HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 review: There’s so much to like

HP’s prices vary from sale to sale, and so you have to check regularly to see what the actual price is when you’re ready to make your purchase. The OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is no different. The base model with a Core Ultra 5 226V chipset, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and the standard 14-inch 2.8K OLED display has a list price $1,450 but is currently on sale for $1,100 at the time of writing. My review unit with a Core Ultra 7 258V, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD is on sale for $1,400, down from a list price of $1,750. And then the high-end configuration with a Core Ultra 9 288V and a 2TB SSD lists for $2,080 but is on sale right now at $1,730.

The Spectre x360 14 was an awesome 2-in-1. It had a gorgeous aesthetic, was solidly built, and featured some useful features like USB-C ports notch of the back corners that allowed plugging in and keep cables neatly out of the way. The OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 has a slightly less ostentatious design, but it maintains what was best about the Spectre. And it’s a strong competitor against laptops like the Zenbook S14, the Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x, and the Yoga Slim 7i that has a larger 15.3-inch display.

To begin with, the notches are still there and remain just as functional. The build quality is incredibly solid, with no bending, flexing, or twisting in the lid, keyboard deck, or chassis. The hinge is just slightly too firm to open the lid with one hand, but that’s because it has to hold everything in place in clamshell, tent, media, and tablet modes. Simply put, the OmniBook exudes quality just like the best premium laptops.

And while the OmniBook doesn’t have the same colorful accents as the old Spectre, its all-black color way is just as attractive. The edges are more rounded, which is not only a good look but also helps the OmniBook being more comfortable to hold as a tablet. I’ve mentioned a few other very nice laptops I’ve reviewed lately, and the OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is as nicely design as any of them.

It’s also just as portable. It’s thin at 0.59 inches and light at 2.97 pounds. Its display bezels are reasonably small, especially for a 360-degree convertible 2-in-1.

I’ve long been a fan of HP’s keyboards, particularly those in the Specre lineup. The keycaps are large with highly legible lettering, and there’s a ton of key spacing. The switches are light and snappy, giving a precise feel. I found the OmniBook’s keyboard to be every bit as comfortable as Apple’s Magic Keyboard, my other favorite, for long-form writing — such as this review. HP gave the function keys a gray color and it helps them stand out, but that does detract a little from the otherwise cohesive aesthetic. The power button is a light-blue color with a bright LED, and it helps identify it but, again, it kind of stands out a little too much.

Equally excellent is the large touchpad that takes up most of the available space on the palm rest. Not only is it large enough, it’s also a haptic feedback touchpad that’s responsive and supports clicking across the entire surface. It doesn’t have the same kind of Force Click functionality of Apple’s Force Touch haptic touchpad, but it’s still very good and welcome here.

The display is pen- and touch-enabled, of course, and everything works as it should. If you want a laptop that can convert to a tablet for writing and drawing on the display, then the OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is a great example of the form.

The OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 has one display option: a 2.8K (2880 x 1800) OLED panel running at up to 120Hz. Out of the box, it’s awesome, with OLED’s usual inky blacks and dynamic colors.

The OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is the latest laptop I’ve reviewed running Intel’s Lunar Lake chipset. Specifically, it’s the Core Ultra 7 258V, a Series 2 chipset running at 17 watts. As such, it competes most directly against Intel’s previous 15-watt Core Ultra U-series, but in practice it’s the most immediate replacement for the 28-watt Core Ultra H-series processors.

As I’ve stressed in each of my Lunar Lake laptop reviews, efficiency is the primary goal of this round of Intel’s chipsets. As we see above, performance doesn’t stand out, so battery life becomes more important. In part, that’s because of the excellent efficiency of Apple Silicon, with the M3 chipset being both fast and efficient.

Here, we see that the OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 is a lot more efficient than the Spectre x360 14, especially in web browsing. It’s not quite as efficient as Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i and the Zenbook S 14, and the Qualcomm laptops are stronger as well.

The OmniBook is held back a bit by its 64-watt-hour battery, which isn’t huge, and it also sports a high-res, 120Hz OLED display. That also doesn’t help. And while it’s not as good as some others, it’s still a lot more efficient than most Intel Meteor Lake laptops. That means that while it can’t keep up with Apple’s M3, it will still likely get through a day’s work with moderate productivity workflows.

The Spectre x360 14 was a great laptop, maybe the best example of the 360-degree convertible 2-in-1. With HP’s rebranding, I was wondering how much else would change with the OmniBook Ultra Flip 14. Fortunately, I didn’t have to worry too much.

There’s really not a lot to dislike about the OmniBook. It gets very good battery life, has a gorgeous OLED display, and it look and feels great. Its performance isn’t the best, but it’s fast enough, and its keyboard and touchpad are excellent. It’s most attractive, though, at its sale prices.