Weighing in at just 0.99 kg, the HP EliteBook X G2i is the rare business laptop you could genuinely forget you’re carrying. But HP didn’t skimp on brains to shave off the grams — this 14-incher packs Intel’s latest silicon and enough neural horsepower to run AI workloads without breaking a sweat.
The machine debuted at CES 2026 back on January 5, and after arriving on HP.com for select configurations in February, it’s now firmly on sale. The flagship OLED build carries a US$ 3,189.00 price tag (£1,755.59 in the UK), which is steep — but this is a laptop clearly aimed at professionals who bill by the hour and won’t tolerate a spinning cursor.
At the heart of it sit Intel Core Ultra Series 3 processors, with the top-end Intel Core Ultra X7 358H clocking in at 1.90 GHz. The real story, though, is the AI capability: up to 50 NPU TOPS and up to 180 platform TOPS. That’s serious on-device inference muscle, meaning tasks like live transcription, image generation and smart background processing can happen locally rather than being farmed out to the cloud.
Memory and storage scale sensibly for a productivity-first design, with configurations offering up to 32 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB of storage. That’s a comfortable ceiling for juggling dozens of browser tabs, virtual machines and creative apps without hitting a wall.
The display is where you’ll actually notice where your money went. HP gives you two paths:
- WUXGA (1920×1200) IPS panel for the pragmatists who want longer runtime and lower cost
- 2.8K (2880×1800) 120 Hz OLED for those who crave inky blacks, punchy color and buttery-smooth scrolling
Both options stick with the taller 16:10 aspect ratio, which remains the sweet spot for documents, spreadsheets and code — you simply see more without endless scrolling.
What makes the EliteBook X G2i compelling isn’t any single spec but how the pieces fit together. A sub-1 kg chassis usually forces compromises on performance or screen quality; here, HP has managed to fold a genuine AI-grade NPU and an optional high-refresh OLED into a package light enough to slip into a slim bag and barely register on your shoulder.
Is it for everyone? No. The asking price puts it well into premium territory, and buyers chasing raw value will find cheaper ultraportables. But for road warriors who treat their laptop as their primary tool — the kind of people who want the AI features to actually run, not just appear on a spec sheet — the EliteBook X G2i makes a persuasive case. Fast, light and future-proofed for the on-device AI era, it’s a machine built to keep pace with a business that never stops moving.
