HP is revving its line of consumer-focused OmniBook productivity laptops with a whopping 18 new models and refreshes. These fall across various sizes and form factors in its OmniBook 3, 5, 7, and top-end X lines — including some foldable two-in-ones with stylus support. Chip-wise, there’s a smattering of models using various AMD and Intel CPUs, including some with Strix Point and Lunar Lake. Price-wise, HP isn’t really disclosing that information just yet. When I saw a selection of the new offerings at an in-person early preview, there were no confirmed prices.
Interest-wise, the most compelling new model I saw was the HP OmniBook 7 Aero. It’s a 13.3-inch laptop that weighs just 2.2 pounds — which is half a pound less than the 13-inch MacBook Air and close to the super-light Asus Zenbook A14 shown at CES. But unlike the Snapdragon X-equipped Zenbook, the OmniBook 7 Aero is configurable, with up to an AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (Krackan Point) chip and maxing out at 1TB SSD and 32GB of RAM.
For ports, it has quite the offering considering its size: two USB-C (10Gbps) with Power Delivery and DisplayPort 2.1, one 10Gbps USB-A and one slower 5Gbps USB-A, a 3.5mm audio jack, and an HDMI 2.1. Its 13.3-inch display configurations include IPS panels with 400 nits of brightness and either 1920 x 1200 or 2560 x 1600 resolution. Powering all of this is a 43Wh battery, which sounds a little small compared to the 70Wh battery in the Zenbook A14 and the 52.6Wh cell in the MacBook Air. I suppose all those ports may have some slight tradeoffs.
While the 7 Aero uses a typical chiclet-style keyboard with some sizable keycaps (those are some big, easy-to-read legends), I was surprised to see HP is adopting lattice-less keyboard designs in some of its other OmniBooks. Lattice-less keyboards have much smaller gaps between the keys, with the most extreme example found on the gapless Dell XPS 13. I personally loathe the typing feel on a lattice-less keyboard, but HP’s implementation may be passable since there’s still a tiny bit of spacing between the keys. An HP rep at the event mentioned the keyboards have been positively received by EliteBook users since it allows for slightly larger keycaps, so the company is testing them with more models.
Speaking of EliteBooks, HP is also refreshing 20 of its commercial and enterprise-focused laptops in the EliteBook 6 and 8 series. Some highlights include the EliteBook 8, which allows for on-device local AI if you configure it with 32GB of RAM or more. It can use its local, on-device AI for simpler tasks that require lower latency or increased privacy, and throw it up to larger cloud-based models for bigger undertakings. The EliteBook 8 is HP’s bread-and-butter high-volume corporate seller, so it’s unsurprising to hear an even bigger emphasis on AI.
Like HP’s new Omen 16 Slim, we’ll have to wait and see just how much all these new HP OmniBooks and EliteBooks are going to cost.
Photography by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge
