.1mm MacBook. It is heavier than the MacBook at 2.45 pounds, but weight wasn't necessarily at the top of HP's priority list for this device. Not only is the Spectre an attempt at a slim and stylish statement laptop that you can still do serious work on, but it's also another HP device that mimics the MacBook in the best ways while attempting to fix the issues that most users have with it (namely a lack of ports).

There's not a lot of real estate for an array of ports on the Spectre either, but HP managed to put three USB Type-C ports on the back of the copper-coated edge just behind the notebook's hinge. Two of those ports are Thunderbolt as well, and they all support display, charging, power, and data. You can charge the notebook, hook it up to external displays, and share data using any and every one of the ports.

HP's Spectre is made mostly of black CNC aluminum and carbon fiber, but the back of its hinge is accented in copper to give the laptop an almost jewelry-like finish. It only comes in a 13.3-inch model right now, and its display is covered in a .4mm-thick piece of Corning Gorilla Glass to protect it. You'll be able to customize the Spectre's processor, hard drive, and RAM, but you won't have touch or 4K options for the display—it's capped at FHD.

HP's focus when designing the new Spectre was to upgrade its physical design without compromising the guts of the machine, so you can customize it to be as powerful as you want. The notebook supports both Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, up to 512GB PCle storage, and up to 8GB of RAM. HP developed the Spectre's battery in two parts, allowing it to be as thin as the device's design demanded while still working for 9.5 hours on a single charge. The only ports on the device are the three USB Type-C ports previously mentioned, so you will have to carry around a USB Type-A dongle if you have accessories that require it.

The new HP Spectre starts at $1,169 and is available for preorder on April 25 and at retailers in late May. To further emphasize its appeal as a luxury laptop, HP also teamed up with designers Tord Boontje and Jess Hannah to make two super-fancy, limited-edition versions of the Spectre. Boontje's design is coated in midnight blue with floral swirls and Swarovski crystals on top that are accented in 18k gold. Hannah's design spares nothing; the entire laptop is dipped in 18k gold, and the HP logo is made of encrusted diamonds. A limited number of these notebooks will be auctioned off to benefit the Nelson Mandela Foundation.

HP also revealed redesigned Envy notebooks—the Envy x360, 15-inch Envy, and 17-inch Envy—that all sport slightly slimmer designs, all-metal constructions, and a number of processor, storage, and memory options. The Envy notebooks will be available in late May on HP's website starting at $679 (Envy x360), $779 (Envy 15), and $1,029 (Envy 17).