I have to admit something before I start this review: I sat on this laptop review for an embarrassingly long time because I was nervous about reviewing a laptop. And the HP EliteBook X Flip G2i 14 looked like a serious laptop to me!
I mean, look at the specifications. Intel Core Ultra processors, LPDDR5x memory, PCIe Gen5 SSDs, Thunderbolt 4, WUXGA, UWVA, sRGB, NPU… It is enough alphabet soup to make someone who is perfectly happy knowing that a laptop turns on and connects to Wi-Fi quietly reconsider their life choices.
I am not a computer expert. I am a very ordinary, run-of-the-mill, laptop user. I write documents, send emails, research things online, have far too many browser tabs open and occasionally wonder where I saved something five minutes ago.
So rather than attempting to tell you whether the HP EliteBook X Flip G2i 14 is an engineering marvel, I have approached this review from the perspective of someone who actually has to use the thing.
And after using it on and off for several weeks, I am wondering why I was worried.
HP EliteBook X Flip G2i 14: What’s in the box?
Opening the box is straightforward. You get the laptop itself, the USB-C power adapter and power cable, along with the HP Nested Pen, and set up instructions.
There isn’t a box within a box within another box containing a mysterious assortment of cables that you will never use. Everything you need to get started is there.
The pen is particularly nice to see included because this isn’t simply a touchscreen laptop with a stylus being sold as an optional extra. The whole design is built around the fact that you can actually use the computer in different ways.
And this was my first experience with a flip laptop. I have used plenty of laptops. I have used tablets. I have used touchscreens. But I had never owned one that could basically say, “You know what? I don’t feel like being a laptop today.”
Everything you need to set up and run your laptop is included
Setting up the HP EliteBook X Flip G2i 14
Setup was uncomplicated. Of this, I was very relieved!
You turn it on, work your way through the familiar Windows setup process, connect to Wi-Fi, sign in and let Windows do its thing. There are the usual updates and settings to work through, but nothing about the process left me feeling that I needed an IT degree.
I was also pleasantly surprised by how quickly I felt at home with it.
The EliteBook X Flip G2i 14 runs Windows 11, so if you’ve used a recent Windows laptop, there isn’t a huge learning curve. If you’ve come from an older machine, there are a few differences to get used to, but the basics are exactly where you would expect them to be.
First impressions: Light, solid and surprisingly portable
One of the first things I noticed was the weight. The EliteBook X Flip G2i 14 starts at around 1.29 kg, which, for a 14-inch business-class laptop with a full-size screen, touchscreen functionality and a 360-degree hinge, is apparently, surprisingly light.
It doesn’t feel flimsy or toy-like, though. That’s an important distinction.
It feels like a proper, substantial laptop. Pick it up and you get that reassuring sense that there is actually some technology inside it, but it doesn’t feel like you’re carrying a small paving brick around in your laptop bag.
It is also a beautifully versatile size. The 14-inch screen gives you enough real estate to work comfortably without turning the computer into something you need to negotiate with before putting it on the kitchen table.
The 360-degree hinge: More useful than I expected
The screen rotates through 360 degrees, meaning you can use the EliteBook as a conventional laptop, fold it into a tablet, or prop it up in different positions for watching, presenting or working with the touchscreen.
I initially thought this might be one of those features that sounds clever but ends up being used approximately twice.
I was wrong.
There is something surprisingly satisfying about being able to simply fold the keyboard underneath the screen when you don’t need it. The tablet mode is particularly useful when using the stylus, and the hinge feels sturdy enough that I don’t find myself treating it like a delicate piece of jewellery every time I move the screen. Basically, you can make the laptop work the way you want, rather than having to work around the laptop.
Very considerate of it.
Touchscreen and HP Nested Pen
The touchscreen is responsive and feels natural to use.
The display is also very bright, with configurations available offering up to 800 nits. “Nits” is simply a measurement of screen brightness. The higher the number, the brighter the display can get.
And yes, I appreciate the irony of reviewing screen brightness when my primary assessment criteria is basically, “Can I see what I’m doing?” The answer is yes.
Now the cool thing about the touchscreen – the included stylus was one of the things I was most curious about.
The HP Nested Pen is designed to live inside the laptop rather than being another accessory that gets thrown into the bottom of your bag and subsequently disappears never to be seen again.
It charges while stored in its dedicated slot! Firstly, I never even considered that a stylus needed charging. Secondly, how brilliant is it that I don’t need yet another charger for it? Just pop it back into the laptop and it charges itself.
There is also no complicated Bluetooth pairing ritual to perform. You don’t have to sit there staring at the screen thinking, “Come on, little pen. Find yourself.”
The pen is designed to wake the computer when you use it and can be used for writing, drawing and interacting with the touchscreen.
I found the pen particularly enjoyable when the laptop is folded into tablet mode. Writing directly on the screen feels much more natural in that configuration than trying to scribble on a conventional laptop screen.
I am not suddenly about to become a digital artist, but I can absolutely see the appeal for people who take handwritten notes, annotate documents, sketch ideas or work with diagrams.
HP says the pen can get up to around 120 minutes of use from a short charge, and the laptop can alert you if you leave the pen behind. That last feature may be more valuable to me than the writing functionality. Because if there is one thing I know about myself, it is that I can lose something while it is quite literally in my hand.
Stylus comes with a set up manual
The keyboard: Lovely to type on, after a little adjustment
Overall, I really like the keyboard.
The keys have a lovely concave profile, which means they dip very slightly in the middle rather than being completely flat. It sounds like a tiny design detail, but it makes a difference. Your fingertips naturally settle into the keys and there is a satisfying feel when typing.
The keyboard is also blue backlit, which is useful when working in lower light.
It is spill-resistant too, which is something I appreciate because apparently laptops and cups of tea have been sworn enemies since the dawn of technology. (Note: no drinks were spilt on this loaner review unit!)
My one criticism is that I found the keyboard a little narrower than the keyboard on my old laptop.
It isn’t a fault with the keyboard. It is simply that for me being used to a 15″ laptop, a 14″ was something I had to adjust to.
Initially, my fingers kept behaving as though they were still typing on my old machine, resulting in the occasional misplaced key and the odd moment of questioning whether I had suddenly forgotten how to type.
After a week, however, I adapted. That is probably worth mentioning because when you move from an old laptop to a new one, the smallest physical differences can sometimes be more noticeable than all the impressive specifications on the box.
HP Sure View: Your nosy neighbour’s worst nightmare
One of the more interesting features is HP Sure View – essentially a built-in privacy screen.
With the privacy function activated, the viewing angle of the screen becomes much narrower. In everyday language, someone sitting beside you can’t easily lean over and read what you’re doing. This is particularly useful if you’re working in a café, on a plane, at an airport or anywhere else where strangers are sitting close enough to potentially see your screen. There is even a dedicated keyboard key for switching the function on and off.
It is not designed to make your screen invisible to the person sitting directly in front of it. You can still see what you’re doing normally. It is about making the screen much harder for people beside you to snoop over your shoulder. I can see this being particularly useful for anyone who works with confidential information, client details, financial information or anything else they would prefer the person in the next seat not to read. I tried to take a photo of the screen in privacy mode, but could not get a decent shot of it. As our dear readers have no doubt concluded from all my previous reviews, photography is not a strength of mine.
Performance: What it’s like in everyday use
The EliteBook X Flip G2i 14 is a business laptop, and that becomes apparent in the way it handles everyday work.
The configurations available use Intel Core Ultra processors, with generous amounts of memory and fast solid-state storage.
If you’re wondering what that actually means, think of it this way: The processor is the brain. RAM is the short-term working memory. The SSD is where your files and programs live.
You don’t necessarily need to know how any of those things work (I don’t) to appreciate having plenty of them (I do).
In my everyday use, the laptop has been very responsive. Programs open quickly, webpages load without drama and moving between documents and browser tabs feels effortless. My use has been primarily word processing, researching, emailing and general everyday computer work. I have not been gaming on it, editing Hollywood movies or attempting to launch a rocket from my bedroom. So I can’t tell you how it performs under extreme workloads.
But for the work I actually do, I haven’t found myself waiting around for it. And honestly, that’s what I want from a computer.
Fan noise and heat
One thing I particularly noticed was what I didn’t notice.
Fan noise.
I haven’t found the laptop noticeably noisy during my normal use. Again, this comes with a big qualification. I am word processing, browsing and researching, not playing graphically demanding games or doing intensive video rendering. So I’m not going to pretend I have stress-tested the machine. But during ordinary work, it has been pleasantly quiet.
That is one of those things you don’t necessarily appreciate until you’ve used a laptop that sounds like it is preparing for take-off every other day when you open Chrome.
Ports and connectivity: Thank you for keeping the headphone jack
I am very happy to report that the headphone jack survives.
Yes, there are several USB-C ports. Yes, there is HDMI. Yes, there is USB-A. Yes, there are all sorts of modern connectivity options.
But there is also still a good old-fashioned 3.5 mm headphone/microphone jack. I appreciate that.
There are times when I simply want to plug my headphones in without having to locate an adapter, connect another device or engage in a small technology negotiation. I recently tested the HP Poly wired headset with the EliteBook X, and loved that I could insert it into the headphone jack.
The laptop also has two Thunderbolt 4 USB-C ports, which are extremely fast USB-C connections that can be used for things such as charging, external displays and high-speed accessories.
There is HDMI 2.1 for connecting an external monitor or television, along with a traditional USB-A port for older accessories.
So while the laptop is very much a modern machine, it hasn’t abandoned every connection that people actually use.
Camera and audio
The EliteBook X Flip G2i 14 has a 5MP infrared camera, which is considerably more capable than the basic webcams found on many laptops. The infrared component is useful for things such as facial recognition and secure Windows Hello sign-in.
There is no physical privacy shutter, which I spent some time searching for before discovering it simply isn’t there. There is only a ‘camera mute’ function. No matter how good technology gets, I still enjoy the reassurance of being able to physically close the camera.
The audio is provided by Poly Studio, with four speakers and microphones that use AI-based noise reduction. For my purposes, the speakers are perfectly good for watching videos, listening to music while working and participating in online meetings. Again, I haven’t used it as a substitute for a dedicated sound system or with gaming, because I have not completely lost the plot. #hehehe
Battery life and fast charging
The laptop has a large internal battery, and HP includes fast charging technology.
The fast-charge feature can take the battery to around 50% in approximately 30 minutes when the appropriate supplied charger is used and the computer is off or in standby. The battery life you actually get depends on what you’re doing, screen brightness, wireless connections and various other settings, I’m reluctant to give you some magical number of hours that may not reflect real-world use.
In my everyday use, however, I found the battery more than adequate for the way I work.
What I liked about the HP EliteBook X Flip G2i 14
After using it for a few weeks, there are quite a few things about the EliteBook X Flip G2i 14 that I genuinely like.
For starters, it’s surprisingly light. For a 14-inch convertible laptop with all of this capability packed inside, I don’t feel like I’m lugging around a substantial piece of technology. It feels solid and well made, but it doesn’t weigh me down.
Then there’s the flip functionality, which I didn’t know I needed until I had it. Being able to turn it from a conventional laptop into a tablet or prop it up in different positions is genuinely useful, particularly when using the touchscreen and stylus. I have to admit, I’m rather enjoying the novelty.
Speaking of the stylus, I love that it lives inside the laptop and charges there too. No separate charger, no hunting around in my bag for the pen, and no frantic “where did I put that thing?” moments. It is always where it should be.
And I have to give a little shout-out to the humble headphone jack. In a world where everything seems determined to make us buy an adapter, I’m delighted that I can still plug my headphones straight into the laptop. Sometimes the old ways are the good ways.
So perhaps the biggest surprise is that none of these things individually made me fall in love with the laptop. It’s the combination. It feels like HP has thought about the little things that make a laptop pleasant to actually live with, rather than simply cramming it full of impressive specifications and calling it a day.
What took some getting used to
The narrower keyboard was probably the biggest adjustment for me. But that is not a fault of the unit – it is merely a reflection of my using a 15″ for many years.
And the whole concept of a flip laptop took a little getting my head around.
At first, I was very conscious of folding the screen backwards. There is something in your brain that says, “Are you absolutely sure you’re supposed to do that?” But that’s the whole point of the machine. Once I stopped treating the hinge like it was made of eggshells, I started enjoying the flexibility.
I also haven’t used every single feature available on the laptop. There are features aimed at business users, security, IT management and AI-assisted computing that are far beyond what I personally need. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a criticism. I’d rather have a computer that has capabilities I don’t use than discover halfway through something important that it can’t do something I need.
HP EliteBook X Flip G2i 14 review: The verdict
The HP EliteBook X Flip G2i 14 is one of those laptops that initially intimidated me more than it needed to. The specifications looked complicated. The word “AI” is everywhere. There are processors with names that sound like they belong in a science-fiction movie, ports with numbers, memory with letters and acronyms that I had to look up. But after stripping all of that away, what I found was a laptop that is actually very easy to live with.
It is light without feeling flimsy, powerful without making a song and dance about it, comfortable to type on, genuinely useful as a touchscreen and surprisingly enjoyable to use as a tablet.
Would I recommend it to someone who only wants the cheapest possible laptop for checking email and writing the occasional document? Probably not. There are much simpler machines that would do that job.
But if you want one device that can comfortably handle work, research, meetings, entertainment, touchscreen use and tablet-style functionality, while still feeling like a proper laptop when you need one, the EliteBook X Flip G2i 14 makes a very compelling case.
And perhaps the biggest compliment I can give it is this:
I started this review feeling slightly terrified that I wouldn’t understand enough about laptops to review one properly.
A few weeks later, I’m sitting here writing the review on the laptop itself and thinking, “Actually, I really like this thing.” Which is probably the most useful specification of all.
With thanks to HP for the opportunity to experience and review this laptop. You can get one for yourself here HP Australia with RRP A$9,123.
