annashay 
No fancy flourishes. No pastel colours. Just pure business. The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is every bit the no-nonsense machine it promises to be — suitably sleek, seriously light and tailored for the on-the-go professional who wants tech to stay in the background and simply get the job done. But look a little closer and you’ll find some surprising flexes packed into this business-like demeanour — like AI smarts, an ultra-responsive touchscreen and enough ports to keep dongles at bay. So, is it all work and no play? Or does this business laptop have a few tricks up its sleeve for the modern multitasker? I took the EliteBook Ultra G1i for a spin to find out.
Design & Display
Considering this is a premium business laptop, you’ll find no funky, fun colours here. The Atmospheric Blue is staid enough. The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is seriously light at 1.19 kg — one of those laptops that you pop in your backpack and forget that it’s there. I, for one, love this aspect.
The laptop sports a 14-inch OLED touchscreen display with a 16:10 aspect ratio. There are non-touch display options, too, but that’s not the one I’m reviewing. There’s a physical privacy shutter added to the webcam, which is a rarity nowadays especially in premium laptops. The hinge allows me to push the screen back to lay flush on the desk, in case I want to share some information on the screen or collaborate or mindmap with someone in real time. I don’t have a lot of use for this function but if you’re someone who works in a team and collaborates often, you might find this useful.
The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is seriously light at 1.19 kg — one of those laptops that you pop in your backpack and forget that it’s there.
| Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
The only aspect I disliked about the display is that each time I adjust the angle, the screen wobbles a fair bit before settling into the angle I want it to.
The laptop has quad stereo speakers, with the audio tuned by PolyStudio. The device offers fairly resonant acoustics overall, even without having to pump the volume up. The only downside is that it tends to favour treble notes in music.
Keyboard
The keyboard is sizeable, with slightly in-your-face fonts on individual keys. The power button on the top-right doubles as a fingerprint reader and works snappily, as does the face recognition with IR camera.
The keyboard has levels of brightness, and I often needed the brightest one during most of my usage. Typing was comfortable on the soft, rubberised keys; however, the travel felt a bit too shallow on the layout. I’ve had more satisfying typing experiences on, say, the Apple MacBook Air or some of the newer ASUS Zenbook models I’ve reviewed recently.
The keyboard features a dedicated Microsoft Copilot key for easy access to an AI assistant, and there’s also a quick single-button access to the calculator.
| Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
The trackpad is massive and measures about 6.4 inches across. For a laptop this premium, I’d have liked a touchpad which felt a little less plasticky while clicking. The multi-touch gestures are executed accurately on the trackpad though. The keyboard features a dedicated Microsoft Copilot key for easy access to an AI assistant. There’s also a quick single-button access to the calculator.
Productivity
I tried the HP AI companion for the first time on this device. It runs the Beta version currently, so it’d be fair to assume a bunch of fine-tuning over time. You can also specify if you’re uploading receipts, contracts, invoices or blogs, for the software to understand the format better. Each set of related documents is grouped under a single “library”.
The laptop sports a 9 MP IR camera, which does a decent job of video streaming for meetings and catchups, buffeted by the add-on video effects.
| Photo Credit: Bijoy Ghosh
First, I try out its ability to “process” documents and parse for information. I uploaded a few informational PDFs about HP’s new products. The AI Companion takes a bit of time to process these documents before I can ask questions or extract specific information about what’s on it. The AI Companion does an impressive job of answering very specific questions I have about the products and backs it up with references that it has found in the documents, which is great for fact-checking. It’s also fairly honest about not being able to source information for some questions, which I appreciate. Those who need to read through multiple PDFs or documents to access information — both specific details as well as the overall gist — will hugely benefit from this feature.
The laptop sports a 9 MP IR camera, which does a decent job of video streaming for meetings and catchups, buffeted by the add-on video effects. In anything less than perfect lighting conditions, the visuals do look a bit grainy.
Features such as spotlight, background blur, auto-framing and image adjustments are easily accessible and work well.
Tech Specs
The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i runs on Intel Core Ultra 7, while there is an Intel Core Ultra 5 option as well. It includes 32 GB RAM and 1 TB storage, of which about 920 GB is usable. Windows 11 Pro comes pre-installed on this, along with HP’s Wolf Pro Security for protection against phishing and ransomware, apart from other checks.
My typical usage on the device included writing articles and emails, reading articles and books, watching multimedia and attending product briefings. The laptop never heated up nor slowed down across any of these functions, no matter how many applications or windows I had open.
In terms of connectivity, the device is fairly well-rounded. On the left side, there is a 3.5mm jack, one USB Type-A and one Thunderbolt port while on the right side, there is a nano-Kensington lock slot and two more Thunderbolt 4 ports. The only meaningful one missing is a mini-HDMI port. Thanks to this layout though, I was able to plug in the charger from either side of the laptop, depending on where I was working at a given moment.
Battery
The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i packs in a 6-cell, 64 Wh Li-ion polymer battery, which goes on for a full working day with ease. It’s definitely one of the laptops for which you will not have to carry a charger to work every day. In the box is a three-part 65 W USB Type-C slim adapter. While it takes about 30-40 minutes to charge up halfway, a full charging cycle is closer to 1.5 hours. The battery drain is fairly average with tasks such as writing, reading and editing text seeing about a 10 per cent drop every hour.
Verdict
It is very clear that the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is aimed at the modern professional. It’s sleek, prioritises productivity features, packs in decent battery life and offers a spacious keyboard. If you’re someone who has long commutes or frequent travel, you’ll truly appreciate the lightweight nature of this laptop, along with the abundance of connectivity ports.
The only downside is that legacy business laptops such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon or the ASUS ExpertBooks also offer similar configurations at a lower price point. I’d even say that the Apple MacBook Air, while not specifically being only for professionals, still outdoes the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i in terms of keyboard comfort, battery life, webcam and acoustics. So, while the EliteBook Ultra G1i has a lot of wins, a lower price point would have helped consumers get over its imperfections.
Published on April 10, 2025
