HP has taken the wraps of its new Spectre x360 laptop-cum-tablet that crams power into an attractive frame while offering all day battery.

The HP Spectre x360 is a 13.3-inch laptop with touch screen and geared hinge that allows it to be used as a tablet. The device is made from a CNC aluminium chassis and weighs in at 1.49kg with a natural silver finish.

Crammed into the 15.9mm thin laptop is a choice of Intel Core i5 or i7 processors with a 512GB SSD and a choice of either Windows 7 or Windows 8 Pro operating systems. The Spectre x360 also features three USB 3.0 ports, full sized HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2.

One of the big sells for this slab of smarts is its battery which is a 56-watt hour beast that HP claims will deliver up to 12.5 hours of use on a charge. Enough to match the similarly sized Apple MacBook Air then. But unlike that the Spectre x360 offers an option with a Quad HD display. You might think that would chew battery but HP has used Panel Self Refresh technology to hold images on the screen and allow portions of the PC to power down when nothing is moving on the display.

The HP Spectre x360 will be available from mid-March from £849. There will also be a commercial version, the HP Spectre x360 Pro, that starts at €1000 which is about £725.

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