(Credit: HP)
HP's ZBook Ultra G1a is an interesting laptop. It's positioned as a mobile workstation, but it doesn't have a discrete GPU. Instead, it utilizes AMD's Ryzen AI Max Pro processor, designed to deliver desktop-level performance in a mobile chip. This performs exceptionally well for applications that leverage many CPU cores and/or the integrated neural processing unit (NPU). However, it falls short for tasks requiring professional-level graphics capabilities.
The machine looks and feels like a solid executive notebook, measuring 12.29 by 8.45 by 0.71 inches and sporting a silver-gray aluminum chassis. It's similar to the medium-gray color of previous HP laptops; more recent HP's EliteBooks moved to a lighter "glacier silver" color.
It's hefty, weighing 3.51 pounds, or 4.6 pounds with the included 140-watt charger, which is larger than what you'd expect from executive notebooks. The machine itself weighs about a pound more than the Intel Lunar Lake-based EliteBook Ultra G1i, and a quarter pound more than the EliteBook X G1a, which sported a Ryzen AI 300 laptop.
My unit had a Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 processor, the top model in this year's lineup. As part of AMD's Strix Halo family, it has 16 cores and 32 threads, with a base clock speed of 3GHz and a maximum boost of up to 5.1GHz. It has Radeon 8060S graphics, with 40 graphics cores. It has a default TDP of 55 watts and is made on TSMC's 4nm process. This gives it a nice advantage over the Ryzen AI 9 HX Pro 375 (Strix Point), which I saw in the EliteBook X G1a with 12 cores, 24 threads, and only 16 graphics cores. My unit has 128GB of memory and a 2TB SSD.
Performance
As you would expect, the extra power certainly shows up in many performance tests. In general, it scored about on par with Lunar Lake and Strix Point laptops on single-core tests, but was among the top laptops I've ever tested on PC Mark 10's Modern Office and Applications benchmark, though the EliteBook X G1a was similar. It had by far the fastest score I've seen on Cinebench R23's CPU multi-core test, though its single-core performance was only on par.
It was similarly a great performer on most graphics tests. In gaming tests, it outscored Lunar Lake and Strix Point laptops and was just a bit behind bigger workstation laptops with Nvidia RTX 4050s. It was the fastest machine I've tested for converting a large video using Handbrake.
Similarly, AI performance handily beat most normal laptops on locally generating video (using a local version of Stable Diffusion), generating text summaries of documents (using Llama 3.1 8B on Studio LM), and in computer vision and image generation tests using the Procyon benchmarks. However, traditional mobile workstations with Nvidia GPUs were an order of magnitude faster on Stable Diffusion and running Llama. (I haven't been able to test these with Procyon yet).
So, if you're looking for nice graphics and AI performance, the ZBook Ultra is a great choice. But it's not what I would recommend for AI development.
For traditional mobile workstation applications, the biggest problem with recommending this system is that, at present, a lot of workstation applications (various CAD packages, visualization software, lots of vertical market solutions) are only certified on Nvidia, and it's hard to recommend a laptop that's not certified for professional work. For employees who live on such software, that's a deal breaker. But for people who spend most of their time using more standard office software and maybe use professional software occasionally to check work or things like that, the ZBook Ultra may be a great solution.
Despite the powerful performance, the battery life trade-off is not as significant as one might expect. On PCMark 10's Modern Office test, the ZBook Ultra lasted about 15 hours, as compared with about 17 hours on the EliteBook X G1a.
In other features, the ZBook Ultra has all the features you would expect, including a nice selection of ports. The left side of the laptop includes an HDMI port, a 40Gb/s USB-C/Thunderbolt port, a 10Gb/s USB-C port, and an audio jack. The right side features a locking slot, a USB-A port, and another 40Gb/s USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 port. This means you can charge the machine from either side, a nice convenience.
It has a nice keyboard and trackpad, and the 14-inch 2,880-by-1,440 OLED display with 400 nits of brightness looks great. (It's also available with a more standard 1,920-by-1,200 LCD display, which would probably increase the battery life.)
It comes with all the software found on current EliteBooks. For AI, this includes the HP AI companion, which is based on ChatGPT but works locally, theoretically providing more security. This is still listed as Beta software. And it has the standard Microsoft Copilot+ PC extras, including Windows Studio Effects, Live Captions, and Windows Paint with Image Creator. To this, HP also adds its excellent Poly Camera Pro software for better control of visual effects in video conferencing, including support for external cameras.
AV features were very nice with a 5MP camera, four speakers, and dual array microphones.
It has the other software features you'd expect, such as support for Windows Hello, and the ability to lock the screen when you leave and wake up when you approach, and to blur the screen when it detects someone else looking on.
A version similar to the one I tested, with an AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395, Radeon 8060S Graphics, 128GB of memory, 2TB SSD, and a 2.8K touch display, is currently selling for $4,536 on HP's website. A more affordable version with a Ryzen Max Pro 380, Radeon 8040S graphics, 16GB of memory, 512GB of storage, and a 14-inch LCD starts at $2,098. That's still pricier than most executive laptops, but you're getting more performance for the extra money.
Overall, while this laptop may not be ideal for those who spend their days running workstation applications, it serves as a powerful in-between machine. It offers significantly more power than a standard executive laptop and is still suitable for light-duty workstation tasks. For a little more weight and more cost, you get better graphics and AI performance in a well-built, solid laptop.