HP ZBook HP 14" ZBook Ultra G1a Multi-Touch Mobile Review

The HP ZBook Ultra G1a is a bit of a puzzle, but a fascinating one. It's a 14-inch laptop that's trying to be everything at once: a portable creator machine, a gaming rig, and a high-end entertainment device, all wrapped in a touchscreen OLED package. At first glance, the specs seem to point towards a powerhouse, especially with that massive 48GB of VRAM on the discrete GPU. But the reality is a bit more nuanced, and it's built for a specific kind of user who values a brilliant screen and GPU muscle in a smaller form factor, even if it means some trade-offs.

So, who is this for? Honestly, it's perfect for the creative pro or serious hobbyist who needs a truly portable workstation. Think video editors on the move, 3D artists who travel, or photographers who demand perfect color accuracy. The 'Best for' scores tell the story: it shines in entertainment (92/100) and gaming (88.5/100), and holds its own for creators (84.2/100). But if you're a developer needing to compile massive codebases all day, the weaker CPU score and developer rating (69.5/100) suggest you should probably look elsewhere.

What makes it interesting is the combination. You don't often see a 14-inch laptop with a discrete GPU boasting that much VRAM, paired with a 2.8K OLED touchscreen running at 120Hz. It's a unique blend aimed at delivering a premium visual and graphics experience in a chassis that, at 2.73kg, is portable but not exactly feather-light. It's trying to carve out a niche between ultraportables and desktop replacements.

Let's talk about those percentile rankings, because they paint a clear picture of where this ZBook excels and where it stumbles. The GPU performance is in the 98th percentile, which is frankly insane for a laptop this size. That 48GB of VRAM means you can throw massive textures, complex 3D models, or high-resolution video timelines at it without breaking a sweat. The screen is also a star, landing in the 91st percentile. That 2880x1800 OLED panel with 120Hz isn't just for show; it makes everything from scrolling websites to playing games look incredibly smooth and vibrant.

Now, the other side of the coin. The CPU sits in the 70th percentile, and RAM is right at the 50th. In real-world terms, this means while the GPU will crush rendering tasks, the processor might feel like a bottleneck for heavily multi-threaded workloads like complex simulations or code compilation. The 16GB of RAM is also just okay for 2024, especially for a machine targeting creators who might have Photoshop, a browser with 50 tabs, and a video editor open all at once. You'll get great single-core speed for most tasks, but don't expect it to compete with the top-tier HX-series chips in raw CPU throughput.

Here's where things get tricky. The listed price is 'N/A', but shopping around shows this model has a huge price spread, from $1079 to $1349 across different vendors. That's a $270 difference, which is massive. If you can find it at the lower end of that range, near $1100, it starts to look like a compelling deal for the screen and GPU combo alone. At the full $1350, you're paying a premium for that specific HP ZBook build and the touchscreen OLED.

You're really paying for two things: that best-in-class GPU performance crammed into a 14-inch chassis, and that gorgeous OLED touchscreen. Whether that's worth the price depends entirely on how much you value those features. Compared to a traditional gaming laptop, you're getting more portability and a better screen. Compared to a sleek ultraportable, you're getting way more graphics power. It occupies a unique, if slightly expensive, middle ground.

This ZBook has some stiff competition. The Apple MacBook Pro 14-inch with M4 Max is the obvious rival for creatives. It'll likely smoke the ZBook in CPU tasks, battery life, and build quality, but you lose the touchscreen, the massive VRAM, and the flexibility of Windows. For pure Windows power, the Lenovo Legion Pro 7i or MSI Vector 16 HX are full-blown gaming laptops. They'll have much faster CPUs and often better cooling, but they're bigger, heavier, and their screens, while fast, usually aren't OLED.

Then there's the ASUS Zenbook Duo, which offers a wild dual-screen setup for multitasking, but with integrated graphics that can't touch the ZBook's GPU. The Gigabyte AORUS MASTER 16 is another desktop-replacement contender with top-tier specs. The trade-off is simple: the ZBook gives you a better balance of screen quality and graphics power in a smaller package than the big gaming laptops, but you sacrifice CPU performance, likely some thermal headroom, and you have to contend with that worrying reliability score. You choose the ZBook for its specific blend of portability, visual fidelity, and GPU grunt, knowing you're making compromises elsewhere.

If your workflow is GPU-centric—think GPU rendering, video editing with lots of effects, or gaming at high settings—and you need a relatively portable 14-inch screen to do it on, this HP ZBook Ultra G1a is a fantastic and unique option. That OLED display paired with the powerful discrete graphics is a hard combo to beat. Just make sure you're okay with the potential reliability issues and the so-so CPU performance for the price.

However, if you need a balanced machine for coding, software development, or heavily multi-threaded CPU tasks, look at the MacBook Pro or a Windows laptop with a higher-tier CPU. And if raw gaming performance or desktop-replacement power is your only goal, a dedicated 16-inch gaming laptop from Lenovo or MSI will give you more for your money. This ZBook is a specialist, not a generalist. Buy it for the screen and the graphics, and you'll be happy. Buy it expecting the best of everything, and you might be disappointed.