HP recently introduced the 2022 refresh of the Spectre x360, coming in 13.5- and 16-inch variants. As usual, these are some of the best laptops HP makes, featuring top-tier specs, great displays, and a stunning premium design with a dual-tone look. While some parts of the laptops have changed - particularly on the inside - the ports have remained the same from the previous generation. As such, if you're wondering whether the 2022 HP Spectre x360 support Thunderbolt, fret not - both models do.

In fact, both the 13.5-inch and 16-inch versions of the laptop come with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and one of them is conveniently placed at an angle on the rear corner of the laptop. The reason this might be good is so you can keep the power cable away from the sides of the laptop, in case you have an external mouse connected or you just want the space on the side.

What is Thunderbolt, and why would you want it?

If you're reading this, you might be wondering why you would even want Thunderbolt support in the first place. Thunderbolt is a protocol developed by Intel for high-bandwidth connections, specifically using USB Type-C ports (since Thunderbolt 3). While a Thunderbolt port looks the same as a standard USB Type-C port, it supports 40Gbps of bandwidth, meaning you can connect fast external storage and plenty of peripherals using a Thunderbolt dock. If you use a laptop with a desk setup, this can be a huge benefit to convenience. If you want to plug in a mouse, keyboard, and monitors, you can have them hooked up to a dock and connect it all at once using a single port on your laptop. Plus, most docks also charge your laptop this way.

And since we mentioned monitors, yes, that's something else Thunderbolt excels at. With Thunderbolt 4, you can use a dock to connect two 4K displays at 60Hz using a single port. If you want more screen real estate while working at your office desk, a Thunderbolt dock can make it that much easier to make that happen.

Lastly, there's one more feature we can't forget - PCIe signaling. PCIe is a connection protocol that's generally used by the components inside your computer. That's how things like graphics cards, storage, and everything else connect to the motherboard. Obviously, it has to be a very fast connection in order to handle all of that data, and with Thunderbolt 4, a PCIe signal can be sent through a USB cable. What that means is that you can connect external graphics cards to your laptop, so even if you have an ultrabook like the HP Spectre x360 13.5, you can use a Thunderbolt port to hook up a powerful GPU and use it as your gaming rig.

What other ports does the HP Spectre x360 (2022) have?

As convenient as Thunderbolt can be, accessories that leverage this technology can be expensive, so you might still want some more ports built into the laptop. In this case, the HP Spectre x360 13.5 has one USB Type-A port, a headphone jack, and a microSD card reader in addition to the two Thunderbolt 4 ports. If you get the larger 16-inch model, that also gives you an HDMI port built-in, so you can connect an external monitor without needing any adapters.

That's a fairly standard setup for a modern premium laptop. Usually, it's only business or gaming laptops that have loads of ports built-in, so this is par for the course and actually a bit better than alternatives like the Dell XPS 13 Plus.

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If you're interested in buying the HP Spectre x360, you can do so using the links below. Both sizes are available now, though the larger model is more expensive since it has a better screen and more powerful specs. Otherwise, you can always check out the best laptops you can buy right now to see some other options.