The new crop of laptops based on Qualcomm’s Arm processors aren’t exactly powerhouses, but they’re some of the most efficient laptops we’ve ever tested. In fact, the HP OmniBook 5 is our current battery champion, lasting over 24 hours in a standardized 4K video test. Today, Amazon is selling it for $549.99, an absolute bargain.
Highlights include a 14-inch OLED screen, an IR camera for Windows Hello face unlock, and an impressive 2.98-pound weight (that’s 1.35 kilograms if you live in a civilized country). Note that the version Amazon is selling has the same beefy battery and efficient Snapdragon X Plus processor, but less RAM and storage (16GB and 512GB, respectively) and doesn’t come with a touchscreen. To learn more about the quirks of this laptop, check out Matt Smith’s review for PCWorld.
Those specs are still good enough to handle just about everything a standard user can throw at it, making it an excellent pick for a student or an office worker who has to travel frequently. The exception is gaming. While most 2D games should be fine, and though compatibility for Windows on Arm is getting better, there just isn’t enough graphical oomph in this thing to handle the newest triple-A 3D titles.
Note that 24+ hours in a video torture test isn’t the same as 24+ hours of use when you’re sitting in front of the laptop and browsing with dozens of tabs open. Battery life with real-world use will be less, possibly by as much as half… but the benchmark test shows that the Snapdragon-based OmniBook lasts longer than any other machine we’ve tested for any size, weight, or hardware power. If you need a machine that’ll get you from London to Sydney with a busted airliner power socket, this is it.
This is a new, not refurbished, laptop. And there’s no time limit on the discount, so I suspect it’ll stick around for a while. That said, Black Friday is just two weeks away for deal-hunters in the US. If this laptop isn’t to your liking, maybe take a gander at PCWorld’s roundup of the best laptops on the market and stay tuned for our upcoming sale coverage.
Get an HP laptop with incredible battery life for $550