HP's new OmniBook is a smart buy in this economy - here's what convinced me

pros and cons

Pros

• Sleek design
• All-day battery
• Solid performance

Cons

• Glossy touchscreen
• Average webcam
• Pricey options

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At archetypal glance, the 2026 HP OmniBook Ultra 14 mightiness punctual you of the MacBook Air, but it's thing but a toned-down mentation of thing much Pro. I precocious tested the OmniBook Ultra 14, and it's a high-end laptop successful its ain close -- built for professionals seeking a refined merchandise that doesn't compromise connected artillery beingness oregon quality.

Also: The champion HP laptops of 2026: Expert tested and reviewed

The OmniBook Ultra stands arsenic 1 of the much compelling premium ultrabooks of the year. It combines a lightweight signifier origin with beardown hardware and immoderate of the longevity I've tested connected a Windows laptop. Admittedly, determination are a fewer things that I didn't truly similar astir this device, but the acquisition was mostly positive.

Cool bluish design

Aesthetically, I'm a large instrumentality of however the OmniBook Ultra looks. HP offers its laptop successful 3 colors, with my reappraisal portion adorning a affluent Stone Blue. What's absorbing is that the colour indicates the benignant of hardware the instrumentality is moving on. Stone Blue models vessel with Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, portion the Eclipse Gray and Silk Sand variants location Intel hardware.

As you tin spot from the images, the PC is rather sleek. At its thickest point, the OmniBook measures conscionable 10.7mm -- that's thinner than the M5 MacBook Air -- past tapers to a paper-thin 7.3mm; each portion weighing somewhat nether 3 pounds. And it ne'er feels flimsy; the recycled aluminum chassis is remarkably sturdy, giving the instrumentality a confidently durable feel.

Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET

The keyboard was great, too. It sports a "latticeless" plan that not lone gives it a much refined quality but besides evenly spaces the keys to guarantee comfy typing. Key presses themselves are simultaneously quiescent and tactile. Maybe not connected the aforesaid level arsenic a mechanical keyboard, but it's acold from mushy. 

Below that is HP's "waterfall" haptic touchpad, seamlessly blending in. It's responsive, smooth, and supports aggregate manus gestures for greater cursor control. As the cherry connected top, the OmniBook Ultra passes the one-finger assistance trial with flying colors.

High-quality touchscreen

Befitting a laptop of this caliber is simply a stunning 3K OLED touchscreen. The sheet covers the full DCI-P3 colour gamut to enactment a wide scope of colors. HP states that the show has a colour accuracy of Delta E < 1, meaning the on-screen colors are precise adjacent to their real-world equivalents. 

Also: I tried HP's $500 MacBook Neo alternative, and it's a amended fund laptop successful 2 ways

Combine each this with OLED's heavy contrast, and you person 1 of the champion touchscreens for a enactment laptop. In fact, it's astir overkill. This is the benignant of sheet you would expect to spot connected a dedicated creator laptop. It's 1 of those things you person to spot for yourself, I'm acrophobic the images successful this reappraisal don't rather bash it justice.

My biggest complaint, however, is however glossy the surface is. Indoors, colors popular beautifully, but outside, it's a antithetic story. Under nonstop sunlight (even connected overcast days), reflections are overwhelming, making the show practically unviewable.

Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET

Above the touchscreen sits a 5MP webcam. It's a decent lens, though thing special. The camera gets the occupation done for video calls. I conscionable privation it were better, fixed the laptop's terms tag. Colors successful the recordings looked desaturated with disposable representation noise. I wasn't expecting a movie-level camera, but I did expect much earthy colour reproduction. To the webcam's credit, representation solution is beauteous good, and it supports utile Windows Hello features. Automatic framing, for example, keeps you centered successful the changeable during calls.

Snappy hardware

My reappraisal portion came equipped with a Snapdragon X2 Elite chipset alongside a whopping 64GB of RAM. Unsurprisingly, the OmniBook Ultra 14 performed incredibly well. Whether I was juggling dozens of browser tabs, editing photos successful Paint.NET, penning articles, oregon moving betwixt aggregate apps, it ne'er erstwhile slowed down. Everything felt exceptionally fast. Benchmark scores bespeak my experience. Before I get into the numbers, beneath is simply a array comparing the OmniBook Ultra to different high-end enactment laptops.

Across the assorted benchmark tests, the laptop posted beardown results, peculiarly successful shorter bursts. As shown above, it beats the M5 MacBook Pro successful the Geekbench 6 processor tests. It's a high-end instrumentality that excels astatine productivity tasks and dense workloads. However, extended accent investigating revealed an absorbing story.

While single-core (SC) show stayed precocious implicit longer trial sessions, multicore (MC) show noticeably dropped. For example, successful Cinebench 2024, the OmniBook Ultra deed 156 SC and 1212 MC. During the longer accent tests successful particular, those numbers fell to 131 SC and 690 MC.

Cesar Cadenas/ZDNET

Now that doesn't mean that the laptop performs poorly nether pressure. To me, it seems that erstwhile vigor begins to accumulate, the OmniBook prioritizes ratio and thermal absorption implicit performance. The question is: volition you acquisition this? Most apt not. I didn't acquisition immoderate issues during my hands-on testing, adjacent arsenic I pushed the hardware. But successful definite utmost scenarios, you might.

Also: I tested Lenovo's caller modular ThinkPad, and it renewed my religion successful repairable laptops

Battery beingness is fantastic. Its longevity comes remarkably adjacent to the HP OmniBook 3, though it falls somewhat behind. During my testing, the laptop lasted conscionable nether 24 hours connected a azygous complaint earlier yet tapping out. While it doesn't scope the 28-hour runtime of the OmniBook 3, that is inactive an outstanding fig and 1 of the champion artillery performances I've seen from a premium Windows laptop this year.

ZDNET's buying advice

Prices for the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 commencement astatine astir $1,200 for the basal Intel Core configuration, which is precise good priced for a caller laptop of this caliber. Additionally, HP offers aggregate processors, retention capacities, representation options, and displays. If you privation a much high-end option, my review unit lands much astir $2,910, but comes with outstanding show and artillery life. 

I highly urge the OmniBook Ultra 14 to immoderate powerfulness idiosyncratic oregon nonrecreational looking for a caller premium enactment laptop, arsenic it tin grip conscionable astir everything you propulsion astatine it. The Snapdragon exemplary is arguably the amended prime for marathon artillery life, portion the Intel variants are housed successful the much budget-friendly options. Both, however, look and consciousness similar premium, pro-ready laptops.