ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is on sale for $1,949.
- I highly recommend it to people looking for a laptop with top-performing hardware, a vibrant screen, and a high-quality webcam.
- However, because of its limited port selection, some might find its usability limited without supplementary accessories.
more buying choices
Work laptops don’t have to be boring hunks of gray metal. There are plenty of eye-catching models providing engaging experiences. People looking for these devices often gravitate toward MacBooks, and with good reason.
Also: The best HP laptops you can buy: Expert tested
Apple hardware is flashy and fun to use. If you’re a Windows user and want something similar, I suggest HP’s new EliteBook Ultra G1i. This computer aims to ruin all other laptops by excelling in multiple areas: work, entertainment, and everything in between.
Before I discuss how well it performed, allow me to gush over the EliteBook’s design because HP made several great decisions. The laptop sports an Atmosphere Blue paint job, a lovely shade of dark blue. It boasts a featherweight design, measuring 0.46 inches when closed and weighing 2.63 pounds.
Slim computers like this are susceptible to damage, so HP developed it to be quite sturdy. The company claims it passed 19 military durability tests.
For a display, the EliteBook Ultra houses a 14-inch 2.8K OLED touchscreen. 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, making the display seem larger than it is. Everything works together to make HP’s laptop an effective content-creation machine.
Also: I tested HP’s new EliteBook X G1i, and it’s a featherweight champ in the office
Above the screen is a 9MP camera capable of recording video calls up to 1440p resolution. Image quality stays clear and pristine even in rooms with poor lighting. The lens is supported by Windows Studio Effects, which, through artificial intelligence, ensures that you stay in the middle of the shot, among other things.
Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET
There are a few design aspects that I wasn’t a fan of. First, I wasn’t too keen on the keyboard. The keys felt rather mushy, lacking that satisfying tactile feedback I crave. This is offset by the great trackpad. It’s spacious, and through the myHP app, you can activate multitouch gestures, expanding its usability.
Also: I’ve tested dozens of ultralight laptops this year, but I keep coming back to this one
Additionally, the EliteBook has very few ports, consisting of only three Thunderbolt 4 inputs, a USB-A port, and a headphone jack. Granted, this is to be expected on a laptop this thin. I recommend buying a laptop docking station to supplement the lack of inputs. My final criticism is that the touchscreen is glossy, which can make it hard to see under 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. That’s a solid hardware configuration, so I had to put it to the test.
Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET
For the most part, HP’s device did really well. I opened about 40 browser tabs running GIFs, videos, audio recordings, and Amazon product listings. There wasn’t even a hint of slowdown. The table below compares various benchmark tests to Samsung’s Galaxy Book5 Pro, another MacBook-esque laptop I’ve tested, and is priced similarly. As you can see in the numbers below, the EliteBook Ultra G1i boasts faster processing and browsing speeds.
Geekbench 6
PCMark 10
Cinebench R23
HP EliteBook Ultra G1i
10,993
7,328
7,324
Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro
10,861
7,196
10,094
However, it isn’t infallible. Performance plummeted when I attempted to run several YouTube livestreams in 4K. The bottom vents began expelling warm air to cool the insides. After turning the resolution down to 1080p and a brief cooling period, I saw immediate improvement. HP’s EliteBook Ultra outperformed the Galaxy Book5 Pro in the processing and internet browsing tests but fell behind Samsung’s machine in the photo rendering exam, as noted by the Cinebench results above.
Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET
Because it houses a Lunar Lake chipset, the Elitebook Ultra G1i has an NPU (neural processing unit). It enhances its overall performance and makes the laptop quite adept at supporting LLM (large language models). Geekbench AI results show the device had a top quantized score of 34,274. Cross-referencing Geekbench’s database places the Elitebook’s NPU output at about the same level as an M3 MacBook Pro.
Also: Replacing my work PC with this Dell laptop was one of my best decisions – and it’s on sale
Battery life is another area where the EliteBook Ultra excels. Under Power Efficiency mode, the laptop ran for about 15 hours on a single charge. Numbers stayed impressive under Best Performance, as it lasted just shy of nine hours. What’s more, the device recharges quickly, too. The battery went from zero to 50% charge in about 34 minutes.
ZDNET’s buying advice
HP’s EliteBook Ultra G1li is on sale, with prices starting at $1,649. My review unit costs $2,199. I recommend this model to people looking for an alternative to a MacBook Pro. It offers a similar experience without being forced to learn a new operating system. Other options are available on the company’s online store, including more affordable models sporting an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V chipset alongside 16GB of RAM.
