I reviewed the HP OmniBook X Flip 16 review and this flip is not a flop

The flippy laptop is a curious hybrid of PC and tablet, and the HP OmniBook X Flip 16 is a superb example of this particular chimera. Being able to fold back on itself, and being equipped with a touchscreen, means you get (most of) the best of both worlds, a PC that you can sit and type on, and a tablet you can carry around and make notes or doodles on with the help of a stylus.

The OmniBook X Flip is the evolved version of the older HP Spectre line of convertible laptops, but in order to be one of the best laptops that we’ve reviewed in 2025, the new OmniBook needs to stand up to the greatest machines made by Apple, Dell, Microsoft and other big names in PC hardware.

HP’s machine has a large and bright screen, along with a host of conveniences enabled by its form factor, but if it’s pure performance you’re looking for, especially in graphics processing, then something with a dedicated GPU chip such as the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16S AI might be a better choice.

Features

The big draw of the OmniBook X Flip 16 is its screen. It’s the primary way you interact with the computer, and as a touch-sensitive IPS it’s bright and sharp, with a 3K resolution that keeps everything nicely detailed. With a 16in diagonal and a 16:10 aspect ratio it’s pretty large too, which is where it can fall down.

Despite Samsung’s best efforts with the Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, large screens like this don’t work particularly well on tablets. They need to be easily held in one hand while the other works with the touchscreen or a stylus (and there’s one of those in the OmniBook’s box). At a shade under 2kg in weight, and over 35cm long, it’s a lot to carry in one hand. Perhaps if it were just the screen you’re holding it would be different, but here you have the keyboard folded up behind it, adding to the bulk.

Instead, it’s a touch tablet that works best with some support. Place it upside down in tent mode to watch movies and occasionally prod at the playing controls, or prop it up with a cushion to use as a drawing surface, and it starts to make a lot more sense. It’s a laptop with a touchscreen, not an extension of your phone, and demands to be treated as such. Of course, it works extremely well as a traditional laptop too, and there’s a webcam with a privacy shutter built into the screen bezel for video calls that works in both orientations.

The laptop is well built, with an aluminium casing that’s stiff enough for you to hold it by the corner without fear of it drooping. There is a good range of ports around the edges too, with 10Gbps USB ports you can connect keyboard dongles, external SSDs and cameras too, a full-size HDMI for monitors or projectors, and a Thunderbolt for a bit of versatility, attaching docking stations, and also for charging through.

Performance and battery life

• Geekbench 6 single-core 2681
• Geekbench 6 multi-core 10545
• Geekbench AI 29445
• 3DMark Time Spy: 3969
• 3D Mark Night Raid: 33701
• Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – Low settings, native res: 27fps
• Black Myth Wukong -Low settings, native res: 23 fps
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider – Lowest settings, native res: 35fps
• Cyberpunk 2077 – Low settings, native res: 19fps

The second-generation Intel Core Ultra 7 at the heart of the OmniBook X Flip 16 is an excellent chip. It has eight cores, split into clusters of four Performance cores for the heavy work, and four Efficient cores to run background tasks and help extend the battery life. Intel hasn’t implemented hyperthreading in this generation, so you get eight simultaneous software threads, which is enough for multitasking a web browser, office apps and a music player.

There’s 16GB of RAM, which is plenty if you’re not using the machine for heavy video editing or 3D rendering, and it’s nice and fast too. Along with a 1TB SSD that’s near the top of PCIe 4.0 performance with a read speed in excess of 7,000MB/s, it all adds up to a responsive machine that’s well up to the task of being a daily driver, the sort of laptop you can use for anything.

Its downfall comes in the form of the GPU. There’s no discrete Nvidia chip in this laptop, so you’re stuck with the Intel Arc cores integrated into the CPU. These are never the best, and while the OmniBook can play games,

you’ll be stuck with low settings, 1080p resolutions and framerates that struggle to get above 30 in recent 3D titles. This may not be a problem, as some of the best games ever made are both 2D and old, but the OmniBook isn’t a gaming laptop and, in fairness, doesn’t pretend to be one.

Intel’s Lunar Lake chips have made great strides forward in battery life compared to earlier generations, so it’s no surprise to see the OmniBook keep going for as much as 15 hours of constant video playback. There are laptops, such as those made by Apple, that can provide even greater feats of endurance, but HP’s machine does very well with what it’s got.

Keyboard and trackpad

The keyboard is rather tightly constrained between the two large speaker grilles either side of it, and doesn’t have a numpad as a result, but this doesn’t stop the large, flat keys from being decent to type on. They have a bit of travel to them, but are packed close together with very little of a trough between them, meaning you can stray from your intended target.

For a touchscreen laptop, the trackpad may seem a little superfluous, but the wide expanse of the pad on the front of the OmniBook just adds to its versatility. It’s smooth, with a relatively deep drop away from the casing that surrounds it, meaning you’ll never be in any doubt about where your finger is. The surrounding aluminium has a strange feel to it, and almost seems to vibrate as you run your finger over it, so keeping it on the trackpad becomes easy.

The stylus that’s supplied is a pressure sensitive model that magnetically sticks to the side of the laptop, but doesn’t have a recess to retreat into for storage and therefore is quite likely to get lost if you’re in the habit of flinging your laptop in a bag without looking. It’s responsive when used on the screen, and provides an accurate way to sketch or make hand-written notes that can be converted to editable text. The only issue is that the screen is quite wide and palm-rejection is imperfect, so you may need to adapt your hand posture to avoid making marks on the wrong area.

Software

Windows 11 gets a bit of a bad rap, but in reality it’s a smooth and feature-rich place to do business. The OmniBook X Flip 16 comes with a few things pre-installed, such as the McAfee security suite, and lots of HP accessories, such as the Omen Gaming Hub.

There’s also rather a lot of AI. Not only is it baked into Windows itself, with things like Copilot and Recall, but HP has added its AI Companion software too.

Of these, the most controversial is Recall, a technology that constantly saves screenshots of what you’re doing, then uses machine learning to recognise the text in them and make it searchable. It’s definitely useful, as natural language searches can sometimes throw up forgotten information that things like browser history and Windows notoriously slow filename search doesn’t. If you feel like it’s an intrusion on your privacy, or don’t want your web pages saved for some reason, there are plenty of options for apps to be exempt from Recall, a big switch to turn it off, or you can just choose not to use it at Windows setup. It’s nice to have, and is a reminder that AI can have some applications that are actually useful for end users, but it’s far from essential.

HP OmniBook X Flip 16 verdict

This is the sort of laptop you’ll buy to have around the house and do just about anything with. If you work from home it’s even better, easily keeping up with office work and 2D creative tasks. Being able to flip it into its various configurations to use as a media consumption device, or to draw with the stylus, just makes it more appealing.

Its GPU is underpowered, and a version of this with a low-end Nvidia GPU in it would make a lot of people happy, but would also slash the battery life and increase the price even more. As it is, the OmniBook X Flip is a versatile machine with an excellent screen and battery life that goes on and on, and really that should be good enough.

HP OmniBook X Flip 16 tech specs

Screen	16in IPS touchscreen, 2880 x 1800 (16:10), 120Hz
Processor	Intel Core Ultra 7 256V
RAM	16GB LPDDR5x
GPU	Intel Arc 140V integrated
Storage	1TB SSD
Operating system	Windows 11
Connectivity	2 USB Type-A 10Gbps, 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x Thunderbolt 4, 1x USB Type-C 10Gbps, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
Battery	68Wh
Dimensions	35.6 x 24.5 x 1.5 cm
Weight	1.88kg