HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 review: A productivity laptop with a surprising strength and a critical flaw

I wasn’t sure what to expect from the HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14, but its strengths surprised me.

Its chassis makes it a stylish HP Spectre look-alike, but its specs include one of Intel’s new Lunar Lake processors, putting it in a class of its own. The Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 is a mainstream laptop so you can use it for school, work, or entertainment. The question is, can this new Lunar Lake contender compete with all-star mainstream laptops, like the Acer Swift X 14?

I used the HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 as my main laptop for several days to find out. In some ways, it let me down, but in others, it far exceeded my expectations.

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Specs (as reviewed)

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Price and configurations

The HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 is available in several configurations starting at $1,449 for an Intel Core Ultra 5 226V CPU, Intel Arc integrated graphics, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD storage, and a 14-inch 2880 x 1800 OLED touch display.

For additional costs, you can upgrade to an Intel Core Ultra 7 256V CPU, Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU, or Intel Core Ultra 9 288V CPU. You can bump up to 32GB as well, but it’s baked into the CPU upgrades. So, the Core Ultra 7 258V and Core Ultra 9 288V configurations include 32GB of RAM and the Core Ultra 5 226V and Core Ultra 7 256V include 16GB of RAM.

For an additional $50 you can upgrade to 1TB or 2TB of storage for $200. There is also an option to select Windows 11 Pro for those planning to use the HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 mainly as a work device.

The maxed out configuration with an Intel Core Ultra 9 288V CPU, 32GB of RAM, Intel Arc integrated graphics, and 2TB of SSD storage costs $2,079.

Our review unit, priced at $1,899, includes an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V CPU, Intel Arc integrated graphics, 32GB of RAM, 2TB of SSD storage, and a 14-inch 2880x1800 OLED touch display.

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Design

The HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 takes some design inspiration from the HP Spectre and I’m not complaining. The Spectre sports one of my favorite mainstream laptop designs and it looks just as good on this Omnibook.

Two colors are available: Eclipse Gray and Atmospheric Blue. Our review unit suits up inAtmospheric Blue, although in person it looks more like black or dark gray. It’s still a very nice color, but definitely not the navy shade seen on the 2024 HP Spectre x360 16. However, like the Spectre, the full aluminum chassis on the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 features flattened rear corners with USB Type-C ports nestled in them, which both looks good and cleverly increases the ports included on this laptop.

Since the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 is a 2-in-1, you can flip the display around to use in tablet mode. A stylus in the box which you can magnetically attach to the right edge of the keyboard deck. It snaps into place well and, importantly, doesn’t block any ports.

At 2.9 pounds, the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 is pretty lightweight, which students and commuters will appreciate. It measures 12.35 x 8.51 x 0.59 inches. That’s on par with a few of its rivals:

• Dell Inspiron 14 Plus: 3.17 pounds, 12.36 x 8.81 x 0.67 inches
• Lenovo Yoga 9i (Gen 9): 2.9 pounds, 12.4 x 8.7 x 0.6 inches
• Acer Swift X 14 (2024): 2.6 pounds, 12.22 x 8.45 x 0.51 inches

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Ports

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The HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 is a bit sparse when it comes to ports. It offers one USB Type-C port on the right side, one USB Type-C port hidden in each of the rear corners, and a headphone jack on the left side. There are no USB Type-A ports, so if you need those or an HDMI port, you will need to get a USB Type-C hub or a docking station.

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Display

The OLED display on the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 performed well overall during my hands-on testing. I found it sharp and vibrant with good contrast and clear text.

The colorful graphics in Donut Country looked great and the display kept up well with the rapid pace of combat in Death’s Door. I didn't notice any screen tearing or blurry graphics.

Videos looked good, as well. I watched the final trailer for season two of Netflix's Arcane and the Omnibook's display did a nice job of balancing the wide swath of rich colors in the animation.

Now, our scores don’t quite reflect the full visual experience, but before you see them, let me add some context. Our testing relies on software that measures OLED color gamut volume differently than some manufacturers, like HP, hence the discrepancy between HP’s claim of 100% DCI-P3 and our test results. Among the competitors, the Lenovo Yoga 9i and Acer Swift X 14 also use OLED panels, but only the Acer Swift X 14 was similarly impacted.

*OLED display

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Keyboard and touchpad

I found the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14’s keyboard snappy and satisfying to type on, although I wish there was a bit more key travel. The keys feel flatter than I typically like, although there is still a nice amount of tactile feedback.

On the Monkeytype typing test, I scored 103 words per minute with 100% accuracy, which is one of my best scores on any laptop I reviewed. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7x still holds my personal record of 105 words per minute with 100% accuracy. However, the HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 is giving it a run for its money.

I liked the touchpad on this laptop, as well. It’s quite roomy for a touchpad on a 14-inch laptop and offers smooth, responsive performance. It never felt sluggish or lagged during my testing. Of course, you can always connect an external mouse but keep in mind that since the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 doesn’t have any USB Type-A ports, you will most likely either need an adapter, a Bluetooth mouse like the Logitech MX Anywhere, or a mouse with a USB Type-C dongle like the Alienware Pro Wireless.

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Audio

While I wish the speakers on the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 were top-firing, they still sounded great and got surprisingly loud. Crisp details came through with the volume around 30 and I never needed to crank it up past 40. Game audio was well-balanced, as well, with clear background ambience.

Music also sounded good overall. Bea Miller’s “Playground” was clean and bassy, although the mids got somewhat washed out. The highs and smooth bass in “Goodbye” by Ramsey sounded well-balanced, though.

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Performance

The Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 is powered by an Intel Core Ultra 7 258V processor, which is part of Intel’s long-awaited Lunar Lake family. So, I was eager to see how its performance compared to the previous generation of Intel chips along with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors.

The Omnibook achieved the highest score on the Geekbench 6 single-core test (2,638) compared to its rivals, but it fell behind in the Geekbench 6 multi-core test with a score of 10,877. That’s not necessarily a bad score, but it is noticeably lower than the Snapdragon-powered Dell Inspiron 14 Plus (13,281) and the Acer Swift X 14 (13,114). The Lenovo Yoga 91 was the only laptop that scored worse than the Omnibook across the board, with a single-core score of 2,445 and a multi-core score of just 10,753.

The Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 performed fairly well on our HandBrake video transcoding test with a time of 6 minutes and 37 seconds. It also had a relatively high data transfer speed of 1,702 MBps. The only rival laptop that outscored it in both categories is the Acer Swift X 14, although the Omnibook was close behind in both benchmarks.

The Omnibook handled everyday tasks well overall during my testing, such as word processing and web browsing. However, if you mainly use your laptop for things like gaming or video editing, which are more demanding, the Omnibook’s lackluster multi-core scores could result in slower performance than you might get on something like the Acer Swift X 14.

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Gaming and graphics

While it’s no gaming laptop, the HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 is great for casual gaming. It scored better than I expected on our tests, coming in at 8,680 on the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark and averaging a solid 62.8 frames per second in Sid Meier’s Civilization VI.

Those are impressive scores considering the Omnibook is running on integrated graphics, not a dedicated GPU. Of course, the Acer Swift X 14 delivered far higher scores thanks to its Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, but the Intel Arc integrated graphics in the Omnibook still significantly outperformed the Intel Arc integrated graphics in the Lenovo Yoga 9i.

This indicates that while the Lunar Lake processors may lag in overall performance, they offer stronger integrated graphics performance than their Meteor Lake predecessors. The Lunar Lake-powered Omnibook also far outscored the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus, although that doesn’t come as a surprise. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon CPUs tend to struggle with gaming, especially since app compatibility remains an issue.

I did some casual gaming on the HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 and had a good experience with all the games I tried. Donut Country ran at a smooth and speedy 100 fps on High graphics in full resolution and Hollow Knight averaged a blistering fast 180 fps at full resolution. Both are very lightweight titles, though. Death’s Door pushed the Omnibook more, but it still averaged 55 fps at full resolution, which was plenty high enough for a smooth, playable experience.

It’s also worth noting that despite middling display scores, the OLED display on the Omnibook looked great while gaming during my testing. It rendered the vibrant low poly graphics of Donut Country and the rich contrast of Death’s Door in great detail overall. If you’re looking for a mainstream laptop with decent integrated graphics performance, the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 is a surprisingly good option.

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: AI performance and features

If there’s one area where Intel’s new Lunar Lake processors stand out, it’s AI performance. The HP Omnibook Ultra Flip outscored all of its rivals in this category. The only exception is the Acer Swift X 14’s Geekbench ML ONNX GPU score with its dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070. A dedicated GPU like this will almost always outscore an integrated GPU, which is the case here. The HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 outscored the Acer Swift X 14’s integrated GPU score, though.

The Copilot app is pre-installed on the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 and launches quickly with the dedicated Copilot key. It ran smoothly during my testing with things like listening to Copilot’s daily report or processing basic prompts. Generating text and images was also reasonably fast, although I did have to reload the AI-generated audio for the Copilot daily report a couple of times.

The Omnibook also includes the new HP AI Companion app, which is similar to the Copilot app but uses a different AI. It also includes AI-powered performance features that may be able to help optimize system performance through your laptop’s drives, BIOS, and firmware.

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Battery life

Regardless of what you want to use your laptop for, good battery life is crucial. The HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 doesn’t in this category, but it didn’t come anywhere close to some similar laptops.

It lasted 12 hours and 2 minutes, which will probably be enough to get you through a full day at work or school. However, the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus knocked it out of the park with a time of 18 hours and 20 minutes. The Lenovo Yoga 9i and Acer Swift X 14 lagged with less than 8 hours.

It’s worth noting that the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus CPU, which may explain its lengthy battery life. Snapdragon-powered laptops have delivered some of the best battery life scores we’ve ever seen. So, while the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14’s battery life time isn’t necessarily bad, it pales in comparison to what a growing number of Snapdragon-powered laptops can offer.

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Webcam

Laptop webcams are often disappointing, but I found the 9MP IR webcam on the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 surprisingly solid. The video quality isn’t professional-grade but it’s above average and handles natural lighting well overall. Colors appeared accurate with good contrast in my test video, with very little graininess or blur.

The built-in microphone captured my voice clearly without getting muddled by background noise or distorting my voice.

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Heat

The HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 handled heat well in both our lab tests and my everyday use. It peaked at 88.5 degrees, which is far below our 95-degree comfort threshold. The warmest area was in the center of the top edge of the underside of the keyboard deck.

I never felt the Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 grow uncomfortably warm during my testing, even while gaming. The top edge of the keyboard deck got a bit hot, but the main keys and touchpad were always cool. The warmest temperature we recorded on the touchpad was only 79 degrees.

HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14: Software and warranty

The Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 includes a one-year limited hardware warranty, which you can extend through HP Care Pack. It comes ready to go with the standard suite of Windows 11 apps such as Microsoft Edge, the Microsoft Store, the Xbox app, and the Copilot app.

Bottom line

The HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 isn’t perfect, but it does offer a few unexpected strengths that could make it a good fit for certain users. While it fell behind its rivals on overall performance and display quality, the Omnibook’s integrated graphics handle casual gaming very well and the built-in microphone is much better than most other laptops. It also showed strong AI performance and features a design that’s hard not to like.

However, if battery life is a top priority for you, you may want to consider a Qualcomm-powered laptop like the Dell Inspiron 14 Plus. Alternatively, if you specifically want a laptop for work with good battery life, the Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 6 currently holds Laptop Mag’s record for longest-lasting battery. You can also visit our guide to the best 2-in-1 laptops to compare the HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 to even more alternatives.

But overall, the HP Omnibook Ultra Flip 14 would be a good fit for users who want an everyday laptop with good casual gaming performance, a laptop for AI tasks, or a 2-in-1 for work tasks with a good webcam for daily video calls.