The HP EliteBook series of laptops is one of those devices that exudes elegance from every pore it has. These are the luxury cars of the business users’ PC needs. That tradition continues in spades with the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14. I’ve used numerous great laptops this year, and we’re only in April. While I have my current favorite, this EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 isn’t far off from the top of the list. While this is a business-oriented laptop, consumers can also purchase this if they wish. This is what they call a “prosumer” laptop, and it certainly carries its weight in that category.
Estimated reading time: 16 minutes
The EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 has a ton of features that business users and IT teams are going to love. The price is high though, but for business customers, that’s not an issue for the value they get. For the average consumer, though, you might be better off looking at another HP laptop that’s a bit more affordable. But, if you have the cheddar, this is a nice ride to buy. Let’s get into the full review!
The Quick Take
The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 is a gorgeous machine. The build quality is right up there with what Apple makes and is really top-tier stuff. The EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 is rocking the latest Intel Core Ultra processors with all their AI benefits as well as up to 32GB of RAM and a silky 2.8K OLED display. Business users and IT teams will love the HP security features and built-in collaboration tools. This is an over the top prosumer laptop, but it will cost you. If you have the Benjamin’s to cover the cost, it’s a remarkable laptop.
Score and Bottom Line
HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14
Starts at $1,849
Nailed it
- Fantastic build quality and premium materials
- Outstanding 2.8K OLED display
- Impressive software and security suite for business
- Intel Lunar Lake performance is spot on
- Excellent battery life
- Fantastic sound and camera
Needs work
- It is expensive, not for everyone but it does have its buyers
Overall, I have always loved the previous HP line that preceded the EliteBook Ultra, the Dragonfly line. That lineup of HP business machines was always fantastic, and the company has done that heritage proud with the EliteBook that has replaced it.
The EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 packs in a ton of premium hardware features, premium security features, premium design features, a larger and better battery, and a slew of collaboration features that are focused on the business user. All of this combined makes for a solid laptop that’s sure to endure what a prosumer will put this thing through. I have zero issue recommending the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 to any prosumer in the market for an ultraportable 14″ business laptop. It has all the chops you need and more.
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HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 Specifications
- Operating system: Windows 11 Pro
- Processor family: Intel Core Ultra
- Processor: Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 268V (up to 5.0 GHz Max Turbo frequency, 12 MB L3 cache, 8 cores, 8 threads) 48 TOPS
- Graphics: Intel Arc Graphics
- Memory: 32 GB LPDDR5X 8448 MT/s (onboard)
- Internal drive: 512GB PCIe-4×4 NVMe TLC
- Display: 14 inch, 2.8K Bright View OLED, Low Blue Light UWVA 120Hz (VR), touch display and 400 nits
- External I/O Ports: 1 USB Type-A 10Gbps signaling rate (charging); 1 stereo headphone/microphone combo jack; 3 Thunderbolt™ 4 with USB Type-C® 40Gbps signaling rate (USB Power Delivery, DisplayPort™ 2.1)
- Audio Features: Audio by Poly Studio, quad stereo speakers, dual microphones enhanced by AI noise reduction
- Webcam: 9MP camera (88° WFoV); IR Camera ; AI ISP camera
- Keyboard: Full-size, backlit, atmosphere blue keyboard with HP Imagepad
- Pointing device: Haptic trackpad with multitouch gesture support
- Wireless technology: Intel® Wi-Fi 7 BE201 (2×2) and Bluetooth® 5.4 wireless card
- Power supply: 65 W USB Type-C™ adapter
- Battery: HP Long Life 6-cell, 64 Wh Li-ion polymer
- Energy efficiency: TCO Certified ENERGY STAR® certified
- Dimensions (W × D × H): 12.35 x 8.55 x 0.36 in (front); 12.35 x 8.55 x 0.48 in (rear)
- Weight: Starting at 2.63 lbs
- Warranty: 1 year (1/1/0) limited warranty includes 1 year of parts and labor. No on-site repair. Terms and conditions vary by country. Certain restrictions and exclusions apply
- Neural Processing Unit (NPU): Intel
- Security: Windows Hello, face and fingerprint
What’s In The Box
- HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14
- Power Supply
- Manuals and Documentation
Design
So the first thing you notice about the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 is the Atmosphere Blue color. It is similar to the company’s previous blue colors but slightly lighter. It just pops more and looks less grey than before. I really love this color, it is one of the best-looking laptop colors on the market right now.
The entire laptop is made of premium aluminum and the build quality is fantastic. Everything just feels very tight and well-built without any creaks or rattles or cheap materials. The hinges are not too tight and not too loose, making it easy to open with one finger.
The bottom of the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 houses the venting and cooling grill, three rubber feet and the quad Poly Studio speakers. The back hinge of the laptop is clean and has tight tolerances and has the EliteBook branding.
The front lip has a slight notch which makes it easy to open. Along the right side of the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 you’ll find two of the Thunderbolt 4 with USB Type-C ports and the Kensington Lock. Along the left side is the other Thunderbolt 4 with USB Type-C port, the AUX port, and a USB-A port.
The top of the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 has that newer HP logo, which I think looks slick, the logo is glossy and looks elegant. Opening the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 up, you’re greeted with that brilliant 2.8K OLED display with the 9MP camera and IR camera at the top. The bezels are thin all the way around and the glass is edge to edge.
Moving down to the deck, you’ll find that familiar HP backlit keyboard with excellent feel and travel. I always like these keyboards, they are almost as good as Lenovo’s. The top F key row is colored a different shade of blue as a nice design accent, and the power button/fingerprint reader is even a lighter color.
The trackpad is a haptic trackpad, BRILLIANT! I love this trackpad, it is excellent and every Windows laptop should have one. The wrist area is comfy, and the entire system is very light but made of high premium quality aluminum.
Overall, once you open the box and take the laptop out, you will feel like you got your money’s worth as this build and material quality is next level.
Display
I think HP learned from the G1q 14 that a low nit IPS display was just not enough for a laptop of this caliber. So the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 houses a 2.8K Bright View OLED, Low Blue Light UWVA 120Hz (VR), touch display and 400 nits display that is absolutely brilliant. I would have liked a 500 nit panel (I love bright panels), but this is an excellent brightness and touch enabled.
This display is even sporting a 120Hz refresh rate, which means, you could probably even do a little gaming on this laptop. Should you get your work done first, of course? This isn’t a gaming laptop, but from my experience with Lunar Lake and Intel Arc Graphics, these chips can handle some light gaming and this display will make those games look fantastic!
It is a touch display, and it is glossy, so there is some glare but off axis viewing is horrible, it’s actually not bad. I’m not usually a fan of displays under 15″ because I prefer larger displays. But I was okay with this 14″ display, the 16:10 aspect ratio is great, and it felt comfortable to use.
The touch display works perfectly fine, gestures and touchpoints were all accurate and fluid. The colors are bright and vibrant, with blacks being dark and deep, the whites are clean and crisp with text looking nice and sharp. The panel is also very bright, and I had no issues with brightness at all, it’s very nice.
Overall, at this price point, you would expect an excellent display and the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 doesn’t disappoint. Fantastic display, fantastic OLED colors, and spectacular performance.
Software/Security
The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 runs Windows 11 Pro. There’s not much to say about Windows 11, it works well, and Microsoft is doing a decent job of keeping it relevant. I have been impressed at how Windows 11 has been kept updated with the latest security patches and updates.
The one thing worth mentioning, about Windows 11 Pro, is there are some AI features in these new builds. I’ve gone over them in previous reviews, but the gist of it is a handful of potentially useful AI tools, such as:
- Chat with text, voice, and image capabilities.
- Summarization of documents and web pages.
- Image creation in Designer (formerly Bing Image Creator).
- Web grounding.
- Use of plugins and Copilot GPTs.
- For work: When enabled, commercial data protection is included for eligible Microsoft Entra ID users at no additional cost.
- Microsoft Live Captions for collaborating
On top of the Windows AI features, HP has its own AI Companion designed to assist the business user to get answers quickly. Here are just a few of the things you can do with the AI Companion.
- Use AI Companion as a collaborative tool
- Analyze documents and emails before sending
- Use AI Companion to adjust performance parameters on your system, based on what you’re working on.
- Analyze and search your files on your laptop
The security software is worth talking about and is likely one of the bigger reasons IT teams will be considering the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 over basic consumer laptops. HP’s Wolf Security suite is included on this laptop and that gives you several features, that as a user, you might not think about, but any IT person worth his RAM will consider.
- Resilient, hardware enforced security at every level with HP Wolf Security for Business
- Control when you can be seen with a built-in Privacy Camera9 shutter
- Reinforce Wolf Security with the added security of a Microsoft Secure Core PC
- One-touch power button with fingerprint reader
- Wolf Security Tools:
- HP Management Integration Kit
- HP Privacy Camera
- HP Client Security Manager
- HP Sure Sense
- HP Sure Click
- HP Endpoint Security Controller Gen5
- HP BIOSphere
- HP Sure Start
- HP Sure Admin
- SP Sure Recover
- SP Secure Erase
Overall, the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 has a plethora of software, AI, and security software features that are mostly marketed to the business user. Or better yet, marketed to the business user’s IT teams. The security features are used for keeping the laptop as secure as it can be in defense of business data and information. HP really packed in a lot of stuff here.
Performance
Our HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 came outfitted with the Intel Core Ultra 7 268V chip, Intel Arc Graphics, 512GB SSD, and 32GB of RAM. I have already reviewed Lunar Lake laptops, several of them, and this new chip from Intel is outstanding. It’s what gives the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 its chops and the core of the entire system.
My first experience with Lunar Lake left me speechless. We all know how much of a leap Apple’s M1 chip was and how it left Intel and AMD in a bad position. With Lunar Lake and Arrow Lake, that all changes. The EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 can easily keep pace with, and even beat, the MacBook Pro 14. This is in both computational performance and battery performance. More on battery in the next section.
With Lunar Lake, we are seeing better thermal performance as well. The fan noise and heat on the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 is half of what a comparable system from 2023 would be (that is not scientific, just an observational example).
The EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 had zero issues handling day to day tasks, email, web browsing, video conferencing, meeting software, docs, YouTube, and even photo editing. This thing could also handle video editing if you need it. I didn’t use it for that because the 14″ screen is too small for video editing, at least for me. I have colleagues who do it all the time, but I digress.
Overall, there should be zero buyers out there who would have issues with the performance of the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14. There are always exceptions, I understand. There may be some enterprise software and apps that need a bit more power and cooling, but in general, this is an excellent performing all-around business/prosumer laptop.
Battery Life
HP claims that the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 has nearly 20-hours of battery life. Intel has a lot to do with the battery life on these new Windows laptops, as these new Lunar Lake chips are very efficient. But battery life will be very dependent on your use, and we all use our laptops differently.
I always leave battery settings on balanced, and I always have my brightness to full, not adaptive. This is mostly doing work related things, email, light photo editing, writing on WordPress, social media, YouTube content, and web browsing. The EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 consistently gave me 18+ hours on a single charge with normal use. The battery will take a hit if you use more intensive apps. It’s not a science, and results will be widespread from user to user.
Overall, I think the battery life on the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 is excellent. It’s comparable to the rest of the Lunar Lake-powered laptops coming out this year.
Speakers/Audio & Camera
The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 comes with a rich audio and camera experience. HP’s Poly Studio software is at the core of this experience, and it comes with plenty of options. The built-in video studio takes advantage of a crisp 9MP camera, some of the new features for 2025 include:
- Magic Background
- Spotlight
- Background Blur and Replace
- Filters
- Auto-Framing
- Multi-Camera Support
- Presenter Overlay
- Integrate Streams
- Customizable Scenes and Watermarks
- Image Adjustments
- Recording Mode
The Magic Background AI helps you restyle your background with preset aesthetics or custom text and color prompts. The multi-camera support allows you to switch between cameras in a presentation. The Presenter Overlay allows for custom overlays for a more professional presentation. And you can integrate a YouTube stream into your presentation, directly from Poly Studio.
The camera is fantastic and being this is a business PC, it should have an excellent camera. The Poly Studio video options are also pretty slick. It works like the OBS software I use for podcasts and live streams. Really well done.
The speaker system on the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 is a quad-speaker system and also branded with the company’s Poly branding. Past EliteBook laptops have had great sound, and the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 takes it to a new level. These speakers have a healthy soundstage with a good bottom end and excellent mids and highs.
Overall, the audio and video aspects of the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 are some of the best on any business laptop. This suite of audio and video tools brings the value of this laptop up.
Price/Value
The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 isn’t exactly a low-cost prospect. With a starting price tag of nearly one-thousand nine-hundred dollars, you could end up in the high two-thousands with a custom configuration. But this is pretty normal for prosumer and business laptops and PCs. The reason is, the extra built-in security features and collaboration tools that you wouldn’t get in a consumer machine. That being said, the price to value ratio is there, and I think most current prosumer HP users will find this to be a considerable value.
Wrap Up
Overall, I have always loved the previous HP line that preceded the EliteBook Ultra, the Dragonfly line. That lineup of HP business machines was always fantastic, and the company has done that heritage proud with the EliteBook that has replaced it.
The EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 packs in a ton of premium hardware features, premium security features, premium design features, and a slew of collaboration features that are focused on the business user. All of this combined makes for a solid laptop that’s sure to endure what a prosumer will put this thing through. I have zero issue recommending the EliteBook Ultra G1i 14 to any prosumer in the market for an ultraportable 14″ business laptop. It has all the chops you need and more.
