Review: HP EliteBook Ultra G1 - an AI laptop for executives

HP’s EliteBook Ultra G1 is a business-class AI Windows laptop with a solid build and strong security. It costs considerably more than a consumer notebook. That makes it great if your employer buys you one—but it’s unlikely you’d spend your own money on this.

Smart, corporate design

From the outside, the EliteBook Ultra G1 looks exactly how you’d expect a corporate laptop to look. It has a matte magnesium case with rounded corners and smart, clean lines.

Weighing 1.2kg and about 18mm thick, the computer is light and thin, yet robust enough for the rough and tumble of modern executive work.

There’s a clear sense this is a premium laptop.

Screen

The touchscreen can lie flat, letting it act like a clumsy tablet on a desktop.

HP uses a 2880×1800 OLED display with a variable refresh rate. You get 400 nits of brightness, which is enough for most users and applications.

I’m used to brighter displays and found myself repeatedly trying to crank the brightness higher than this laptop allows. That’s not everyone’s preference.

Built-in laptop speakers are often disappointing. Not here. HP’s quad-speaker design performs as well as any on a device this thin.

Zoom and other voice-based apps sound crystal clear. Every business app that uses sound will benefit, though it’s never going to be the best way to enjoy music.

Typing and ports

Premium laptops—well, HP’s top models and everything from Apple—have mastered keyboards and touchpads in recent years. The Ultra G1 keyboard is excellent with a great response. Another plus is the touchpad’s haptic feedback. It’s a nice touch.

There’s nothing minimalist about the ports. On the left: an audio jack and an old-school USB Type A port under a pull-down cover. Next to that is a USB-C with an LED that lights up when charging.

On the right: two more USB-C ports—only one with an LED—and a lock slot to secure the laptop to a desk. Like Apple, HP has dropped microSD.

Up-to-date connectivity

HP is bang up to date with connectivity. The EliteBook Ultra G1 supports WiFi 7. I couldn’t test this—I’m still on WiFi 6—but it should eliminate bottlenecks between you and the internet.

You might hope an upscale business AI laptop would be a mighty processing powerhouse. Surprisingly, the Ultra G1 falls short.

It packs an Intel Lunar Lake CPU and 32 GB of ram, which sounds fast, but could be faster in practice. At this price, you might expect more. My MacBook Air, at less than half the cost runs many apps faster. One important observation: I couldn’t get the fan to kick in. Nothing I ran was demanding enough.

Battery life

Battery life is respectable. I easily got 14 hours streaming video. There’s enough to get you from Auckland to Europe, though if you own an Ultra G1, it’s unlikely you’ll be in the cheap seats with limited charger access.

PC makers now act like they can’t sell upmarket laptops without AI. I’m not sure that’s true, but I feel like a lonely voice in the wilderness.

That said, many corporations are sold on the idea and will look for AI when buying.

That’s where the Ultra G1 gets interesting. It’s not a fully-fledged AI PC. It lacks a GPU and the Intel Lunar Lake processor isn’t optimised for AI. That leaves it behind devices built for AI from the ground up.

Think of it as a solid business laptop with a couple of AI extras.

HP AI Companion and Copilot

First is HP’s AI Companion, a preinstalled HP-branded version of GPT-4. HP says this helps you get more from the laptop’s neural processing unit.

You need an internet connection to use AI Companion. Oddly, it doesn’t do much you can’t already do with regular GPT-4. The main difference: it can answer HP product questions and adjust some settings.

If that doesn’t appeal, there’s also a Copilot button to launch Microsoft’s AI. It’s not a drawcard. Not the focus of this review, but in my experience, Copilot is the least useful mainstream chatbot. Its inaccuracy is embarrassing.

Wolf Security stands out

With so-so AI and average performance, something else needs to lift the Ultra G1 above rivals. That’s HP Wolf Security for Business—a preloaded suite adding extra protection beyond standard malware tools.

Strong laptop security can get in your way. You’ll notice it the moment you try installing software. Wolf pops up to say an app isn’t on its approved list.

This is a bit like Microsoft’s User Access Control or Apple’s System Integrity Protection, but here there’s no control panel override.

Wolf also includes anti-phishing protection, BIOS tamper prevention, and tools to harden Windows and boost resilience. There are features for IT departments to manage fleets of laptops.

Most of this won’t matter if you’re using a single computer at home or in a small business. But IT managers will appreciate how HP helps lock down potentially vulnerable systems.

Verdict: HP EliteBook Ultra G1

The EliteBook Ultra G1 sits firmly at the premium end of the market. Wolf Security is all about corporate computing. These go some way to justifying the NZ$5040 list price.

Everything about it is premium—except processor performance, which is fine, but not exceptional. Including 32GB of ram helps. You’ll find faster laptops at lower prices—some of them in the HP range.

You—or more likely, your company’s purchasing department—are going to buy this for corporate manageability and security, not performance. If you need those features, the price isn’t unreasonable.