HP is introducing new laptops under the EliteBook family. The devices are evolutions of existing designs, with Intel’s latest chips on board.
HP announces new laptops tailored for business users at CES in Las Vegas. This is a collection of devices within the EliteBook family: the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i, EliteBook X G1i and EliteBook X Flip G1i. The attentive reader with some knowledge of the HP range, will immediately notice here that HP is pulling at the market with a new naming scheme for this generation of laptops.
HP EliteBook Ultra G1i
At the very top of HP’s business laptop range sits the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i. Ultra replace Dragonfly here because this laptop is the spiritual successor to the ultra-light Dragonfly G4. The device plays in the same league as, say, the Dell XPS 13 or the Lenovo Carbon X1.
Intel supplies the CPUs, and this EliteBook Ultra G1i is configurable with chips from the Core Ultra 5 and Core Ultra 7 ranges. You can configure 16 GB to 32 GB of RAM, and an SSD with capacities ranging from 256 GB to 2 TB.
HP is particularly proud of the 14-inch OLED screen, which is available in both regular and touch-sensitive versions. HP provides 2,880 x 1,800 pixels, one hundred percent coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut, and a maximum brightness of 400 nits. For an OLED panel, that’s pretty bright: good news for those who want to work outside in the summer.
Furthermore, you can expect usual specifications from this laptop. USB Type-C (Thunderbolt) draws present, but HP also finds room for USB Type-A. The laptop supports Wi-Fi 7. HP puts its puniest laptop camera in this device: the webcam has a 9 MP sensor.
HP EliteBook X
Within the EliteBook range, the X succeeds the 1040. Thus, the HP EliteBook X is the successor to the HP EliteBook 1040 G10. In turn, the HP EliteBook X Flip succeeds the x360 variant. Both devices are similar along the inside. Of course, the design does differ: the Flip has a flip-down screen.
HP is also resorting to Intel for these devices. Once again, you can choose from the manufacturer’s latest Core Ultra 5 and Ultra 7 processors. Furthermore, the 14-inch laptops are configurable with different FHD panels (1,920 x 1,200), which may or may not come with the Sure View privacy filter that doesn’t allow peepers to read anything on the screen. You can also configure the laptops with a 2,560 x 1,600 pixel screen.
Like the EliteBook Ultra, the HP EliteBook X devices feature USB Type-C (Thunderbolt) and USB Type-A. The laptops also have HDMI on board. The webcam has a resolution of 5 MP.
AI and NPU
HP further points out that these laptops have an onboard NPU. All of Intel’s new laptop chips have an NPU chip, so that’s no surprise. The NPU should support AI workloads, although they are not that numerous yet. Moreover, the most popular AI workloads today, such as ChatGPT, run in the cloud and not locally.
The laptops do have some AI-driven features on board that are useful. Especially during video calls, the NPU ensures that tasks such as background fading are done more efficiently.
HP is now announcing the laptops in the U.S., but exact prices and availability with us do not yet know.