HP OmniBook 7 Aero review: Light as a feather

Best Prices Today: HP OmniBook 7 Aero

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero is a 13.3-inch laptop that weighs just 2.2 pounds or less, depending on the configuration you choose. With a beautiful white design and an all-metal magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis, it feels premium. Plus, it runs cool and quiet. This machine feels made for portability.

Unfortunately, HP paired an unusually small battery with an AMD chip that isn’t as power-efficient as the most efficient CPUs Intel and Qualcomm have to offer. The result is an ultraportable that feels like you never want to take it too far from an outlet. With an Intel Lunar Lake CPU or a bigger battery, this laptop would’ve really wowed.

HP OmniBook 7 Aero: Specs

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero packs an eight-core AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 chip with Radeon 860M graphics. AMD’s Ryzen AI hardware delivers a good combination of performance and battery life, complete with an NPU that’s fast enough to run Windows 11’s Copilot+ PC features.

Our review model had 32 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD — that’s more than enough RAM and storage for a lightweight ultraportable like this one. The RAM in particular seems a little overspec’d given the rest of the hardware here. Most people would be better off with 16 GB of RAM and a faster CPU.

While this is a beautiful machine, the $1,299 retail price point feels a tad high considering the mid-range AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU, despite the generous amount of RAM. However, while I was wrapping up this review, HP had it on sale for $869. That price feels excellent for this machine.

• Model number: HP OmniBook 7 Aero 13-bg1077nr
• CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 7 350
• Memory: 32 GB LPDDR5x-7500 RAM
• Graphics/GPU: AMD Radeon 860M
• NPU: AMD NPU (up to 50 TOPS)
• Display: 13.3-inch 2560×1600 IPS display with 60Hz refresh rate
• Storage: 1 TB PCIe Gen4 SSD
• Webcam: 1440p webcam
• Connectivity: 2x USB Type-C (10 Gbps), 2x USB Type-A (1x 10 Gbps, 1x 5 Gbps), 1x HDMI 2.1, 1x combo audio jack
• Networking: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4
• Biometrics: IR camera for Windows Hello
• Battery capacity: 43 Watt-hours
• Dimensions: 11.70 x 8.31 x 0.69 inches
• Weight: 2.2 pounds
• MSRP: $1,299 as tested

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero is a little marvel of a laptop. At 2.2 pounds with a beautiful white all-metal design, I loved using it, and I loved picking it up and moving it around.

HP OmniBook 7 Aero: Design and build quality

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero is immediately impressive. Our review unit was the Ceramic White variant, and it’s an incredibly clean look in a world of silver laptops. (HP also offers a “Glacier Silver” variant.) Even the keyboard deck is white, although the bezel around the display is black.

This 13.3-inch machine is one of the lightest laptops I’ve ever reviewed. HP says it weighs a maximum of 2.2 pounds depending on your chosen hardware configuration. It’s about as light as a laptop can be, and the metal chassis (a magnesium-aluminum alloy) has a slightly rubbery-feeling surface that’s pleasant to hold.

The build quality feels premium, and the hinge feels solid without obnoxious wobbles, but the machine is so light that I need to use two hands to open it.

The laptop comes with more bloatware than I’d like to see — the Start menu has shortcuts for Adobe Offers, Booking.com, and “Dropbox promotion.” But this is easy to remove if you don’t want it.

HP OmniBook 7 Aero: Keyboard and trackpad

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero has a chiclet keyboard that feels good to type on. It’s got a nice white backlight, too. The typing action feels reasonably snappy and responsive. But there’s something a little off about it: the key travel is a little shallow. That’s not a huge surprise for a 2.2-pound laptop that is 0.67 inches at its thickest point. HP has compensated well for the thinness, but it does feel a little shallow.

This machine’s trackpad also feels good. It’s a standard mechanical trackpad that’s a reasonable size and feels responsive to move your finger over, with a nice “clunk” action when you click down.

HP OmniBook 7 Aero: Display and speakers

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero has a 13.3-inch IPS display with a 2560×1600 resolution and a nice anti-glare surface. HP rates it as 400 nits, but it seemed even brighter. It’s a beautiful display, although it only goes up to a 60Hz–a faster refresh rate would’ve been nice.

However, the combination of a high-resolution, decent amount of brightness, and anti-glare surface is a real winner. It performs better than glossy displays in challenging lighting conditions like direct sunlight. The display is one of this machine’s best assets, but it’s not a touch screen.

I test every laptop’s speakers by playing Steely Dan’s Aja and Daft Punk’s Get Lucky. The HP OmniBook 7 Aero delivers a good amount of top-end volume. Audio quality was okay — the highs could be a little grating in Get Lucky, especially at maximum volume, and the bass was less than usual. I’d plan to use headphones for the best experience with music, movies, and TV shows.

HP OmniBook 7 Aero: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero has a 5MP webcam with a 1440p resolution. Despite that impressive resolution number, the image quality was a little grainy, especially in darker lighting conditions. I’ve used laptops with 1080p webcams that do a better job. This laptop does include a physical webcam shutter switch, which is always nice to see.

The “dual array digital microphones” did a good job of picking up my voice with clear audio quality. I’d be happy to use this microphone setup for online meetings, although I wish the webcam was a bit nicer.

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero includes an IR camera for Windows Hello, so you can sign in with your face, but there’s no fingerprint reader here.

HP OmniBook 7 Aero: Connectivity

The HP OmniBook Aero has a decent number of ports for a 13-inch laptop that only weighs 2.2 pounds. On the left side, there’s a combo audio jack and a USB Type-A port that supports up to 5 Gbps speeds.

On the right side, there’s a second USB Type-A port (this one is up to 10 Gbps) as well as an HDMI 2.1 port and two USB Type-C ports (both 10 Gbps speeds.) This machine charges via USB Type-C, so you’ll be plugging the charging cable into one of the ports on the right side.

It’s a reasonable selection of ports, although there’s no Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 here. There’s no microSD card reader or Ethernet jack, either. You’ll need a dongle if those are important to you.

This machine supports Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4, so it’s a bit dated on the Wi-Fi — there was no Wi-Fi 7 or even Wi-Fi 6E on the model we reviewed. However, you probably haven’t switched to Wi-Fi 7 yet, so that’s not a huge problem.

HP OmniBook 7 Aero: Performance

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero with its AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 CPU delivered reasonable desktop performance in everyday desktop apps: web browsers, communication tools, and productivity apps. It ran cool and quiet, too. Considering this is a 2.2-pound ultraportable laptop, that’s what people will likely use it for!

As always, we put this machine through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs.

First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. With a PCMark 10 score of 5,969, this machine came behind Intel Lunar Lake-powered PCs like the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 and AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX-powered machines like the HP OmniBook Ultra 14.

This AMD hardware was neck and neck with Intel’s slower Intel Core 5 210H chip in the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3, and the AMD hardware here is a better choice — it’s a more modern chip that has an NPU capable of running Copilot+ PC features, and it runs cooler.

Next, we run Cinebench R20. This is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. It’s a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isn’t a factor. But, since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage.

With a multithreaded score of 5364, AMD’s “AI PC” hardware showed how much better it is at multithreaded performance than Intel’s “AI PC” hardware. AMD pulled ahead of Intel here.

We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark, but it runs over an extended period. This demands the laptop’s cooling to kick in, and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load.

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero completed the encode process in an average of 1,199 seconds, just about 20 minutes. Once again, it outclassed Intel’s Lunar Lake hardware on performance, but Lunar Lake will win when it comes to battery life, as we’ll see below.

Next, we run a graphical benchmark. This isn’t a gaming laptop, but it’s still good to check how the GPU performs. We run 3DMark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance.

Despite AMD’s reputation for strong graphics hardware, the Radeon 860M graphics here performs like onboard graphics. With an overall 3DMark Time Spy score of 2,726, this machine delivered half the performance of Intel’s Lunar Lake GPUs.

Overall, the HP OmniBook 7 Aero delivers solid performance for this class, especially in multithreaded tasks. And it does it while staying cool and quiet. But 3D graphics performance is a particular weakness.

HP OmniBook 7 Aero: Battery life

The HP OmniBook has a 43 Watt-hour battery, and that’s small. Thankfully, the AMD Ryzen AI hardware in this machine is reasonable power-efficient. This machine’s battery life is decent, but it’s below modern standards for a lightweight PC in 2025. That said, a larger battery would make this machine heavier. The smaller battery contributes to the light weight.

To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks. Real-world battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this.

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero lasted for an average of 632 minutes before suspending itself — that’s ten and a half hours. It’s a great number for a PC with such a small battery, but it’s well behind laptops with larger batteries. With an Intel Lunar Lake system and a larger battery, you could get more than double this machine’s battery life. Lunar Lake machines may be able to get away with a battery this small, but HP is pushing it by pairing AMD hardware with this battery.

Video playback is a best-case scenario and real-world desktop app usage will drain the laptop’s battery faster, so I’m not sure you’ll get a full day of battery life from this machine. You might be able to get close to a full workday’s usage out of this battery if your workload isn’t too demanding and you keep the screen brightness low — maybe.

HP OmniBook 7 Aero: Conclusion

The HP OmniBook 7 Aero is a little marvel of a laptop. At 2.2 pounds with a beautiful white all-metal design, I loved using it, and I loved picking it up and moving it around. It stayed cool and quiet, too.

Unfortunately, HP’s decision to include a small battery—possibly to keep the weight down —feels like a compromise that impairs the usability of this machine.

I loved this laptop the first time I touched it, but I winced when I saw the battery spec: 43 Watt-hours is just too low for this AMD chip. This number used to be fine but, in a post-Lunar Lake and post-Qualcomm Snapdragon X world, this is low.

If you’ll never be far from an outlet and you want more multithreaded CPU performance than Intel’s Lunar Lake can deliver, this might be the ideal laptop for you.