HP OmniBook 5 16 review: An odd duck of a laptop

The HP OmniBook 5 16 is an odd duck. It is listed on HP’s website at $1,199.99 and, at that price, doesn’t feel remotely competitive. However, this laptop is also available at far lower prices from major retailers and, when that’s taken into account, it feels like a decent buy. Even so, I can’t help but feel the Intel Core Ultra 7 255U—a chip with just two performance cores and without Intel Arc graphics—is holding this particular configuration back.

The HP OmniBook 5 16’s basic specifications are rather typical for a mid-range Windows laptop. It includes an Intel Core Ultra 7 255U processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB solid state drive.

One important thing to note, though, is that the Core Ultra 7 255U serves up entry-level “Intel Graphics” rather than Intel’s Arc graphics, so unimpressive graphics performance can be expected.

HP’s website lists this model at an MSRP of $1,199.99, which is very high for the laptop’s specifications. However, most retailers are selling the OmniBook 5 16 for around $500 to $800; the lowest price I could find was $479 from Walmart over the Black Friday weekend, which has since risen to $599 (and that variant had an upgrade to a 1TB solid state drive).

This particular review covers the HP OmniBook 5 16 with Intel hardware. It’s important to note that HP sells many OmniBook 5 variants with AMD or Qualcomm inside. Some of these are significantly different: the Qualcomm-powered models, for example, have OLED displays.

The design of the HP OmniBook 5 16 is quite basic, as is typical for inexpensive Windows laptops. Most of the exterior seems to be constructed from plastic and a familiar light silver hue is the order of the day. Branding is minimal, too, with only a chrome HP logo on the lid and a tiny OmniBook 5 badge below the keyboard.

What it lacks in flair, though, the OmniBook 5 16 makes up for with good fundamentals. The chassis materials feel good (for the price, at least) and there’s not much flex across the display lid or interior. I did notice that the overall feel is not as robust as the smaller HP OmniBook 5 14, which is very rigid.

There’s a lot of competition in this price point, and the quality of alternatives varies significantly. Lenovo’s IdeaPad Slim 5i arguably looks more luxurious. On the other hand, I slightly prefer the OmniBook 5’s feel over the Asus VivoBook 16 Flip (and most VivoBook laptops).

You’ll be pleased if you need to sit down and bang out a few thousand words on the HP OmniBook 5 16’s keyboard. It provides an extremely spacious layout. Most keys are large, with only the left-side Tab, Caps Lock, and Control keys feeling a bit small. A numpad is provided and the numpad keys are a little undersized, but not by much.

Key feel is good with plenty of travel and a crisp bottoming action. I think it’s a good keyboard for any laptop, and particularly for a budget machine.

The touchpad is less impressive. It measures about four and three-quarters of an inch wide and a tad over three inches deep, which is small for a 16-inch laptop. The touchpad is usable, to be sure, but the limited space can make multi-touch gestures feel cramped.

The HP OmniBook 5 16 that I reviewed had a 16-inch IPS-LCD display with a resolution of 1920×1200.

This is a rather typical display for an inexpensive 16-inch laptop and, like most such displays, it’s fine. The image looks sharp enough and delivers acceptable color performance, but the contrast ratio is limited and darker scenes in movies and games can look washed out. Brightness is mediocre; it’s enough in many situations but a sunlit window can begin to overwhelm the display. Outdoor use is largely out of the question.

While the display is fine for most use, it suffers from the fact that OLED displays are now common even among inexpensive laptops. And in fact some OmniBook 5 16 variants, such as those with Qualcomm Snapdragon X hardware, have an OLED display. Asus VivoBook and Acer Swift models also tend to provide OLED displays at pricing similar to the OmniBook 5 that I reviewed.

The OmniBook 5 16 has user-facing speakers with reasonable volume and good clarity. That’s enough to make the speakers above-average for an inexpensive laptop. Still, you should keep your expectations in check, as the maximum volume is still modest.

A 1080p webcam is stuffed in the top bezel of the HP OmniBook 5 16. It provides a reasonably sharp, vibrant image. Though still obviously a webcam image due to its grainy look in low light and trouble adjusting exposure, the image quality is good enough. The same can be said for the dual-array microphone, which captures clean, loud audio.

There’s also an IR camera that is used to support Windows Hello facial recognition. Though increasingly common, it’s still not standard for budget machines. It provides a quick, easy way to log in the instant you open the laptop’s lid.

The HP OmniBook 5 16 has a fair selection of physical connectivity. It includes two USB-A ports, two USB-C ports, HDMI 2.1, and a 3.5mm combo audio jack. The USB-C ports offer data rates up to 10Gbps, DisplayPort, and Power Delivery (to charge the laptop).

This is a typical range of connectivity for an affordable laptop. Some laptops in a similar price range, such as the Acer Aspire 16 AI, will offer USB-C 4 ports with higher data rates. But others, like the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i, have less capable connectivity.

Wireless connectivity is similarly mediocre, as HP sticks to the older Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 standards. This isn’t a major issue as the performance from each is more than adequate. Still, some competitors offer Wi-Fi 7, which will be more future-proof.

The HP OmniBook 5 16 has the Intel Core Ultra 7 255U. That name might lead you to think it’s a rather capable chip, but it’s not what it seems. The Core Ultra 7 255U has 12 CPU cores, but only two of those are performance cores. It also lacks Intel Arc branded graphics and instead provides only the more generic Intel Graphics.

16GB of memory and 512GB solid state storage round out the specifications on the model I tested, though the Intel model of the HP OmniBook 5 16 available at retailers can be purchased with a 1TB solid state drive.

We start off with PCMark 10, a holistic system benchmark which reports a moderate score of 6,214 on the HP OmniBook 5 16. This defeats the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i and comes close to the Acer Swift 16 AI. However, the Core Ultra 7 255U struggles to keep up with chips in a higher performance and price tier such as the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V and AMD Ryzen AI 7 350.

The Cinebench 2024 multi-threaded test reports a rather tepid result for the HP OmniBook 5 16, which seems to have trouble sustaining a high level of performance over time. In this benchmark the Core Ultra 7 255U simply can’t deliver. Perhaps that is not so surprising. Even the Intel Core 5 210H has more performance cores (four vs. the Core Ultra 7 255U’s two).

Handbrake flips the results, as here the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i with Core 5 210H falls behind the pack. However, the Core Ultra 7 255U in the HP OmniBook 5 16 still delivers entry-level performance that doesn’t compete outside the budget category.

As mentioned earlier, the HP OmniBook 5 16 with an Intel Core Ultra 7 255U lacks Intel Arc branded graphics and instead has less capable Intel Graphics. That translates to four Xe cores, which is half the number of Xe cores delivered by Intel Arc 140V in the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V.

That has consequences for performance, as the HP OmniBook 5 16 is clearly far less capable than the Asus VivoBook 16 Flip. It also falls behind the Asus ExpertBook P3, which has AMD hardware including Radeon 860M integrated graphics.

It’s not all bad news, though. The HP OmniBook 5 16 manages to beat both the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i with Intel Graphics and the Lenovo ThinkBook 16 with Qualcomm Adreno X1-45 graphics. While definitely not a graphics powerhouse, the OmniBook 5 16’s performance is slightly above average for the price.

Speaking of price, that’s something shoppers need to keep in mind. The HP OmniBook 5 16 I tested has a listed MSRP of $1,199.99 and actually sells at that price on HP.com, and the laptop’s performance is woefully inadequate if that’s the price paid.

However, it’s often sold for half as much at online retailers, in which case the OmniBook 5 16’s performance is competitive, even good.

Remember, too, that AMD and Qualcomm models exist, and that their performance could differ dramatically from the Intel model tested for this review.

A small 59 watt-hour battery is crammed in the HP OmniBook 5 16. By comparison, the Asus VivoBook 16 Flip has a 75 watt-hour battery and the Acer Swift 16 AI has a 70 watt-hour battery. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5i, though, is similar with a 60 watt-hour battery. So, what does this mean for battery life?

I saw roughly 12 hours and 30 minutes of battery life in the standard PC World battery test, which loops a 4K clip of the short film Tears of Steel at a display brightness of approximately 200 nits.

As the graph shows, that’s a below-average result. Some 16-inch laptops can deliver 15 hours of battery life or more. With that said, the particulars of price matter. Laptops like the Acer Swift 16 AI and Asus VivoBook 16 Flip carry an MSRP similar to the OmniBook 5 16, but are often more expensive at retail.

Battery life aside, the OmniBook 5 16’s portability is fine for a 16-inch machine. It weighs slightly less than four pounds, measures up to 0.73 inches thick, and ships with a mid-sized USB-C power brick that delivers up to 65 watts. The OmniBook 5 16 is portable enough if you have a backpack with a laptop compartment but, like most 16-inch machines, it doesn’t fit comfortably in an average tote or messenger bag.

The HP OmniBook 5 16 with Intel Core Ultra 7 255U is a reasonable choice if you want a well-rounded 16-inch laptop at a low price. Though it has an MSRP well over $1,000, it tends to retail around $600, which is quite affordable for a laptop of this size. The OmniBook 5 16 doesn’t excel in any particular category, but doesn’t fall far behind the pack, either.

However, shoppers should take care to note the specific OmniBook 5 16 model they’re considering when they make a purchase. HP sells models with AMD or Qualcomm inside, and their specifications can vary a fair bit. The Qualcomm models, for example, have a superior OLED display.