An AI Laptop That’s All Business

HP EliteBook X G1a Review: Pricing and availability

There are three models of the EliteBook X G1a on deck. My review unit costs $2,199 and has a 2-GHz AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 processor with 32GB of LPDDR5x RAM, a 1TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe TLC M.2 SSD, an integrated AMD Radeon 890M Graphics GPU, a 14-inch, 1920 x 1200 WUXGA display. The $1,999 base model has an AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 CPU with half the storage and a 2.8K OLED panel. The $2,749 top model has the same specs as the review unit, except with double the RAM and the 2.8K OLED screen.

HP EliteBook X G1a Review: Design

As befitting a business laptop of its stature, the EliteBook X sports a refined design that will look good in any office, coworking space, or coffee shop. The chassis is made from matte silver-colored aluminum, and the lid is made from 80% recycled materials. Speaking of the lid, it’s a swath of silvery matte-ness outside the gleaming strips of metal that make up the HP logo.

The dark gray backlit keyboard sits nestled between the large top-firing speaker grilles in more of that silver aluminum. The palm rest is long enough to accommodate most wrists comfortably. The display is connected to the deck via a long hinge. While the bezels along the sides of the display are thin, they could be thinner. That goes double for the top and bottom bezels. However, the HP emblem on the bottom bezel is a nice touch.

Although the EliteBook X is most certainly dressed to impress, it’s also a tough little S.O.B. The notebook has undergone the gauntlet of toughness, passing 19 tests to earn its MIL-STD-810H certification. That means the notebook can withstand shocks, extreme temperatures, drops from certain heights, and extreme altitudes.

Since the EliteBook X is a relatively slim notebook, there’s not a lot of room for ports. On the right, you have a Thunderbolt 4 port, a USB-A port, and a Kensington lock slot. The laptop has another Thunderbolt 4 port on the left, along with a USB-C port, an HDMI 2.1 port, and a headset jack.

Weighing in at 3.3 pounds, the 12.3 x 8.5 x 0.36~0.52-inch EliteBook X is on the heavier end of the ultraportable category. It’s a scooch lighter than the MacBook Pro 14 M4 (3.4 pounds. 12.3 x 8.7 x 0.61 inches) and Dell XPS 14 (3.7 pounds, 12.6 x 8.5 x 0.71 inches). But the Asus Zenbook S 14 (2.65 pounds, 12.2 x 8.5 x 0.47 ~ 0.51 inches) are both lighter systems.

HP EliteBook X G1a Review: Performance

HP slapped one of AMD’s new Ryzen AI chips into the EliteBook X. Launched earlier this year, the 4-nanometer AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 processor is the most powerful chipset in this new lineup. The processor is built on the company’s Zen 5 architecture and has 12 cores and 24 threads.

The chip’s neural processing unit (NPU) uses AMD’s XDNA 2 NPU architecture. With that and AMD’s Ryzen AI technology, the NPU can hit a performance rate of up to 55 TOPS (Tera Operations Per Second), making it one of the most powerful AI laptops currently on the market. AMD claims the NPU offers up to 2x in power efficiency with AI workloads compared to last-gen chips. And finally, there’s the integrated AMD Radeon 890M Graphics. AMD’s RDNA 3.5 graphics architecture is designed to optimize graphics performance but with reduced power consumption.

So, all that jargon means this APU is designed to give you more power without sacrificing efficiency. I subjected the EliteBook to my usual workload, which starts with between 50 and 65 tabs in Google Chrome (don’t judge). It’s a mix of GSuite apps like Docs and Sheets, a slew of news and social media sites, Google Analytics, several Gmail accounts, and a few YouTube videos. Even with all of that, I couldn’t induce any lag. I started editing videos in Adobe Premiere and photos in Photoshop with similar results.

The EliteBook X also held its own when I put it through the benchmark gauntlet. During CPU-focused tests, the EliteBook X tended to dominate its PC compatriots. For example, in Geekbench 6, the notebook produced scores of 2,819 and 14,483 on the single and multi-core tests. That was more than enough to clear out the likes of the Zenbook S14 and XPS 14. However, it couldn’t conquer the MacBook Pro 14 (3.845, 15,105). The EliteBook X took 3 minutes and 48 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. Once again, the HP laptop folded its Intel-powered competitors, only to place second to the MacBook, which turned in at 2:29.

I wouldn’t recommend playing Cyberpunk 2077 on the EliteBook X. However, I can say I played a lot of Hades II trying to take out the newest surface boss. And despite biting the dust more times than I care to admit, the colorful rogue-lite played beautifully. So you know the drill, it’s benchmarking time. And I was pretty surprised to see the Zenbook S14’s Intel Arc Graphics beating the EliteBook X on the 3DMark Time Spy benchmark 4,215 to 4,133. The XPS 14’s 5,193 wasn’t a shocker as it has a discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 GPU.

HP EliteBook X G1a Review: Display, Audio, Webcam, and Keyboard

The EliteBook X’s 14-inch, 1920 x 1200 non-touch display is bright and bold. Actor Morris Chestnut’s skin looked like burnished bronze in the Watson trailer. Meanwhile, a gaggle of red blood cells forming a clot had such intense color that it bordered on florescent. Clear details revealed the fine striations in the ultrasound of a baby and a myriad of bubbles created from a body sinking into the water. Despite being an anti-glare panel, the EliteBook X’s 16:10 panel is pretty bright. At least it’s bright enough for me to read and watch videos in direct sunlight.

HP acquired Poly, formerly known as Plantronics, a while ago, and it was a great decision. The quad speakers and amplifiers are better than they have any right to be on a laptop this slim. The pair of top and side-firing speakers created a full, powerful sound that easily filled my living room. Listening to a few songs on Tidal and Spotify, I noticed the highs can get brassy and distorted, and the bass is a little weak.

The 5-megapixel webcam captures images and video in 1920 x 1080p. In my test shots, the shooter gave mixed results on the color. The camera did a good job capturing the color in my multicolored locs but washed out my rose quartz blouse.

I love how big the keycaps are on the EliteBook’s keyboard. The keys are also nicely spaced, with bright backlighting and firm feedback when typing. I hit my usual 70 words per minute on the Monkeytype test. The Fn row on the keyboard does double duty, as many of the keys have media functionality. The F11 key can be programmed to a few features in the MyHP app. The power button also serves dual purposes, functioning as a fingerprint reader for secure logins. And finally, there’s the Microsoft Copilot button in the bottom right quadrant in case you want to shoot the breeze with Microsoft’s AI. The touchpad is your standard. It’s large, responsive, and agile, with your usual cache of multiple gestures.

HP EliteBook X G1a Review: Software and Battery Life

As a business laptop, the EliteBook X has a special set of security utilities. Dubbed HP Wolf Security, it provides protection against malware and phishing attacks, monitors critical applications, and can restore the operating system in case of infection. HP Sure Click acts as a virtual container, so you can open questionable files and websites without potentially affecting the rest of the computer.

And since this is the AI era, HP has thrown its hat into the ring with its own AI companion. Currently in beta, the companion does many things we’ve seen on other apps, including Google Gemini and Copilot. It can summarize your docs and emails as well as craft them. There’s a chatbot in case you have a question, want to ask, or need help creating a to-do list or other tasks. And, of course, there’s some AI built into the system management, so you ask for the camera to be turned on/off, mute or unmute the speakers, or enable/disable autoframe in the camera app.

Then you’ve got myHP and Support Assistant, where you can adjust performance settings, run system diagnostics, or contact tech support.

So there’s been a lot of talk about performance without sacrificing efficiency. I definitely had to put that to the test. During the course of one day, where I wrote this review, took video calls, answered emails, watched a few videos, and took a couple of go-rounds in Hades 2, the laptop lasted 9 hours and 13 minutes at 50% brightness on the balanced power setting. I also ran the PCMark 10 Modern Office battery test, where the notebook lasted 13:25, which is pretty good.

HP EliteBook X G1a Review: Verdict

Even though we are getting deeper and deeper into AI land, I still haven’t found that killer AI app. So while the HP EliteBook X G1a is one of the most powerful AI laptops available, for right now, it’s more of a nice-to-have than a must-have. But when the app emerges, it’s nice to know that a lot of that AI processing can be done locally instead of in the cloud, where it’s damaging the environment.

But if you take the AI hoopla out of the equation, you still have a damned-good business laptop. It’s durable and has plenty of security features to keep your files nice and secure. Its performance will satisfy even the most demanding mobile professionals. And when you’re not working, that display can be put to good use by watching a movie or two or even getting some gaming in (within reason). And barring some slight distortion on a few songs, the EliteBook’s speakers can hang with quite a few Bluetooth speakers. Plus, it can last well over eight hours on a charge.

The HP EliteBook X G1a is the business laptop to beat this year.