HP announces Spectre x360 15 laptop with 8th generation Intel CPUs and Radeon RX Vega M or Nvidia GeForce MX150 GPUs, starting at $1,370, available on March 18
You'd be hard pressed to see a big difference between HP's last Spectre x360 15, and the new version of the convertible it's debuting at CES.
Context & Ripple Effects
HP has treated the Spectre x360 as an annual-refresh franchise since the original Broadwell convertible launched at $899 in 2015, followed by a Kaby Lake refresh with Thunderbolt 3 in 2016 and a quad-core eighth-generation update to the Spectre 13 just three months before this CES debut. The new 15-inch model is the first entry in that run to add discrete graphics options — Radeon RX Vega M or GeForce MX150 — rather than leaning on integrated Intel silicon alone.
The move matters because it stretches the Spectre brand beyond thin-and-light portability into performance convertibles, while the starting price climbs again: $1,370 versus the $1,050 Kaby Lake model two years earlier.
First-order effects
- Buyers shopping premium convertibles at CES 2018 get a 15-inch Spectre option with real GPU choice for the first time in the line, shipping March 18 at $1,370.
- Both AMD and Nvidia land slots in the same flagship chassis, giving each a showcase in HP's premium tier during the year's biggest launch window.
Second-order effects
- The recurring pattern of pairing each new Intel CPU generation with a fresh Spectre revision forces HP's premium-convertible rivals to match both the chip cadence and now the discrete-GPU option to stay competitive at the $1,300-plus price point.
- AMD's Vega M placement in a marquee Intel-based laptop gives Radeon a credibility datapoint in notebooks where it previously had little presence in this lineup.
Third-order effects
- If the cadence holds, the Spectre x360 settles into a generational treadmill — later borne out by the 10th-gen OLED refresh, the 11th-gen 3:2 display model, and the 2022 jump to 12th-gen Intel, Ryzen 5000, and Intel Arc — where differentiation migrates from CPU bumps toward GPU and display partnerships.
- Premium laptops increasingly compete on which accelerator vendors they can bundle, shifting leverage toward GPU suppliers as the visible spec in a market once defined purely by Intel's processor roadmap.
The trend: HP's Spectre line is evolving from a CPU-refresh-driven ultraportable franchise into an annually renewed premium platform whose identity is set by discrete GPU partnerships.