The freshman class of Windows Copilot Plus PCs has its battery champ, and it’s even a couple of hundred {dollars} cheaper than Microsoft’s new Surface Laptop. But it’s additionally business-class boring, with a middling display and subpar trackpad.
HP’s new OmniBook X 14 is without doubt one of the first laptops with Qualcomm’s Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite processor. Like a lot of the ones we’ve seen thus far, it’s a skinny and light-weight machine aimed toward productiveness duties and full of AI fluff. It begins at $1,150, with a 14-inch LCD display, 12-core processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD — with an non-obligatory improve to a 1TB drive for $1,200, although it’s usually on sale for much less.
Most of the opposite Windows laptops we’ve seen with these new Arm chips have vibrant, stunning screens and different creature comforts. The OmniBook, alternatively, is a near-clone of the HP EliteGuide Ultra, a machine constructed for high-volume workplace deployment, and it reveals.
At 2.97 kilos and simply over half an inch thick, the OmniBook X is about the identical measurement because the 13-inch MacBook Air, which appears to be the mark most of those Copilot Plus PCs are gunning for. And it does come nearer to the battery lifetime of my work-issued Air than every other laptop computer we’ve examined.
The OmniBook X lasts me as much as 15 hours of my common workload, which incorporates a number of open Chrome tabs, listening to music and background Twitch streams, and taking distant conferences. It hardly ever stutters or slows down, at the same time as my lively Chrome tabs swell to over 20 or 30 throughout a couple of digital desktops. It holds its cost properly in a single day — even going a complete weekend unplugged with its lid closed and shedding solely 10 % battery.
This is the primary time shortly I’ve used a Windows laptop computer that doesn’t give me battery nervousness. It’s a welcome good thing about the Snapdragon X’s effectivity mixed with the OmniBook’s beneficiant 59Wh battery. Other Copilot Plus PCs, just like the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x and Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge, even have bigger batteries, however the OmniBook’s 16:10 60Hz IPS LCD makes use of much less energy than their brighter and quicker OLED shows (extra on that in a bit).
If battery life is extra vital to you than anything, the OmniBook is value contemplating. It’s definitely a extra concrete profit than any of the overhyped AI options that make it a Copilot Plus PC. But the {hardware} it inherits from the EliteGuide Ultra — just like the trackpad, audio system, and display — makes these lengthy hours away from the outlet a slog.
The trackpad is generally okay, however its top-hinged clicking mechanism means you are feeling extra resistance as you click on increased up the pad. It doesn’t really feel practically as good as fashionable haptic ones on MacBooks or the Surface Laptop, which allow you to click on wherever with ease. And two-finger right-clicks all too usually end in an unintentional left click on. The solely factor worse than one thing that doesn’t work is one thing that doesn’t work constantly.
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But that takes me to the audio system, that are constantly dangerous. They’re serviceable for video calls, however their downward-firing orientation, towards the entrance of the case, makes music sound skinny when the laptop computer sits on a desk. Put it in your lap, and it sounds prefer it’s underwater. The upward-firing audio system on many different laptops, together with ones below the MacBook Air’s keyboard, are far superior. Even my iPhone 15 Pro sounds a little bit higher, with the OmniBook’s solely benefit being that its two audio system are unfold about seven inches aside to offer it simply the tiniest little bit of a soundstage. But that positioning additionally means your wrists steadily block the audio system once you sort.
The 14-inch, 2240 x 1400 decision touchscreen LCD appears crisp and pretty colourful, masking the total sRGB shade house and 78 % of DCI-P3 in my testing. The display’s max claimed brightness of 300 nits (337 nits in my testing) is ok indoors however fairly dim for outside use. If you sit subsequent to a vibrant window or go outdoors, it might really feel such as you’re making an attempt to work on a mirror. Its refresh fee is a equally modest 60Hz. By comparability, the brand new Surface Laptop’s LCD display is twice as quick, will get practically twice as vibrant, has extra correct colours, and helps HDR, for the same value.
At the OmniBook’s sides are a complete of 4 ports: two USB-C PD ports on the left (one 40Gbps and one 10Gbps, with every able to DisplayPort 1.4a output to a monitor) and, on the suitable, a single USB-A port (10 Gbps) beside a 3.5mm combo headphone / mic jack. The chiclet-style keyboard feels good to sort on for a lot of hours straight and has a Copilot button I wager you’ll use as little as I do. My solely actual gripe with the keyboard is the tall left and proper arrow keys. I’d favor them to be the identical top because the down arrow, because it makes discovering the keys with out trying a lot simpler.
Windows on Arm assist is already in a significantly better place than a couple of years in the past now that Snapdragon X is right here and the primary swath of Copilot Plus PCs are within the wild. But if an app you completely want is unsupported, the OmniBook (or any Arm PC) is a nonstarter. Programs like Adobe Premiere Pro and Illustrator stay absent or restricted to emulation for now. For me, the dearth of Adobe Lightroom Classic is a dealbreaker. I detest modifying images in Lightroom CC, with its utterly rearranged format and shortcuts. App compatibility ought to maintain getting higher, however you must by no means purchase one thing now primarily based on what it might do sooner or later.
The OmniBook’s AI options are largely boring and inconsequential — particularly since Windows Recall stays delayed. These include the “AI Experiences” that ship with Copilot Plus PCs, plus HP’s AI Companion app. It’s principally bloatware: simply one other ChatGPT wrapper together with some {hardware} efficiency monitoring. (It may also obtain drivers. How revolutionary!) The present beta model limits you to eight follow-up prompts for every inquiry, which I wager is to tamp down the possibilities for hallucinations.
You may also feed AI Companion paperwork, which it should try to summarize. In an early briefing with HP, a rep demonstrated how a hiring supervisor can add three resumes and ask the AI to check the candidates. I can’t stress this sufficient: that is one thing you shouldn’t do.
An excellent display, trackpad, and audio system are desk stakes in a contemporary laptop computer. Compared to opponents like the brand new Surface Laptop and Surface Pro 11 with high-refresh shows and haptic trackpads, the OmniBook X is lackluster — except its excellent battery life.
But the rationale the OmniBook’s a bit humdrum is as a result of it’s an enterprise laptop computer in disguise. Aside from the colour choices, Wi-Fi card, and Bluetooth radio, it’s practically similar to the EliteGuide Ultra, which is the type of “BoringBook” issued en masse by firm IT departments. The company world isn’t involved with treating you to a vibrant, butter-smooth OLED show or bumping bass — it simply desires you to feed the beast and get your work performed with instruments which might be sufficient and never too costly.
If you actually worship on the altar of battery life, then possibly the OmniBook is ok. But there’s no cause to pay a thousand {dollars} of your individual cash for this display, these audio system, or that trackpad. Maybe you need to use the OmniBook X for 15 hours straight, however for across the identical value, you may get one thing just like the Surface Laptop, with a significantly better trackpad, display, and audio system — even when you do should plug it in a little bit sooner.
Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge
