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Mashable reviews quite a few laptops every year, and one of the most reliable laptop brands we've tested is HP. That said, multiple great options can be a double-edged sword. How do you narrow it down to find the best HP laptop for your specific needs?
Well, it depends on what you need a laptop for.
Need an HP laptop for gaming? We prefer the brand's Victus line over its Omen line. Looking for a HP laptop with an insanely long battery life to last between classes or through long work days? Our pick lasted almost 19.5 hours in our battery test. Whatever you're looking for in an HP laptop, we've hopefully found something among our reviewed laptops that'll fit the bill.
FYI: We've listed the pricing and specs of our testing units, which may not apply to each laptop's base model.
Equipped with Qualcomm’s powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip, the OmniBook X is the best HP has to offer for most people. It boasts impressive overall performance, battery life, a satisfyingly clicky keyboard, and a great touchscreen display — everything you’d want out of a reliable daily driver.
Why we picked this:
At the time of review, tech editor Kimberly Gedeon deemed the HP OmniBook X “the best Windows laptop I’ve tested this year,” calling it “fun, fast, and fierce.”
Performance-wise, the OmniBook X outpaces M3 MacBooks by about 11%, thanks to its powerful Snapdragon X Elite CPU. Whether you’re hoarding tabs, editing videos, or catching up on your favorite show, you’ll have an incredibly smooth, stutter-free experience. However, it’s worth noting that there are a few minor app compatibility quirks for Windows on ARM laptops like this one.
On top of its MacBook-beating performance, the HP OmniBook X also features a color-rich (albeit dim) display, a “tactile and responsive” keyboard, and stellar efficiency. On a single charge, this laptop lasted a whopping 16 hours and 47 minutes. With that battery life, it’s easy to overlook this laptop’s “yawn-worthy design.”
The Good
Incredible battery life
MacBook-beating CPU performance
Satisfying, clicky keyboard
Decent display
Fun AI-powered features
The Bad
Yawn-worthy design
Details
CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite (X1E-78-100)
GPU: Qualcomm Adreno graphics
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 1TB SSD
Display: 14-inch, 2240 x 1400-pixel IPS touchscreen, 60Hz
The HP Victus 16 is an affordable gaming laptop that packs quite a performance punch, for both games and everyday tasks. With its powerful internals, minimalist design, great port variety, and excellent thermals, it’s a no-brainer for gamers looking for a reliable, budget-friendly machine.
Why we picked this:
HP’s Victus 16 has one of the most budget-friendly price tags for a gaming laptop, and yet it amazed us in testing with some of the best in-game frame rates we’ve ever seen among tested gaming laptops.
Inside, it features a winning spec combination of an AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS CPU, an RTX 4060 GPU (w/ 8GB of VRAM), and 16GB of RAM. Those specs — paired, of course, with its 16-inch 1080p display — produced an impressive 95 frames per second on the Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark (High preset), which is the highest we had seen at the time of testing. Turning DLSS on, the HP Victus delivered a wild 110 frames per second.
Despite all that juicy gaming performance, the HP Victus 16 doesn’t run too hot. Tech editor Kimberly Gedeon writes, “What impressed me the most is its thermals. It did a surprisingly great job at remaining cool.”
While the HP Victus 16 does have an excellent thermal design and stellar gaming performance — which are arguably two very important pros — it’s not a perfect laptop. You’ll have to put up with a lackluster webcam, a heavy weight, and a fairly dim “display that gives Crimson Chin a run for his money” with its large bottom bezel. But for 110 frames per second in Cyberpunk 2077? Worth it.
The Good
Excellent gaming performance
Decent sound
Fun one-zone RGB lighting
Great thermals
The Bad
Dim display
Details
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS
GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 GPU with 8GB of VRAM
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 1TB SSD
Display: 16.1-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel, 60Hz, 300 nits, IPS panel
HP’s Chromebook Plus x360 14c is quite the mouthful, but it’s an affordable, security-forward laptop for anyone who just needs access to the internet. If all you need to do on your laptop is work in cloud-based documents, answer emails, stream media, research, shop, and otherwise access the web, this Chromebook will get the job done efficiently.
Why we picked this:
The HP Chromebook Plus x360 14c offers good specs in exchange for its budget-friendly $800 price. Tech editor Kimberly Gedeon says this Chromebook “isn’t designed for power users, but it is sufficient enough for the average school-focused consumer or a worker bee with light-to-medium workloads.”
In addition to decent performance capabilities, HP gave its Chromebook Plus x360 14c a “solid, premium-esque” aluminum gray chassis that’s reminiscent of pricier laptops. The keyboard inside feels equally premium, delivering a “shockingly clicky” typing experience. However, it’s worth noting the keyboard, trackpad, and chassis are all prone to attracting oily, smudy fingerprints.
The Chromebook Plus x360 might not have the best battery life we’ve seen from a Chromebook — it clocked in at 8 hours and 54 minutes — but it’ll easily last you a full work day. And unlike some of the more expensive laptops we’ve tested, this Chromebook doesn’t skimp on ports. You’ll find two USB-C ports, a USB-A port, an audio jack, and even a microSD card slot to expand storage of transfer files.
The Good
Solid, premium-looking design
Satisfying, clicky keyboard
Supports stylus input
The Bad
Lackluster display
Details
CPU: Intel Core i3-1215U
GPU: Integrated Intel UHD graphics
RAM: 8GB
Storage: 128GB SSD
Display: 14-inch, 1920 x 1200-pixel, 250 nits, IPS panel
For thrifty shoppers that need both a tablet and a laptop, the HP Spectre x360 14 is a stellar option. Its hinges are stronger in this most recent model, and the beveled-edge chassis is a sleek sight to behold. It’s also a great pick for anyone who needs a delightfully clicky, springy keyboard.
Why we picked this:
The HP Spectre x360 14 was one of the first Windows laptops we tested that actually had great battery life, a welcome change for long-time Windows users. On top of that, it’s equipped with an Intel Core Ultra 7 155H CPU, which delivered an impressive Geekbench 6 score worthy of calling it “the most powerful Windows laptop” at the time of review.
Tech editor Kimberly Gedeon also had great things to say about the laptop’s keyboard, display, and speakers. Gedeon says she “couldn’t stop typing” on the Spectre x360 14’s larger, rhythmic keys. Then, the laptop’s display is “eye-catching,” with “rich, colorful visuals,” and crisp sound that “would definitely be a decadent piece of apple pie” if sound were edible.
If you’re searching for a 2-in-1 laptop, there’s a good chance you might want to use the webcam on video chats with the laptop in tablet mode. Luckily, in a laptop market full of lackluster webcams, the HP Spectre x360 14 has a 9-megapixel webcam that’s sharp, “excellent at recreating colors,” and features a wide viewing angle.
One of the only downsides to consider before buying the Spectre 360 14 is an oddly placed USB-C port. Right next to the only other USB-C port on the back right edge, there’s a USB-C port on the corner. If your charging setup is to your right or you don’t mind maneuvering a cable, this minor con won’t be a dealbreaker.
The Good
Great battery life
9MP webcam
Decent performance
Addictive keyboard
High-fidelity sound
The Bad
Oddly placed ports
Details
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 155H
GPU: Integrated Intel Arc graphics
RAM: 32GB
Storage: 2TB SSD
Display: 14-inch, 2880 x 1800-pixel, 120Hz, 500 nits, OLED
The HP Elitebook 1040 G11 is ideal for those who want to stretch a laptop’s use as long as possible between charges. Whether you travel for work, spend a lot of downtime between classes away from outlets, or simply don’t want to be tethered to a charging cable, this laptop’s nearly 19.5-hour battery life will have you convinced it’s the one.
Why we picked this:
While we chose the HP Elitebook 1040 G11 primarily for its jaw-dropping battery life, this Mashable’s Choice laptop has a lot more to offer than just that.
This laptop is an impressive performer, earning a higher Geekbench 6 score than Apple’s most powerful M3 MacBook Pro. It also offers that classic springy keyboard we often see from HP, a “smooth and responsive” trackpad, a decently bright display, and an “incredibly lightweight” design. The fact that this laptop only comes in a boring silver colorway is easily forgotten when you first notice its barely-there, 2.6-pound weight.
Oh, and did we mention its plentiful ports? In a landscape where many modern laptops only feature a few USB-C ports, the HP Elitebook 1040 G11’s port variety was a breath of fresh air. You’ll find an HDMI port, USB-A port, audio jack, and a whopping three USB-C ports.
The Good
Superb battery life
M3 MacBook-beating performance
Springy, responsive keyboard
Ports aplenty
Incredibly lightweight
The Bad
Meh audio quality
Details
CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 165H
GPU: Integrated Intel Arc graphics
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 512GB SSD
Display: 14-inch, 1920 x 1200-pixel, 60Hz, 400 nits, non-touch
Mashable staff subjected most of the laptops on this list to varying degrees of hands-on testing. (The Framework Laptop 13 is the sole exception — we tried a previous version.) At minimum, this involved inspecting their build quality and using them for a variety of real-world tasks for several weeks at a time. This included working in different kinds of documents, checking emails, watching videos, taking photos on their webcams, participating in video calls, listening to music (via Spotify), playing games (if possible), and experimenting with any unique software features or use cases they claimed to support.
Additionally, most of the laptops featured here were made to run industry-standard benchmark software (again, save for the Framework Laptop 13). We run these benchmarks because they replicate real-world tasks to produce scores we can use to easily compare different laptops' performance. We recently started implementing these benchmarks in our testing, and you can expect to see them in all of our new laptop reviews going forward.
Performance benchmarks
We evaluate a laptop's overall performance by running the appropriate version of Primate Labs' Geekbench 6. (That would be macOS for MacBooks; Windows for Windows laptops, including gaming laptops; and Android for Chromebooks.) This test measures CPU performance in a handful of common tasks, and we record the resulting multi-core score. The higher the score, the better.
To get a sense of gaming laptops' graphical prowess, we also play Cyberpunk 2077on them. We picked this game because it's a graphically intense Triple-A title that pushes many systems to their performance limits. If the laptop has a discrete/dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics card (as opposed to an integrated GPU that's built into the CPU), we play Cyberpunk once with its DLSS tech off and again with DLSS on using the High preset without ray tracing. This tests the machine's raw GPU power and its performance with AI upscaling, respectively.
We follow this up with 3DMark's Time Spy benchmark for gaming PCs and record their scores. Again, higher is better.
Battery life benchmarks
We look to see about 11 to 12 hours of battery life in the MacBooks we test, with 15-plus hours being exceptional, and nine to ten hours in the Windows laptops we review, with 12-plus hours being ideal. Gaming laptops are a different story: They only need to last at least two hours per charge to get our approval, earning extra brownie points for reaching the four-hour mark. Meanwhile, eight hours is our baseline for Chromebooks, but nine to ten hours is best.
We've assessed laptops' stamina a couple different ways in the past. (More on that shortly.) On the Alienware M16 R2, Apple MacBook Pro, Asus Zenbook Duo, Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 3, and the Surface Laptop Studio 2, we ran UL Solutions' PCMark 10battery life test. (The MacBook Pro ran it via Parallels Desktop, since there's not a native macOS version of PCMark 10.) This benchmark has the laptop complete a series of apps and functions until it conks out.
To test the battery life of the HP Chromebook Plus 15.6-inch, we used the respective portion of Principled Technologies' CrXPRT 2 benchmark.
Lastly, we conducted a video rundown test on the MacBook Air and the Surface Laptop 7 that involved playing a looped 1080p version of Tears of Steel, a short open-source Blender movie, at 50 percent brightness.
In order to standardize our battery life testing methodology, we will only be using the Tears of Steel rundown on all MacBooks and Windows laptops from here on out. We'll stick with PCMark 10's battery life test for all gaming laptops and CrXPRT 2's test for Chromebooks.
Final thoughts
After evaluating a laptop's hands-on performance and benchmark testing results, we make our final recommendations based on whether we think they offer a good overall value for the money. A too-expensive laptop will sometimes get a pass if we think it looks and works so great that it's worth the trouble of finding it on sale.
It bears mentioning that these aren't the only laptops we've tried — we're constantly testing and assessing new models across different categories, and many don't make the final cut. With that in mind, you can expect this guide to evolve on a pretty continuous basis. We're always on the lookout for new top pick contenders.
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