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HP OmniBook X Review: Don’t Get Fooled by Its Basic Design

Ashish Singh — Sun, 29 Sep 2024 09:59:40 +0000

In July, HP unveiled its first Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptops in India. The EliteBook Ultra and the OmniBook X are the first Copilot+ PCs from the brand. We were sent the consumer-focused OmniBook X for review. It is claimed to deliver up to 26 hours of battery life and bundled with AI features enabled by the dedicated NPU in the Snapdragon X Elite chipset. The laptop competes with other Snapdragon X Elite-based laptops available in the country, such as the Dell XPS 13 (9345) and the Asus VivoBook S15 OLED.

The OmniBook X has a starting price of Rs. 1,39,999, but the simple design will make you wonder why it’s priced so much. However, after using the laptop for over two weeks, I think I know the answer. Should you get this instead of the alternatives from Dell or Asus? Read on to find out.

HP OmniBook X Design: Basic

Dimensions – 312.9mm (W) x 223.5mm (D) x 14.4mm (H)
Weight – 1.34kg
Colours – Meteor Silver

It might seem like HP slapped an AI logo on the rear of the hinge and called it a day. However, there’s more to it than what meets the eye. Yes, the OmniBook X looks basic and will not win you any style points, but it does the job. It’s like those boring-looking BMWs or Audi’s that will never disappoint you. It even has a matching BMW/Audi metallic silver finish. The laptop is slim at just 14.4mm and weighs about 1.34kg. You get curved sides, a reflective HP logo on the lid, and the Omnibook logo on the outer cover of the hinge.

The OmniBook X has the AI logo on the back and below the keyboard

Talking about the hinge, it’s a solid piece that feels durable. However, it also makes it difficult to open the laptop with one hand. HP claims the laptop has passed 19 MIL-STD tests, which is impressive. The covers feature 50 percent recycled aluminium, and the keycaps use 50 percent recycled plastic.

There’s not too many ports on the laptop, but it’s more than some ultrabooks

As this is an ultrabook, the port selection is minimal. You get two USB Type-C ports on the left side that support Power delivery and DisplayPort 1.4. The right edge houses a 3.5mm audio jack and a USB Type-A port (USB 3.2 Gen1).

HP OmniBook X Display: Decent

Size and type – 14-inch LCD touch, 300 nits
Resolution – 2240 x 1400 pixels, 16:10 aspect ratio
Protection – Corning Gorilla Glass NBT

Opening the lid, which requires two hands, reveals the 16:10 LCD display that offers touch support. It’s not a particularly bright panel; using it outdoors isn’t ideal, but it does well indoors. The display gets slim side bezels with slightly thicker bezels on the top and bottom. Another HP logo is available below the display.

The 14-inch display supports touch input

The OmniBook X has a decent display compared to its competition, which offers OLED panels and higher brightness. The panel here offers 2.2K resolution and good colour output, which is great for watching your favourite shows. There’s no HDR or high refresh rate here, though. It would’ve been nicer to have an OLED panel with higher brightness. However, there is an advantage of the IPS display: longer battery life.

HP OmniBook X Keyboard, Touchpad, speakers, and webcam

Keyboard – Full size, backlit chiclet
Speakers – Dual downward-facing
Web camera – 5-megapixel with privacy shutter

I loved typing on the OmniBook X. It has a chiclet keyboard with good travel and a nice feel. The keys are broad, and there’s good spacing between them. I could type on this keyboard for hours. You also get adjustable backlighting, which I found to be adequate at night. There’s also a dedicated Copilot key, duh!

Moving downwards, you get a large trackpad with multitouch support and a smooth, responsive surface. The clicks could’ve been better as I sometimes found it difficult to register a two-finger right click.

Typing on the laptop is a pleasant experience

Coming to the speakers, you get two downward firing drives faced at the front. These sound alright when you have the laptop sitting on a table, but there’s not a lot of bass. They aren’t very loud either. HP could have definitely done better here.

The web camera is nice, though. You get a 5-megapixel unit that delivers good video quality in daylight conditions. The camera also performed quite well in low light. There’s also a physical privacy shutter, and the webcam does support Windows Hello and Studio Effects. HP also bundles a Poly Camera app that uses AI for auto framing and panning, background effects, and more.

Windows on ARM is still a bit of a gamble, though, especially if you use Adobe’s photo editing tools. However, it’s only a matter of time before all your favourite apps are compatible with ARM.

HP OmniBook X Software: Resourceful

OS – Windows 11
AI tools – Copilot+, HP AI Companion, Poly Studio

The software experience on the HP OmniBook X was similar to other Windows 11 laptops but with the addition of a few HP tools. Apart from the usual Copilot+ chatbot, the Cocreator feature in the Paint app, Live Captions, and Windows Studio Effects for video calls, you get a bunch of AI-powered tools from HP. All of these work quite well.

You get a bunch of AI tools on the OmniBook X

There’s the HP AI Companion, which gives you access to a personal assistant. However, you need to sign in with an HP account to use this feature. It’s basically like the Copilot chatbot; you can ask it questions and share PDF files to get summaries. You can also use it to optimise your laptop for what you need from it. Then there’s the Poly Camera app that works similar to Windows Studio Effects, but you also get additional features such as AI Auto framing, panning, and AI noise reduction. Again, I tried these features, and they seemed to work well most of the time.

HP OmniBook X Performance: Snappy when you need it

CPU – Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100
RAM – 16GB LPDDR5x 8448 MHz
Storage – 1TB M.2 SSD
GPU – Adreno GPU

In terms of performance, the 12-core Snapdragon X Elite processor does a good job. It’s snappy when you need it, but it doesn’t consume as much power as it used to. You can easily run most apps, and multitasking is also a breeze on the laptop. I didn’t notice any lag while running multiple instances of Chrome with a couple of other apps, such as Slack and WhatsApp.

The laptop doesn’t heat up under load

I ran a couple of benchmarks on the laptop to see how it fares against a couple of other Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptops, and here are the results.

Benchmark	HP OmniBook X	Dell XPS 13 9345
Geekbench 6 Single	2,418	2,795
Geekbench 6 Multi	13,968	14,478
Geekbench AI NPU (Quantised)	20,691	22,200
Cinebench 2024 Single	106	121
Cinebench 2024 Multi	640	997
3DMark Steel Nomad Light	2,150	1,931
3DMark CPU Profile	9,275	8,459
3DMark Night Raid	24,083	25,732

All tests were run with the CPU profile set to Best Performance, and the laptop was plugged in. It has to be noted that the Dell XPS 13 (9345) has a higher-end Snapdragon X Elite chipset. However, the OmniBook X performed quite well in the synthetic tests.

The laptop can run most apps, provided it supports ARM. It’s a really good productivity laptop. You also get WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, and connectivity is great too. I would’ve liked it if HP had provided more RAM, as I noticed some lag when waking the laptop from sleep.

As for heating, the laptop barely heated up under regular usage, which involved browsing the web, streaming 4K videos, or running multiple apps. The only time it did slightly heat up was during the benchmark tests, and most of the heat was concentrated at the top left corner of the keyboard.

HP OmniBook X Battery: Goodbye battery anxiety

Capacity – 59 Wh
Charging – 65W USB Type-C

This is the third Snapdragon X Elite-powered laptop I’ve tested, and battery anxiety is truly a thing of the past. I could comfortably get an entire workday’s battery life out of the OmniBook X. You can also easily binge-watch your favourite shows, thanks to the less power-hungry LCD display. Sleep is also great on the laptop, as it would only drain about 5-10 percent of the max battery during the night. During the two weeks I had the laptop, I fully charged it about three times.

The laptop has a large intake grille at the bottom

HP provides a 65W compact, fast charger in the box, which can quickly top up the battery. A full charge took about one and a half hours.

HP OmniBook X Verdict

If you’re looking for a non-flashy work laptop with great battery life, lightweight design, good keyboard, and Windows, then the HP OmniBook X is an excellent choice. It has a few drawbacks, but it’s not enough to not recommend this. The display may not be as good as the competition, but the LCD panel does have its advantages.

Don’t let the simple design fool you, the HP OmniBook X is a well-built Windows ultrabook that’s great for productivity and some creativity. The alternative is the Dell XPS 13 (9345) (Review), which, while it costs the same, doesn’t offer the best typing experience or similar battery life. However, if you compare it with the Asus VivoBook S15 OLED (Review), then the Asus comes out on top.