HP introduces a cheaper OmniBook X 14 inch laptop with an 8-core Snapdragon Plus processor

The HP OmniBook X is thin and light laptop that launched earlier this year as one of the first Copilot+ PCs powered by a 12-core Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite X1E-78-100 processor. But like most notebooks with Qualcomm’s higher-performance laptop processors, the OmniBook X is a premium device that currently sells for around $930 and up at HP.com.

Now HP has unveiled a new model that should have a lower price tag. The company plans to begin offering models models with an 8-core Snapdragon X Plus X1P-42-100 chip soon.

When Qualcomm introduced the new processor earlier this month, the chip maker said it was specifically designed for laptops in the $700 to $900 price range. It has the same 45 TOPS neural processing unit (NPU) as other members of the Snapdragon X Plus and Elite lineup, but instead of 10 or more CPU cores with support for speeds up to 3.5 GHz or higher, it’s an 8-core chip that tops out at 3.2 GHz.

The biggest downside to this processor may be that it has less than half the graphics performance of other Snapdragon X series chips. But given that most Windows games aren’t optimized for Qualcomm chips anyway, and photo and video editing applications are increasingly tapping into the powerful NPU, that may not be much of a dealbreaker.

For the most part, it looks like other specs for the new version of the OmniBook X remain unchanged. It’s still a 3 pound laptop with a 14 inch, 2240 x 1400 pixel IPS LCD display, up to 32GB of LPDDR5x-8488 onboard memory, and up to 2TB of PCIe Gen 4 NVMe storage.

Other features include a 59 Wh battery, 5MP IR webcam, two USB Type-C ports that can be used for charging, video output, or data (with one port supporting 40 Gbps data transfer speeds and the other supporting up to 10 Gbps), and a 10 Gbps USB Type-A port as well as a 3.5mm audio jack.

Meanwhile, for folks that may not be interested in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X processors, there’s always the HP OmniBook Ultra, which is a nearly identical laptop except that it has an AMD Strix Point processor, a 9MP camera, quad speakers (instead of stereo), a larger battery, and a slightly larger chassis. It also has two 40 Gbps USB4 ports instead of two… but it’s also more expensive, with prices currently starting at $1080.