This also puts your hands off center while typing, which can make you feel like you're slightly reaching on your right side.Īt first I thought that the extra column of keys (Home, Page Up, etc) was superfluous. This caused my muscle memory for switching from arrow keys to home row keys to be off by one column. One peculiarity is the keyboard has an extra column of keys on the right side, which includes Delete, Home, Page Up, Page Down, and End. The left control key is in the far bottom left so it's usable (unlike Macs that put the function key there). The keys have a lot of travel and I can type fast. The "clickpad" functionality is also problematic: When you press your thumb on the dual-purpose trackpad/button surface in order to click, the system will often think you meant to move the mouse or you're trying to multi-touch resize. Even then, the gestures are only recognized about 50% of the time, which is frustrating. You have to use a tool like libinput-gestures to enable them. By adjusting the xinput settings you can get it to work decently well.īut the gestures I'm used to, like two finger swipe to go back in Chrome, or four-finger swipe to switch workspaces, don't work by default in Ubuntu.
The solution is to switch to the new libinput system.
#2017 arq backup review driver
The default Synaptics driver for Linux doesn't properly ignore palm presses on this machine. However, you immediately realize that something is wrong when you try to type and the mouse starts jumping around. The trackpad hardware rattles a little, but it follows your fingers well and supports multi-touch input in Ubuntu by default. It's fiddly, but I got everything set up relatively quickly. There are even settings to adjust icon sizes in the window titlebar and task manager. You can also boost the default font size to make it proportional. With a combination of the built-in settings app and additional packages like gnome-tweak-tool, you can get UI controls rendering on the 4K display at 2x native size, so they look right. The latest Ubuntu handles High DPI screens well, which surprised me.
The 4K screen on the Spectre x360 is gorgeous.
#2017 arq backup review install
Then I followed Ubuntu's simple install instructions, which required some BIOS changes to enable booting from USB. I loaded the Ubuntu image on a USB drive, which conveniently fit in the machine's USB-A port (missing on new Macs).
I used Windows' built-in Disk Management app to shrink the main partition and free up space for Linux.
#2017 arq backup review windows 10
The machine came with Windows 10 preinstalled. Here are my impressions from using this computer over the past month, followed by some realizations about myself. My goal was to run Ubuntu Linux instead of Windows. I bought the machine from BestBuy (not an affiliate link) because that was the only retailer selling this configuration. I chose the HP Spectre x360 13" laptop that was released after CES 2017, the new version with a 4K display. And, as a surprise even to myself, I decided to leave the Mac platform. I researched a set of alternative computers to consider. You understand that you can unsubscribe at any time by using the unsubscribe link in any newsletter email.Quick refresher: I'm a life-long Mac user, but I was disappointed by Apple's latest MacBook Pro release. By signing up for the newsletter you confirm that you have read and accepted our privacy policy.
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