AI-Powered Laptops: A New Era of Computing with Mixed Results

Acer Swift Go 14 AI Review: Long-running Copilot Plus PC That's Short on Style

The Acer Swift Go 14 AI is the lower-cost version of Acer's mainstream Swift 14 AI thin-and-light laptop, but the two laptops are strikingly similar. Both lines feature basic but all-aluminum designs and a variety of fixed configurations with either Intel Core Ultra or Qualcomm Snapdragon X processors. Our Swift Go 14 AI test model (SFG14-01-X006) costs $1,000 and features a 14.5-inch, 2.5K IPS LCD powered by a Snapdragon X Plus processor. The Swift Go 14 AI is ever so slightly larger than the 14-inch Swift 14 AI I just reviewed, and yet the two laptops are nearly identical in weight and appearance. Each is a plain-looking, long-lasting, 3-pound laptop. Given the similarities between the two, the cheaper Swift Go 14 AI is the better deal. Despite its lower price, it actually has the better display of the two. With an efficient Snapdragon X CPU, the Swift Go 14 also has better battery life than the Intel-based Swift 14 AI, but each can run all day and well into the night. While I prefer the Swift 14 Go AI to Acer's pricier Swift 14 AI, it's still not my favorite Copilot Plus PC. The Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 boasts a better build for the same price, and if you can stretch your budget further, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 offers a superior overall design, including an awesome haptic touchpad. The Swift Go 14 AI SFG14-01-X006 can be found at Acer and Best Buy for $1,000. I've yet to see it go on sale at Best Buy, but it's been consistently discounted to $800 direct from Acer for the past two weeks while I've been working on this review. It features a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 CPU, 16GB of RAM, integrated Qualcomm Adreno graphics and a roomy 1TB solid-state drive for storage. The 14.5-inch IPS display features a crisp 2,560x1,600-pixel resolution and a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. Acer also sells two previous-generation Swift Go 14 models with Intel Core Ultra processors for around the same price as our Qualcomm-based test system. They are based on slightly smaller 14-inch displays, but strangely, the lower-tier Core Ultra 5 model has a 2.8K OLED display, and the higher-end Core Ultra 7 model has a basic IPS display. Our test model is the only Swift Go 14 AI currently available in the US. In addition to shifting from Intel to the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus CPU and expanding the display by half an inch, Acer is also making a concerted effort with this update to make sure you know it's an AI laptop like pretty much every other laptop that's been released this year. To drive that point home, Acer added "AI" to the end of the product name and an illuminated AI indicator to the touchpad. I'll go into greater detail about the touchpad's AI artwork later in the review, but I wanted to include a brief mention of it here because it's useful to know if you are trying to navigate Acer's confusing laptop lines. If you see a squiggly design on the touchpad, then you know it's a model from Acer's most recent update. The Swift Go 14 AI starts at £849 in the UK and is not yet available for purchase in Australia. I have tested a handful of the new Snapdragon X-based Copilot Plus PCs featuring both the higher-end Snapdragon X Elite and lower-end Snapdragon X Plus chips. The Swift Go 14 AI features the eight-core Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 CPU -- two fewer cores than the 10-core Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100 in the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 and four fewer cores than either of the Snapdragon X Elite processors in the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 or HP OmniBook X 14. With its lower-end Snapdragon X Plus CPU, the Swift Go 14 AI was fourth among this Qualcomm quartet on the Geekbench 6 multicore test. It also trailed a pair of Intel Core Ultra laptops in the HP Spectre x360 14 and Lenovo Slim 7i as well as the M3 MacBook Air on the test. The Swift Go 14 AI did a bit better on Cinebench 2024, but still finished behind the other three Qualcomm-based laptops. The Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 also features an inferior integrated GPU compared with that of the Snapdragon X Elite and even the Snapdragon X Plus X1P-64-100. Its score on 3DMark Time Spy was well behind that of the other Qualcomm laptops. All of the Qualcomm systems are already at a disadvantage on this test because they must use emulation to run it, since an ARM-based version of the test has yet to be released. Unlike its deficiencies in CPU and GPU performance, the Swift Go 14 AI's neural processing unit (NPU) is the same as you'll find in the other Snapdragon X laptops. It's a Qualcomm Hexagon NPU capable of 45 TOPS that's designed to handle AI tasks without depleting CPU and GPU resources. (See our TOPS explainer for more on this AI metric.) On Procyon's AI Computer Vision benchmark, it narrowly edged the other Snapdragon X laptop as well as two laptops with Intel's latest Core Ultra Series 2 chips, the Acer Swift 14 AI and Asus Zenbook S 14. Acer may be overdoing the AI branding for the Swift Go 14 AI, but it did prove itself to be a capable and modern AI laptop. Just look at how much better its Procyon AI Computer Vision score is than the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra, which has a previous-gen Core Ultra 9 processor. That's a big leap from a first-gen Core Ultra processor from last year to this year's Snapdragon X chips. Battery life continues to be a strong suit for Qualcomm-based Copilot Plus PCs. The HP OmniBook X 14 still holds the title for the longest-running laptop we've tested in recent memory, with a runtime of more than 25 hours, but the Swift Go 14 AI is now second on the list. It ran for 23 hours, 13 minutes on our YouTube streaming battery drain test, which was two minutes longer than the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 lasted. It lasted exactly an hour longer than the Swift 14 AI, which features a Core Ultra 7 258V processor from Intel's second-gen Lunar Lake family of chips. The Acer Swift Go 14 AI won't wow you with its looks or build quality. It's a standard-issue aluminum shell in an ordinary dark gray color. There is some flex in the aluminum lid and aluminum keyboard deck, but not to a worrying degree. It just doesn't feel as solid as the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, Asus Zenbook S 14, Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 or Apple MacBook Air. Like the Swift 14 AI, the Swift Go 14 AI features plastic display bezels that give off budget vibes. I'm a little more forgiving of this design choice at the Swift Go 14 AI's price of $1,000 (and even more so when it's on sale for $800) than I am with the Swift 14 AI at $1,300. You get the same bezel treatment with the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441, which is also priced at $1,000, but it's not nearly as sleek looking as the seamless displays with edge-to-edge glass that you get with the pricier Microsoft Surface Laptop 7, Asus Zenbook S 14 and MacBook Air. With its slightly larger 14.5-inch display, the Swift Go 14 AI is only slightly heavier than the 14-inch Swift 14 AI. Both weigh approximately 3 pounds, with the Swift Go 14 AI weighing a hair over that figure and the Swift 14 AI limboing just under. The 13.6-inch MacBook Air is lighter at 2.7 pounds, and the 14-inch Asus Zenbook S 14 with its Ceraluminum shell (a blend of ceramic and aluminum) weighs just 2.6 pounds. On the flip side, the 14-inch Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 is a bit heavier at 3.2 pounds, but that's a tradeoff I'd make -- toting around a few extra ounces for a more solid build. The keyboard is merely average and has the same soft, shallow feel as the keys on the Swift 14 AI. The mechanical touchpad isn't bad, with a quiet and firm click response, but it pales in comparison to the lively and customizable click response you get with Microsoft Surface Laptop 7's haptic touchpad. The headliner with the touchpad is the goofy design in the upper-right corner. Acer calls it an "AI Activity Indicator" and it's a bit of marketing schlock to help the Swift Go 14 AI laptop stand out among the sea of today's AI laptops. The logo illuminates in a little pattern for four seconds when you press the Copilot Plus key to call up Microsoft's digital AI assistant. You can't ignore it altogether because the logo is painted on the touchpad, but you can disable the lighting effect in the AcerSense app if you grow tired of the lighting effect. The 14.5-inch IPS display is one of the Swift Go 14 AI's strong points. Not only is it slightly roomier than the 14-inch Swift 14 AI's, but it also has a higher resolution for a sharper picture and a higher 120Hz refresh rate for smoother movement in videos. Text and images looked crisp on the 2,560x1,600-pixel panel, and it proved to be plenty bright. It's rated for 350 nits, but it tested higher than its brightness rating. Using a Spyder X Elite colorimeter, my display testing shows a peak brightness of 390 nits. The display also has wide viewing angles and a matte finish, which helps the display look great even when you aren't seated directly in front of it. I also tested its color performance with the Spyder X Elite, and the Swift Go 14 AI did well for a $1,000 laptop. It covered 100% of the sRGB space but dropped on the larger color gamuts, hitting 79% of AdobeRGB and 80% of P3. While the display is a step above the average IPS panel, the speakers are average at best. The two downward-firing stereo speakers sound tinny and weak. One area where the Swift Go 14 AI has the advantage over the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441 is with the webcam. It features a 1440p camera that will have you looking clearer on Zoom calls than the Dell's 1080p cam. It also supports facial recognition for easy and secure Windows Hello logins, and a fingerprint reader integrated into the power button provides a second biometric login option. The Swift Go 14 AI offers two USB-C 4 ports and two USB-A 3.2 ports but lacks the HDMI port you get with the Swift 14 AI. With one of the USB-C ports needed for charging the laptop (although with its incredible battery life, you won't need to charge it with any great frequency), that leaves only one free USB-C port, which might not be enough if you want to connect to an external drive while also hooked up to an external display. Well, I like its display and the runtime that exceeds 23 hours. And while Acer is heavy-handed with the AI marketing behind the Swift Go 14 AI, it is a capable AI laptop with a modern NPU that's far more capable than that of the first generation of AI mobile processors. (I just don't need a flashing logo on the touchpad to remind me of this fact.) With or without the touchpad's AI logo, the Swift Go 14 AI doesn't measure up to the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus 7441, which offers an even brighter 2.5K display powered by a better Snapdragon X Plus processor inside a more solid enclosure for the same price.

Acer Swift 14 AI Review: Long-Lasting but Basic Copilot Plus PC

The Acer Swift 14 AI is a Copilot Plus PC based on an Intel Lunar Lake mobile processor from the chipmaker's second-gen family of AI chips, and Acer is really pushing the AI angle. It has added an "AI" suffix to the product name and slapped what it calls an "AI Activity Indicator" on the touchpad that lights up briefly when you hit the Microsoft Copilot key. It all seems a bit desperate. The Swift 14 AI offers a next-gen neural processing unit to handle AI tasks, but I don't need to be hit over the head with its AI capabilities when nearly every other laptop being released right now has a similarly capable CPU. Adding AI to its name and an illuminated icon to the touchpad doesn't make it any more AI-equipped than another Copilot Plus PC based on a Qualcomm Snapdragon X or AMD Ryzen AI chip. The Acer Swift 14 AI is the second Intel Lunar Lake laptop I've tested, following the Asus Zenbook S 14. These two 14-inch laptops are strikingly similar, from using the same Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU and offering a generous 32GB of RAM to coming wrapped in a trim, all-metal enclosure. The biggest difference between the two is with the display, and it's not to Acer's advantage. The Swift 14 AI features a basic 1,920x1,200-pixel IPS panel, and the Zenbook S 14 serves up a 2.8K OLED display. While it's true the Swift 14 AI costs $100 less than the Zenbook S 14, that's not enough of a price break to sacrifice the superior picture you get with the higher-resolution OLED display. The Acer Swift 14 AI (model SF14-51T-75AF) I reviewed is a fixed configuration that sells for $1,300 at Acer and can sometimes be found on sale for $1,100. It features an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU, 32GB of RAM, integrated Intel Arc 140V graphics and a 1TB SSD. The display is a touchscreen with a 1,920x1,200-pixel resolution. Acer says some Swift 14 AI models will feature OLED displays, but they have yet to start shipping. You can't customize the Swift 14 AI, but Acer sells a variety of configurations based on competing AI processors from AMD and Qualcomm. A similar model to our Intel-based test system, for example, costs $1,200 with an AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 CPU, and you can also find Qualcomm-based configurations for around the same price. There's also a bevy of Swift Go 14 AI models that are largely distinguishable from the Swift (non-Go) 14 AI units. I'm currently testing the Swift Go 14 AI (SFG14-01-X006), and it looks nearly identical to the Swift 14 AI; only the venting along the back edge is different. It's all a bit confusing and overlapping with Acer's various Swift 14 laptop lines. For our international readers, the situation is clearer. A single Swift 14 AI model with a Snapdragon X CPU is available for £1,200 in the UK and AU$2,199 in Australia. The Swift 14 AI performed well in lab testing if you keep in mind that Intel's Core Ultra Series 2 chips are designed to deliver a balance of performance and efficiency. As we saw with the Asus Zenbook S 14, the Swift 14 AI struggled on the Geekbench 6 multi-core test, trailing Qualcomm-based Copilot PCs and the M3 MacBook Air. It also finished behind previous-gen Intel Core Ultra laptops because Intel's Core Ultra Series 2 CPUs lack hyperthreading in an effort to maximize efficiency. We saw similar results on the multicore Cinebench 2024 test, but the Swift 14 AI did a bit better on the single-core test. With second-gen Intel Arc graphics, the Swift 14 AI performed well on the 3DMark Time Spy test compared with previous-gen Core Ultra laptops. Snapdragon X-based laptops must use emulation to run this test since an Arm version hasn't been released yet, which explains the poor results for such systems on this test. The Core Ultra 7 258V qualifies as an AI processor because it has an NPU capable of 48 TOPS, and the GPU adds 67 TOPS for a total of 115 TOPS. (See our TOPS explainer for more on this AI metric.) On Procyon's AI Computer Vision benchmark that measures integer math proficiency for AI workloads, the Swift 14 AI's score was in line with the NPU performance from the Asus Zenbook S 14 and laptops with Snapdragon X chips. We've just started using this test and have limited comparison numbers for it, but we did run it on the Samsung Galaxy Book 4 Ultra, which has a previous-gen Core Ultra 9 processor. The Swift 14 AI's score was 3.5 times higher than that of the Galaxy Book 4 Ultra, which is a big leap in AI ability in just one generation. The Swift 14 AI also offers a big leap in battery life from previous-gen Intel laptops. It ran for more than 22 hours on our YouTube streaming battery drain test, which is on par with the lengthy runtimes we've been seeing from other Copilot Plus PCs based on Qualcomm's efficient Arm-based Snapdragon X processors. The Swift 14 AI's all-aluminum chassis is a gun-metal blue color that helps to distinguish it from the silver and gray laptop horde, but it's still pretty plain looking. The aluminum enclosure is rigid and compact, but the design is not entirely made of metal. My least favorite part of the design is the plastic bezel that frames the display. They lend a budget feel to the overall look; a laptop that costs north of $1,000 ought to have edge-to-edge glass on the display instead of cheap, plastic bezels. At just under 3 pounds, the Swift 14 AI makes for an easy travelmate, but other similarly sized laptops are even lighter. The 14-inch Zenbook S 14 is made from a unique material that Asus calls Ceraluminum (a mix of ceramic and aluminum). It's extremely rigid and light -- it weighs just 2.6 pounds and is appreciably lighter than the Swift AI 14. And Apple's ultraportable, the M3 MacBook Air, weighs just 2.7 pounds. The keyboard is OK; I wish it had a firmer response and a little more travel. Other than the goofy AI indicator, the touchpad is a standard-issue mechanical one. While it lacks the lively and customizable haptic feedback you get with Microsoft's admittedly more expensive Copilot Plus PC, the Surface Laptop 7, it's one of the better mechanical touchpads I've used this year. The click response has the right amount of travel, and the clicks are quiet, not clacky. The squiggly "AI Activity Indicator" design in the upper-right corner of the touchpad is meant to impress upon you the fact that the Swift 14 AI is a modern AI laptop. The logo is painted on the touchpad, and it lights up in a short pattern when you hit the Copilot Plus key. It feels very gimmicky, but at least you can disable the lighting effect in the AcerSense app. The display is a basic 14-inch IPS panel with touch support. It lacks the strong contrast and vibrant colors of an OLED, but it's not the worst IPS display out there. It's a step up from the dim IPS panels found on budget laptops, which you can and should expect from a laptop that costs $1,300. It hit a peak brightness of 391 nits in my tests with a Spyder X Elite colorimeter, which is more than sufficient for any indoor environment. With the nearly 400-nit brightness combined with the display's matte finish and wide viewing angles, you can even use the Swift 14 AI outdoors without too much degradation of the picture. Color performance was pretty good, with the display covering 100% of the sRGB space. Of the larger gamuts, the Swift 14 AI managed to hit 82% of AdobeRGB and 85% of P3. With just a pair of underpowered stereo speakers, the Swift 14 AI is limited as an entertainment laptop. Its sound suffices for hopping on Zoom calls and watching YouTube videos, but you'll want headphones for music playback because there is only the slightest hint of a bass response. I would also suggest headphones or an external speaker for watching shows and movies if you want to clearly hear dialogue and feel the effects. The four-speaker array on the Asus Zenbook S 14 offers fuller sound. Speaking of Zoom calls, the Swift 14 AI's webcam is excellent. It's a 1440p camera that produces a crisp, well-balanced image. It has a physical privacy cover, so you can be assured it's off and not recording when you aren't using it. It also has an IR sensor, so you can use facial recognition for easy, secure logins. The power button offers a second biometric option; it integrates a fingerprint reader. While the AI branding is a bit much, and the plastic display bezel is a bit of a bummer, the Swift 14 AI -- with its Intel Core Ultra Series 2 processor that delivers a next-gen NPU and incredible battery life -- is a good, if basic example of a Copilot Plus PC. The problem for Acer is the Asus Zenbook S 14 supplies a superior OLED display inside a lighter and more rigid Ceraluminum shell for just $100 more. Advantage: Asus.

HP EliteBook Ultra G1Q review: Snapdragon laptop is all-round good performer

Why you can trust Creative Bloq Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test. It seems that the laptop industry is at a crossroads. AI is clearly dictating hardware decisions, with almost all new CPUs and GPUs boasting some sort of AI functionality. The challenge for laptop manufacturers such as MSI, Acer, and HP is, "how much do I tailor a particular laptop to this specific market?" The laptop I've been testing recently is one of a new breed of Copilot+ laptops that is taking the market by storm. It's the HP EliteBook Ultra G1Q and it sits in a very similar space to another laptop I recently reviewed, the Acer Swift 14 AI. With this shift in direction, we've created a buying guide that contains all the best AI laptops. We're also keeping our best laptops for graphic design and photo-editing up-to-date because we recognise that not everyone needs an AI-only laptop. The EliteBook Ultra G1Q won't deliver the power required by high-end creative professionals or gamers. You might therefore be more interested in our best laptops for 3D modelling and 'what Nvidia laptop do I need to revolutionise my creative workflow'. Without further ado let's dive into the review and take a look at this laptop's design, build, price, features, and performance. The HP EliteBook Ultra G1Q laptop is reminiscent of the MacBook Air design, although not quite as thin at the front end. The 18mm super-slim profile looks incredible and gives the instant feel of a laptop that is designed to be carried around. You would be forgiven for thinking that the thin frame would mean a lack of strength, but this is not the case. The aluminium chassis delivers all the toughness required for a laptop that is going to be thrown into a bag and used here, there and everywhere. It'll be fine taking a knock or two, although don't push it too far. One of my concerns looking at the specs, was the strength of the display. Oftentimes slim frames and small displays lead to an inherent lack of strength in the panel. That couldn't be further from the truth with the Ultra G1Q. I tried twisting the display but it hardly moved at all, comparable to my MacBook Pro. The display itself is bright enough for use outside or in bright rooms. It's also touchscreen although I think the majority of users are unlikely to use this functionality. Maybe if the screen rotated a full 180 degrees and turned into a tablet then I could see it being useful. The design also follows Apple's ethos when it comes to ports. There are only four to speak of and a distinct lack of an HDMI port. This is a laptop that is embracing the future at a potential cost to those who are not early adopters. On the left side, there are two USB-C ports, one with a signalling rate of 40 Gbps and the other with 10 Gbps. On the right side, there is then a stereo headphone/microphone combo jack and a USB-A port. This has a neat little flap that opens up to provide access. This is essential given the 18mm thickness but I would be concerned that this could easily get broken and thereby make the port vulnerable. All in all, this is a well-designed laptop that looks incredible. There is very little that I would change except maybe some additional ports and a smaller font size on the keys. We don't usually begin this section talking about the battery but that really is where the HP EliteBook Ultra G1Q shines the brightest. The long-life 3-cell, 59Wh Li-ion polymer battery provides enough juice to keep going all through the day. Out at the office or in classes all day? No problem. The Ultra G1Q will just keep on going. When you do finally run out of battery life, HP Fast Charge will enable you to get all the way back up to 50% in only 30 minutes. All of this battery performance is a direct result of AI-specific power efficiencies as well as a maximum brightness that is rather low compared to many other laptops. Moving on to the processing units. We tested the Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 and Qualcomm Adreno GPU using Geekbench. The CPU single-core and multi-core scores came in at 2,422 and 14,129 respectively. This is comparable to the MSI Stealth 16 AI. But before you think this HP Ultra laptop is cut out for gaming, think again. If we take a look at the Geekbench GPU score then we see it coming in at 20,550 compared to 160,998 on the MSI stealth. That's quite a sizeable difference. The HP gives you amazing processing power that is ideally suited to AI tasks but there's not enough of a graphics punch to make it usable for Adobe packages or 3D rendering. We ran a PugetBench Photoshop test and the overall score was 5,709. A final test that we performed was using Handbrake, where we transcoded a 10-minute, 34-second 4K video to 1080p. The Ultra G1Q did this in 7 minutes and 5 seconds which is by no means terrible but nowhere near as quick as the MSI Titan 18 HX that did it in 2 minutes and 47 seconds. The Ultra G1Q is primarily a productivity laptop although its CPU will serve creatives well if they're focusing on AI-related features in packages such as Photoshop and Premiere Pro. The HP EliteBook Ultra G1Q is available for purchase at a range of retailers as well as on the HP website. The laptop has a price of £1,499.99 and will be delivered for free within two working days. There is also a pay monthly finance option if you want to spread your payments. For the price, you'll benefit from a laptop that can boost your creativity and productivity, thanks largely to the onboard Copilot+ technology. If you want something a little cheaper but with all the AI qualities, then you could opt for the 14-inch Acer Swift 14 AI. The HP EliteBook Ultra G1Q is one of those laptops that doesn't have a clear target audience. We therefore have to look more closely at the specs to see who it might suit. One thing we can be sure about is the laptop's credentials for portability. The 14-inch size makes it light and easy to carry around while the incredible battery life means you can work anywhere without bringing your charger along for the ride. The Snapdragon X Elite and Qualcomm Adreno processing units are not great for high-end creative professionals. It's probably better to think of this laptop as a productivity tool that will enable you to get everyday tasks done more quickly and efficiently. If you're looking for something that will deliver the power required for Adobe applications and 3D rendering then you'll need something more high-end.

Living With an HP OmniBook Ultra 14 and Putting AMD's Strix Point to the Test

HP's OmniBook Ultra is the first laptop I've tried with AMD's latest Ryzen AI 9 processor, known as Strix Point, and it's a relatively high-end consumer machine with good processing power and excellent battery life, with the potential of becoming a real Copilot+ machine shortly. From a design standpoint, the OmniBook feels like it belongs in the same family as HP's Spectre X360 14, which I tested earlier this year, though without the 2-in-1 features of the higher-end Spectre. It shares the 14-inch screen, "meteor silver" color, and same basic shape, including diagonal angles on the back edges, the left one of which contains a USB-C port. The big news is the processor. The machine I tested featured an AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX375, which is a 12-core/24-thread processor with a TDP of 28 watts; AMD's Radeon 890 graphics, which should be a step up; and an updated "AI engine" manufactured on TSMC's 4nm process. AMD touts this AI engine - sometimes referred to as a neural processor - as being able to process 55 trillion AI operations per second (TOPS), supposedly faster than the competing Intel chips. Measuring 12.41 by 8.96 by 0.65 inches and weighing 3.37 pounds (4.02 with the included 65-watt charger), the machine is a bit heavier than the Spectre X360, the Intel Meteor Lake-based Elite X360 1040 G11 or the Qualcomm Snapdragon-based EliteBook Ultra G1q (both aimed more at enterprise customers). It's not heavy, but it's not as light as I might have expected, given that it's a standard laptop, not a 2-in-1. The display is very nice, with a 14-inch 2.2K (2,240 by 1,400) IPS touch screen with 400 nits of brightness in the standard 16:10 ratio. It's not as high-end as the 2,880-by-1,800 OLED display in the Spectre 14, but still a step up from the standard 1,920-by-1,200 displays in most 14-inch machines. The Omnibook Ultra 14 has a USB-A port and a 3.5mm audio jack on the left-hand side, and two USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports on the right (including one on the diagonal between the right side and the back of the machine.) This is becoming more typical of consumer machines, though I'd still like to see more ports (or at least an additional USB-C on the left, which would make plugging it in more convenient). The keyboard seemed fine with the addition of a Copilot key, which are also becoming more standard on new laptops. As with the Spectre, I remain impressed by the audio/video capabilities. It comes with a 9-megapixel webcam with IR and hardware-enabled low-light adjustment. The camera looked sharp and pretty good. As with all of the new "AI PCs," it includes Windows Studio Effects, which offers basic controls such as background blur (either standard or a more pronounced Portrait mode), eye tracking, and framing. As with the EliteBook Ultra G1q, it also comes with HP's Poly Camera Pro, which runs on the NPU and gives you even more control of things like Background Blur, filtering, and framing. It does far more than what Windows Studio Effects can do, and also works with an external camera. To me, this is one of the features that best shows off what an NPU can do. An HP Enhanced Lighting app shows a circle of various intensity and color that you can use similarly to how you'd use a ring light. And like the enterprise machines, it has a physical webcam switch that covers the camera. For sound, it has two top-firing tweeters and two woofers, and it delivers excellent sound, although sometimes I could feel the vibrations through the keyboard. The unit I tested came with 32GB of RAM and a 2TB SSD; performance was generally quite good. On basic benchmarks, it performed better than Qualcomm Snapdragon X PCs or 15- or 28-watt Intel Meteor Lake or Raptor Lake chips. This was particularly true with graphics-intensive applications like Cinebench or 3Dmark. (Some larger laptops come with 45-watt processors and/or discrete graphics, and these still are faster, but they are really in a different class.) On my toughest tests, it took 54 minutes to transcode a video with Handbrake -- better than the hour and 19 minutes on the Meteor-Lake based Elite x360 1040 or the hour and 24 minutes on the EliteBook Ultra G1. It ran a portfolio simulation in MatLab in about 36 minutes, better than the Qualcomm machine but not as fast as the 32 or 33 minutes I saw with the Meteor Lake based Elite 1040 or Spectre X360. It took 44 minutes to run a complex data table model in Excel; that's notably better than the Qualcomm-based machines and slightly faster than the Meteor Lake ones (which took 45 or 46 minutes) - but I got times as quick as 34 or 35 minutes with the earlier 13th Generation Intel Core (Raptor Lake) processor. Not surprisingly, in every test I ran, the OmniBook Ultra 14 with a Strix Point AMD Ryzen was faster than the machine I tested with the previous-generation Ryzen (code-named Phoenix), the ThinkPad Z13 Gen 2. On battery life, the OmniBook Ultra 14 has a 68 watt-hour battery that supports fast charging, allowing it to get about half full in 45 minutes. On PC Mark 10's Modern Office battery test, it lasted 20 hours and 33 minutes with the screen set to 40 nits, and 16 hours and 13 minutes with it set to 100 nits -- excellent times. HP is including some unique software in its latest AI PCs. Like the Qualcomm-based Elitebook Ultra G1q, it includes Poly Camera Pro, which I find quite helpful. And there's also a version of the myHP control application, which includes various system and video control features, and can tell you when you are too close to the screen or spending too much time on the screen; or let you use various hand gestures to do things like scroll photos or pause and resume playback. The most unusual program is the HP AI companion app, which is based on OpenAI's GPT-4o model. This app bases its replies on data stored on your machine. It is still listed as Beta software, and it works a little differently than Microsoft Copilot (which, of course, also comes with the machine). AI Companion has four options -- Ask, Analyze, Discover, and Perform. Ask is what most people expect from AI assistants, where you can ask questions. Analyze lets you create libraries of documents and can summarize documents, including comparing them and even turning them into blog posts. This was interesting, although somewhat limited as it can only handle five libraries of up to 100MB of documents. Discover suggests other AI solutions you can use, while Perform is meant to keep your PC running optimally, including suggesting BIOS, firmware, and driver updates. In general, AI Companion has plusses and minuses depending on the data you feed it (in Analyze) and the prompts you choose. It's an interesting alternative to Copilot or online tools such as native ChatGPT, Perplexity, and NotebookLM. Note that AI companion only works when you are online and logged into an HP account. While HP is marketing the OmniBook Ultra as a "Copilot+PC," some of the specific Microsoft features for that are not available yet on platforms other than the Qualcomm Snapdragon. (Note that the Qualcomm units have gotten a lot better in working with more applications, but AMD and Intel machines still offer more compatibility with games and legacy Windows applications.) So, Windows Paint doesn't have the "Cocreator" feature, although it does have "image creator." The Live Captions application seems to be installed, but doesn't work yet. And of course, the much-touted Windows Recall feature has yet to be released. Microsoft has said that Copilot+ features for capable Intel and AMD machines will be out later this month. That said, the OmniBook Ultra 14 is still a great performer, with a nice display and terrific battery life. It's a bit heavier than some of the 14-inch notebooks I've tested, but that's a tradeoff many people will gladly take. As I write this, the OmniBook Ultra 14 with specs close to my test unit -- a Ryzen 9 HX375, Radeon 890 graphics, 32GB of RAM, and a 2TB SSD -- is selling for $1,680 on HP's website. A model with a slightly lower-end Ryzen AI 9 365 - with 10 cores/20 threads and Radeon 880M graphics, 16GB, and a 1TB SSD is selling for $980, a very good price for this kind of power.