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HP EliteBook Ultra G1q (Starts at $1699) |
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Microsoft and Qualcomm have been working together to make Windows on Snapdragon a mainstream platform for a long time, but two common threads have arisen as this journey has unfolded. The first is that developers were slow to add native Arm64 support to their applications. The second is that hardware was really only fast enough for casual use, but had the benefit of incredible battery life. That first problem has been addressed over time, as Adobe, Google, and others have enabled some of their flagship Windows applications with Arm support. The performance issue persisted until more recently when Qualcomm unveiled its well-received Snapdragon X Elite laptop platform with the promise of class-leading performance. Today we’re looking at HP’s introduction to the high-end Snapdragon X-powered Copilot + PC family with its EliteBook Ultra G1q AI PC.
As its name implies, this HP laptop is part of Microsoft’s push for AI PCs, machines that meet a specific requirement for machine learning prowess. This includes a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) rated at at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS, usually measured in 8-bit integer math throughput) and with 16 GB of high-bandwidth DDR5 or LPDDR5 memory. PCs need to process general purpose compute tasks, as well as new innovative AI-assisted tasks, and AI models need plenty of their own address space in main memory with plenty of bandwidth on tap. So how does HP’s EliteBook Ultra G1q handle in this environment. Let’s take a look, starting with some spec and design details…
HP EliteBook Ultra G1q AI PC Specs And Features
Obviously, we’ve given away the main bits the system’s platform up front: the HP EliteBook Ultra G1q has a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100 system on a chip. This CPU tops out at 3.4 GHz across its 12 cores (all performance cores, there’s no hybrid configuration with the Snapdragon X Elite) and has a grand total of 42 MB of cache. There’s also an Adreno X1 integrated GPU, a 45 TOPS Hexagon NPU, and coprocessors for security, image signal processing, and sensor management. If you haven’t already, check out our Snapdragon X Elite deep dive complete with details on the Oryon CPU architecture.
This isn’t our first rodeo with the Snapdragon X1 Elite, incidentally. If you missed our review of the Samsung Galaxy Book4 Edge, do check that out as well. We already know that the silicon is quite capable in a 28-Watt configuration in that notebook. In this case, HP is giving the X1E-78-100 just a 15 Watt TDP, so we’ll see how performance scales with power. This machine should also run nice and quiet while keeping its cool.
HP backs the Snapdragon SoC with 16 GB of super-fast LPDDR5x-8400 good for about 135GB per second of bandwidth. This gets shared between the CPU, integrated GPU, and NPU. AI models are often times quite sensitive to memory bandwidth, so having plenty available should help. This LPDDR5x memory is soldered to the motherboard, and there are no SO-DIMMs (or CAMM2 modules) available to upgrade this later on. There’s is a user-replaceable 512 GB PCI Express 4.0 M.2 SSD, however, so adding storage later is definitely an option.
Wireless connectivity is handled by more Qualcomm silicon innovation. The FastConnect 6900 provides Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, and there’s a 2×2 MIMO antenna configuration to make sure the system gets the most out of it. There’s also a 59 Wh battery inside the chassis, and combined with the relatively low TDP we expect it will last a good long while. We’ll see how long the system can run between charges from its included 65 Watt charger later on in this deep dive review.
HP EliteBook Ultra G1q AI PC Design and Build
The EliteBook Ultra G1q is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a handsome if unsuspecting aluminum-clad notebook. A full 50% of the EliteBook Ultra’s sub-three pound weight is recycled aluminum, the bulk of which is in its “Atmosphere Blue” enclosure. There’s a subtle wedge shape to the design when the lid is closed. Upon opening the lid, the EliteBook Ultra sits sturdy on its feet, rather than propping up on the chassis for venting. The dark blue hue selected for the body is both common for HP ultraportable notebooks, harkening back to 2020’s Elite Dragonfly, and rather unusual in the greater sea of black and aluminum found in the PC market.
With the lid open we can see the machine’s 14-inch 16:10 IPS display, which has a maximum brightness of 300 nits. Indoors that’s plenty bright at full brightness, but you might want to find a shaded area to use it outside. This is not an HDR display either, though HP does rate it to reproduce 100% of the sRGB color space, so reproduction and saturation are solid. The panel sports a resolution of 2240 x 1400, which works out to just about 190 pixels per inch. It’s a really sharp-looking panel with good color accuracy and contrast. Though as with most IPS displays, the black levels on offer aren’t totally black like they are with a more expensive OLED panel, for example.
Above the panel sits an IR-capable 1080p FHD webcam. It supports biometric authentication through Windows Hello, and is pretty fast to register a face. Image and video quality are strong with typical room lighting, which makes it great for online meetings and video chats. The camera has a sliding shutter that allows for privacy, something a lot of business notebooks have these days.
On either side of the camera is a microphone, set up in a dual array for noise canceling purposes. The array does a good job isolating voices, further enhanced in some apps like Microsoft Teams that look to AI for additional noise canceling features. The stereo speakers built into the unit are also very good for voice chats with crisp but not shrill highs and good midrange response. As with most laptops, there’s not much for low end bass here, though some psychoacoustic effects do give that illusion when playing a game or watching a movie.
The keyboard on the HP EliteBook Ultra G1q is really good as far as laptop keyboards go. There’s enough key travel to feel like you’re actually pressing keys, and it allows for fast, accurate typing. Personally, I place it a bit above the MacBook Pro 14″ that I use as a daily driver, but just short of legendary keyboards like those found on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon series. There’s also a generous multi-touch capable trackpad with integrated buttons. It supports all the Windows gestures that Microsoft has stuffed into the OS, too.
The EliteBook Ultra G1q has relatively limited expansion, but that’s common for notebooks in this weight class. There’s a pair of USB-C ports on the side, though they’re unfortunately different from one another. The one closer to the front of the machine supports USB 4 at 40 Gbps, while the farther one near the hinge supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 with 10 Gbps throughput. Both support USB Power Delivery and DisplayPort 1.4 in alternate mode, which still makes them pretty flexible.
On the right side of the machine we find a fold-down USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A port that supports 5 Gbps. The hinge on the spring-loaded port is a little finicky in that we needed to both hold it open and plug in our USB device at the same time, requiring both hands. Next to that is a combination headset jack that supports four-pole headsets with integrated microphones. And of course if that’s not enough connectivity, don’t forget that Bluetooth is a solid choice for wireless mice and headsets as well.
HP EliteBook Ultra Software Experience
Out of the box, The EliteBook Ultra is running Windows 11 Home 24H2. That is the latest and greatest update for Microsoft’s mainline operating system which includes Copilot. Right now, Copilot runs in the cloud, not on the Snapdragon X1 Elite’s (or any other processor’s) NPU, currently. Keeping LLMs and image generation models up to date on a local SSD is not the point of an AI PC, at least not right now. So if you’re looking at one of these thinking that out of the box you’d be generating images of HotHardware editor-in-chief Dave Altavilla riding a Tyrannosaurus Rex right on the PC, you’re out of luck. Feel free to grab a model or three from Hugging Face, though!
On the other hand, the AI is being put to work more invisibly, perhaps. Windows Studio effects like background blurring, simulated eye contact, voice focus, and so on will all run on an NPU in an AI PC. That’s still a win for voice chats and video conferences, because it frees up the CPU to do other things. As AI is integrated into more apps, the AI PCs including the EliteBook Ultra will be able to run them quickly and efficiently on the NPU.
The other piece of software wizardry is Microsoft’s x86 emulation layer for Windows on Arm called Prism. Much like Rosetta 2 on macOS, Prism translates x86 instructions to Arm code. That greatly increases compatibility but it does come at a performance cost. Microsoft’s emulation layer has been through multiple generations of Snapdragon 8cx, so it’s relatively mature, but there will always be a little bit of a performance delta.
By Microsoft’s estimates, most business users spend about 85% of their day in Arm-native software. We believe that’s probably the case, given that the company’s Edge browser has been Arm-native since the start and Chrome has gone native as well. The same is true for the whole Microsoft 365 suite including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams. Adobe has committed to bring its whole Creative Cloud suite as well, and Photoshop 24 is already Arm-native. It’s those apps that are not that will have issues.
The other thing we need to point out is the relatively immature graphics drivers. The Adreno integrated graphics processor does not yet have a control panel, and it’s got a few bugs that will surely annoy gamers. The biggest issue we experienced is the complete inability of the driver to multi-task during a game. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing lightweight titles like StarCraft Remastered and Hades or heavier titles like F1 2022 and Gears Tactics. The game will crash if you Alt+Tab out of it. The moment a graphics-intensive title loses focus, it will terminate.
It also means we can’t measure performance in titles that don’t have built-in benchmarks, because turning on the performance overlay in CapFrameX steals focus from the game temporarily. As soon as that happens, the game crashed, so we couldn’t measure anything. And because the app has to attach itself to a process, you can’t start the overlay before starting a game, because there’s nothing to measure.
Now, those lightweight games run great. StarCraft‘s in-game frame counter hits the game’s 300 fps cap and stays there with all the graphics features enabled at the display’s native resolution. Even F1 and Gears run acceptably well. It’s just dicey to play those games until the driver issues get sorted. Qualcomm is on it, though, and we’re eager to see how it goes.
Now that we’ve had a tour of the HP EliteBook Ultra G1q, let’s take a look at how it performs.