Recapping on my previous review, the HP ENVY x2 is a very well put together device. The hardware is solid, the keyboard is very usable, as is the high-res display, which neatly unhooks from the keyboard dock and transforms into an oversized tablet.
As a tablet, the HP ENVY x2 has quite respectable specs, with an Intel Atom Z2760 (dual core, 1.80GHz) processor, 2GB RAM and 64GB SSD. As a PC, these specs don't make the grade. As either device pre-loaded with Windows 8 standard edition, forget about it and HP should have known better.
Here's why (from Microsoft's own website):
If you want to run Windows 8 on your PC, here's what it takes:
Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with support for PAE, NX, and SSE2 (more info)
RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) (32-bit) or 2 GB (64-bit)
Hard disk space: 16 GB (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
Graphics card: Microsoft DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM driver
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The HP ENVY x2 has a 32-bit Intel Atom processor with 2GB of RAM, which cannot be increased. Therefore, Windows 8 standard edition runs but it barely jogs.
It really isn't hard to understand what HP is trying to achieve when it released the HP ENVY x2 to the market. It wants to give Windows PC users access to all their familiar applications while also enabling them to have the benefits of the tablet experience.
The problem is that when users pay top dollar they expect performance and for that HP will need to up their specs somehow. At least 4GB of RAM and a faster processor are needed, with the probable sacrifice of some battery life.
On the other hand, I must admit that I'm not a fan of Windows 8 but the HP ENVY x2 hardware concept is quite nice. Why not keep the shell and re-release it as an Android hybrid tablet device?
