HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 Review – a sleek and stunning workhorse with AI capabilities

For the last few weeks I’ve swapped out my daily use laptop for the all-new HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 and gotten a real sense of just how far the Windows Laptop market has come because this thing is sensational.

There is a heck of a lot to love about this device. At just 1.34kg and no more than 1.49cm thick – it’s supremely portable. Several times I’ve grabbed my backpack and put it back down again to unzip the bag and check the laptop is even in there. Love this.

Yet with it’s Intel Core Ultra 7 processor it’s capable of doing all the things I need from it.

Now on that, I got a Geekbench Single Core score of 1850 and a multi-core score of 8788. Those are not scores I’d personally shout from the rooftop having paid $3,399 for a laptop. Now, I’ve seen it on solid discounts lately around $2,719 so keep an eye on the sales folks.

But while you can get better performance – is it in a device this portable? Is it in a device that has a battery life that goes all day?

Probably not – with any decision you have trade offs, and in this era of AI PCs there’s no doubt that most people would lean toward exceptional battery life, quiet operation and portability as reasons to sacrifice performance.

That said, it’s not exactly sluggish. Those Geekbench numbers would have been premium not long ago – especially in a laptop!

Security wise there’s an easy access MUTE Key on the top row of the keyboard for your microphone, and the webcam has a really simple slider to cover the camera, you wouldn’t know its there! Loved this design trick, the slider has a rough edge so its just enough to get some friction to slide the cover, but it’s not overt and ugly.

When you’re on a video call you’ve got a 9MP camera which has AI features to properly blur the background or single out and follow a sugject, and there’s Poly Audio for a great audio performance. I would argue that for this price, I’d have liked a far better quality camera to be frank, but if that’s not a major consideration for you – you probably won’t care at all.

Which is critical, because I feel like the design team took this device as serious as the AI and performance teams.

The screen to body ratio is 90.04% – it really looks great, and that screen is a bright OLED so the colour reproduction is really impressive.

However, it is a gloss screen, and I think as we get anti-glare coating awareness, more people will be keen to cut or diffuse those reflections. In bright spaces, this was a bit frustrating pulling the screen to a different angle to counteract reflections not just get the best view.

HP quotes an “up to 20 hour battery life” on the HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14, and while I’ve no doubt in the right settings of brightness wifi and such that’s possible with local video playback. In my experience this was more a 15-16 hour device, which is still sensational compared to the recent past, and most certainly for me counts as “all day battery life” which is really all that matters.

I highly doubt the hinge mechanism and requirement for this to flip around into Tent or Tablet mode is a high additional cost, but personally I never use Tablet Mode and have only used Tent mode to demonstrate to someone why you might want it. I’d happily opt for a non-flip version if it trimmed the price.

Impressively, the HP OmniBook Ultra Flip is made from 90% recycled metals and 50% post recycled plastics. The box it comes in is a great presentation of the use of cardboard in packaging and will impress those with an eco-friendly tendency for sure.

The HP OmniBook Ultra Flip also carries the HP AI PC logo, which means it’s AI capable – and the Windows system has CoPilot built in across the platform, but in addition there’s also the HP AI Companion built in.

This is a software platform that acts as your interface to the world of AI and is essentially broken into three areas:

• Discover
• Analyse
• Perform

The HP AI Companion’s Discover section is a prompt based large language model – “ask me anything” kinda ChatGPT style, and it works very well – local app rather than launching a browser.

Analyse is a really nice feature for a project you might be working on. You can create a project, give it a name and upload associated files. Then ask questions that relate to that project and get answers relevant. I tested this with “Online Safety Bill” the Kids Social Media Ban – uploaded the final bill, and was able to ask questions about the Bill. Pretty cool, and I can imagine a project with multiple documents and how this would be a great way to find information within the files.

Perform is all about your PC. Here you can request the AI Companion performs PC tasks. From menial things like turning up and down the volume, to performing diagnostic tasks.

The core use for this I found is removing Google from my PC helpdesk task list. Forgotten how to reset Windows? Just ask the AI Companion. Some tasks you get instructions, others actually are processed by the device and actioned.

AI is cool, but it’s not yet foreground enough to really entice usage, but – in the case of the HP AI Companion, it’s a nice to have and a well bundled bit of software. You just need to remember you have it.

Around the sides are three USB-C ports – two of them are on the rear corners but don’t be put off by that, plus there’s a single 3.5mm slot for headphone/microphone.

Overall, this is an impressive unit. The portability is a huge win, along with battery life – and while it’s expensive for a student laptop that would be a great use-case.

I feel far more comfortable recommending it at a $2700 or less price point than it’s RRP of $3300 or so, but that’s entirely your call!