HP Pavilion X2 (2016) 12 inch

I have bought the M3-6Y30 / 4GB RAM / 256 GB SSD version for 440,99 € in France (Summer Sale @ Rue du Commerce) two weeks ago. It was supposed to be a "destockage" unit but it had actually never been opened and HP registered it as new. It came with the stylus, and I also have the Bamboo Smart (which works a tad better than the HP one hover-wise, but is heavier and not so comfortable to hold for me). I am not an artist but do take lots of notes, especially on PDFs, on my devices. It is replacing my SP1 which has been a very faithful companion but will now migrate rooms and will be used by my daughter. I also own a VN8 for my on-the-go work, but the SP1 was my main device.

I needed a replacement for the SP1, but did not want to invest too much as everyone in our household (2 adults, 2 teens) needs a new/replacement device for September and this back to school season turned out to be quite an expensive one.

So far so good, I am really impressed with the Pavilion x2 12. Obviously I love the display, the pen is really not as bad as I expected, far from it actually, I would say on par with my Wacom EMR SP1 Pen. After letting all HP and Microsoft updates (apart from the anniversary one, which is downloading right now) install, I have managed 7 hours of use with about 40% of web and email use, 35% of note taking (One Note and Drawboard) and 25% of video streaming.

I love the versatility of it, the hinge seems very solid, the keyboard is a real one and so much better than the surface pro KB cover. Of course, I hate the fact that, as has already been said often here, no charger other than the original one is available. But I am coming from the SP block one, with all its troubles, so I can live with the HP charger.

For 440,99 €, it really is a great deal.

 

I got this few weeks ago with the intention of replacing my old Slate 500 too slow and troublesome...

Build quality is ok...just ok.

As for the rest I am missing my Slate. The little 7" was the worse machine I have ever owned and took forever to do any simple task.

The Pavilion x2 12 is miles ahead BUT on my very first trip is letting me down big time. I cannot connect to WIFI, I can connect to my mobile hotspot but not to the standard wifi router of the Hotel. Just to be sure I can connect to the wifi using two different mobiles and other guest connect to it using the laptops.

I must say I am lost. Tried disabling, reinstalling, going back to previous Win10 update, installing previous wifi drivers and change different settings ... nothing works . I asked the hotel to reset the router and that failed too.

The only thing I have not tried is a different network (hotel). I Will try in a couple of days if that does not work I will have to return this machine as it ha's no purpose for me.

 

a quick update on my wifi issues... unfortunately despite all my efforts I could not get it working as it should.

When travelling it would connect only to Open Networks and that was it.

On my return to the office, although it was connecting fine to the Office network, it refused to connect to the workgroup and no matter what I did it refused to recognize the workgroup password or to share any data within the network

Moreover it would not access any of the Network pcs and would not see some of the machines ; just a week ago all was perfect and no changes have been made ( I am the administratori i know!), every single machine in the network could access the X2 and viceversa.

I followed the procedure and contacted the HP Support... they suggested to "reset to default and reinstall my OFFICE network which I refused, it has been working flawlessly with other 5-6 different machines, I cannot see why shoud I reinstall the network...

I did try deleting the X2 from the network, I tried deleting and creating new users, going back to the previous WIN10 build, reinstalling the wifi, updating and rolling back the dirvers and none of this had eny effect.

Last thing I tried was a recovery and that did not go anywhere, literally it just restarded the notebook and that was it.

Finally I tried to reset it to factory settings and that also was a fail, as it could not find the partition ( in know it is there!!) ; I tried from Win10, from HP assistant and from bios and it was a no go.

My feeling is that the last WIN10 update messed up something in the system and now it is not working properly, but even going back to a previous build would not fix the issue.

I like the machine a lot, but after spending a whole day trying to fix it I got to a point where I just want to send it back and forget about it and move on.

I Will send it back next week, the vendor is pushing for a replacement, I am more keen to leave HP for some time ( too many disappointments!) and get something else, the only issue is ... what ?

 

This great machine came out at last year's CES.

Is it not getting a 2017 upgrade? That would be sad. It's the best form factor I know for convertibles. Affordable, too.