HP recently rebranded its laptop family, with the OmniBook lineup taking over its entire consumer brand and the EliteBook consolidating its hold on HP’s business-class laptops. Now meet the HP EliteBook X G1i (starts at $2,681; $3,505 as tested), an Intel-powered model aimed at the most demanding enterprise users, with a different mix of performance and battery life than the AMD-based HP EliteBook X G1a we previously reviewed. The Intel version provides a likewise high-end build with the kind of buttoned-up aesthetic that business users prefer and a comprehensive assortment of security and management features. And, with the IPS display in our configuration, the EliteBook X G1i achieves class-leading battery life that spans multiple days of real work. This machine's not cheap, but corporate customers will likely buy in bulk. If you need more power out of your system, we point to the aforementioned EliteBook X G1a, whereas the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 is our all-around business laptop pick—both are Editors' Choice award winners.

Configurations: Confusing Customization

On HP's configuring tool, the EliteBook X G1i starts at $2,681 for a configuration with an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V chipset, 16GB of memory, a 256GB solid-state drive, and a 14.0-inch WUXGA (1,920-by-1,200-pixel) IPS display. That’s pretty pricey for a relatively low-end configuration, and things just get steeper from there. You can assemble a laptop for more than $4,000 by selecting various chip, storage, and display options.

Preconfigured models are less expensive, since they're built ready to ship. You can get a $1,749 configuration (on sale from a list price of $2,399) similar to the base model above, with a 512GB SSD. My review setup ran $3,505, configured with a Core Ultra 7 268V, 32GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and an IPS display. A pre-built Intel Core Ultra 7 268V variant with more storage costs just $2,099 on sale ($2,869 list price) at the time of writing, so definitely shop carefully.

It’s essential to remember that the EliteBook lineup is most likely to be purchased on a contract, so these prices aren’t nearly as relevant as they would be for consumer laptops. The bottom line: This is a premium machine aimed at businesses, so you’re paying a bit more for the enhanced enterprise security and management features. 

Design: A Laptop in Office Attire

The EliteBook X G1i comes in a minimalist, conservative design for business users. My review unit was all black, with zero bling or chrome to break up the aesthetic. Well, that's not entirely true: The lettering on the keyboard and small EliteBook logo on the palm rest are white, but those hardly count. Even the HP logo on the lid is subdued.

Befitting its premium price, the EliteBook also delivers a sturdy build, with no bending, flexing, or twisting in the lid, keyboard deck, or chassis. HP promises that the laptops pass all 19 MIL-STD 810H tests, an important consideration for business users who travel extensively and give their computers a lot of wear and tear.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

A magnesium-and-aluminum chassis keeps the EliteBook X G1i lightweight (2.6 pounds to start) and slim (0.59 inches maximum thickness). The surface is warm and comfortable, with rounded sides that avoid sharp edges. It’s a superior design all around.

You'll also find plenty of business-oriented features, like HP’s Wolf Security suite, which taps into several software and hardware components to ensure privacy and security for enterprise users. The AI Companion app provides additional value, although you can get that suite with HP’s consumer lineup, too.

Keyboard, Touch, and Webcam: Excellent Keyboard, OK Touchpad

Accessibility is the name of the game here. The EliteBook X G1i's keyboard features bold, obvious lettering with excellent three-level backlighting and a comfortable layout. The keycaps are large and well spaced, and the switches are deep enough yet quite snappy and responsive. It’s a precise keyboard that competes well against my favorite, Apple’s Magic Keyboard. I almost immediately hit my usual typing speed on these keys, and fatigue has not been an issue.

The mechanical touchpad isn’t quite as impressive. It has a smooth, responsive surface with quiet, confident button clicks, but haptic touchpads are more customizable and give off a more quality feel. I was glad to see the touch-enabled display.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

HP built in its typical 5MP webcam, with an infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello facial recognition. You'll also find a fingerprint reader embedded in the power button, providing another secure method for logging in. The sensors also support tasks like adjusting the contrast when you look away from the display, and sensing when there’s an onlooker. 

The bundled Poly Camera Pro suite provides AI-enabled features made possible by the Intel chipset's Neural Processing Unit (NPU). For instance, you can access Magic Background, Spotlight, Presenter Overlay, and several other options to enhance videoconferencing. The EliteBook X G1i is also a Microsoft Copilot+ laptop, meaning it supports all the usual Copilot+ AI functionality with fast and efficient on-device performance.

Display and Audio: More Practical Than Pretty

My review unit came equipped with a 14.0-inch WUXGA (1,920-by-1,200-pixel) IPS display running at 60Hz. To my eyes, that display is lacking in sharpness. Text on the screen doesn't look as crisp as it could be, and the relatively slow refresh rate doesn't deliver the smoothest experience.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

At the same time, the display was bright and reasonably colorful, with decent contrast that avoided blacks looking too gray. I prefer OLED displays, but IPS promises much better battery life. Honestly, most users will find this display more than decent enough, particularly those primarily focused on productivity.

Four speakers pump out reasonably loud sound, with clear mids and highs, but not a ton of bass. These are neither the best nor the worst speakers I’ve used on a 14-inch laptop, and once again, most users will find the audio quality more than acceptable.

Ports: Better Than 'Good-Enough' Connectivity

The EliteBook X G1i provides a fairly typical selection of ports for a 14-inch laptop. You'll find two USB-C 40Gbps ports with Thunderbolt 4 support, one USB-C 10Gbps 3.2 connection, one USB-A 3.2 port running at 5Gbps, an HDMI 2.1 connection, and a 3.5mm audio jack. Alas, the laptop lacks an SD card reader to round out the package.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Wireless connectivity includes Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4, with an optional nano-SIM slot for 4G or 5G cellular connectivity—a business-friendly feature that you’re unlikely to find on consumer laptops.

(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)

Performance Testing: Laser-Focused on Productivity

For our comparison group, I selected several other business laptops with a mix of Intel and AMD chips inside: the EliteBook X G1a ($2,749 as tested) with the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX Pro 375; the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura Edition ($1,999 as tested); the Dell Pro 14 Premium ($2,679.27 as tested). For contrast, I also looked at the consumer-oriented HP OmniBook Ultra 14 ($1,679.99 as tested).

Productivity and Content Creation Tests

Our primary overall benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, tests a system in productivity apps ranging from web browsing to word processing and spreadsheet work. Its Full System Drive subtest measures a PC's storage throughput.

Three more tests are CPU-centric or processor-intensive: Maxon's Cinebench 2024 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene; Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning; and we see how long it takes the video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution.

Finally, workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Creators rates a PC's image editing prowess with a variety of automated operations in Adobe Photoshop 25.

On the PCMark 10 test, the EliteBook X G1i beat the other Intel Core Ultra 7 laptops and easily surpassed our 4,000-point productivity work baseline, but it couldn't beat the AMD Ryzen AI 9 systems. This pattern repeated in the rest of the tests, as the EliteBook consistently topped the Intel laptops but lagged behind the AMD models. In the HandBrake test, the AMD laptops were significantly faster—almost twice as fast in the AMD-based EliteBook's case.

In the PugetBench Photoshop benchmark, though, the EliteBook X G1i put up a better fight against the AMD laptops, proving it was fast enough for moderately demanding photo editors. Regardless, we wouldn't lean on the EliteBook for video editing: Its integrated graphics can't beat laptops with discrete GPUs.

Graphics Tests

We challenge each reviewed system’s graphics with a quintet of animations or gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K) use the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds.

Steel Nomad's regular (4K) and Light (1440p) subtests focus on APIs more commonly used for game development, like Metal and DirectX 12 in addition to Vulkan, to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. A fifth test, Solar Bay, emphasizes ray-tracing performance using Vulkan or Metal APIs at 1440p resolution.

Unsurprisingly, the EliteBook X G1i’s integrated Intel Arc 140V graphics aren’t particularly impressive for gaming. It's faster than older integrated graphics processors (IGP), but Intel's latest IGP trailed our comparison group in some tests and led the pack in others. This resulted in an inconsistent showing, revealing that the IGP in this implementation is competitive but not leading at higher resolutions (comparing the versions of each Wild Life and Steel Nomad test) and is surprisingly decent at ray tracing (based on its Solar Bay result). Regardless, none of these laptops stand out as a gaming option.

Battery Life and Display Tests

We test each laptop and tablet's battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.

To gauge display performance, we use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation (in other words, what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show). We also measure the screen's 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

The EliteBook X G1i's energy-efficient Intel processor and low-power IPS display delivered more than 25 hours of battery life, second only to the Dell Pro 14 Premium in our comparison group.

The IPS display, meanwhile, performed better than average, covering 100% of the sRGB color gamut, 81% of Adobe RGB, and 82% of DCI-P3. Its brightness was sky-high, too—415 nits at 100% max level—well above the 300 nits or so needed to work well with typical ambient lighting.