I might just prefer HP's new Omnibook Ultra to a MacBook Air, which is saying something

HP's news at CES is pretty multi-layered, which isn't a surprise given how many different computing pies it has its fingers in, but laptops certainly make up a big portion of it. I saw a bunch of its new launches at a CES preview event in New York in early December, though, and it's striking what stood out from the bunch for me.

The 2026 Omnibook Ultra 14 is, in short, one of the sexiest Windows laptops I've had hands-on time with in a very long while, with a sleek design that feels genuinely thin and lightweight in the hand, and a new chip that could make it a great value proposition when it launches.

HP's caught in the same market messiness as any other laptop maker right now, with processor options of merit from all of AMD, Intel and Qualcomm, and for the 2026 Omnibook Ultra 14, it's going with Intel and Qualcomm, in various configurations.

These will be differentiated by colour (Intel versions will be silver or dark grey, Qualcomm ones will be a lovely light blue as pictured). They'll also have strengths and (minor) weaknesses, with Qualcomm's Snapdragon X chips particularly adept at all-day battery performance, while Intel's chips soar on multi-thread performance.

Most new of all, there will be one version with the latest Snapdragon X2 Plus, which is actually the most modest and therefore affordable of the X2 chip lineup. It's launching at CES, too, so expect to find out about more laptops launching with it inside over the next few days.

As with most HP laptops, it's slightly hard to talk about performance in the simplest terms, though, because these laptops can be kitted out in so many different ways, with multiple chips, RAM configurations, storage sizes and more to swap out when you're configuring them.

Still, in a brief few minutes of browsing the web and checking out some built-in apps, it was very clear that this is a super-capable machine, even if I'm perhaps more focused on its lovely design for now (although the top-end 3K OLED touch screen was excellent to do it all on).

The laptop's built in a nice wedge shape that tapers to a really impressive minimum thinness of just 7.3mm, and the way the contours of the edges shift around the outline of the machine is extremely classy. It's also genuinely lightweight at 1.27kg in its lightest configuration (more storage and upgrades will add a little weight).

HP compared its thickness (at the thinnest point) to a MacBook Air, favourably, and while I think Apple's computer goes for uniform thickness in a way that ultimately works beautifully, the comparison is interesting. If the Snapdragon X2 Plus version of the Omnibook Ultra 14 can compete with Apple's laptop on price, then it's a hugely enticing new Windows option for people.

Most configurations will probably be more expensive, with pricing yet to be confirmed, but I have to admit I'm really taken with the machine either way. It's a toss-up whether it might make sense for people more than a MacBook, which is a rarer conclusion than one might think right now.