HP's Affordable Copilot Laptop: A Game-Changer for Remote Workers

One of the most premium Copilot+ PCs I've tested is also one of the most affordable

The lack of certain apps on Windows on Arm might limit some users -- particularly creators. Of all the new Copilot+ PCs around the $1,000 price point, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x feels like one of the most premium. Its dark "cosmic blue" colorway and sleek form factor exude a grown-up, capable aura that feels both down to business and ready to have some fun. The solid hardware on board supports that impression, with the Snapdragon X Elite processor leading the charge, and the brilliant 3K OLED display acting as the cherry on top. Lenovo's Yoga laptops have blown up in popularity this year for their versatile form factors that can bend and twist into multiple configurations (as their name suggests) and high degree of hardware customization. My colleague Max Buondonno reviewed the Lenovo Yoga 9i, an outright challenge to the traditional laptop form factor with a dual screen setup, and I took a look at the Yoga 7i, a 2-in-1 convertible laptop at a more accessible price point. Also: The 2-in-1 laptop that I recommend for college juggles work and play seamlessly The latest addition to the Yoga family, the aptly-named 14-inch, 2.6-pound Slim 7x, departs from its siblings' flexibility by giving up the 2-in-1 form factor, but in exchange, gains impressive battery life, increased performance, and a gorgeous OLED display. Truly, this might be one of the brightest displays I've seen on a laptop in a while, capable of up to 1,000 nits of brightness for peak HDR content. The touchscreen display features a resolution of 2944 x 1840 pixels (or 3K), resulting in a gorgeous media experience. While it doesn't have a full 120Hz refresh rate, the 90Hz it can achieve is enough for that silky-smooth, crisp image. The integrated Qualcomm Adreno GPU puts in the work here, sporting solid performance in graphics benchmarking tests in 3DMark, and usability with video editing in DaVinci Resolve, which ran smoothly during my testing. While it ultimately won't compete with other high-end GPUs on the market right now, it features solid enough performance for the majority of cases that you'll want to put this laptop through. Rounding out the media experience, the Slim 7x provides audio through two upward-firing speakers on either side of the keyboard. Unlike the display, there's not a lot to say here, as the audio is clear but lacks depth, which is typical for laptops. After all, that's what Bluetooth is for. I recommend popping in a pair of Nothing Ear (a) earbuds if you want to listen to music or watch a movie, especially since the Dolby Atmos Access app allows for audio customization. Also: I tested Dell's 2024 XPS 14 laptop and can't recommend it enough As mentioned in all of our other reviews of Copilot+ PCs, the new Snapdragon X Elite processors with ARM architecture can't run all programs, including industry staples like Adobe Premiere Pro, nor games, which are still a hit-or-miss endeavor. You can certainly game on the Yoga Slim 7x, but not all titles will work yet, and the ones that do might not be perfectly optimized. That said, games that are not on the cutting-edge of graphics and hardware requirements look as good as they can on a 14-inch laptop. While the display makes media and gaming one of the most obvious first areas to explore on this laptop, it's also well-suited to get down to business. From a productivity standpoint, you've got everything you could want here for a solid work laptop. The X1E-78-100 Processor (3.40 GHz) Snapdragon X Elite processor supports snappy, responsive performance during multitasking, even with demanding applications, while the 16GB of soldered memory and 1TB of storage is enough to future-proof it. Copilot+ PCs can still be considered nascent, since the full capabilities of AI-fueled applications (namely Microsoft's Recall) have yet to arrive (which is a story for another day). For now, the ARM-based processors are fast, run cool, and allow for fantastic AI performance via the NPU. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x hits benchmarking numbers that are comparable to other Copilot+ PCs around the same price point, namely the Asus Vivobook S 15. In Cinebench, I got a single-core score of 108, and a multicore score of 1,004. Conversely, in Geekbench, the Yoga Slim 7x scored 2,412 on the single-core test, and 13,677 on the multicore. Also: One of the best productivity laptops I've tested is not a Lenovo ThinkPad or MacBook The Slim 7x also has an impressive 70Wh battery, which can easily power through a day of work and then some with more demanding workflows. During my testing of running a 4K livestream on YouTube over Wi-Fi with 50% brightness, I got over 15 hours before it conked out, putting it up near the top of other Copilot+ PCs. In terms of more actionable battery life, in my testing with intermittent use of work-related productivity apps, casual browsing, and light media playback, I got several days of use out of it. If I had to highlight some of the things I didn't love, I would first have to mention the port selection, which won't be everyone's cup of tea. Lenovo seems to have doubled down on its forward-looking design by giving the Slim 7x three USB-C Thunderbolt ports and nothing else -- no HDMI, USB-A, or card slots. It seems a little puzzling to not drop just one of these for at least a USB-A port. Also: The best Windows laptops you can buy: Expert tested and reviewed The laptop's trackpad is also not the most sensitive I've tested. While the keyboard looks and feels premium, the trackpad is a little too large and not super responsive. Also, the matte casing on the laptop attracts fingerprints left and right, which is certainly not something unique to this laptop, but a bit of a personal pet peeve nonetheless. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x is a solid addition to the Copilot+ PC line, and a laptop I'd recommend to remote workers, freelancers, and creators looking for a portable, 14-inch laptop with a gorgeous display. Its thin and light form factor makes it a solid option for anyone who travels frequently and might not have reliable access to an outlet. Right now, the Yoga Slim 7x is on sale for $1,039 -- a competitive price -- but if you're looking for a less expensive Copilot+ PC (and are willing to significantly downgrade the display), the HP OmniBook X 14 will run you $949. If you like this laptop's stats but want a bigger screen, check out the Asus Vivobook S 15. Creators might also appreciate the fact that Lenovo is also giving two free months of Adobe Creative Cloud with the purchase of any new Yoga laptop.

This HP Copilot+ laptop is a remote worker's secret weapon, and I proved it

The mediocre display and modest hardware configuration may leave this laptop overshadowed by other Snapdragon PCs. Upon first glance, Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite processor offers the same Windows on ARM experience as anywhere else, except it's noticeably faster, snappier, and more responsive. Such is the case with the OmniBook X 14, HP's first generation of consumer-facing laptops with the Snapdragon chip: a mid-range Copilot+ PC without any earthshaking features but an impressive battery and improved performance in an ultraportable form factor. It's also just slightly over $1,000, which puts it at a very competitive price point for a laptop with cutting-edge technology -- especially since many other laptops with the new Windows-on-ARM chips run several hundred dollars more. First impressions of the OmniBook reveal a well-optimized laptop that boots up quickly, awakens from sleep almost immediately, multitasks well, and is totally silent. It also runs cool, has a fantastic battery, and is thin and light, making it ideal for digital nomads or professionals with a hybrid work format. Also: One of the best productivity laptops I've tested is not a Lenovo ThinkPad or MacBook I used the OmniBook X 14 as my main driver for two weeks during the testing process, and the closer I looked at it, the more complicated the picture became. More on that in a bit. Let's break down the specs first. The OmniBook X 14 comes with 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD but can be upgraded to 1TB of storage, bringing the price up to $1,250. The Snapdragon X Elite's strong performance is evident in ways consumers will care about: apps open and close quickly, webpages spring to life instantly, and the device has no problem switching between different tasks without missing a beat. During benchmarking in Geekbench, I got a single core score of 2,326, and a multicore score of 13,160, placing it right around the likes of fellow Snapdragon-equipped Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, and the Dell XPS 14 with the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H. Both of those machines have OLED displays, however, with the former being slightly less expensive. Also: I tested Samsung's new Copilot+ PC, and it's one of the best Windows laptop deals right now Additionally, the OmniBook X comes with the XIE-78-100 model of the Snapdragon Elite chip, which, at 3.4GHz, is the slowest configuration, essentially the same as the Snapdragon X Plus, (the lower-tier model) with no dual-core boost. The 14-inch touchscreen display is fine, but it's not an OLED, and it's not very bright. The color gamut is respectable, but it taps out at 300 nits of brightness and a 60Hz refresh rate. I would have liked to see a brighter display and/or a 120Hz refresh rate. The laptop's form factor is surprisingly light and thin, at just 2.97 pounds, and comes in either a neutral chrome color or a matte ceramic white model, which is sharp-looking and smudge-resistant. Connectivity is fine, with two USB-C Thunderbolt ports, a USB-A port, and 3.5mm headphone jack. There's no SD card slot, which, paired with a slightly better display, would have gone a long way toward making this laptop a little more premium. On that note, the keyboard isn't high-end, but it is satisfying and functional, smudge-resistant (a big one for me), and has a nice key travel distance with attractive backlighting. Also: One of the most portable work laptops I've tested isn't a Lenovo or MacBook (and it's $200 off) The device's 5MP webcam is also quite nice and contributes to its use case as a portable workstation for digital nomads or hybrid professionals tethered to daily videoconferencing. Further supporting that fact is HP's AI-powered Poly Camera Pro software, which comes loaded on the OmniBook with a wide range of templates and quality-of-life settings for the webcam, including spotlighting, subtle appearance touch ups, background blurring, and a digital business card overlay feature that displays your name and contact information in a variety of designs. If you're taking calls with any degree of regularity, the Snapdragon chip feels great to use, with near-instant load times for the webcam and associated conferencing apps, and despite the 60Hz refresh rate, a silky-smooth video feed. Also: I saw the future of AI at Qualcomm's headquarters, and Copilot+ PCs were only just the beginning Alright, I saved the best part of this laptop for last. Simply put, the battery on this thing is impressive. HP states that the 59Wh battery on the OmniBook X 14 gets up to 26 hours of battery life, and I found this to be more or less accurate. The AI in the Snapdragon chips adjusts the power supply to the processor based on current needs, dropping to virtually zero when the device is off or asleep. In practice, the goal behind this is for the laptop to simply not lose juice when it's not in use. While using the laptop, the battery life is also quite good. In fact, during my two weeks of using the OmniBook, I rarely even thought about the battery, just plugging it in when it was convenient to do so, instead of being prompted to by Windows. Even better, I got almost identical results when benchmarking plugged into power versus while running on battery. This means performance doesn't take a dip if you don't have access to an outlet, sealing the deal as a solid laptop for ultra-mobile remote workers. Keep in mind that I got these results only after several back-to-back Windows updates, including a BIOS update, that rolled out during testing. Also: The best Windows laptops you can buy: Expert tested and reviewed Performance and physical specs aside, the OmniBook X 14 is part of the first generation of Snapdragon X laptops, which operates on ARM compared to any Windows machine on x86. This means that certain programs don't run well yet, and some don't run at all, an important factor to consider. There are going to be hiccups as developers optimize and make their programs compatible, and even apps that are compatible with Windows on ARM aren't fully optimized. When I first fired up DaVinci Resolve on the OmniBook, it was laggy. After a Windows update a few days later, performance improved. Gaming is not fully supported by Windows on ARM yet, either. Many titles don't work, and if they do, the performance is subpar. The OmniBook isn't a gaming laptop, so I wouldn't be trying to run games on this machine anyway, but right now we don't have much of a choice either way. Also: One of the best business laptops I've tested is not a Lenovo ThinkPad or MacBook This gets to the meat of the issue here. Yes, the CPU is fast and efficient, and the NPU on these processors runs AI-related tasks better than anything else on the market, but the chips are held back by Windows' functionality (at least for now), and this tension between the two will be at the root cause of a lot of issues until the growing pains subside. The HP OmniBook X 14 is a solid choice for remote workers, digital nomads, and professionals who need a powerful laptop with a marathon battery. I would also recommend this laptop to those who are actively engaged with AI-related tasks and all in with its future applications. If you're looking for a Copilot+ PC with a better display, you might want to check out the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x. If you're looking for an HP laptop with an Intel chip, take a look at the HP Envy x360 2-in-1.