Copilot+ PCs are the most effective weapon Microsoft has against the MacBook, but price has always been an obstacle. Every laptop company has jumped in on the hype, and none have managed to go lower than $900.
Well, HP’s latest OmniBook lineup looks primed to change that — bringing a huge range of new laptops packing the latest from Intel and AMD. Let me take you through them.
Sliding into the AI PC family with HP’s current OmniBook Ultra laptops are the following three lineups.
OmniBook 3: OmniBudget
Available in both 14- and 15.6-inch display sizes, these are two of the laptops I’m very excited to try. Why? Well, the plan is to make these “perfectly priced,” which means they could be the first Copilot+ PCs to jump on our best budget laptops list.
These pack a 1080p panel, up to an FHD webcam with dual array digital microphones, and a decent array of I/O including USB-C and 2x USB-A. Powering these are AMD’s lower-end AI 5 and AI 7 chipsets — all of which pack that same NPU as the higher-end to process up to 50 trillion operations per second (TOPS).
And following the Copilot+ rules, you’re getting a minimum of 16GB of DDR5 RAM. With all of this packed into a plastic chassis, I’m not expecting this to feel like the most premium laptop in the hand. But provided there are good ergonomics (HP’s pretty good at this) and an even better price (fingers crossed for a $500 base cost), then we’re golden here.
These are chalking up to be great laptops for education or your regular family computer.
OmniBook 5: The mid-range
I call this the mid-range, but in all honesty, it’s a bit all over the place. There are some laptops in this range that are definitely on the lower end in terms of internals. For example, the OmniBook 5 Flip packs a U-series Intel notebook chip, and there is a version of the OmniBook 5 that comes with AMD’s Ryzen 8040U series CPU.
But let’s move past these, move up the family and focus on the AI PC models of the 14- and 16-inch OmniBook 5 laptops. With these, you’re getting a wider selection of NPU-armed silicon from the Intel Core Ultra 285H to the AMD Ryzen AI 7 H 350.
And you’ll find upgrades elsewhere — including a 5MP IR camera for all your Windows Hello authentication needs, and up to a 2K OLED display, which are all packed into a part-plastic, part-aluminum chassis. My guess would be that these would start at roughly $700 given the specs, sizes and build quality available.
OmniBook 7: All-in versatility
These are for peak productivity — a recycled aluminum chassis packs up to a 3K OLED panel, the latest and greatest from Intel and AMD, and even upgradeability to an RTX 4050 for a dedicated graphical push.
There are 14-, 16- and 17-inch options on offer here, but chief among the lineup is the OmniBook 7 Aero, which looks set to put the Asus Zenbook A14 on blast by being the “world’s lightest next gen AI PC,” in the company’s own words.
You’re getting all the usual specs of an AI PC here, including AMD Ryzen AI chip options, plenty of I/O, that 5MP IR camera and up to 32GB of LPDDR5X RAM, but it will weigh less than 2.2 pounds.
OmniBook X: OmniBig
So far, we’ve seen the 14-inch HP OmniBook X packing Snapdragon X Elite. Well, X is no longer a Qualcomm signifier, and no longer are we dealing with just a 14-inch model.
There are now 16- and 17-inch models, too, along with a 2-in-1 AI PC — each coming in either Intel or AMD flavors, and the 17-incher giving you an RTX 4050 option.
And same as the current OmniBook X, you’re getting a full metal shell, up to a 3K OLED panel, and that matte black finish as an option.
Can the prices be low?
When we talk about being budget-conscious, we’ve got to talk about the tariff situation. Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned from speaking to experts, it’s that cheaper laptops will be hit the hardest.
Let me be clear — this part of the puzzle is a little bit out of HP’s control. At a time when we’re all really feeling the squeeze, affordability is more crucial than ever.
And outside of the M4 MacBook Air dropping by $100 (my theory is Apple’s absorbed some of the profit margin here), most companies are either announcing price rises or sneakily upping costs without telling anyone.
Acer’s lineup is going up by 10%, Nvidia GPUs are rising to as much as $3,000 (part tariff-part scalping by retailers), and we’re hearing rumblings of more price hikes coming (though nobody wants to say anything on the record yet).
Copilot+ PCs have all hung out closer to that $1,000 mark, and I’ve been waiting for a company to finally bring the heat and undercut this expectation. Can HP be the one to do it? Could the company do a $500-$600 AI laptop? All we can do is wait and see.
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