HP has leaned into its revived “Omni” branding with two new systems to amplify the company’s mobile and desktop computing AI chops. The new HP OmniBook Ultra laptop aims to claim (however briefly) the “world’s fastest AI PC” title with a custom-design AMD Ryzen AI 300-series processor that’s faster even than AMD’s own claims for its latest silicon just a month prior. 

Meanwhile, the HP OmniStudio X all-in-one desktop comes in two sizes and combines current-generation Intel Core Ultra processing with the option for Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics. I had the chance to play with both at HP’s debut event in New York City and learn more about them.

Touring HP’s Souped-Up OmniBook Ultra Laptop

HP’s second such laptop to bear the revived OmniBook name, the OmniBook Ultra is a performance-focused notebook that aims to reach on-trend techies with work to get done. It has high-end competition like Apple's MacBook Pro squarely in its sights, and HP has cooked up a few "firsts" to draw a bead on it.

But first, this 14-inch pseudo-workstation's recycled-metal frame, at 3.48 pounds, feels quite dense when picking it up. That isn’t necessarily bad—just don’t expect a feathery experience. Regardless, it won’t strain your backpack too heavily, weighing just as much as a 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 Pro chip. 

Opening the lid reveals a 2.2K (2,240-by-1,400) IPS touch screen with 100% SRGB color coverage that can shine at up to 300 nits. However, at least on paper, the MacBook Pro display still comfortably outshines this one with finer resolution, higher brightness, and broader color coverage.

While much praise has been heaped upon Apple’s MacBook inputs over the years, the OmniBook Ultra’s keyboard and touchpad were a delight to play with, at least for my brief time with them at HP’s event. The keys are predictably squishy, as they are with most laptops, but they deliver more forceful feedback than I’ve felt in a while from a laptop. Meanwhile, the touchpad is plenty big enough and makes for super-smooth tracking.

As for connectivity, HP worked with AMD to make this the first laptop with such a processor to feature Thunderbolt 4 ports—two of them. HP also managed to squeeze in a standard USB-A port with 10Gbps transfer speeds using one of those clever drop hinges to maintain the base’s curved edge. Of course, a headphone jack is included. For wireless connectivity, the laptop works with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 radios.

But enough aesthetics, and on to the star of the show that we sadly know relatively little about: the Ultra's juiced-up AMD Ryzen AI 300-series processor, rated for 55 trillion operations per second (TOPS) in AI performance. The unit I played with firsthand reported it had an AMD Ryzen 9 HX 370 chip in it with Radeon 890M integrated graphics in its Windows 11 Device Manager app. This AMD Ryzen 300 AI chip was first detailed at Computex 2024, rated for “just” 50 TOPS of AI performance. (See more Ryzen AI 300 details that AMD shared on July 15.)

At the debut event, an HP executive told me that the chip inside the OmniBook Ultra is a custom piece of silicon developed closely with AMD to achieve this higher TOPS rating. Putting two and two together, this is a specialized version of one of AMD’s announced new chips. It seems like a similar situation to the Microsoft SQ3 chip in its Surface Pro X tablet from a few years back. The tablet was based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8cx processor, though likely not as extensive an adaptation to deserve a new name.

However, based on HP’s materials provided to the press, it’s possible that this 55 TOPS version of the OmniBook Ultra may not launch in August, the product's official launch timing, but rather in September. When contacted for clarification, an HP representative said, “We are excited to share more details related to the AMD processor closer to product availability.”

If it launches in time, AMD could take a momentary lead in the next lap of what’s likely to be a persistent AI TOPS "big numbers" war, ahead of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips that just debuted a month prior. What does this enhanced performance amount to? In addition to a claimed 44% AI performance advantage over Apple’s M4 processor inside the latest iPad Pro, this custom silicon is said to drive an even better Copilot+ PC experience than competitors with a threefold boost to its time to first token (TTFT) speed in the LLAMA2-7B large language model. (This relates to how fast you’ll see the first piece of a response from an AI chatbot like Copilot.)

This advanced AMD chip should also improve the videoconferencing experience with its 9-megapixel (MP) Polycom AI webcam with dual microphones. For instance, the NPU can drive faster performance in Windows Studio Effects for smoother auto-framing and background generation.

Finally, HP claims a battery life of 21 hours when playing video and 13 hours during everyday use. If those figures pan out, the OmniBook Ultra will be quite competitive with the MacBook Pro line. Supported by 16GB or 32GB of DDR5 memory and a 512GB-to-2TB solid-state drive, the HP OmniBook Ultra will launch in August and start at $1,449.99.

HP OmniStudio X All-in-One Desktops: Creators Will Crave Them

HP also touted two new all-in-one desktops at the event: a 27-inch and a 31.5-inch HP OmniStudio X AI PC. I spent time with the 31.5-inch version, which has a 2,200-by-1,400-pixel IPS screen with 300 nits of brightness and 100% SRGB coverage. Meanwhile, the 27-inch gives you the option of either a 1080p or 4K version of that screen.

Both OmniStudio X sizes use the Intel Core Ultra 5 125H or the more powerful Core Ultra 7 155H processor. However, only the 31.5-inch model has the option for an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 mobile GPU inside. While both versions of this AIO are intended as high-end family-room PCs, the larger model is aimed at light gamers and amateur or fledgling content creators.

While I wasn't keen on the included Copilot-key-equipped keyboard (it was squishier in feedback than I’d like), nor did I appreciate the weirdly shaped mouse with a tiny scroll wheel during my brief time with it, the core system is impressive. Not much bigger than a straight monitor of the same size, the OmniStudio X is proof of how far Windows-based AIO PCs have come. 

Like some monitors (but rare in an AIO PC), the device has a joystick-like controller for managing display settings. It felt easy to use sight unseen from the front. The display height and tilt are also flexible in both cases. Both screen sizes of the device contain two USB-C ports (one being 20Gbps), four USB-A ports, and HDMI in-and-out video connections. Some of the connections are on the vertical stand.

I also appreciate the PC’s 5-megapixel webcam, which can be hidden using a push-release locking mechanism; when closed, the camera sinks in behind the screen. Fun and useful design touches like that are always welcome.

The RTX 4050 GPU inside the larger model can certainly handle running the latest games even at its native resolution, but it’s also an AI powerhouse at 194 TOPS, running circles around the latest AI laptops for AI tasks that can leverage the GPU. HP angles this as a machine ready for the latest games but also one that can assist in content creation and other creative functions.

While the OmniStudio X’s NPU AI TOPS rating doesn’t make it a Copilot+ PC, technically, the GPU inside the larger model certainly helps bridge the gap that Intel’s Core Ultra chips aren’t prepared to yet. I got to see this AIO render images of an astronaut riding a stallion rather quickly using StableDiffusion in the GIMP image editor, if not quite at the hyper-realistic detail that the prompt requested.

(Credit: Joe Osborne)

Both sizes of this AIO come packing either 16GB or 32GB of DDR5 RAM and a 256GB up to a 2TB SSD. While that amount of starting storage is relatively small these days, the HP OmniStudio X should be a pretty capable AIO, able to rival competitors like Apple’s iMac. HP says the new line launches in August at a starting price of $1,149.99.