HP is billing the OmniBook Ultra as the most powerful AI PC on the market, thanks to an exclusive AMD Ryzen processor that has a 55 TOPS NPU. But to me, it's not just that, as HP's own AI offerings are what make this product special.

But aside from that, the laptop itself is just OK. It weighs in at almost three and a half pounds, and it has strangely large bezels for a 2024 laptop. The screen only comes in one configuration, and it's not OLED.

This product feels more like a special edition, meant for people that want a powerful ultrabook with AI smarts. I really think that for the masses, you'll want the OmniBook Ultra Flip, which is more of a Spectre x360 successor (I'm currently testing it, it's wonderful, and the review is coming soon), so it's something I expect to top our best laptops list.

The bottom line is that the OmniBook Ultra is a great product for those that want the headlining features. If you want AI, and you should (I know you disagree, and I'll talk more about it in the 'AI applications' section), this is the product to get.

HP OmniBook Ultra pricing and availability

The HP OmniBook Ultra is available now, and it starts at $1,349.99; however, it's actually currently on sale for $1,049. The base model comes with a Ryzen AI 9 365 and 16GB RAM.

As configured, it'll run you $1,679.99 before the $300 discount. That gets you a Ryzen AI 9 HX 375, 32GB RAM, and a 2TB SSD, so it's pretty impressive for the price.

Design

It's a brand-new design, that feels a bit dated

The HP OmniBook Ultra is made of all-metal, like any Spectre. Yes, this is a Spectre, as the company's flagship brand has been rebranded (like all of its brands). But it's not a Spectre x360 successor, because this isn't a convertible. That honor goes to the OmniBook Ultra Flip, which is a totally different product.

It comes in Meteor Silver, which is that gunmetal gray that so many laptops come in. It's probably the dullest color you can find on a metal laptop, and to be fair, companies know this. Laptops with subtle colors sell, so if you're looking for something flashy, this isn't it. But unfortunately, most people aren't looking for something flashy.

However, I do think that a lot of people are looking for laptops that weigh under three and a half pounds. This is a trend I'm seeing that I don't care for. Apple seems to have normalized a heavier 14-inch laptop with its MacBook Pro, if you can back it up with enough performance, and other companies are following suit, as we've seen with the Dell XPS 14 and now the HP OmniBook Ultra.

The problem is that this isn't a MacBook Pro. It certainly has impressive CPU power, but you're not going to use it to edit 4K video or anything that requires that level of graphics power. This is the type of machine that should fall more into ultrabook territory.

It's also got a fairly large footprint, with a screen that has much larger bezels than I'm used to on a premium laptop. When I first got it, I had to double-check the spec sheet to make sure the screen is 14 inches, because it just feels bigger.

For comparison, the HP OmniBook Ultra Flip weighs about a half pound less, and it has a smaller footprint. It also has an OLED display. Of course, what it doesn't have is a 55 TOPS NPU. You can see where I'm heading at this point. This is the machine you get if you want the most powerful NPU on the market.

That said, the design is very Spectre. It's got two Thunderbolt (that's right, Thunderbolt on a non-Intel laptop; you can probably thank Apple for normalizing that too) ports on the right side, and a 3.5mm audio jack and a USB Type-A port with a drop-jaw hinge on the left. The rear corners are angled, something HP started doing about a half a decade ago that not only gives the design a little spice, but lets you keep your charging cable out of the way.

Thunderbolt...on an AMD laptop.

I really have to say, it's nice to have Thunderbolt on an AMD laptop. If you use a dock with dual 4K monitors like I do, it used to be a huge disadvantage when compared to Intel PCs. Now, it's actually Intel that has the disadvantage thanks to support for fewer screens with Lunar Lake.

And of course, HP's build quality is always solid. It's premium laptops are always made out of premium materials with unique designs.

Display and keyboard

There's only one display configuration

The thing that's disappointing to me about the HP OmniBook Ultra is that your only display option is a low-power 2.2K panel. It's fine, but it's not going to win any awards. Typically, HP's premium laptops have several options for the screen, including OLED variants. With this product, the configurations are slimmed down quite a bit, unlike with the Intel-powered OmniBook Ultra Flip.

From my testing, it supports 1--% sRGB, 73% NTSC, 79% Adobe RGB, and 80% P3, so it's not a particularly wide color gamut. It's pretty accurate out of the box though, for what it's worth.

Brightness maxed out at 392.4 nits, with a contrast ratio of 1340:1. Again, all of this is...fine. There's nothing special about this display, and frankly, I'd just want more out of a flagship laptop.

The 9MP webcam is excellent, which is no surprise. HP's webcams are best-in-class. Seriously, if you want the best webcam on a laptop, you buy HP. And while it's so far ahead, the company continues to make improvements.

The OmniBook Ultra comes with HP's Poly Camera Pro app, which lets you tune your image however you want. Since I typically use the laptop with a dock and two monitors, I'm often using a separate webcam that's above them, so I use Poly Camera Pro to zoom in on me a bit. But you can also control things like brightness and saturation, background blur using the NPU, and you can even add an overlay.

HP's laptops always have the best webcams, and Poly Camera Pro makes them even better.

Poly Camera Pro actually counts as a separate webcam, so if you're in a meeting and your camera is set to the laptop's, you won't see your adjustments. You have to set it to 'Poly Cam Pro'.

The keyboard is solid, but it's also not HP's best keyboard. The one on the OmniBook Ultra Flip is sturdier and more comfortable. I said the same thing about the EliteBook Ultra, and how the company chose not to use the superior keyboard that's on the EliteBook 1040 G11.

I do love the design of HP's keyboards lately, something I need to shout out. The keys are darker than the chassis, while the number keys are lighter and the power button is light blue. It's lovely.

AI applications

They're worth your attention, and I don't say that lightly

I have reviewed hundreds of laptops, including every Spectre x360 that's been released since 2016. I'm confident when I say that I know the market, but the folks at HP look at me like I have three heads when I say people aren't buying PCs for AI. The fact is, it's really hard to tell people that they need something that's totally different from what they currently use, when the thing they currently use works just fine.

If I told you that you could draw something in Paint and it would use AI to make a great drawing based on yours, would that improve your life? Of course not. It's more or less a party trick. Almost everything in Windows Studio Effects is already baked into every meeting platform that exists. Recall...isn't even out yet. So when Microsoft tells you that you need Copilot+, it's understandable if you're not interested. And for the record, Copilot+ isn't out for x86 laptops yet anyway.

But HP has its own suite of AI features, and they're the first that I've found to be truly useful. HP has an AI Companion app that has a range of features. My personal favorite is called Analyze, which lets you drop a bunch of documents in it and ask questions related to it. No longer do I have to dig through files and pull up spec sheets. I can just drop a press kit in AI Companion and ask.

For on-device AI, HP is really the only choice.

There's also a Perform tab, which can control system performance, and you can also use it to use natural language to change settings. And then, there's the Discover tab, which lets you find different ways of using AI to boost your productivity.

And then there's Poly Camera Pro, which leverages the NPU to apply an array of effects to your webcam. And yes, I know I just bashed Windows Studio Effects for not providing real value. Poly does provide value though, letting you control a whole lot more than things like background blur. You can use it to change things like brightness and saturation, zoom, watermarks, and more. It's a full-featured webcam customization app, and it's pretty great.

Finally, the OmniBook Ultra lets you get a 30-day free trial for Otter.ai's pro tier. I've been using it to transcribe and summarize meetings, and I'll probably pay for it after the period is over. This one is totally cloud-based, so the service isn't unique to this product.

Performance and battery life

AMD Ryzen AI 300 is great for CPU performance

I've had a lot of lengthy discussion with HP about the choices we now have in chips for laptops, and how it's now putting greater variety in its upper tiers. Both the OmniBook Ultra and EliteBook X have Intel and AMD variants (the Intel EliteBook X is the 1040 G11, for now), and the OmniBook X and EliteBook Ultra have Snapdragon. On top of that, the non-Intel ones have fewer options, sort of leaving Intel as the better pick for most people.

And it is. I haven't written my review of the OmniBook Ultra Flip yet, but I would recommend it over the OmniBook Ultra for most people. It has a better display, a better keyboard, and has the same AI capabilities. However, the OmniBook Ultra has a much more powerful CPU, and the most powerful NPU on the market. As I've talked about already, I do believe in the AI features that HP is adding, so don't sleep on NPU power. But is that extra CPU and NPU power enough to sway you from the pros of the OmniBook Ultra Flip? It depends on your workload.

To be clear, any one of these products is "good". They all get the job done. The one that's better for you depends on the job. If you're looking for heavy productivity work, or even handling workstation-level tasks, this is for you. It's for people that want power.

Note that Time Spy and CrossMark are x86-only, so they run in emulation on the Snapdragon X Elite. Also, HP used the entry-level Snapdragon X Elite on the OmniBook X; the X1E-80-100 gets much better single-core scores, and that can be found in products like the Surface Laptop 7, Surface Pro 11, and Dell XPS 13.

I purposely compared three similar products, because this really does come down to the CPU that's used. You have more choices than ever now, and each one is better at something else. AMD Ryzen AI 300 is currently winning in CPU power; Intel is taking a back seat there, but it also hasn't shipped its Core Ultra 9 288V yet. Intel is winning in graphics performance, so if you're looking for those creator-style work flows without having to have dedicated graphics, Lunar Lake might be the better choice.

Battery life in most cases was between six and seven hours, occasionally reaching around eight hours, which is fine and expected. Intel Lunar Lake and Qualcomm Snapdragon are pretty far ahead for battery life.

Should you buy the HP OmniBook Ultra?

You should buy the HP OmniBook Ultra if:

• You see value in on-device AI tasks
• Your workload consists of CPU-heavy tasks

You should NOT buy the HP OmniBook Ultra if:

• You prioritize portability over performance
• Your workload is more GPU-intensive
• You want an OLED display

I think that for most people, I'd steer you toward the Intel-powered HP OmniBook Ultra Flip, which has all of the things in that second section (review coming soon). Two things stand out on the clamshell OmniBook Ultra: CPU power and the most powerful NPU on a laptop, and the NPU is exclusive to HP. Intel Lunar Lake still wins in graphics power though.

HP is really taking AI seriously, and like I said in the beginning, it's the first company to get me to take AI seriously. This stuff is good. Is it good enough to want the NPU from AMD Ryzen AI 300 instead of Intel Lunar Lake? I'm not sure.