Computers
HP

HP OmniBook X review

The X factor

₹ 1,39,999

It seems HP has finally decided to hoist its flag on the AI hill, waving the shiny new Omnibook X in our faces. And, of course, it’s powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, a processor that comes with an NPU capable of 45 TOPS—yes, 45 trillion operations per second. Which sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Oh and it costs slightly lower than the rest? What’s up with that?

HP Omnibook review: Design and build

HP has managed to cram all this processing oomph into a sleek, stylish shell, which is great. Because if you're going to shell out more than a lakh, you might as well spend it for something that looks good on the coffee shop table. The design is gorgeous enough that you could easily pass it off as something far more expensive, like the offspring of an Apple MacBook and a designer handbag.

It’s remarkably similar to the HP Envy x360 14, though minus the 360-degree yoga-party trick. Instead, you get a traditional laptop, housed in a dusky gray or a less-adventurous white, wrapped in aluminum that feels reassuringly sturdy. And in today's world of bendy, plasticky gadgets, that's a minor victory. There's hardly any flex in the keyboard deck, and the display stays impressively firm—a nice change from the usual flap-in-the-wind screens.

HP Omnibook review: Performance

When it comes to performance, let’s not kid ourselves—the HP Omnibook X isn’t going to leave scorch marks on the racetrack. It’s not built to. This isn’t your top-of-the-line, game-changing machine that’s going to outpace everything else in its class. In fact, even among its Snapdragon-powered peers, the Omnibook X is playing catch-up at least on paper.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 that powers this laptop is decent, don’t get me wrong, but it’s hardly the star of the show. Meanwhile, the Dell XPS 13 (9345) and Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge are lounging in the VIP section with their beefier Snapdragon X Elite chips—the X1E-80-100 and X1E-84-100, respectively. Both of those come with a dual-core frequency boost, which, guess what, you don’t get in the Omnibook X. Of course they cost a pretty penny more but here’s the surprising bit…

While running benchmarks and in real time, we didn’t find the Hp lagging too far behind at all. It is in fact quite neck to neck albeit the other two do surpass it by a small margin in benchmarks. If you’re running regular tasks you aren’t going to notice that big of a difference at all when comparing both side by side. The long term usage needs to be tested out though.

HP Omnibook review: Display and Keyboard

The HP Omnibook X display offers a 2240 x 1400 resolution which is quite sharp for a 14incher. It’s not the brightest one out there, something like the Asus Vivobook S15 OLED trumps it in that department at a lesser price. Colors and contrast are adequate and nothing to write home about and the glossy finish doesn’t help the case much outdoors either.

The keyboard and trackpad are great. It’s well spaced out and feels quite sturdy. The slightly rounded keycaps feel just about right to type but there’s a hint of rigidity and that can get a little tiring if your job entails typing out long reviews. The trackpad on the other hand just seems perfect and effortless. It’s just right, helps you smooth sail throughout the display and seems to be the perfect size for gestures.

HP Omnibook review: AI Features and Battery Life

The Omnbibook is the first laptop that doesn’t give you battery anxiety! During regular work with brightness set at about 80% it manages to stay on for way more than a day! Which is probably the best attribute of this laptop. Even when you push it to the max you get 17-20 hours easily and that is just amazing! When it comes to AI features, the Copilot bits and the HP AI Companion bit feel a little over hyped and not that useful. You can ask the AI Companion to summarize a document and such but the results are just okay and nothing mind blowing.

HP Omnibook review: Verdict

The Omnibook makes a fair case for a Snapdragon device if not the best one. There’s cheaper options available in the market, however where the HP triumphs is its humongous battery life. It has a decent display, okay speakers and a good combo of keyboard and trackpad so it ticks the basics but the real problem is the app compatibility here. Windows on Arm support is growing but not up there yet. So if you have an app that you can’t do without, it’s already a deal breaker.

Stuff Says

A decent case for Elite laptops but a winner when it comes to battery life
Good stuff
Bad stuff
  1. Incredible battery life

  1. Portable

  1. Connectivity

  1. Snappy processor

  1. Windows on Arm compatibility

  1. Display could be brighter

  1. AI features are marketing fluff