Business
The Best Windows Laptop of 2026 Is Gunning Hard for Apple’s Crown
HP’s flagship laptop for 2026 has arrived, and it is making a strong case that the era of Apple’s unchallenged dominance in the premium ultraportable market may finally be drawing to a close.
The HP OmniBook Ultra 14, powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon X2 Elite processor, is a machine that checks nearly every box that discerning professionals and demanding consumers have been waiting for in a Windows laptop: a razor-thin chassis forged from aluminum, a stunning 3K OLED touchscreen with a 120Hz refresh rate, extraordinary battery endurance, and the raw computing muscle to handle 4K video editing and light gaming without breaking a sweat. Put plainly, it is the best Windows laptop HP has ever built — and one of the most competitive devices the Windows ecosystem has ever fielded against Apple’s MacBook lineup.
Design That Turns Heads
The first thing anyone will notice about the OmniBook Ultra 14 is its physical presence. HP describes the OmniBook Ultra 14 as the “world’s most durably slim 14-inch consumer notebook,” which is a somewhat convoluted way of saying the system remains quite portable — just 0.42 inches thick — while still passing 20 different military standard tests for things like shock resistance, drops and extreme temperatures. The whole machine is crafted from forge-stamped anodized aluminum, a manufacturing technique HP says gives the chassis added strength and bend resistance compared to the unibody approach used in Apple’s MacBooks.
HP says the new laptop is 5% thinner than the MacBook Air while weighing just 2.81 pounds — a figure that puts it in direct physical competition with Apple’s lightest portable. The Snapdragon variants come in a refined stone blue colorway with brushed metal sides, complemented by an anti-fingerprint finish that keeps the machine looking clean through extended use.
The design is drop dead gorgeous, featuring razor-thin edges, a new keyboard layout that is exceptional to type on, and a best-in-class 14-inch OLED display that makes text and images crisp and clear.
Display: A New Benchmark for Windows
It is a 14-inch 16:10 OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and 3K resolution — a beautiful and bright panel with inky deep blacks, high contrast, 100% DCI-P3 coverage, and sharp text and images. It is also a touchscreen, which is a feature no current MacBook offers.
It can reach a peak brightness of around 500 nits in standard mode, and in HDR mode HP rates the display for 1,100 nits. That HDR performance is genuinely impressive for a machine this thin, and it places the OmniBook Ultra’s display firmly in a class occupied by very few competitors. A second display option — a Full HD+ OLED panel with a 60Hz refresh rate — is also available for buyers on tighter budgets.
Performance: Snapdragon X2 Elite Delivers
Under the hood, the top-tier OmniBook Ultra 14 runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 Elite, the most powerful version of the company’s latest architecture. The Snapdragon X2 Elite features 18 cores and hits boost speeds up to 5.0 GHz, capable of chewing through multi-threaded tasks with ease.
In testing, editing 4K video on the OmniBook Ultra presented no problems, and light gaming at 1440p produced smooth framerates. Cinebench 2026 tests resulted in 4,646 points in multi-core and 632 in single-core.
The Snapdragon X2 Elite chip has been shown to beat Apple’s M5 in three major benchmarks, and it represents a massive upgrade over the previous-generation Snapdragon X1 Elite in terms of efficiency and performance.
For AI workloads specifically, HP secured an exclusive arrangement with Qualcomm. Thanks to an exclusive partnership with Qualcomm, anyone planning on running AI-based apps on the Ultra 14 may want to go with the Snapdragon variant, as it comes with a slightly more powerful NPU that maxes out at 85 TOPS — trillions of operations per second — rather than the 80 TOPS available from other OEMs. That figure outpaces the NPU performance of Intel’s Panther Lake chips and AMD’s competing Ryzen AI silicon, making the OmniBook Ultra the most capable AI laptop in HP’s lineup and one of the strongest in the entire Windows ecosystem.
To help support strong sustained performance, the Ultra 14 is also the first Omnibook to feature a built-in vapor chamber — a thermal management system more commonly associated with gaming laptops, which helps maintain performance during extended demanding tasks without throttling.
Battery Life: All Day and Then Some
Battery life is one of the most significant areas where Snapdragon-powered machines have historically outpaced their Intel counterparts, and the OmniBook Ultra 14 upholds that tradition decisively. HP claims up to 44 hours of battery life — a figure that will inevitably vary with real-world usage, but even at a fraction of that claim, the machine comfortably delivers a full working day and then some. The device is backed by a 70 WHr battery, which is a meaningful capacity for a machine this thin and light.
Connectivity and Ports
The Qualcomm options use USB4 ports, while the Intel models use Thunderbolt 4. Both feature Wi-Fi 7 and the same general port layout. Some reviewers have noted the port selection is not the most generous for a machine at this price, and the absence of an SD card reader may frustrate photographers and content creators who rely on one.
The designs continue HP’s use of a lattice-free keyboard on high-end models and large trackpads. The keyboard, in particular, has drawn consistent praise across reviews for its feel, travel, and typing comfort — an area where Windows laptops have historically struggled to match Apple’s standards.
Price and Availability
The HP OmniBook Ultra 14 is available from HP’s website and third-party retailers, with prices starting at $1,899 for the base model with a Snapdragon X Plus and 16GB RAM. Upgrading to a Snapdragon X2 Elite with 32GB RAM costs $2,399 from HP. A fully maxed-out configuration with 64GB of RAM and 2TB of storage climbs considerably higher.
For context, that starting price sits closer to the MacBook Pro M5 at $1,499 than the MacBook Air M4 — meaning this machine will need to deliver strongly on performance and battery life to justify the premium. Based on all available review evidence, it does precisely that.
The Verdict
The HP OmniBook Ultra 14 is a genuine milestone for the Windows laptop market. It pairs a MacBook-rivaling design with processing power that can match or beat Apple’s M5 in benchmark testing, a touchscreen OLED display Apple has not yet matched, and battery life that keeps pace with the best ultraportables on the market. “Overall, I think the HP OmniBook Ultra is my new favorite Windows 11 PC in 2026 so far. It’s beautiful, powerful, energy efficient, and features most bells and whistles that you might want on a flagship Windows laptop in the current year,” wrote Windows Central’s senior editor in a full review.
The OmniBook Ultra 14 will not convert every MacBook loyalist — Apple’s ecosystem integration, software optimization, and brand cachet remain formidable advantages. But for anyone in the market for a premium Windows machine, or anyone who has been waiting for a compelling reason to reconsider their next laptop purchase, HP has built something worth serious consideration.
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As operators ridicule the Chancellor’s giveaway, one Kensington venue is touting a £25 “kids” menu of burgundy snails and anchovy butter toast
Pubs and restaurants are expected to dream up increasingly inventive ways to milk a tax break on meals for under-18s, after a London venue unveiled a “children’s” menu featuring wild burgundy snail salad and anchovy butter toast.
Rachel Reeves last month announced a temporary cut in VAT on children’s meals, from 20 per cent to 5 per cent, running between 25 June and 1 September. The reduction forms part of a “Great British summer savings scheme” pitched as relief for hard-pressed venues and a sweetener for families. – Business Matters has explained how the Great British summer savings scheme works here.
The Chancellor flagged the policy in a video address to last week’s UKHospitality trade conference, where it landed to a notably muted reception.
Afterwards, senior figures across the trade added their voices to a growing chorus of derision, branding the scheme “laughable” and contrasting it with the roughly £5bn in extra costs piled onto pubs, bars, hotels and restaurants since Labour returned to power in 2024.
Chris Jowsey, chief executive of the 1,300-strong pub group Admiral Taverns, called the measure a “joke”, arguing that the resulting discount was “so small it’s embarrassing” and would do nothing for pubs that do not serve food.
He likened the VAT cut to the pandemic-era rules that, at one point, effectively allowed venues to serve alcohol only if it arrived alongside a scotch egg. “I suspect you’ll get some enterprising interpretations of children’s menus,” he said.
One restaurant in Kensington, in affluent west London, has already worked out how to wring maximum value from the policy.
The Blue Stoops has launched a £25 menu aimed at any “children” with an appetite for wild burgundy snails with bacon, anchovy butter toast, and beef and oyster pie. The line-up includes a pudding christened The Tax Break Tart. A non-alcoholic beer is bundled in, meaning the entire package qualifies for the summer reduction from 20 per cent to 5 per cent.
“We’re not expecting queues of children demanding snails and anchovy toast, but it has started the right conversations in the pub about why VAT support for hospitality needs to go much further,” the venue said.
Crucially, restaurants and pubs are under no obligation to verify that anyone ordering a discounted children’s meal is in fact a minor.
Clement Ogbonnaya, who owns the Prince of Peckham in south London, dismissed the discount as a “token gesture” that would achieve little without a permanent cut to the headline rate. “We’re all going to be faking our IDs to show we’re under 18,” he joked.
At the UKHospitality conference, operators lined up behind a call to slash VAT on hospitality from 20 per cent to 10 per cent. A parliamentary petition backing the move has already gathered more than 200,000 signatures, and can be found on the UK government petitions site. The campaign is supported by celebrity chefs including Tom Kerridge and Yotam Ottolenghi, and by the potential Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham, who has thrown his weight behind a hospitality VAT cut. Estimates of the annual cost to the Treasury range from about £10.5bn to £13bn.
The case rests partly on international comparison. While the UK rate sits at 20 per cent, the European average is 12.8 per cent. France, Spain and Italy all levy 10 per cent, and Germany charges 7 per cent. UKHospitality, which is co-ordinating the campaign, argues the gap leaves British venues at a structural disadvantage.
In her video message, Reeves insisted the government was backing the industry. The reception on the conference floor suggested otherwise. The hospitality investor and former Dragons’ Den panellist Sarah Willingham told delegates that when the Chancellor described Labour as pro-growth, she “nearly spat out my water”. The chief executive of Nightcap, owner of the Dirty Martini and Piano Works chains, described the UK investment climate as a “shitshow”.
Operators, grappling with soaring energy bills in the fallout from the Iran war, have rounded on a string of Labour measures, among them the higher national minimum wage, increased national insurance contributions and changes to business rates. The squeeze is already showing in the closure data, with three pubs and restaurants now shutting every day as costs and tax rises bite.
“They say they’re doing it for workers, but what they’re doing is making it impossible to employ workers because it’s so expensive,” said Matt Francis, owner of the Planet of the Grapes wine bar chain in London. “They think all people who own a business are driving around in a Ferrari with wedges of cash in our pocket.”
Francis added that he had only just repaid a government loan taken out when he was forced to close during the pandemic. “My reward is to pay even more tax. I will never vote for them again.” Of the summer discount, he was blunt: “We’ve got to the point where it’s laughable, not funny. And there’s a big difference.”
A government spokesperson said: “Businesses across the country have welcomed the Great British summer savings scheme, which will slash VAT from 20 per cent to 5 per cent on children’s meals, cinema and theatre tickets, and family attractions this summer. This will help families enjoy days out for less while boosting footfall for businesses across the hospitality and leisure sector.
“We’re also backing hospitality by reforming business rates, including a £4.3bn support package to limit bill rises, capping corporation tax at 25 per cent, cutting red tape and taking action on the cost of living. We have the right plan to grow the economy and support families and businesses with rising costs.”
Jamie Young
Jamie is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, bringing over a decade of experience in UK SME business reporting.
Jamie holds a degree in Business Administration and regularly participates in industry conferences and workshops.
When not reporting on the latest business developments, Jamie is passionate about mentoring up-and-coming journalists and entrepreneurs to inspire the next generation of business leaders.
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