Qualcomm Snapdragon powered laptops, launched globally earlier, are beginning to officially arrive in the country. And HP India is amongst the first in-line to offer its latest Snapdragon powered Co-pilot+ laptops in the region to the consumers. HP announced the pre-booking availability of its next-generation AI PCs in India: the HP EliteBook Ultra, priced at Rs 1,69,934, and the HP OmniBook X, priced at Rs 1,39,999.
Sometime ago, HP rebranded its consumer and commercial PC portfolios to simplify its product offerings. Consumer PCs now feature the prefix ‘Omni,’ and commercial PCs feature the prelude ‘Elite,’ followed by their product categories.
At the same time HP has phased out previous brands like Pavilion, Envy, and Spectre, but they remain available for a while, possibly until the stock lasts. Consumer laptops will be called ‘OmniBook,’ all-in-one desktops ‘OmniStudio,’ and traditional desktops ‘OmniDesk.’ Commercial laptops will be named ‘EliteBook,’ all-in-one desktops ‘EliteStudio,’ and traditional desktops ‘EliteDesk.’
Both, the HP EliteBook Ultra and the OmniBook X, are built on the latest ARM architecture and powered by the Snapdragon X Elite processor. And frankly, this underpinning architecture is the main shtick on which every major laptop OEM, including HP, and Microsoft along with Qualcomm are banking their future plans on. These laptops are designed to give them all an equal footing against Apple MacBooks, which have gained a significant advantage in computing performance and efficiency ever since Cupertino started using their own ARM chips in 2020.
Also read: Game changer: Qualcomm powered enhanced Microsoft CoPilot+ AI PCs are here!
The specific chip powering these laptops is the Snapdragon X-Elite’s base variant, X1E-78-100, featuring 12 cores and a 3.4GHz clock speed. It features a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) capable of performing 45 trillion operations per second (TOPS). Both laptops also have 16 GB of onboard LPDDR5x RAM, though OmniBook X has a slightly higher transfer rate of 8448 MT/s compared to 8400 MT/s in the other. Both devices come with 1 TB PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSDs for storage.
In terms of display, both laptops have a 14-inch, 2.2K (2240 x 1400) IPS screen with 300 nits brightness and 100% sRGB coverage. However, the OmniBook X’s display is multitouch-enabled with edge-to-edge glass, Corning Gorilla Glass NBT, Low Blue Light, 16:10 aspect ratio, and an 87.81% screen-to-body ratio. In contrast, the second laptop has an anti-glare, non-touchscreen display.
For connectivity, the first laptop, the HP OmniBook X, supports Qualcomm FastConnect 7800 Wi-Fi 7 (2×2) and Bluetooth 5.4. In contrast, the EliteBook Ultra supports Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 Wi-Fi 6E (2×2) and Bluetooth 5.2.
The port configurations differ slightly: the HP OmniBook X, has a USB Type-A 10Gbps port (HP Sleep and Charge), a headphone/microphone combo, a USB Type-C 10Gbps port, and a USB Type-C 40Gbps port. The EliteBook Ultra has a similar setup but with a USB Type-A 5Gbps port instead of 10Gbps.
Both laptops have a 5 MP IR camera and use the 65 W USB Type-C adapter. Their batteries are 3-cell, 59Wh units supporting fast charging to 50% in 30 minutes.
Audio and input features are similar, with both laptops having dual speakers with Poly Studio and integrated dual array microphones. They also have HP Imagepad pointing devices and full-size, backlit keyboards. A number of OEMs are also claiming insanely high battery life with their new Qualcomm powered laptops and HP is no different as it promises 26 hours of battery life. These next-gen AI PCs feature the HP AI Companion and the Poly Camera Pro with AI features like Spotlight and Auto Framing.
These AI features are available in addition to Microsoft Co-pilot+, which brings a whole different set of AI capabilities natively to the laptop, including image generation, AI chat, and more. Also, the EliteBook Ultra features Wolf Pro Security NGAV and Microsoft Secured-Core protection. These are enterprise level features restricted to commercial PCs only.
Lastly, in terms of dimensions and weight, both laptops are almost identical, with minor differences in height. The HP OmniBook X’s height is 1.43 cm (front) and 1.44 cm (rear), while the EliteBook Ultra’s height is 0.84 cm (front) and 1.12 cm (rear). Both laptops start at 1.34 kg in weight.
