Why you can trust Windows Central
Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
Artificial intelligence is all the rage lately, and hardware that can handle even the most intensive AI tasks and workloads is becoming increasingly important.
HP has already started investing heavily in AI, and its ZBook line of ultra-powerful workstations is becoming more capable with every release. The most impressive addition to the family, though, is the HP ZBook Ultra 14 (G1a).
This flagship machine doesn’t look much different from the rest of the thin, light, and premium Windows laptops you can buy, but it packs an absurd amount of power into its compact frame.
Combine that with a unique feature aimed directly at AI developers, as well as some of the most trusted enterprise-grade security and remote management features on the market, and you get a laptop unlike anything else you can buy right now.
This review was made possible thanks to a review sample provided by HP. HP had no input nor saw the contents of this review prior to publication.
I’m no AI developer, but I can evaluate every part of a laptop’s user experience, including its performance, how long it can last off the charger, and if you can trust it to survive years of use. In-depth testing is even more important with enterprise hardware, and I don’t cut corners.
ZBook Ultra review: Cheat sheet
- What is it? A premium 14-inch workstation designed with AI, portability, and security in mind.
- Who is it for? Enterprise customers, AI developers, and other professionals who need as much power as physically possible in a laptop light enough to carry around.
- How much does it cost? The HP ZBook Ultra 14 (G1a) starts from $2,599 at HP, with configurations going all the way to $8,250 at HP.
- What did I like? The flagship-level design and hardware features, the unbeatable performance, and the surprising mobility.
- What did I not like? The average battery life, the loss of performance off the charger, and the imperfect display.
ZBook Ultra review: Pricing and specifications
If you consider everything that makes a laptop expensive, the HP ZBook Ultra has it all. The design is premium and packed with features, the internals are as powerful as they get, and all the security and remote management features businesses need are included.
So, the HP ZBook Ultra 14 (G1a) starts from $2,599 at HP with an AMD Ryzen AI MAX PRO 385, 32GB of RAM, 512GB of SSD storage, and a slower, lower resolution, non-touch IPS LCD display.
If you want to turn every dial up to 11, you can get an HP ZBook Ultra 14 (G1a) for an astonishing $8,250 at HP, with a Ryzen AI MAX+ PRO 395, 128GB of RAM, and 4TB of SSD storage.
The configuration I reviewed only comes with 2TB of SSD storage, but costs $4,049 at HP. If you’re thinking that’s a major jump, you’d be right; the ZBook Ultra’s pricing is sporadic across configurations, likely dependent on the added enterprise-specific features and packages outside of hardware.
|
Spec |
HP ZBook Ultra 14 (G1a) |
|---|---|
|
Display |
14-inch OLED, 16:10 aspect ratio, 2.8K (2,880 x 1,800) resolution, 48-120Hz variable refresh rate, 400nits max brightness, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, multi-touch support, HP BrightView & Low Blue Light support |
|
CPU |
Up to AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ PRO 395 (Zen 5 architecture, 16 cores, 32 threads, 5.1GHz max boost) |
|
GPU |
Up to AMD Radeon 8060S (RDNA 3.5 architecture, 40 cores) |
|
NPU |
AMD XDNA 2 (Up to 50 TOPS) |
|
Memory |
Up to 128GB LPDDR5X @ 8,533MHz |
|
Storage |
Up to 4TB M.2 2280 NVMe PCIe Gen 4×4 SSD |
|
Ports |
2x USB Type-C Thunderbolt 4 (40GBps, DisplayPort 2.1, 140W Power Delivery 3.0), 1x USB Type-C 3.2 Gen 2 (10GBps, DisplayPort 2.1, 140W Power Delivery 3.0), 1x USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 2 (10GBps, charging), 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x 3.5mm audio jack, 1x Kensington Nano Security Slot |
|
Connectivity |
Wi-Fi 7 2×2, Bluetooth 5.4, NFC |
|
Battery |
74.5Whr 4-cell battery, 140W USB Type-C fast charger |
|
Dimensions |
312.2 x 215.5 x ~18.5mm (12.29 x 8.48 x ~0.73in) |
|
Weight |
~1.5kg (~3.3lbs) |
|
Warranty |
3-year limited |
In the sustainable, plastic-free packaging, you’ll find your HP ZBook Ultra 14 (G1a) laptop and a large 140W USB Type-C fast charger. By default, the ZBook Ultra seems to include three years of HP Wolf Pro Security Edition, as well.
ZBook Ultra review: Design and build quality
Despite its main selling point being the immense amount of power compressed into a 14-inch frame, the ZBook Ultra more or less looks just like any other flagship HP laptop, with a refined and high-quality all-metal chassis and a glass display surrounded by ultra-thin bezels.
At around 18-20mm in thickness and less than 3.5 lbs, the ZBook Ultra certainly isn’t the most diminutive 14-inch laptop — but it’s more than slim and light enough to easily slip into any compact travel bag.
In this respect, the ZBook Ultra boasts similar dimensions to laptops like the Razer Blade 14 (2024) we reviewed and the ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 (2024) I reviewed, but with unique features and capabilities valuable to enterprise and professional customers.
Like other HP enterprise machines, the ZBook Ultra (G1A) also feels built to last, with tight tolerances in the frame and expert use of premium materials. The keyboard is spill-resistant, too, for the clumsier among us.
Image 1 of 2
HP made sure to include a healthy selection of ports, so you don’t have to compromise. In fact, the ZBook Ultra is one of a few AMD-powered laptops that boast not one, but two full-featured Thunderbolt 4 ports.
You also get a third (non-Thunderbolt) USB Type-C port with the same DisplayPort and Power Delivery specifications, although it obviously boasts far less bandwidth. With a separate HDMI 2.1 port, you have endless options for connecting external displays.
You’ll find a legacy USB Type-A port, a trusty 3.5mm audio jack, and a Kensington Nano Security Slot, too. Learning from past laptops and customer feedback, HP has continued to split the Thunderbolt ports, putting one on each side of the ZBook Ultra.
Great variety, clear labeling, even spacing — what more could you want? Ah, an SD card slot or Ethernet port? Sorry, you’ll need a dongle.
ZBook Ultra review: Display quality
If you’ve seen any HP flagship laptop from the last couple of years, you’ve probably seen the 2.8K OLED display featured in the ZBook Ultra.
Once again, it’s a great display that I’ve heavily praised a lot in the past. The 1800p resolution is incredibly crisp at this size, the dynamic 48 – 120Hz refresh rate balances smoothness with efficiency, and the image quality is wonderfully punchy.
Glossy glass and multi-touch support join that impressive panel performance, delivering a premium visual experience that very few would find reason to criticize.
Once again, HP doesn’t disclose the exact High Dynamic Range (HDR) standard to which this display adheres, but I do know it’s not Dolby Vision. Either way, it’s decent HDR performance that’s better to have than not have, but shouldn’t be a selling point.
|
Setting |
Brightness |
Black |
Contrast |
White point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
0% |
4.5 |
0 |
Infinite |
6,300K (0.316, 0.332) |
|
25% |
28.4 |
0 |
Infinite |
6,200K (0.318, 0.332) |
|
50% |
89.1 |
0 |
Infinite |
6,200K (0.317, 0.332) |
|
75% |
205.4 |
0 |
Infinite |
6,200K (0.317, 0.332) |
|
100% |
399 |
0 |
Infinite |
6,300K (0.317, 0.332) |
This display returned some familiar test results, too. It easily reaches 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, as HP promised, with a consistent (if slightly warm) white balance and OLED’s characteristic infinite contrast.
Max brightness isn’t anything exceptional at right around 400 nits, but it’s bright enough, and this display gets quite dim for use in dark environments.
Of course, the ZBook Ultra will receive the same criticisms, too. For one, HP’s software is lacking when it comes to display customization and management. ASUS sets the standard here with in-depth settings for OLED protection features, color profiles, anti-flicker, and more.
Speaking of anti-flicker, the ZBook Ultra does use Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) for dimming, so sensitive users may be afflicted with eye fatigue and even headaches. The flicker rate is average (so on the low side), so it’s best to avoid it if you know you’re sensitive.
At least HP does offer a lower-end IPS LCD display option, but only on the entry-level configuration. With no model configurator, you can’t equip the ZBook Ultra with its most powerful hardware and that flicker-free display.
ZBook Ultra review: Performance and thermals
AMD and Intel make plenty of capable chipsets for highly mobile hardware, but the HP ZBook Ultra 14 (G1a) is a different beast altogether.
This laptop may be powered by AMD Ryzen AI, but it’s not the same Ryzen AI we’ve seen in plenty of other laptops. This is the AMD Ryzen AI MAX series, the same ridiculously powerful Systems-on-a-Chip (SoCs) I tested in the quirky ASUS ROG Flow Z13 (2025) tablet I reviewed.
These Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) can be broken into four parts: AMD’s fastest and most efficient mobile processor, smartest Neural Processing Unit (NPU), industry-leading integrated graphics (iGPUs), and the ability to share a crazy amount of hyper-fast RAM across the entire chipset.
The HP ZBook Ultra is also powered by the enterprise-specific PRO variants with upgraded security and remote management features. That’ll be very important for the customers that this laptop is aimed at, but for my review I’ll be focusing on the raw performance.
My review configuration is one of the mightiest HP ZBook Ultra 14s you can buy, with an AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ PRO 395 under the hood. Yes, the naming scheme is still dumb, but that chipset rocks 16 cores and 32 threads, with a 5.1GHz max boost and the most powerful iGPU on the market, the 40-core Radeon 8060S.
Image 1 of 6
There’s no reaching necessary to claim the ZBook Ultra is one of the most powerful 14-inch laptops ever made. Its PCIe Gen4 SSD is the one area where it simply keeps up with the best, rather than surpassing them.
In CPU performance, the ZBook Ultra is among the highest-scoring laptops we’ve ever tested, going up against flagship 16-inch gaming laptops and even full-blown gaming desktops in some cases.
The GPU may be a more efficient iGPU built directly into the chip, but it still competes with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, a discrete GPU (dGPU) that consumes far more power and produces far more heat.
I even played Forza Horizon 5 on the ZBook Ultra, and it hit a 90 frames-per-second (FPS) average at 1200p, on the Extreme graphics preset, and with no AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution upscaling.
These Ryzen AI MAX chips also boast a unique feature that no laptop with a more powerful dGPU can boast: a shared memory pool. You can equip this laptop with up to 128GB of the fastest LPDDR5X RAM, and it can share up to 96GB of that RAM with just the iGPU.
That’s not useful for playing video games, but it can be immeasurably valuable for AI developers, data scientists, and other professionals who need to run massive models and projects locally.
Thermally, the ZBook Ultra can definitely spit out a lot of heat, but it still runs far cooler and quieter than any 14-inch gaming laptop I’ve used. It never got too hot to comfortably use, on my lap or otherwise, and the fans are well-tuned (during regular usage, you’ll almost never hear them).
I ran the ZBook Ultra through the same 3DMark stress test I put all gaming laptops through, looping the Time Spy benchmark 25 times consecutively. There was a 3.4% framerate difference between the best and worst loops, which is more than the ~2% managed by the best gaming laptops, but is better than your average 14-inch laptop with a dGPU.
ZBook Ultra review: Software and AI experience
HP is building one of the most cohesive and comprehensive AI PC ecosystems, and the HP ZBook Ultra 14 (G1a) is meant to be the true hero device for those efforts.
A Copilot+ PC powered by Windows 11, the ZBook Ultra immediately benefits from all the latest AI features in Windows, including Recall, Click to Do, and much more.
On top of that, HP is building its own AI solutions, including the HP AI Companion. Sure, you get the same search queries, text generation, and other functions of alternatives like Copilot and ChatGPT, but the AI Companion can also create, manage, and parse local libraries of data.
Working on a major project? Create a library, and the AI Companion can instantly find specific information, summarize, contextualize, and more — and even when the AI Companion does use the cloud (it doesn’t always), your data is always secure and private.
There’s also HP Smart Sense, which combines the ZBook Ultra’s AI prowess with all the locational, positional, and thermal information its sensors collect to automatically and intelligently tune your laptop’s performance depending on where and how you’re using it.
All of this is made possible by the AMD Ryzen AI chipset inside, which boasts an NPU with up to 50 TOPS of AI computational power. That’s great for efficiency and performance, and future-proofs the ZBook Ultra for future AI developments.
Every ZBook Ultra is protected by HP’s Wolf Pro Security suite, too, which can now offload some of its multi-level hardware, firmware, and software security features and real-time protections to that NPU.
The real draw of this laptop, though, is that integrated GPU, which is verified by Independent Software Vendors for artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, and other intensive project workloads.
Combine that with the ZBook Ultra’s integration into all of HP’s other AI development solutions, and it’s clear this laptop is in a league of its own… for specific people.
Elsewhere, the ZBook Ultra isn’t bloated with a ton of unwanted software, mostly preloading AMD, HP, and Poly Studios apps. HP’s software is still needlessly fragmented into nine apps, which should be four at most, but HP is at least apparently working on this.
ZBook Ultra review: Battery experience
The moment you set out to make the most powerful laptop you can, you’ve guaranteed that it won’t be the longest-lasting. That’s just how it works, and the HP ZBook Ultra (G1a) isn’t about to defy physics.
This laptop still managed to impress me, though. Its 74.5Whr battery is quite large, and the AMD Ryzen AI MAX PRO chipsets are still more efficient than any gaming laptop with a dGPU can manage.
The result? Respectable endurance, but you will want to keep the charger close for long days. Running a generic Microsoft Office workload and then an HD video for one hour each (with default performance settings, 200 nits display brightness, and 50% volume) returned battery losses of 11% and 22%, respectively.
Running a Windows Battery Report after a few weeks of usage reaffirmed my estimations. The HP ZBook Ultra is no “all-day” machine, but you can easily get 4-5 hours of actual usage without compromising on features or performance, and you could squeeze more life out by toning down the OLED display, performance, and more.
Charging is also incredibly easy. You get a large 140W charger in the box that takes full advantage of USB Type-C’s capabilities, so there’s no proprietary charging solution here. It’s fast and easy, and you can use any of the ZBook Ultra’s three USB Type-C ports to get the job done.
ZBook Ultra review: Keyboard and touchpad
The HP ZBook Ultra thankfully takes its keyboard directly from HP’s more mainstream EliteBook line of enterprise laptops, and it greatly benefits from it.
I love HP’s laptop keyboards, and this machine is no exception. The layout is spacious, the font is perfectly legible and clear, and the performance is flawless. All of the improvements that HP made for this new generation of hardware are present here.
I will say that I slightly prefer the more tactile keyboard of the HP EliteBook Ultra 14 (G1i) I reviewed, but the difference is so small as to be basically negligible.
One difference that I won’t ignore? The EliteBook Ultra uses a haptic touchpad, and there’s no such option for the ZBook Ultra. Sure, this glass touchpad is large enough, with smooth and responsive tracking thanks to Microsoft Precision drivers, but it’s not a haptic touchpad. Boo.
ZBook Ultra review: Other hardware
Plenty of workstations designed for office environments happily let some of the extraneous hardware features fall by the wayside, but the ZBook Ultra can’t follow the crowd and retain its “premium” tag.
This 5MP webcam isn’t quite HP’s best, but it’s still among the best webcams on a laptop, with good low-light performance, great color reproduction, and consistent white balance. It’s also backed by great dual-array microphones and HP’s AI-powered Poly Studios software.
You get two forms of Windows Hello biometric authentication with the IR sensor next to the camera and the fingerprint sensor embedded in the power button, and both solutions work great.
There’s also a Human Presence Detection (HPD) proximity sensor, and the ZBook Ultra is one of the most consistent laptops I’ve used in dimming the screen when you look away, locking when you walk away, and waking when you approach.
The HP ZBook Ultra even boasts a quad-speaker system, tuned by Poly Studios and split between the keyboard and down-firing chassis. This laptop may be designed with video conferencing in mind, but these speakers are great all around.
They’re loud, full, and detailed, and are more than suitable for music, movies, and gaming. They do seem to drain a fair bit of juice, but it’s great to see Windows laptop speakers continue to get better over time.
Finally, wireless connectivity is handled by the latest Wi-Fi 7 2×2 and Bluetooth 5.4 standards, and as expected, there are zero issues here. You won’t find any 5G cellular option for the ZBook Ultra, but I didn’t really expect that.
ZBook Ultra review: Also consider
ZBook Ultra review: Score card
|
Attribute |
Rating & notes |
|---|---|
|
Value |
⭐⭐⭐½ — The ZBook Ultra is expensive like only a tool aimed at businesses can be, but there’s nothing else like it. |
|
Design |
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ — Considering the level of power packed into this frame, this design is premium, practical, and pretty. |
|
Display |
⭐⭐⭐⭐ — HP’s familiar 2.8K OLED display looks as great as ever, but with some reoccuring weaknesses. |
|
Performance |
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — Especially for AI developers, no 14-inch laptop can compete with the ZBook Ultra in performance. |
|
Software |
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ — HP’s evolving AI PC ecosystem meets the latest Windows 11 features backed by this uniquely capable hardware. |
|
Battery |
⭐⭐⭐⭐ — The ZBook Ultra was never going to be a true all-day machine, but don’t mistake this for your typical 14-inch gaming laptop. |
|
Keyboard |
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ — HP’s EliteBook and ZBook keyboards are notoriously good, and that tracks here… but with no haptic touchpad. |
|
Other hardware |
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ — Unlike a lot of ZBook workstations, this laptop’s hardware features are premium all the way through. |
|
Overall |
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ — Very few people need to spend so much on a laptop, but the ZBook Ultra expertly fills an extremely specific niche. |
ZBook Ultra review: My final thoughts
✅You should buy this if …
- You have very specific security and remote management needs.
- You can actually make use of 128GB of RAM and 96GB of VRAM.
- You need the most powerful 14-inch laptop you can get.
❌You should not buy this if …
- You want this level of power just for gaming or casual usage.
- You don’t care about AI or AI development in the slightest.
Attempting to recommend the HP ZBook Ultra 14 (G1a) feels like an exercise in futility, given that the few people who will actually buy this laptop will know long before they reach this conclusion.
This is an excellent Windows AI laptop, with a fantastic design, gorgeous display, and a premium collection of luxury features. It’s also built with a very specific purpose in mind, and that’s shoving as much power for AI workloads as possible into a 14-inch frame.
That level of truly ridiculous and highly specialized performance, combined with the wealth of enterprise-grade security and remote management features, makes the ZBook Ultra expensive even among enterprise workstations — but if you actually need that power, if you can actually use up to 96GB of VRAM, then you’re not buying a laptop, you’re investing in a valuable tool.
The HP ZBook Ultra 14 (G1a) is now available from $2,599 at HP, and this powerful review configuration is available for $4,049 at HP.
The ZBook Ultra is a special laptop, and it has been a unique experience testing it these last few weeks. It’s a great device, but I wouldn’t recommend it to most people — because most people would never make use of this kind of power. Those who can, though, already have the ZBook Ultra in their cart.
