HP's Answer to the MacBook Neo Is Thinner, Lighter, and Comes With OLED (theverge.com) 99
HP is taking aim at Apple's MacBook Neo with the new OmniBook 5 14, a $699.99 Windows laptop that starts with an Intel Core 5 315 processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage but includes an OLED display even on the base model. It's also slightly thinner and lighter than the Neo. The Verge reports: The OmniBook 5 14 can be configured much higher, with up to a Core 7 350 chip, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD, but all models include a 1080p webcam, dual speakers, HDMI, 3.5mm audio jack, and just two 10Gbps USB-C ports. And while the inclusion of OLED across the range is a major draw to the new OmniBook, the base config only has a passable 1920 x 1200 resolution and 300 nits of max brightness on its non-touch panel. A touchscreen version will be available when the OmniBook 5 launches in October, but a version with a 2560 x 1600 resolution OLED and 400 nits of brightness isn't coming until March 2027.
While the OmniBook 5 14 doesn't seem poised to best the MacBook Neo in raw processing power (based on our other reviews of Wildcat Lake laptops) or screen brightness, it's quite thin, light, and colorful. HP even gave it the nicer, sleeker lid logo usually reserved for pricier models. It starts at just 2.56 pounds, and it's as thin as 0.46 inches / 11.7mm. That's slightly lighter and thinner than a Neo. And I'd expect its Wildcat Lake chips to offer some good-to-great battery life. But we'll have to see how it delivers in actual testing. HP also announced a new ProBook 4 G2iS that is the company's "thinnest business notebook," measuring in at 0.47 inches / 12mm. It'll launch in December with Intel Wildcat Lake chips, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD, though pricing hasn't been announced.
While the OmniBook 5 14 doesn't seem poised to best the MacBook Neo in raw processing power (based on our other reviews of Wildcat Lake laptops) or screen brightness, it's quite thin, light, and colorful. HP even gave it the nicer, sleeker lid logo usually reserved for pricier models. It starts at just 2.56 pounds, and it's as thin as 0.46 inches / 11.7mm. That's slightly lighter and thinner than a Neo. And I'd expect its Wildcat Lake chips to offer some good-to-great battery life. But we'll have to see how it delivers in actual testing. HP also announced a new ProBook 4 G2iS that is the company's "thinnest business notebook," measuring in at 0.47 inches / 12mm. It'll launch in December with Intel Wildcat Lake chips, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD, though pricing hasn't been announced.
8 GB of RAM (Score:5, Insightful)
Who can live on that? Not in 2026.
Re:8 GB of RAM (Score:5, Funny)
I'll stick with my laptop from 2019. It shipped with 16GB and I upgraded it to 32GB. In today's prices that's a small house or 100 lbs of ground beef.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
There are a bunch of photos of Trump meeting with AI executives earlier this week to sign the so-called voluntary safety pact. But really it was a meeting to work out data center expansion and keeping the investment money rolling in for AI businesses. Trump and AI billionaire class are running the US right now, so I doubt there will be any relief for consumers to get better prices and inventory for consumer products, or to realistically protect consumers from AI malfunction and abuse.
I'm blasted with 30+ te
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, it's a "moral agreement" between a bunch of billionaires that at best can be described as amoral douchebags.
What could possibly go wrong?
Re: (Score:2)
Same as the base Macbook Neo. I thought Linux was super efficient though? Surely you can run a decent desktop on that.
Re: 8 GB of RAM (Score:2)
You can. I do. My laptop is a Zen+ with 2C4T and I upgraded from 4/128 to 8/512 and it runs a full Linux desktop with KDE Plasma just fine. It's not even slow, it boots quickly and everything works. I wouldn't try to do any serious content creation in it but for all common tasks it is completely adequate.
My phone with 8GB is actually a bigger problem.
Re: (Score:2)
not if you want to open more than 0 browser tabs, with today's frontend resource consumption.
It is not only the 8GB - it is the *GB along with a x86 architecture.
Re: 8 GB of RAM (Score:2)
x86? What year do you think it is?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Summary says it's a Windows laptop.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, although I'd point out that Mac OS on the Macbook Neo, the machine it is a rival to, also runs very poorly on an 8GB RAM machine.
Re: (Score:2)
Macbook Neo, the machine it is a rival to, also runs very poorly on an 8GB RAM machine
According to whom? The Neo is a terrible machine to run anything memory intensive like 4K video editing full time. But that is not designed primarily to do. It was made for the average consumer like students to handle everyday computing like web surfing. Every review I have read say the 8GB is fine for these tasks.
Re: (Score:2)
It's only fine to the extent that it is also fine on Windows 11. Despite what some people claim here, while not super fast Windows 11 will allow you to browses the internet just fine on 8GB of RAM.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair I do tend to strip it down a bit on my systems. For a year I ran 10 on 4GB of RAM and a SATA SSD.
Re: (Score:2)
There are lots of things that could be removed from Windows that are unnecessary; however, MS makes it more difficult with each new update and patch. Removing them for the performance is such a hassle that few do it. For example, I don’t have an Xbox but MS deems it that I must have Xbox Gaming installed with each major update. It used to be that you could uninstall it. Now you can remove it but it really is not uninstalled as components still exist; for example all the modules that connect to the Xb
Re: (Score:2)
This is exactly why I don't run Windows outside of a virtualized environment I can snapshot any more. Their stupid bullshit that they reapply with every update that breaks my working config has wasted so much of my time, it was faster and easier to figure out how to use IOMMU to get hardware directly into the VM and use ZFS snapshotting to instantly revert whatever stupidity they are forcing on people this week.
Next step: completely fuck off Windows for good. The last thing I use it for is gaming, and I j
Re: (Score:2)
The Macbook Neo set that standard. You're apparently allowed to make a cheap laptop in 2026 with a unusable amount of RAM and storage now as long as it has a good display.
Re: (Score:2)
The Macbook Neo set that standard. You're apparently allowed to make a cheap laptop in 2026 with a unusable amount of RAM and storage now as long as it has a good display.
Have you looked at DDR5 and SSD prices recently? Cheap and lots of RAM or storage are conflicting conditions right now. Laptop manufacturers are not "allowed" to do this as much as they have no choice at the moment. But you are allowed to buy more RAM and storage in a laptop; do not expect it to be cheap.
Re: (Score:2)
I barely use 1gb on my m4 mini with Firefox tabs and Discord running.
Re: (Score:3)
I barely use 1gb on my m4 mini with Firefox tabs and Discord running.
Similar, I have Safari, Mail, VPN, Boom3d, and Preview, and am using 2.1GB.
It the Mac mini M4 not a sweet little thing?
Re: (Score:2)
I barely use 1gb on my m4 mini with Firefox tabs and Discord running.
Similar, I have Safari, Mail, VPN, Boom3d, and Preview, and am using 2.1GB.
It the Mac mini M4 not a sweet little thing?
It is, indeed!
Re: (Score:2)
I can if it's not running Windows. This MBA has 8 GB and is fine. I have another PC running Linux Mint with 8 GB and it's fine. Not everyone is a mad dog gamer or trying to edit 4K video on a lightweight travel friendly laptop.
The weak spot on the HP is the dim screen. I thought OLED was intrinsically brighter than that.
The other thing that matters is battery life. I'll have to wait and see on that.
Re: (Score:2)
The weak spot on the HP is the dim screen. I thought OLED was intrinsically brighter than that.
For budget laptops, their screens are generally dimmer than more expensive models. OLED itself is generally dimmer than LED though.
Re:8 GB of RAM (Score:5, Insightful)
Who can live on that? Not in 2026.
Literally anyone not running Windows 11.
Re: (Score:2)
8GB RAM is going to throttle the system worse than a bad heatsink. :(
It is probably livable in an entry-level laptop but I imagine anything you do will stutter unless you are careful to eliminate background processes -even just typing text in an editor. That is incredibly frustrating.
I would not buy an 8GB laptop. The PC I am using right now has 16GB ram, and it is just a basic office computer for web browsing and running Excel.. (Beelink mini-bookshelf PC)
Re: (Score:2)
>"Who can live on that? Not in 2026."
Maybe not with MS-Windows. Works fine with Linux for most use cases. I manage lots of Linux machines with 8GB of RAM, even more with 4GB. Admittedly, 4GB is tight.
Re: (Score:2)
Who can live on that? Not in 2026.
Especially not with Windows.
Re: 8 GB of RAM (Score:2)
Re: 8 GB of RAM (Score:2)
Sounds like a lot to pay for something that makes a better doorstop than computing device.
It's also unusable with 8GB of RAM (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless the ram is upgradable this is going to be a disaster. People just return them because they feel broken. Microsoft is trying to solve the problem but internal culture means they can't. Every division of Microsoft is fighting to be profitable and so they want to gobble up your RAM and use it to serve up advertisements and synergize with other companies for profit. This is why the windows 11 weather app uses 3 GB of RAM.
Re: (Score:2)
A slight exaggeration. I could only get the Windows 11 weather app to peak at 1700MB by using the embedded weather maps and aggressively zooming and panning across the globe to load data into memory. Normally it was around 500MB, but then again I'm not signed in.
Re: It's also unusable with 8GB of RAM (Score:2)
I use a Windows 11 laptop with 16GB and it isn't even enough to just run word, Excel, the browser, and Adobe reader at once without choking constantly. It did become basically usable once I turned off animations, though.
32GB is a reasonable minimum for Windows today. You could get away with 8 using Linux, Evince, and LibreOffice to do the same things though. Literally, I know because I do.
Re: It's also unusable with 8GB of RAM (Score:2)
There's a work laptop and a personal laptop involved, stupid maggot.
Re: It's also unusable with 8GB of RAM (Score:2)
That is bullshit. You expect me to believe someone on slashdot has multiple computers? What type of nerd site do you think this is?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Many people buy CHEAP crap machines and then complain when they perform poorly. Before the Intel 12th generation, most of them went for dual-core i7 based laptops that they thought MUST be great at purchase because it was an i7. Then Intel released the 12th gen, and since then, you see many laptops with only two performance cores and 6+ efficiency cores, and then they still think the OS must be the problem and not the garbage CPU.
Re: It's also unusable with 8GB of RAM (Score:2)
My very outdated 2C4T AMD laptop running Linux with 8GB outperforms the Windows laptop with 16 at just not choking. I forget what processor is in my laptop, the work Windows one has i7-1185G7.
Re: It's also unusable with 8GB of RAM (Score:2)
Some of that comes from the graphics capability as well, but even a quad-core CPU(e-cores don't count) isn't enough in the modern era, unless you are going for a special purpose Linux machine.
Re: (Score:1)
In this case the graphics capability shouldn't matter that much, as I have disabled animations on the Intel laptop because without that it was horrible. I haven't done any such thing on the AMD one, which also only has 2 GPU cores - it was in a $300 laptop. The Intel machine is a HP Elitebook... I remember when those were actually powerful, back in the Core and Core 2 days.
Re: (Score:2)
That's odd, my old Ryzen 5 4600H based laptop had no problem with 8GB of RAM and Windows 11. Your problem may have been the dual P-core Intel chip that you had as the CPU. Having only two performance cores makes many of these machines run like complete garbage when you do more than one thing at a time.
Re: (Score:2)
They are both lying! rsilvergun is a Chinese dude now living in Singapore and drinkypoo is the second in command of his Chinese troll farm.
I should take up a collection to sue this guy for libel, so we can unmask these trolls through discovery.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean, how many times have you complained about Slashdot allowing AC posts here? Do I need to provide the links to your posts doing just that?
What? I've never done that.
Re: (Score:2)
Why is it always a conspiracy?
Why is it so hard to think that two people might really disagree with your constant bullshit? There isn't collusion there, just correlation - your nonsense is the common link.
Re: (Score:2)
And yet, the fleets of Windows 11 machines that I encounter, each simultaneously running Outlook(new), Word, and a few Excel spreadsheets, typically don't exceed 8GB of RAM.
256GB of storage though..? Seems tight.
Do you actually use them day today though? (Score:2)
When you are short on RAM you can have moments when the computer is usable especially if you're logging in as a super user with all the extra stuff turned off. But a regular user is going to suffer. Especially if there are corporate user where they can't turn off a lot of the crap.
Go
Re: (Score:2)
Of course I don't personally use hundreds of desktop computers. That's absurd.
But, I've got the recorded memory consumption metrics from all of them. Hard numbers that very rarely show anything exceeding 8GB.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's normal that any OS will have close to 0 free memory! This is the expected behavior. See my other post just above.
Re: (Score:2)
It's normal that any OS will have close to 0 free memory! This is the expected behavior..
Describe "0 free memory". When I say it is 100%, I am literally looking at Outlook, Windows services, and Excel taking almost 16GB by themselves. This is not cached memory model of the Linux and MacOS where free RAM is reserved for caching. At 16GB, the "cached memory" on my Windows machine is disk swap as I can see the disk activity.
See my other post just above.
I am not searching through this forum just because you can't be bothered to retype or paste a link. Also I have to read your mind to determine which of your posts apply? That's
Re: (Score:2)
Here:
Those dudes probably don't know how to make the difference between file cache and memory usage. All computers including those using Linux will use ALL their memory for file caching e.g. caching the content of files into memory.
Here is an example:
free -h
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 7.8Gi 617
Re: (Score:2)
Those dudes probably don't know how to make the difference between file cache and memory usage. All computers including those using Linux will use ALL their memory for file caching e.g. caching the content of files into memory.
Here is an example:
free -h
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 7.8Gi 617Mi 586Mi 53Mi 6.6Gi 6.8Gi
Swap: 1
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Still though it's pretty amazing how much memory and resources Windows takes up. I was debugging a Windows laptop trying to join an Intune/Autopilot environment. At the same time I was watching a Youtube nostalgia video on a Windows 95 Gateway PC.
Going through the Windows logs, it is dumping hundreds of pages of logtext every single second. Pages and pages of XML detailing what it is doing to try to connect to MS's Intune infrastructure. And this is just 1 component, checking the logs there are many other
Re: (Score:3)
Microsoft is trying to solve the problem but internal culture means they can't.
[Citation Required]. The only just announced this as a strategy a few months ago. At this point they haven't even released an insider build based on this strategy yet, so do you work for Microsoft with your knowledge?
By the way I just opened it and had a look. The weather app uses 500MB, or about half the amount of RAM as Chrome does with 2 open Slashdot tabs, and given the weather app consumes 0MB of RAM when it's not running, your point is quite irrelevant to OS RAM usage.
Re: (Score:2)
FWIW half of my workplace runs on Chromebooks that have 8GB of RAM. There are a few things that are a bit average - mostly websites with ludicrously overcomplicated frontends (including the one we build!!) but pretty much everything works more or less perfectly.
We have a few models that are 16GB (i7s - the 8GBs are i5s) and they are WAY better. But I've been really impressed with how far we've been able to get with the 8GB Chromebooks (most of which we bought for AUD$700).
Twiggy returns. (Score:5, Funny)
(HP GLP1-flavored Marketing) "Yeah. Thinner. That's the shit."
(Apple) "Uh, just so you know..even we filed Bendgate in the Lessons Learned folder."
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
..I replaced the hard drive and battery as it was of an era where things like replaceable batteries and hard drives were a thing. That one even had two slots for hard drives.
Repairing capable hardware to extend the life of tech and create an actual sustainable product?
Why that's certainly no way for the Go Green Generation to fill landfills with fashionable addiction and crash a stock market with a Magnificent amount of corrupt capture..
Re: (Score:2)
(Apple) "Uh, just so you know..even we filed Bendgate in the Lessons Learned folder."
Huh? Did they? I just opened the Macbook Air webpage and literally the first thing that is said on it, literally the first feature written about, in the first sentence at the top of a very VERY long scrolling page: "MacBook Air is remarkably light at just 1.23 kilos and only 11.3 mm thin."
By the way that's thinner than this HP laptop.
... lol (Score:5, Funny)
So it has enough RAM to boot Windows and give you an out of memory error.
Brilliant!
Yeahâ¦but (Score:3)
inquiring minds want to know
Re: Yeahâ¦but (Score:2)
I'd prefer an AMD based laptop for Linux. The graphics drivers are really good. I have a Zen+ laptop and a Zen3 MiniPC and both work very well.
Re: (Score:1)
And can run any OS except the only one the M5 can.
Re:Why can't we have high res and good battery lif (Score:4, Informative)
The Neo uses the same chip as the iPhone.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a browsing appliance and little more. (Score:2)
They'll likely sell tons of them to users who don't need more than what those specs deliver. In ancient times netbooks sold well despite weak specs.
Re: (Score:2)
In ancient times netbooks sold well despite weak specs.
Yeah, and then they killed the ultra low cost laptop market completely because everyone discovered that they were inadequate at the time and then became COMPLETELY inadequate (as in, good for almost nothing) immediately thereafter. Most of them were single core, the good ones were dual core but didn't have enough RAM to hold up.
Now there's a low cost laptop market again but the cost of entry is double what it used to be, or at least 1.5 times with inflation. This is a little more realistic. But that's just
When on sale I found a better option (Score:2)
https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/... [hp.com]
I found this one for $700 on sale a few weeks ago. $10 for the WiFi 7 upgrade, $70 for the 512GB SSD upgrade. $500 for the CPU upgrade to 10 core Zen5 with 32GB RAM if you want to customize...factory order, so custom built.
I wonder if Dell scored any marks for its answer (Score:4, Interesting)
Dell tried its hand at an answer to Apple Neo, also with Windows OS. Consumers now have 2 answers to choose from. But I wonder if these companies know what the question really is.
https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
Screw it, memory is cheap... (Score:2)
... no longer applies. You need to code efficiently instead of just getting it out the door and the OS companies need to hear this loud and clear.
Re: (Score:2)
Apple took an OS which had no trouble fitting onto machines whose memory was measured in low double digit MB, ruined the UI, and turned it into something that needs 8GB+.
This is still better than Windows, where Microsoft took an OS which would not run well with any amount of resources, and made it run even worse with any amount of resources. (It has run fairly well at certain times... in the past.)
But both are a far cry from Linux, where you can still boot up and do useful work with 4GB or so, even with a m
Re: (Score:2)
MS Windows 95b was ok for the time.
Who cares? (Score:2)
8 GB of ram is not enough, even if you paired it with a good discrete GPU, with its memory, it's still not enough. I understand memory is expensive, and irrationally so, but you really need at least 16 GB, and really you need 32 GB as
Re: (Score:2)
On the serious side, at somepoint making things thinner just makes them weaker, with not real benefit to the user.
Re: (Score:2)
The only reason to go thinner is a status, which you really do see. I have two
But it runs Windows 11 (Score:2)
No thanks.
Can't wait until it runs out of OLED fluid. (Score:2)
And it's $599.99 for a refill. And it will complain bitterly if you don't use the official one.
Don't even ask about the RAM upgrade. You don't want to know.
Thunderbolt? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Windows 11 in 8 GiB ? (Score:2)
As if Windows 11 worked in 8 GiB, really... mine uses 9 freshly booted, let alone doing something useful.
With Linux I'm sure it works well for light work, but not with Windows!
That market ist already needlessly crowded (Score:2)
The market for fashion-statement laptops is already crowded. You can buy hundreds of different "to thin to be useful" laptops, that barely work under real life conditions.
There would be a market for easy to maintain laptops that are thick enough to not only provide essential ports (Framework failed on this), but also provide the ability to have battery packs of meaningful size. (e.g. >100Wh)
Still seems expensive (Score:2)