HP OmniBook Ultra 14 review: A Windows powerhouse let down by its screen

HP has revamped its portfolio and the OmniBook Ultra 14 is, according to the company, the most powerful Windows-powered AI PC out there. We can see why, given the high-end AMD hardware packed into a compact chassis, alongside 32 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD. There’s also a 50-TOPS NPU for good measure — meaning we expect a very long battery life.

This machine looks like a step up in every way from the machines that preceded it — including the HP Envy x360 and the HP Spectre x360. But will the lack of an OLED display be a cause for concern?

LCDs do tend to be brighter, but will we miss the crisp colors and inky blacks? We were excited to find out — given that the HP OmniBook Ultra 14, on paper at least, has everything you could need in a laptop for coders that doesn’t break the bank.

HP OmniBook Ultra 14 review

HP OmniBook Ultra 14: Design

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If the HP Spectre x360 and the HP Envy x360 had a child, you would end up with something that looks and feels like the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 — but not necessarily in a good way.

Much like the Spectre x360, the OmniBook Ultra features angular shaved-off corners rather than rounded ones, which gives this machine an edge — enabling it to stand apart from the crowd somewhat. They also serve a purpose, with the right-hand corner featuring a USB-C port. Unlike the Spectre x360, though, the left-hand corner is empty — and neither is accented with a different color to show contrast.

Its coating, meanwhile, is the same bland, grayish Silver Meteor finish we encountered on the Envy x360. Although the multi-toned keyboard offers a degree of playfulness, with the top row keys much lighter alongside a pastel blue power button, you realize there’s no real coherence in these color choices.

The chassis, too, feels well-built and robust but not quite as premium as you’d want — with the same recycled aluminum material used in the Envy x360. This is fine, but doesn’t quite feel as nice as the HP EliteBook Ultra 14 G1q, which is also clad in recycled aluminum.

Where the OmniBook disappoints is its 3.46 pounds (1.57 kg) weight. This renders it as hefty as a MacBook Pro, and much heavier than similar machines. We note that the Spectre and Envy models weigh in at 3.09 lbs (1.44 kg) and 3.06 (1.39 kg) respectively, while the HP EliteBook is a shade lighter at 2.98 lbs (1.57 kg). An alternative Qualcomm-powered machine, the Acer Swift 14 AI, is lighter still at 2.91 lbs (1.32 kg).

The OmniBook’s dimensions are also not as compact as the EliteBook — which is much thinner at 0.44 inches (11.2 millimeters) versus the OmniBook Ultra’s 0.65 in (16.4 mm)

HP OmniBook Ultra 14: Display

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The display fitted into the OmniBook Ultra is a bland and dim IPS HDR panel that is a real step down for HP laptops. Although OLED displays are vastly preferable, there are plenty of great non-OLED options out there, including the Liquid Retina XDR displays in MacBooks. or the stunningly vibrant display that Microsoft has used in its latest Surface Pro and Surface Laptop models. The OmniBook Ultra’s 2,240 x 1,400-pixel resolution panel, by contrast, doesn’t offer the same sharpness, nor the brightness you’d want from a machine that’s so good in every other department.

While it isn’t actively bad, testing proved what we suspected when we first started using it — it just isn’t bright enough. I found myself tapping F4 to raise the brightness every now and then because I assumed it wasn’t at maximum brightness.

When we tested it with a display calibrator, we registered a brightness of 263 nits. That’s about 100 nits dimmer than the last generation of HP machines with OLED screens — or even its cousin, the HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14, a 2-in-1 machine that’s available with an up-to-3K resolution. For reference, we also registered a brightness of 474 nits from the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7. #

The display’s colors were also disappointing — with 94.8% coverage of the sRGB spectrum a poor result by today’s standards. No other machine we tested in the last year dipped below 98%. A black level of 0.39 nits, meanwhile, is on the high side — and a 779:1 contrast ratio points to the fact you really shouldn’t use this display for any image-critical work.

While using it for coding is absolutely fine, and you likely wouldn’t notice these issues unless you were working outdoors, they do represent a black mark on an otherwise fantastic model.

HP OmniBook Ultra14: Keyboard and touchpad

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The pastel-hued keyboard in the OmniBook Ultra 14 was highly responsive and offered plenty of force feedback. There are also a number of useful shortcuts among its function keys, such as tapping F1 to switch external display input, F11 to quick-launch an app or F12 to take a screenshot. But while it was comfortable to type with at first, touch typing for any length of time began to wear me down. The travel distance of each key felt far too short, while the resistance was a little too high, and my fingers began to feel the strain over prolonged use.

HP has never really been able to absolutely nail its touchpads — there always seem to be minor responsiveness issues, but the OmniBook Ultra 14’s touchpad was pretty much perfect. It’s well-sized and there is plenty of room for the left-click and right-click buttons. The surface, however, is on the smoother side — as if it’s been buffed down — so you may encounter some minor trouble if you’re clicking and dragging windows.

HP OmniBook Ultra 14: Performance and battery

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Performance is where the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 really shines, thanks to the high-end AMD hardware powering this device. Its AMD Ryzen AI 9 CPU comes with a mid-range AMD Radeon 880M Graphics chip and an integrated 50-TOPS NPU. It’s one of the best-performing Windows machines you can pick up at this price point — and we confirmed as much in our benchmarking with Geekbench 6.

Thanks to the AMD hardware under the hood, the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 achieved a high single-threaded score of 2,810 and a multi-tasking score of 14,153. While the latter score is about what you would expect from the upper end of Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered laptops, the single-threaded score is considerably faster. For example, the HP EliteBook Ultra 14 G1q hit 2,298 and 14,035 in the same test.

When we put this GPU through its paces in the OpenGL benchmark, we recorded a score of 33,349 — which is just a few thousand points shy of the Apple M4 chip’s 37,508, and a tad less than the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 fitted into the HP Omen 16 (35,981). Most Snapdragon Windows laptops normally score between 18,000 and 21,000, while the Intel Arc Graphics chip fitted into the HP Spectre x360 14 hit 24,993 in our testing. This means you can absolutely rely on the OmniBook to handle any compiling or AI workloads that demand the use of a decent GPU.

The 1 TB SSD also hit read speeds of 7,163 MB/s, and write speeds of 6,502 MB/s. That makes it one of the fastest built-in SSDs we tested, so it’s a fantastic option for massive data transfers including any media files. A battery life of 16 hours and 14 minutes is also a huge tick — while a few hours shy of the 22 hours that HP claims this laptop can last, you can get plenty of usage between charges.

HP OmniBook Ultra 14: Ports and features

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You are limited to two USB-C ports (which support Thunderbolt 4 up to 40 Gbps, alongside power delivery) and a USB-A port with a 3.5 mm headphone jack — there is no HDMI or an SD card slot, let alone an Ethernet port. Depending on what you need the machine for, you may need to purchase an external dock.

The only complaint we have here is that the angular corners do open up additional space for ports — with one hosting a USB-C port — but this is an advantage the manufacturer has declined to capitalize on, especially as both USB-C ports are on the right-hand side. Having the option to connect peripherals on either side would have offered some more flexibility while using it.

As far as wireless connectivity goes, the OmniBook Ultra 14 features the latest standards in Wi-Fi 7 as well as Bluetooth 5.4, which future-proofs the machine as these technologies become more available.

The laptop features a slew of AI software tools thanks to the 50-TOPS NPU integrated into the chipset, including an on-board large language model in the guise of the HP AI Companion app — but most of these are quite limited and aren’t immediately useful. We did, however, enjoy using Poly Camera Pro to boost the quality of the image you broadcast when you’re in a video call. There’s also an extremely subtle switch above the 9 MP webcam that blocks the video feed when you aren’t using it.

HP OmniBook Ultra 14: Should I buy it?

There’s much to love about the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 — including great battery life and incredible performance — which makes it even more annoying that it’s let down by a shoddy display and a disappointing keyboard, not to mention there are plenty more portable machines out there.

These issues can, however, be mitigated if you’re hoping to buy a laptop to use predominantly at home — you can, for example, connect it to an external monitor and even attach a third-party keyboard if the laptop’s one begins to wear you down at all.

Unless you need something to use on the go, it’s well worth considering as a strong laptop for your home office set-up — whether you need a laptop for programming, or even a laptop for photo editing with plenty of graphics performance, provided you negate its screen issues.

If this product isn’t for you

If you need a great laptop to work on while you are on the move and want one at around the same price, you should consider picking up a MacBook Air 13-inch (M3). This MacOS machine is lighter, has a brighter screen and, while the M3 chip may not quite be as capable as the OmniBook’s AMD components, it’s really enjoyable to use.

If you have a little more budget to play with, consider the HP EliteBook Ultra 14 G1q. It’s incredibly well designed and built, is a pleasure to use and has a blockbuster battery life. Just be aware that its screen is even dimmer than this machine’s, so it may not suit everybody.

Otherwise, we would highly recommend considering the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, a Snapdragon-powered machine that looks fantastic and performs really well — not to mention that its dazzlingly bright 474-nit screen puts the HP’s to shame.