HP OmniBook X Flip 14 Review: Midrange 2-in-1 Offers Style and Value

8.0/ 10
SCORE

HP OmniBook X Flip 14

Pros

Stylish and sturdy all-metal design
3K OLED display is awesome, especially for the price
Included pen is of high quality

Cons

Battery life isn’t great
Display doesn’t have variable refresh rate
You might not like typing on the latticeless keyboard (but I did)

The HP OmniBook X Flip 14 is an eminently configurable convertible laptop. Prefer Intel chips? Not a problem. Favor AMD? You can get those, too. Want to keep the price to a minimum? You can spend as little as $550. Willing to pay more for an OLED display? You can nab a sweet-looking, 3K-resolution OLED panel for only an additional $100. My test system features a number of upgrades, including the OLED display, and still costs a reasonable $1,150 at its sale price, direct from HP. That’s a great price for a two-in-one with an OLED surrounded by a stylish and sturdy design.

The 3K OLED panel doesn’t do any favors for battery life, but it supplies the regular OLED goodies of incredible contrast with effectively zero-nit black levels and vibrant colors that pop. And the 3K resolution keeps things looking extra crisp, while the 120Hz refresh rate delivers smooth movement. The battery should still get you through all but the longest of days on a single charge, so that’s a trade-off I’d be willing to make. The OmniBook X Flip 14 can’t match the stunning looks of the HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14, but it doesn’t have to when it costs hundreds less than HP’s premium two-in-one offering. For most people, the midrange OmniBook X Flip 14 is the better buy.

HP OmniBook X Flip 14

Price as reviewed	$1,150
Display size/resolution	14-inch 2,880×1,800 OLED
CPU	AMD Ryzen AI 7 350
Memory	32GB LPDDR5-7500
Graphics	AMD Radeon 860M
Storage	1TB SSD
Ports	USB4, USB-C 10Gbps, 2x USB-A 10Gbps, HDMI 2.1, combo audio
Networking	Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4
Operating system	Windows 11 Home 24H2
Weight	3.1 lbs (1.4 kg)

The HP OmniBook X Flip 14 offers wide-ranging configuration options. There are both Intel and AMD models, two display options, up to 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage. You can customize a system on HP’s site, and you’ll also find a number of fixed configurations available at Best Buy and other retailers. The lowest-cost model I found while working on this review was an AMD-based system discounted to $550 at Best Buy.

On HP’s site, the same base model was discounted to $730 for a system with an AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU, 16GB of RAM, AMD Radeon 840M graphics, a 512GB SSD and a 14-inch IPS display with a 1,920-by-1,200-pixel resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate.

My test system features upgrades that raise the price to $1,150: a Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU, 32GB of RAM, AMD Radeon 860M graphics, a 1TB SSD and the 3K (2,880-by-1,800-pixel) OLED display. It also includes a $10 upgrade from Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 to Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

The same HP OmniBook X Flip 14 configuration as my test model costs £1,380 in the UK. I could find only Intel-based models in Australia, starting at AU$2,999.

HP OmniBook X Flip 14 in tent mode — Matt Elliott/CNET

HP OmniBook X Flip 14 performance

Our loaded OmniBook X Flip 14 with its Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU and ample 32GB of RAM proved plenty fast in lab testing. It showed excellent multicore and single-core performance and outpaced the pricier OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 on the Geekbench 6, Cinebench 2024 and PCMark 10 tests, with the exception of the single-core Geekbench 6 test. It also produced a strong result on the Procyon AI Computer Vision benchmark that measures integer math proficiency for AI workloads, but it was less impressive on the 3DMark Steel Nomad test, where its Radeon 860M graphics weren’t up to the level of laptops with an integrated Intel 140V GPU.

Its weakest result was on our battery life test, though. It managed to eke out just over 9 hours on our YouTube streaming battery drain test, which might be enough to get you through most workdays but is only a fraction of the battery life you can expect from other laptops and two-in-ones. The relatively small three-cell, 59-watt-hour battery and the high-resolution OLED display are the wrong combination if you’re looking for a long-lasting laptop.

The OmniBook Ultra 14 Flip features the same OLED display and ran for more than 3.5 hours longer on the same test, in large part because it has a larger four-cell, 64-watt-hour battery. The OmniBook Ultra’s Core Ultra 7 258V is also more efficient than the OmniBook X’s Ryzen AI 7 350. The Intel chip runs between 8 and 37 watts, and the AMD chip is configurable between 15 and 54 watts and was set to 28 watts on my test system.

Matt Elliott/CNET

Stylish, sturdy and latticeless

The OmniBook X Flip 14 looks and feels more upscale than its price. That’s true for the $1,150 system I tested and doubly true for the lower-end models that cost less than $1,000. The all-metal chassis feels sturdy and is fairly light at just 3.1 pounds. The OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 weighs a little less at just under 3 pounds, but Lenovo’s midrange Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 is appreciably heavier at 3.6 pounds.

HP OmniBook X Flip 14 2-in-1 in laptop mode — Matt Elliott/CNET

The chassis is a beige-ish silver color that I like, although I wish the plain gray keyboard were a better color match for the rest of the laptop. The most interesting aspect of the design is the keyboard, and not because of its contrasting gray color. It has a latticeless design, where there are no gaps between the keys. In general, I prefer a more traditional keyboard layout with some space surrounding each key to help prevent me from accidentally hitting the edge of another key.

In the case of the OmniBook X Flip 14, however, I don’t mind the latticeless design. I didn’t have any more typos than usual, and I really liked the snappy response of the keys. The keyboard feels lively. My biggest complaint is the shortened Tab key — that one took some getting used to before I stopped hitting the neighboring Q key by mistake.

HP OmniBook X Flip 14 latticeless keyboard — Matt Elliott/CNET

I also liked the latticeless design when I flipped the display around into tablet mode. It has a more consistent surface behind the display than a regular chiclet-style keyboard, which is more uneven with gaps between the keys.

One area where you’re forced to sacrifice in moving down from the OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 to the OmniBook X Flip 14 is the touch pad. With the Ultra, you get a haptic touch pad that offers a consistent and customizable click response across its entire surface. With the OmniBook X Flip 14’s mechanical touch pad, you get the typical experience of clicks becoming firmer as you move toward its top edge. Overall, it’s perfectly serviceable for a mechanical touch pad — clicks don’t feel or sound clacky, and they offer the right amount of travel while being quiet when pressed. It’s just not as nice as the haptic touch pad you get when you move up to the Ultra.

HP OmniBook X Flip 14 3K OLED display — Matt Elliott/CNET

You do get the same OLED display with the OmniBook X Flip 14 as the Ultra. The baseline display is a basic 1,920-by-1,200-pixel IPS display, but for only $100, you can upgrade to the 3K OLED display you get with the OmniBook Ultra Flip 14. That’s a great price for a great display. The contrast is stellar, with effectively zero-nit black levels and bright whites. The 2,880-by-1,800-pixel resolution results in incredibly crisp text and images, and the 120Hz refresh rate means scrolling through web pages looks smooth. The refresh rate isn’t variable, however, so you need to choose to run it at 120Hz, which drains the battery faster, or at 48Hz, which will help extend battery life but makes movement a bit choppier.

Color performance was great, as it is with almost every OLED display I’ve tested. My Spyder X Elite colorimeter measured the color gamut coverage at 100% of the sRGB and P3 spaces and 94% of AdobeRGB. I also measured a peak brightness of 397 nits, which is plenty bright for an OLED that has such deep black levels and excellent contrast.

The display supports pen input, and HP includes a pen with a nice weight and thickness to make writing and sketching feel natural. The pen is rechargeable via a concealed USB-C port and includes two extra tips of varying hardness and softness.

HP OmniBook X Flip 14 included pen — Matt Elliott/CNET

Last thing on the display: It’s held in place by a pair of firm-but-not-too-firm hinges. No matter the angle of the display or two-in-one mode — laptop, tablet, tent or presentation — the display glides smoothly and stays firmly rooted in place.

Two other areas where the OmniBook X Flip 14 can’t match the Ultra are the speakers and webcam. You get just a pair of stereo speakers with the X as opposed to the quad speakers in the Ultra. The audio output is predictably thin and lackluster. Similarly, the 5-megapixel webcam can’t match the crispness of the Ultra’s 9-megapixel cam but still produces a sharp-enough image for Zoom calls and the like. Of the two, I’m more bummed about the underwhelming speakers than the slightly grainier image I got with the OmniBook X Flip 14’s webcam.

The webcam does have an IR camera that you can use with Windows Hello for facial-recognition logins. That’s the only biometric feature because the OmniBook X Flip 14 lacks a fingerprint reader.

Is the HP OmniBook X Flip 14 worth buying?

The option to upgrade to a 3K, 120Hz OLED display, even one without a variable refresh rate, gives the OmniBook X Flip 14 something that Lenovo’s excellent midrange two-in-one, the Yoga 7 14 Gen 9, lacks. Lenovo offers an OLED upgrade for the Yoga 7 14 Gen 9, but it doesn’t come with a bump in resolution. And the OmniBook X Flip 14 is a half-pound lighter, making it a better travel companion and easier to operate in tablet mode.

The lackluster battery life is a bit of a disappointment, but that’s part of the trade-off for getting such an awesome, high-res OLED display. You’ll get longer battery life with the Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 or Dell 14 Plus 2-in-1, but you’ll be starting at a lower-resolution display. I’d rather take the OLED, even if it means I’ll need to pack the power adapter for longer excursions with the OmniBook X Flip 14.

The review process for laptops, desktops, tablets and other computerlike devices consists of two parts: performance testing under controlled conditions in the CNET Labs and extensive hands-on use by our expert reviewers. This includes evaluating a device’s aesthetics, ergonomics and features. A final review verdict is a combination of both objective and subjective judgments.

The list of benchmarking software we use changes over time as the devices we test evolve. The most important core tests we’re currently running on every compatible computer include Primate Labs Geekbench 6, Cinebench R23, PCMark 10 and 3DMark Fire Strike Ultra.

A more detailed description of each benchmark and how we use it can be found on our How We Test Computers page.

Geekbench 6 CPU (multi-core)

Apple MacBook Air 13-inch M4 2025 15049HP OmniBook X 14 13428HP OmniBook X Flip 14 12747HP Pavilion Plus 14 11646Lenovo Yoga 7 14 Gen 9 11212Acer Swift 14 AI (SF14-51T-75AF) 10918Asus Zenbook A14 (UX3407) 10632Dell 14 Plus 2-in-1 (DR04255) 10554HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 10543