We have seen many business laptops come and go, and they seem to be much of a muchness, but the new HP Elitebook Ultra G1q looks to be something different – an AI-ready Copilot+ PC featuring a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset.

All the manufacturers are doing it at the moment, and we suspect they will all keep doing it in the future – building AI-ready laptops without much real-world use for AI just yet. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – AI-powered PC software is primarily useless for nearly all of us at this stage.

So here we are, with the new HP AI-ready laptop.   Read on to hear our thoughts on this laptop and what it can and cannot do.

Specs + config options

The HP Elitebook Ultra G1q is available in two specifications, with the only difference between the two is one has 512GB SSD and the other 1TB.  The review laptop I received to review is specced as follows:

  • Snapdragon X Elite processor
  • Windows 11 Pro
  • 14″ diagonal 2.2K touch display with Qualcomm® Adreno™ GPU
  • 16 GB LPDDR5x-8400 RAM
  • 512 GB SSD Hard Drive
  • Audio by Poly Studio 
  • Full-size backlit keyboard with HP Imagepad 
  • 5MP IR camera
  • Ports:
    • 1 USB Type-C 40Gbps signaling rate; 
    • 1 USB Type-C 10Gbps signaling rate; 
    • 1 USB Type-A 5Gbps signaling rate (charging); 
    • 1 stereo headphone/microphone combo jack

Design and hardware

The G1q is a sleek-looking laptop, unusual for a business laptop. It is incredibly thin, at just 8.4mm at the front and 11.2mm at the rear. The lid is relatively boring, but what else do you expect from a laptop designed to be used in boring, stuffy business meetings?  

I like the lid’s colouring — an attractive “Atmosphere Blue” — which is subtle enough to give it a small amount of flair while remaining sedate and understated.

Inside, the keyboard is different.  The lettering on the keycaps is massive and something that takes a bit of getting used to, but if you’re like me and don’t look at the keys all that much it’s no big deal.  

The keys have a small amount of travel but aren’t as smooth and soft as some I’ve used. I wouldn’t want to type an extended opus on them, but they were just fine for short use. As with most keyboards, there is a small learning curve while you get used to them.

The trackpad is decent without being massive, with a nice, distinctive click. It is nothing special or overly bad—it just is.

The 14-inch 2240×1400 pixel IPS display is surrounded by smallish bezels, although the top bezel is twice the size of the side bezels to incorporate the webcam and Windows Hello camera. This laptop does not have a fingerprint sensor, so if you want a fast log-in, you’ll have to opt for Windows Hello face recognition.

The IPS display is crisp and offers a decent 2K resolution but leaves a lot to be desired compared to the many beautiful OLED display laptops on the market these days.  It doesn’t get overly bright but one thing is the display is very comfortable to use for extended periods.

The colours are vivid enough, but I’d like them to pop a bit more if I were to purchase this laptop. In the end, though, this laptop is not designed for use by content creators or digital artists but for business users. The display is good for that, with the 1400p resolution delivering sharp text.

Did I mention that the display is a touch screen? It is responsive and capable of recognising quick actions, handy if you are quickly showing others content on your screen. Although I don’t use the touch a lot on a laptop, it is great to have, as there are times when it can be incredibly useful.

The left side of the laptop houses two USB-C ports – a 40Gbps USB4 port and a 10Gbps USB-C 3.2 port on the rear. The USB–A port is on the right–hand side in a drop-jaw alongside the headphone jack. I had no issues using any of these ports, and both USB-C ports were capable of extending the laptop display to my 38-inch ultrawide monitor.

The laptop’s hinge seems strong and will stop at any level you ask of it. It does not open all the way to flat but has a decent range.

The webcam can capture 2880×1620 snapshots but only 1440p resolution video calls.  This is still much better than most laptop webcams on the market, though – and you would hope that a business laptop would be able to video conference well.

Productivity + performance

The Snapdragon X Elite chipset driving the HP Elitebook Ultra G1q is excellent for everyday tasks – the basic productivity-type tasks such as web browsing, writing, spreadsheeting and creating slideshows.  Its performance for these is exceptional, as it is its battery life while doing so.

For more intensive tasks such as Adobe Cloud editing, you may experience some slowdowns. Although it did get a bit sluggish at times, it was not all that noticeable. I doubt I would have noticed if I wasn’t specifically looking for it.

Basic gaming was good too, but do not expect to be able to run AAA games or do any high-end video editing.

AI — if you build it they will come?

Once again, the AI onboard the G1q is underwhelming.  You can use HP’s AI Companion app to analyse emails and other texts, suppress any noise in video calls, blur the camera background and ask it random questions but nothing out of the ordinary.  The app is still in beta apparently, which is how I feel about AI on PCs full stop.

These features are pretty much standard for all Copilot+ PCs, and I feel that HP missed a golden opportunity to provide useful AI tools for business users. More AI features for meetings and other business-type activities would have gone a long way.  

AI is still relatively new, but how long can we keep saying that and giving manufacturers a pass? Are they waiting for third-party app developers to use their AI instead of doing something themselves?

If and when decent AI apps are readily available (and there are a few incredibly specific ones for photo editing, etc., but not many that use onboard AI), the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chipset onboard will be able to handle them. Until then, we wait for that elusive use case to present itself.

Battery life

This is a productivity laptop, and as such, I tested out the battery life using a variety of productivity tasks as mentioned above in the performance section.  In doing so, I achieved an impressive battery life of over 12 hours, which is really all you need in a laptop.

The Elitebook Ultra G1q arrives with a 65W charger in the box. This charger supports fast charging, allowing it to charge from empty to 50% full in just over 30 minutes – that’s how long it took me anyway. 

What more do you want in the way of power from your productivity laptop? The HP Elitebook Ultra G1q delivers with a long battery life and fast charging to top up if required quickly.

Final thoughts

So many laptops on the market try to do too many things instead of having a focus and delivering on their actual target. The HP Elitebook Ultra G1q does no such thing. It is targetted at the business and productivity market and it hits that bull’s-eye without setting the world alight.

The touch display is decent and delivers crisp text with decent colours — all that is required for the business user — while the keyboard is good but not great. For the business user who is not writing their autobiography or PhD the keyboard is just fine, but it is not the best keyboard I have used on a laptop.

Where the HP Elitebook Ultra G1q delivers is in its battery life and charging. Combined with the power-efficient and yet still powerful Snapdragon X Elite chipset, the HP Elitebook Ultra G1q has a battery life that will easily get you through a full day of use. If the battery does get low the provided 65W charger will fast-charger your laptop back to 50% in just 30 minutes — ideal for a business productivity laptop.

The HP Elitebook Ultra G1q is a good productivity laptop without being exceptional in any particular area, although I feel that HP has overpriced it for what it is. With it’s AI capabilities, it is set for the future if and when AI becomes useful for the average person.

The HP Elitebook Ultra G1q is available now from HP and all good tech stores for RRP $3234 in the config reviewed. If you choose the 512GB SSD instead of the 1TB, you’ll save a couple hundred dollars on this price.