This HP Elitebook I tested proves why Windows laptops still rule the workplace

ZDNET Highlights

• The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is on sale for $1,949.
• I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a laptop with top-performing hardware, a vibrant screen, and a high-quality webcam.
• However, due to its limited port selection, some may find its usefulness limited without complementary accessories.

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A work laptop doesn’t have to be a boring piece of gray metal. There are plenty of attractive models offering a captivating experience. People looking for these devices often gravitate toward MacBooks, and with good reason. Apple hardware is attractive and fun to use. If you’re a Windows user and want something similar, I recommend HP’s new EliteBook Ultra G1iThis computer aims to ruin all other laptops by excelling in multiple areas: work, entertainment, and everything in between.

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Before I discuss how well it performed, allow me to highlight the design of the EliteBook as HP made a number of great decisions. The laptop has an Atmosphere Blue paint job, which is a beautiful shade of dark blue. It has a featherweight design, measures 0.46 inches when closed and weighs 2.63 pounds. Such thin computers are sensitive to damage, so HP developed it to be robust enough. The company claims that it has passed 19 military durability tests.

As for the display, the EliteBook Ultra features a 14-inch 2.8K OLED touchscreen. The visual output is vibrant, covering the entire DCI-P3 color gamut. On-screen animations are velvety smooth thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate. The screen is made even more impressive by the 16:10 aspect ratio, which makes the display appear larger than ever. Everything works together to make HP’s laptop an effective content-creation machine.

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Above the screen is a 9MP camera capable of recording video calls at up to 1440p resolution. Image quality remains clear and pristine even in poorly lit rooms. The lens is supported by Windows Studio Effects, which, through artificial intelligence, among other things, ensures that you stay in the middle of the shot.

There are some design aspects I wasn’t a fan of. At first, I wasn’t too keen on the keyboard. The keys felt a little soft, lacking the satisfying tactile feedback I wanted. This is compensated by the excellent trackpad. It’s roomy, and through the myHP app, you can activate multitouch gestures, expanding its usefulness.

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Additionally, the EliteBook has very few ports, including only three Thunderbolt 4 inputs, one USB-A port, and a headphone jack. Granted, this is to be expected on such a thin laptop. I recommend purchasing a laptop docking station to compensate for the lack of input.

My final criticism is that the touchscreen is glossy, which can make it difficult to see in sunny conditions. Under the hood, my review unit had an Intel Core Ultra 7 268V processor, an integrated Intel Arc graphics card, and 32GB of RAM. It’s a solid hardware configuration, so I had to test it out.

For the most part, HP’s devices performed really well. I opened about 40 browser tabs playing GIFs, videos, audio recordings, and Amazon product listings. There was no sign of recession. The table below compares various benchmark tests to Samsung’s Galaxy Book5 Pro, another MacBook-esque laptop I’ve tested, and which is also priced similarly. As you can see in the figures below, the EliteBook Ultra G1i boasts of fast processing and browsing speeds.

However, it is not infallible. Performance dropped when I tried to play multiple YouTube livestreams in 4K. The vents at the bottom began to expel hot air to cool the inside. After reducing the resolution to 1080p and a brief cooling period, I noticed immediate improvement. HP’s EliteBook Ultra outperformed the Galaxy Book5 Pro in processing and Internet browsing tests, but fell behind Samsung’s machine in the photo rendering test, as shown by the Cinebench results above.

Because it has a Lunar Lake chipset, the EliteBook Ultra G1i has an NPU (Neural Processing Unit). This increases its overall performance and makes the laptop quite efficient in supporting LLMs (Large Language Models). Geekbench AI results show that the device’s top quantized score was 34,274. cross referenced geekbench database That puts the EliteBook’s NPU output at the same level as the M3 MacBook Pro.

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Battery life is another area where the EliteBook Ultra excels. Under power efficiency mode, the laptop lasts for about 15 hours on a single charge. The numbers remained impressive under Best Performance, considering it only lasted nine hours. What’s more, the device also recharges quickly. The battery went from zero to 50% charge in about 34 minutes.

ZDNET’s shopping advice

HP’s EliteBook Ultra G1li On sale, with prices starting at $1,649. My review unit cost $2,199. I recommend this model to people looking for an alternative to the MacBook Pro. This new operating system offers the same experience without forcing you to learn it. Other options available Company’s online storeWhich includes more affordable models with Intel Core Ultra 5 226V chipset with 16GB of RAM.