HP EliteBook X Flip G1i Australian Review

Another day another high-quality, 14-inch HP ultraportable convertible tablet. Hot on the heals of its impressive Spectre, OmniBook and ZBook offerings comes the business-grade HP EliteBook X Flip G1i. On paper, many of the features are very similar to its siblings, but we’ve learned that each range has its own subtle differences which can significantly affect both the price and value proposition. We put it through its paces to determine exactly where fits in a popular market segment that’s also crowded with plenty on non-HP rivals.

HP EliteBook X Flip G1i Specs

Features, Ergonomics and Design

The HP EliteBook X Flip G1i has a metal, ‘Atmospheric Blue’ chassis that feels smooth, high-quality, rigid and robust. The HP moniker on the lid is stylish compared to other corporate laptops and it generally looks classy-yet-discreet.

Opening it up reveals the 14-inch 1,920 x 1,200, IPS screen. It’s got a glossy finish but HP has sprinkled it with magic, non-reflective coatings to banish most reflections, even when viewing dark content or viewing outdoors. It’s got a whopping 800-nit brightness rating and ramping it up to full actually hurt my eyes. While you can activate Windows HDR, it doesn’t seem to do anything, or even register with streaming apps like YouTube, though.

The Windows Desktop is crisp and clear and colours are generally vibrant. This carries into multimedia viewing, but I noted that details could get blown-out in the brightest highlights, relatively easily. Still, details showed-up in shadows better than on many rival screens. Despite there being no HDR, both colourful and monochromatic gradients and transitions were rendered smoothly (HDR is often required to fix banding and blocky artefacts).

It has a 60Hz refresh rate which can drop down to 40Hz to save power, if required. However, the pixel response time is somewhat sluggish meaning that fast-moving objects can be rendered blurrily. Only fast-and-frantic gamers would be bothered, though – and this isn’t really a laptop for them.

Being a convertible tablet, the display is also a responsive touchscreen and HP even supplies a high-quality stylus. The latter also magnetically attaches to the left-hand side of the base.

The screen also supports some bespoke HP optimisations. One is Auto HDR which HP says automatically adjusts colours, brightness and contrast according to ambient environment. The differences I noticed were rather subtle, but I didn’t live with the laptop long enough to give it a full appraisal. Of more interest was the Onlooker Detection feature which could both detect people peeking at your screen and also, potentially, blur the image with HP’s SureView technology. It’s a nice feature to have. It’s worth noting that it does reduce the brightness and viewing angles a little, but the former isn’t an issue and the latter is a boon in the business market.

HP’s keyboards are generally very comfortable and accurate to type upon for extended periods but some convertible models can also be a bit stiff. I was pleased that the EliteBook X Flip G1i’s low-travel, Scrabble-tile keys sat in the former camp. The power key doubles as a fingerprint reader (which is compatible with Windows Hello log-in) and there’s a programmable key that you can use to set-up multiple shortcuts and make automations. My only gripe is the horrendous half-height arrow key layout which sees the Page Up and Page Down buttons smushed-in next to them. The trackpad was very smooth and accurate, though.

Above the screen is a 720p webcam which was surprising considering HP’s recent history of very high quality UHD models and the tight integration of its Poly Camera Pro software. The latter is an impressive suite of applications which use Ai to easily improve your appearance, lighting and background to a much higher degree than Windows’ built-in equivalent tools. It also offers features like watermarks and contact information overlays.

While 720p doesn’t sound high in today’s market, HP has evidently stumbled onto something because the resulting image is one of the sharpest and least grainy I’ve seen on any laptop, in all lighting conditions. HP actually lists it as being a five-megapixel unit, so I’ll report back regarding this discrepancy.

The webcam is also partnered by an IR camera for Windows Hello facial recognition. Meanwhile, the partnering dual-microphone array does an excellent job at capturing clear audio, even in noisy environments.

The EliteBook X Flip G1i also features a quad-speaker array that gets very loud indeed. Fidelity is generally very good from the top to the bottom end, but the bass response can’t quite keep up when you’re at very high volume. They’re still very impressive, though.

Other features include HP’s Wolf Security which provides additional active attack protection layers to Windows. There’s also HP’s new SureSense protection which adds behavioural and Ai protection elements. It’s relatively unobtrusive and provides extra piece of mind for both users and the sysadmins who manage the devices.

Connectivity & Ports

Inside there’s Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. That’s an impressive connectivity complement – especially when factoring-in the 5G mobile WAN support.

All-in-all HP’s EliteBook X Flip G1i is a joy to interact with, wherever you are. Some serious thought has gone into its usability in multiple environments and everything has been subtly augmented, beneath the surface, with useful Ai enhancements. The screen might not be the very best for multimedia, but it’s still very good. My only real gripe is the arrow keys, but that’s more of a personal bugbear that regular readers will understand by now.

Features, Ergonomics and Design Score: 4.5 / 5

Performance

Inside HP’s EliteBook X Flip G1i is an Intel (Lunar Lake) Core Ultra 7 258V processor. This has four Performance cores and four Low Power Efficient cores that operate between 2.2 and 4.8GHz, plus an integrated 32GB of fast, LPDDR5-8533 RAM. It also has an NPU for Ai functions and integrated, octa-core Intel Arc graphics that run at 1.95GHz. Our review unit also had a 1TB hard drive.

You can read how we test laptops, here. As always, in addition to raw scores, we provide a Star Rating where 1 represents the least-impressive score we’ve seen in our labs and 5 is the best.

General Computing & CPU Tests

In the PCMark 10 benchmark which uses every component in the system, the EliteBook X Flip G1i scored 7,373 which is well above average in the laptop market and impressive for an ultraportable. Score 3.6 / 5

In the CPU-focused Cinebench rendering tests, the EliteBook X Flip scored 1,606 in the drag-race-like R15 test and 9,892 in the longer R23 test. The lack of hyperthreading limits Lunar Lake laptops here: they’re not great for hefty rendering workloads. Score 1.9 / 5

In the UL Procyon Photo Editing test which uses Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic, the G1i managed 6,527. If you’re doing elaborate batch editing you might have to wait around for a few seconds more than with a powerful laptop, but it’s fine for most general editing tasks. Score 2.8 / 5

Our other regular CPU benchmarks don’t carry as much weight (at the moment) because the software vendors keep adjusting the applications’ functionality. This makes scores hard to compare with the wider market. Nonetheless, in the UL Procyon Microsoft Office benchmark, the EliteBook X Flip managed 6,370 and in the multi-platform version it scored 259,000. Ultimately, this laptop has no problem running most office tasks.

In the Procyon Ai Vision test (Windows, CPU, Float 32) it scored 71. I’m still not sure what this really means, though. Score: 2 / 5

All in all, the EliteBook X Flip G1i is a slightly faster than other similarly-specified rivals and siblings. It’s more-than adequate for most office and general graphics-related tasks. But, big rendering tasks should be performed on something beefier.

General Computing & CPU Score: 2.6 / 5

Graphics & Gaming Tests

HP’s EliteBook X Flip G1i is no gaming laptop but I ran our 3DMark gaming tests to see what it could do. The scores were:

These scores demonstrate that the show that the EliteBook X Flip G1i can handle games that are lightweight and undemanding, but not much else.

It’s worth labouring the point that the slow screen will make casual, fast-and-frantic games, like First Person Shooters, look pretty terrible. Nonetheless, I ran the Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 benchmark. At default settings at native resolution and with XESS frame-generation turned on, and saw the G1i average a very playable 95fps and the lowest one percent of frames running at an impressive 83fps. So, if you plug it into a quicker external monitor, it will play just fine.

Other GPU-focused tests included UL’s Procyon Video Editing Test which uses Adobe Premiere Pro to encode four ~900MB video files. It scored 11,720. This means that the longest time taken (for the UHD, H.265, 60fps workload) was 202 seconds. While that’s some way behind gaming and Creator laptops with discreet Nvidia graphics (which can take less-than 50 seconds) it’s still well ahead of slightly older ultraportables that could take 10 minutes to complete each pass. Score: 1.7 / 5

Finally, I ran the GPU version of the Procyon Ai Computer Vision test and it scored 275. I’ve still no idea what that means. Score: 1.9 / 5.

Cooling

For the most part, the EliteBook X Flip G1i runs cool and silently. If you run a heavy workload in Performance Mode, the fans will ramp up to a sustained, low whoosh and it can reach round luke warm in temperature. However, it quickly returns to normal again.

Portability & Battery Life

Being a business-grade laptop means the EliteBook X Flip G1i has been tested to a much higher degree than consumer models. As such, it should survive life on the road with few issues. The chassis certainly feels very robust and there’s no flex when a twisting force is applied to the screen.

It’s worth noting that it’s a bit heavier than many other 14-inch ultraportables at 1.49KG, but it still feels small and compact – it’s only 15mm thick.

The density is largely down to all the tech crammed inside plus the relatively large 68Wh battery. However, this went on to run our PCMark 10 Modern Office Battery Benchmark for a best-ever, 29 hours 11 minutes. Extraordinary! The 301g charger might not be a phone-style unit, but it does support (very) fast charging to 50 per cent in just 30 minutes.

Portability & Battery Life Score: 4.4 / 5

Price, Value & Availability

My review unit of the HP EliteBook X Flip G1i (SKU: B9GH9PT) is available now for $4,350. That’s a hefty price tag but you get a lot for your money and it should last a long time. Most of the target market will be procuring this laptop using lease deals with their MSP, though… so, the sticker price will be less-relevant.

The X Flip G1i is also available with incrementally higher and lower processor options, different hard drive sizes and a brighter, non-touchscreen. It’s also available without integrated 5G internet which will save you money.

Value Score: 3.1 / 5

10 Alternatives to the HP EliteBook X Flip G1i

• MSI Prestige 14 AI Evo C1MG – Not nearly as feature-packed or refined as the EliteBook, but this business-grade alternative is much cheaper. It’s not backed by HP’s international business support infrastructure, though.
  
  
• Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition – Lenovo’s consumer-grade equivalent to the EliteBook has a slightly larger screen and can often be found on sale.
  
  
• Asus Zenbook S 14 – Asus’ 14-inch consumer laptop isn’t a convertible, but it’s a very high quality Lunar Lake laptop that costs less and weighs less.
  
  
• Acer Swift Go Ai – We’re not really fans of SnapDragon laptops due to their limited software compatibility. But, this super-cheap Acer can’t help but be attractive.
  
  
• Asus ExpertBook P5 – One of our favourite business laptops. It’s cheaper but not a convertible and it doesn’t have HP’s support infrastructure behind it.
  
  
• Lenovo Yoga Pro 7i – This Lenovo business rival is also available with discreet graphics to better-suit creators (and gamers).
  
  
• Acer TravelMate P4 Spin 14 – Acer’s rival doesn’t have HP’s support network, features or refinement. But, it’s cheaper.
  
  
• HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 – HP’s amazing business-class workstation is both incredibly powerful and very expensive.
  
  
• HP OmniBook Ultra Flip 14 – The EliteBook’s consumer sibling is a little cheaper but offers many, similar features.
  
  
• Venom BlackBook Zero 14 Phantom – This international Aussie battler is a no-nonsense business laptop that’s designed to last. Venom will even pay you $500 to return it… seven years later!

Conclusion: Should You Buy The HP EliteBook X Flip G1i?

If your business is supplied by HP, then it’s well worth asking for an EliteBook X Flip G1i. Its foibles are trivial, it’s got everything a worker could want, plus features that will help fleet managers avoid expensive security headaches. The high price won’t be a significant consideration to the target market so I’m very happy to recommend it.

Overall: 3.8 / 5

Last Updated on 31 July 2025 by Nick Ross