HP EliteBook X Flip 14 (G2i) review: HP basically made my ultimate dream laptop, but it has two problems

HP is one of the goliaths of the PC world, and I've grown rather fond of its modern OmniBook and EliteBook laptop offerings over the last few years. When I received the new EliteBook X Flip G2i for review, it seemed that HP had gotten even closer to my ideal dream laptop—premium 2-in-1 design, refined features, a gorgeous anti-glare OLED display, the works. This is an impressively specced machine.

After a couple weeks of testing, I can confirm that HP has delivered another top-notch enterprise-ready laptop to users and businesses, but it's not a slam dunk to recommend to everyone. It can be a pain to find the configuration you want (and justify the asking price), for one, but battery life hasn't been quite as impressive as I expected it to be, and that's without opting for the beefiest chipset or adding 5G cellular connectivity.

Price and availability

Laptops designed for business like HP's EliteBook family are usually considerably pricier than their consumer counterparts, for reasons such as an intent for companies to buy in bulk rather than individual sales, added security and remote management features, and high-value add-ons like a 1 to 3-year subscription to HP's industry-leading Wolf Pro Security suite. The rising prices and declining supplies of memory and storage modules certainly aren't helping either.

All that to say, the HP EliteBook X Flip G2i is a very expensive laptop, coming in at well over $2,000 for its most stripped-back configuration. Hitting $3,000 and beyond is a simple matter, immediately making this laptop a non-starter for many. HP isn't dramatically removed from other ultra-premium options like the Dell XPS 14 or Apple MacBook Pro, but there's another point to consider.

It's surprisingly frustrating to simply find the HP EliteBook X Flip that's right for you. Configurations are scattered across HP, Amazon, and third-party vendors like B&H Photo Video, with each store offering different options often not available elsewhere. Pricing is also inconsistent across those configurations with little indication as to why. Going straight to the source is normally the way to clear some confusion, but HP's limited selection (especially if you want an OLED display) and inflated prices without HP's sporadic, deep discounts can make buying the EliteBook X Flip a headache.

A practical 2-in-1 design that feels premium throughout

It won't win any awards, but this laptop feels great to use

At about 15mm and 1.3kg, the EliteBook X Flip G2i isn't the thinnest or lightest laptop around. Its bezels aren't the slimmest, and there's no glass lid or other fancy features to catch the eye. Still, I'm a massive fan of the beautifully deep Atmospheric Blue color, the polished edges, the flawless fit and finish that leaves no room to doubt how premium this laptop is, and the sheer focus on practicality.

The 360-degrees hinges are perfectly balanced, and make it easy to switch between postures. You get a healthy I/O selection with two Thunderbolt 4 ports, one USB-C port, HDMI 2.1, and USB-A. The quad top-firing speakers flanking the keyboard are full and loud, and easily surpass your average laptop speakers in quality. The 5MP webcam can only be described as "solid," but it still rocks a physical privacy shutter and an IR sensor for Windows Hello facial recognition. Don't want to use that? There's a fingerprint sensor embedded in the power button, too.

HP's new lattice-less keyboard is also perfectly practical, with an intuitive layout and a lovely typing feel. I had my brother-in-law use this keyboard, and he immediately preferred it over his MacBook Pro. HP genuinely makes some of my favorite laptop keyboards ( alongside Lenovo ), so I wasn't terribly shocked. That being said, I still slightly prefer HP's older keyboards over this new design because of the more tactile space between keys.

I can't move on without giving a shout-out to HP's continued commitment to sustainability and serviceability. Like most HP laptops, the EliteBook uses a variety of recycled materials across its components, but more interesting is how HP has designed this laptop to make it easier than ever for users to make their own repairs. HP even sells replacement kits that walk you through replacing common parts like the keyboard, touchpad, and battery in a few short steps. I love to see this, especially when it doesn't affect how premium the EliteBook X Flip feels.

Three standout features that I truly love

HP may have taken straight from my dream laptop list with this one

The EliteBook X Flip G2i has plenty going for it, but I want to shine a spotlight on three features in particular: the touchpad, the display, and the stylus.

HP has embraced haptic touchpads for a few years now, and it's a feature I demand in my personal laptop at this point. If you didn't know, haptic touchpads replace the traditional mechanical touchpad with an unmoving glass surface and haptic motors that imitate a click wherever you press. It sounds small, but a haptic touchpad is an impactful upgrade that feels more responsive and consistent than a traditional touchpad, and enables interesting features like using gestures to change your volume or display brightness on the fly with tactile feedback.

The EliteBook X Flip also comes with a variety of display options, but my review unit rocks a 14-inch, 1800p, 120Hz OLED panel with an anti-glare coating and up to 500 nits of max brightness. It's an excellent OLED display, as I've come to expect from HP, and that added brightness makes a huge difference when working outside or in a bright office. I especially love its anti-glare coating, which sacrifices a small amount of clarity for incredibly effective reflection resistance and a lovely matte finish that makes the next feature even better.

That would be the active stylus, which is securely stored inside the laptop instead of haphazardly attached to the side with magnets. It's a smaller stylus for that reason, but always having it available (without risk of losing it somewhere) makes the trade-off well worth it. Performance and responsiveness is fantastic, and the coating on the EliteBook X Flip's display provides a paper-like feel when drawing or annotating. These features are cool on their own, but altogether really elevate the EliteBook X Flip G2i for me.

Consistently awesome performance, held back by endurance

I wouldn't call battery life a flaw, but it is a weakness

The HP EliteBook X Flip G2i is powered by Intel Core Ultra Series 3, otherwise known as Panther Lake, and my review unit is equipped with a 16-core Ultra 7 366H. This is actually my first opportunity to really put Intel's latest platform through its paces , and it hasn't disappointed. You can even bump this laptop up to the Core Ultra X7 if you need a serious increase in GPU performance, but be prepared to pay a pretty penny.

If you can only be satiated with benchmark scores, I ran the EliteBook X Flip through Geekbench 7 and got 2,349 (Single), 16,344 (Multi), and 23,753 (GPU)scores in return. In Cinebench 2026, the EliteBook X Flip delivered 485 (Single)and 3,865 (Multi)scores. This is competitive for the Ultra 7 366H, and HP was correctly confident in its sustained performance. The EliteBook X Flip G2i's new cooling system does an excellent job keeping everything cool and smooth, but its fan noise under load isn't quieter than your average Windows laptop.

Real-world performance is what matters most, though, and this laptop never disappointed me. Cruising through Windows, crushing my workload, handling photo editing, even the little things like waking up from sleep quickly—the EliteBook X Flip G2i delivers on every front. It also stays impressively quiet and comfortable the vast majority of the time, whether I was using it on my desk, couch, or lap.

This isn't a gaming laptop, of course, especially not with the entry-level 4-core Intel Graphics GPU inside my review unit, but it can even handle a bit of that. I played Forza Horizon 6 at 1200p with Low settings and Intel XeSS enabled, and averaged 42 FPS. More than playable, by my books, but I do wish I had also been able to test the EliteBook X Flip with Intel's monster 12-core Intel Arc GPU.

One area that hasn't impressed me at all, though, is endurance. The EliteBook X Flip has everything going for it on paper, with the efficiency promises of Core Ultra Series 3 and a relatively sizable 68Whr battery, but real-world usage has shown this laptop to be disappointingly average.

With a workload consisting of a handful of apps, around a dozen browser tabs, and music playing in the background (with display brightness/volume set to 30-40% and Balanced performance), I lost approximately 10% of my battery life every 30 minutes, on average. That tracks with Windows 11's battery life estimates of around 5-7 hours of actual non-stop usage before fully draining the battery, which falls short of the ideal. Especially if you need to crank up the display brightness, it'd be easy to kill this laptop before the end of a full school or work day.

I wouldn't describe this longevity as bad, and I'll admit the EliteBook X Flip's endurance has been incredibly consistent over my two weeks of testing, but I certainly expected more—especially since you can also equip this laptop with 5G cellular connectivity. If battery life is a big concern for you, it's worth considering the entry-level 1200p IPS LCD display option instead.

I can at least admire HP's new 100W GaN laptop charger for being unerringly fast and fantastically compact. I just wish the included cable in the box was longer.

Should you buy the EliteBook X Flip G2i?

An interesting proposition

You should buy the EliteBook X Flip G2i if:

• You want a premium 2-in-1 laptop

• You really value a great stylus experience

• You require enterprise-grade security and features

You should not buy the EliteBook X Flip G2i if:

• You need guaranteed all-day battery life

• You're on a tight budget

If I was in the market for a new laptop, I'd be strongly tempted by the HP EliteBook X Flip G2i. The practical and versatile 2-in-1 design, alluring array of features, killer stylus/display combo—this laptop ticks nearly every box for me. Of course, I'd still ultimately move on, because I'm not willing to pay extra for enterprise features I honestly don't need, and I also value a laptop that doesn't give me a little anxiety about whether a charger is nearby every few hours.

Oh, but I'd be tempted. Despite my criticisms, this is an easy laptop to recommend to the modest group of people looking for something premium, powerful, packed with features, and enterprise-ready.