HP has announced the Spectre x360 at Mobile World Congress, offering a 13.3-inch laptop that effortlessly turns into a tablet thanks to the geared hinge. 

It's a beautiful looking device that oozes premium appeal and we were impressed by how professional and elegant it was. Finished in CNC aluminium, the HP Spectre x360 is well-built, fantastically finished and overall, a stunning machine.

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The edges are polished silver, while the main body is a brushed silver and the difference in finishes is pleasing to the eye. The Spectre x360 has some lovely curves in its design, not only on the around the corners but also the geared hinged, which is lovely.

It works effortlessly, leaving a very small gap between the two sections and it transforms from laptop to tablet without a glitch.

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Solid in its design, the Spectre x360 is nice and slim, measuring 15.9mm in either format but it is still sturdy and it doesn't flex in anyway. It's not quite as thin as the likes of the Apple MacBook Air, nor as light at 1.49kg, but it is certainly a portable device nonetheless.

A Quad HD display is on board and it is bright with good, strong colours. The detail was good and the viewing angles also seemed to be decent but we will test it out fully when we come to review it properly.

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The speakers are positioned on the underside of the keyboard, which is slightly curved. This is the one part of the otherwise beautiful design that we weren't quite sold on.

The slight curve means that when the Spectre is in tablet mode, there is a gap between the display and the keyboard element of the device rather than it sit flush.

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We were told the design is to benefit the speakers, which would be covered by the display if it sat flush so it's an understandable feature but flush would have seemed more natural we feel.

The curve looks good when the Spectre x360 is closed in laptop mode though, as well as when it is used as a stand for the tablet and it's sturdy in stand mode so it shouldn't knock over easily.

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Three USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port and an SD card slot are all arranged on the sides of the keyboard, along with a grill. 

Additionally, the Spectre x360 comes with a full QWERTY keyboard and there is a trackpad that sits below it, which was very responsive. There was no sign of lag between us moving our finger and the arrow moving on the screen and the keyboard was also lovely to use with 1.5mm travel and smooth keys. Palm detection is present too so the trackpad knows when it's your palm leaning on it rather than your finger.

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In terms of other hardware, the Spectre x360 comes with a choice of Intel core i5 or i7 processors, a 512GB SSD and Windows 7 or Windows 8 operating systems. HP claims it will offer 12.5 hours of battery life thanks the the 56-watt hour capacity, or 10 hours of video playback but we will have to wait until we get it in for full review to see how that plays out.

The HP Spectre x360 will be available from mid-March from £849 and our first impressions are it's a device worth taking a closer look at.