HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 review: There’s so much to like

I really liked HP’s Spectre x360 14 2-in-1. It was incredibly well-built, drop-dead gorgeous, was built astir a spectacular OLED display, and astatine nan time, landed connected our ranking of nan best laptops you could buy. I was a small tense erstwhile HP announced its rebranding, doing distant pinch nan Spectre statement and introducing nan OmniBook is its caller marque for its full user lineup.

The OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is nan Spectre’s existent replacement, and erstwhile I pulled it retired of nan box, I was a small relieved. It’s built astir Intel’s latest Lunar Lake chipset, and that needed testing, but nan OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 shares galore of nan aforesaid awesome characteristics arsenic its predecessors. It’s not arsenic long-lasting arsenic immoderate different Lunar Lake laptops successful position of artillery life, but it’s still a great 2-in-1 option.

Specs and configuration

HP’s prices alteration from waste to sale, and truthful you person to cheque regularly to spot what nan existent value is erstwhile you’re fresh to make your purchase. The OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is nary different. The guidelines exemplary pinch a Core Ultra 5 226V chipset, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and nan modular 14-inch 2.8K OLED show has a database value $1,450 but is presently connected waste for $1,100 astatine nan clip of writing. My reappraisal portion pinch a Core Ultra 7 258V, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD is connected waste for $1,400, down from a database value of $1,750. And past nan high-end configuration pinch a Core Ultra 9 288V and a 2TB SSD lists for $2,080 but is connected waste correct now astatine $1,730.

If you comparison nan database prices to a competitor for illustration nan Asus Zenbook S 14, different Lunar Lake laptop, nan HP is much expensive. The Asus costs $1,399 for a Core Ultra 7 258V, 32GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14-inch OLED display. The balanced HP database value would beryllium a much costly $1,700, but nan waste value is somewhat little astatine $1,350. And past see nan Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, which is conscionable $1,199 pinch a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chipset, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and a 14.5-inch OLED display. With 32GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD, it’s $1,313. That’s little than nan HP’s waste prices.

The bottommost statement is that nan OmniBook Ultra Flip tends to tally connected nan much costly side, though nan waste prices make it much competitive.

Design

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The Spectre x360 14 was an awesome 2-in-1. It had a gorgeous aesthetic, was solidly built, and featured immoderate useful features for illustration USB-C ports notch of nan backmost corners that allowed plugging successful and support cables neatly retired of nan way. The OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 has a somewhat little ostentatious design, but it maintains what was champion astir nan Spectre. And it’s a beardown competitor against laptops for illustration nan Zenbook S14, nan Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, and nan Yoga Slim 7i that has a larger 15.3-inch display.

To statesman with, nan notches are still location and stay conscionable arsenic functional. The build value is incredibly solid, pinch nary bending, flexing, aliases twisting successful nan lid, keyboard deck, aliases chassis. The hinge is conscionable somewhat excessively patient to unfastened nan lid pinch 1 hand, but that’s because it has to clasp everything successful spot successful clamshell, tent, media, and tablet modes. Simply put, nan OmniBook exudes value conscionable for illustration nan champion premium laptops.

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And while nan OmniBook doesn’t person nan aforesaid colorful accents arsenic nan aged Spectre, its all-black colour measurement is conscionable arsenic attractive. The edges are much rounded, which is not only a bully look but besides helps nan OmniBook being much comfortable to clasp arsenic a tablet. I’ve mentioned a fewer different very bully laptops I’ve reviewed lately, and nan OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is arsenic nicely creation arsenic immoderate of them.

It’s besides conscionable arsenic portable. It’s bladed astatine 0.59 inches and ray astatine 2.97 pounds. Its show bezels are reasonably small, particularly for a 360-degree convertible 2-in-1.

Keyboard and touchpad

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I’ve agelong been a instrumentality of HP’s keyboards, peculiarly those successful nan Specre lineup. The keycaps are ample pinch highly legible lettering, and there’s a ton of cardinal spacing. The switches are ray and snappy, giving a precise feel. I recovered nan OmniBook’s keyboard to beryllium each spot arsenic comfortable arsenic Apple’s Magic Keyboard, my different favorite, for long-form penning — specified arsenic this review. HP gave nan usability keys a grey colour and it helps them guidelines out, but that does detract a small from nan different cohesive aesthetic. The powerfulness fastener is simply a light-blue colour pinch a agleam LED, and it helps place it but, again, it benignant of stands retired a small excessively much.

Equally fantabulous is nan ample touchpad that takes up astir of nan disposable abstraction connected nan thenar rest. Not only is it ample enough, it’s besides a haptic feedback touchpad that’s responsive and supports clicking crossed nan full surface. It doesn’t person nan aforesaid benignant of Force Click functionality of Apple’s Force Touch haptic touchpad, but it’s still very bully and invited here.

The show is pen- and touch-enabled, of course, and everything useful arsenic it should. If you want a laptop that tin person to a tablet for penning and drafting connected nan display, past nan OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is simply a awesome illustration of nan form.

Connectivity and webcam

Connectivity is beautiful ray for a 14-inch laptop. There are conscionable 3 USB-C ports — 2 of them pinch Thunderbolt 4, and 1 of them provides power. It’s bully that 2 are tucked distant successful nan notches, but I would person liked to spot astatine slightest connected bequest larboard and an SD paper reader. At slightest there’s a 3.5mm audio jack, which Dell dropped connected nan XPS 13. Wireless connectivity is up-to-date.

The webcam is simply a high-res 9MP exemplary pinch an infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello facial recognition. There’s besides a fingerprint scholar successful nan powerfulness button. This is arsenic bully a clip arsenic immoderate to mention that nan OmniBook has a accelerated capable neural processing portion (NPU) to powerfulness Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC AI initiative. Today, it supports nan enhanced Microsoft Studio Effects software, which includes AI-assisted inheritance blur and replace, filters, and car framing. HP’s ain AI Companion package is besides connected its way, which will support a assortment of on-device features nether nan rubrics Discover, Analyze, and Perform that use AI to getting intelligence assistance utilizing nan laptop, analyzing files, and optimizing performance.

Display and audio

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The OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 has 1 show option: a 2.8K (2880 x 1800) OLED sheet moving astatine up to 120Hz. Out of nan box, it’s awesome, pinch OLED’s accustomed inky blacks and move colors.

My colorimeter agreed. It’s agleam astatine 385 nits, though respective OLED displays I’ve reviewed precocious are brighter. The Surface Pro 11‘s sheet is an illustration astatine 533 nits. The OmniBook’s colors are wide astatine 100% of sRGB, 95% of AdobeRGB, and 100% of DCI-P3, pinch a colour accuracy of Delta-E 0.67, which is excellent. The Surface Pro 11’s show is little colorful astatine 100%, 85%, and 97%, respectively, and its accuracy was astir nan aforesaid astatine 0.74.

Really, there’s thing to kick astir pinch this display. You’ll emotion it. Dual downward-firing speakers pump retired large audio pinch immoderate distortion astatine afloat volume, and pinch crisp mids and highs but small bass. It’s beautiful typical.

Performance

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The OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is nan latest laptop I’ve reviewed moving Intel’s Lunar Lake chipset. Specifically, it’s nan Core Ultra 7 258V, a Series 2 chipset moving astatine 17 watts. As such, it competes astir straight against Intel’s erstwhile 15-watt Core Ultra U-series, but successful believe it’s nan astir contiguous replacement for nan 28-watt Core Ultra H-series processors.

Overall, Lunar Lake has shown itself to beryllium faster than nan U-series, which was besides aimed astatine efficiency, and successful immoderate cases to beryllium faster successful single-core tasks than nan H-series while astir nan aforesaid velocity successful multi-core. We spot that pinch nan OmniBook compared to nan Spectre x360 14 moving that Core Ultra 7 155H. Notably, nan OmniBook is slower than laptops moving Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X chipsets, different efficiency-focused lineup. And past nan Apple M3 has overmuch faster single-core capacity than each these laptops to spell pinch very bully multi-core performance.

The bottommost statement is that nan OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is plentifulness accelerated for demanding productivity users. Its Intel Arc 140V graphics are faster than its predecessor, but not arsenic accelerated arsenic entry-level discrete GPUs. So, that intends it won’t connection immoderate advantages for creators aliases gamers.

Battery life

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As I’ve stressed successful each of my Lunar Lake laptop reviews, ratio is nan superior extremity of this information of Intel’s chipsets. As we spot above, capacity doesn’t guidelines out, truthful artillery life becomes much important. In part, that’s because of nan fantabulous ratio of Apple Silicon, pinch nan M3 chipset being some accelerated and efficient.

Here, we spot that nan OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is simply a batch much businesslike than nan Spectre x360 14, particularly successful web browsing. It’s not rather arsenic businesslike arsenic Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i and nan Zenbook S 14, and nan Qualcomm laptops are stronger arsenic well.

The OmniBook is held backmost a spot by its 64-watt-hour battery, which isn’t huge, and it besides sports a high-res, 120Hz OLED display. That besides doesn’t help. And while it’s not arsenic bully arsenic immoderate others, it’s still a batch much businesslike than astir Intel Meteor Lake laptops. That intends that while it can’t support up pinch Apple’s M3, it will still apt get done a day’s activity pinch mean productivity workflows.

A worthy successor to 1 of our favourite 2-in-1s

The Spectre x360 14 was a awesome laptop, possibly nan champion illustration of nan 360-degree convertible 2-in-1. With HP’s rebranding, I was wondering really overmuch other would alteration pinch nan OmniBook Ultra Flip 14. Fortunately, I didn’t person to interest excessively much.

There’s really not a batch to dislike astir nan OmniBook. It gets very bully artillery life, has a gorgeous OLED display, and it look and feels great. Its capacity isn’t nan best, but it’s accelerated enough, and its keyboard and touchpad are excellent. It’s astir attractive, though, astatine its waste prices.