HP has the entire AI positioning locked in with the new AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX Pro 375 chip (this has the Radeon 890M graphics — not gaming focused, but good for creative workflows) powered EliteBook X G1a. This is a Copilot+ PC and that means a neural processing unit (or NPU) that can compute 55 trillion operations per second (also called TOPS). For perspective, a Copilot PC would be one that has an NPU that’s capable of calculating up to 40 TOPS, while a next-gen AI PC is one that does lesser than 20 TOPS. Different capabilities, also define pricing. Since the HP EliteBook X G1a sits in the top-tier among AI hardware, this also has a flagship-esque price tag of ₹2,21,723.

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There is of course Microsoft Copilot finding deeper and deeper integration within Windows (relevance and utility is subjective, and the upcoming Recall has privacy concerns too), but HP’s proposition may find greater relevance for home and workplace workflows. There a serious case being made for on-device AI. For starters, the HP AI Companion app, underlined by OpenAI’s models, can do a lot that many a third-party AI chatbots can do — search the web or documents, analyse your files, create a to-do list, curate strategies based on your prompts and plan a day ahead around your meetings. Summarisation is quite useful for long PDFs, that you must often receive. It also connects seamlessly to certain PC settings, for quicker control. There is greater purpose for AI compared with previous AI-focused PCs, and users would hope this is just the start.

A lot of the HP EliteBook X G1a’s performance is dictated by an AI layer. To the extent not many other PC makers have been able to integrate in their systems. The accelerometer uses AI to understand motion patterns (since a laptop will be moved around often) which is then linked to cooling — you’d not want the underside of the laptop heating up any more than it is comfortable, if you have kept it in your lap. The OLED display power saving mode, a battery manager, the Poly Studio dining for noise reduction, and an AI-improved webcam (it is the Poly Camera Pro suite in play), show the extent to which system management is passively possible on Windows PCs. As it is with any algorithm, you’ll find the best results for each of these, after a certain period of time.

Performance and an ability to hold that under load, is never in question with this AMD Ryzen chip. At least on our review machine, this is paired with 32GB of memory, which gives it more than adequate headroom (and future-proofing) in terms of multi-tasking too. One thing was remained noticeable and didn’t change with time was that this laptop tends to heat up on the underside quite significantly from time to time when plugged in — and the observation here is it is somewhat random, with no specific usage scenario causing this. As a result, the fan gets fairly loud too momentarily. We were running the latest firmware at the time, but the expectation is, a future update will fix this behaviour.

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The HP EliteBook X G1a certainly has a sophisticated and refined design. The sides curve very gently through the length, and that looks good particularly when the machine is looked at from an angle. The Glacial Silver colour option, no surprise with HP’s choice here, should work well in most offices and boardrooms. That said, this laptop does feel a smidgen heavier than the visual profile would lead you to believe. You could feel better classifying it as reassuring heft. For a 14-inch laptop, the HP EliteBook X G1a also retains enough ports to not have you reaching for a docking system as often — three Thunderbolt 4 ports with USB-C, a USB-A port, HDMI 2.1 and a 2.5mm audio connector.

It isn’t just the AI which HP hopes would make you part with a significant amount of money for the new EliteBook X G1a. Pieces of the puzzle, such as a vibrant and comfortable 14-inch OLED display, and a keyboard that is incredibly silent and yet offers excellent tactile feedback, are further examples of what seems to be a powerful collective. Before spending so much money, it is you who has to make a decision whether a laptop this powerful and so loaded with AI, is what you really need. If that’s affirmative, go ahead and add to your shortlist. For everyone else, this may just be too much of a laptop.