# HP’s New OmniBook 5 Takes Aim at the MacBook With a $699 Price Tag By Rafiqul Islam Rabbi · Technology · Published Fri, 02 Oct 2026 16:56:23 GMT Source: The Current Tribune — https://currenttribune.com/article/hp-omnibook-5-launch-699-dollar-laptop HP just drew a line in the sand at $699.99, and it’s aimed squarely at the kind of buyer who’s been eyeing Apple’s slim, long-battery-life laptops but can’t stomach the price tag. The new OmniBook 5 14 is a thin, color-rich Windows machine that leans hard on a single pitch: you shouldn’t have to spend flagship money to get flagship battery life and a screen worth looking at. Whether that pitch holds up once real-world testing starts is the question worth asking, but on paper, this is one of the more aggressive mainstream laptop launches of the fall. ## What’s Actually Inside the OmniBook 5 The base configuration starts at $699.99, which puts it well below where Windows ultraportables with OLED displays usually land. For that price, HP is promising a 14-inch display with up to 2.5K resolution, full DCI-P3 color coverage, and brightness reaching 620 nits, specs that would have been reserved for premium tiers just a couple of years ago. Buyers can configure up to an Intel Core 7 chip with an integrated neural processing unit for on-device AI tasks, though HP hasn’t detailed every processor tier that will be offered at launch. The chassis is where HP is leaning into the design flex. At 11.77 millimeters thick and roughly 1.16 kilograms, the OmniBook 5 is thinner and lighter than most laptops in its price class, with a 180-degree hinge that lets the screen fold completely flat. It comes in four color options, Smoke Silver, Starlit Blue, Peony Pink, and Soft Honeydew, a palette clearly aimed at buyers who want their laptop to look less like a cubicle appliance and more like a lifestyle object. ### The Battery Claim Doing the Heavy Lifting HP’s headline number is 42 hours of local video playback on a single charge, which is the kind of figure that demands skepticism until independent reviewers get their hands on a unit. Manufacturer battery claims are measured under best-case conditions that rarely survive contact with actual daily use, screen brightness cranked up, background apps running, Wi-Fi active. Even so, pairing that claim with fast charging that takes the battery from zero to 50 percent in about 30 minutes suggests HP is specifically targeting the “I forgot my charger” anxiety that drives a lot of laptop-buying decisions. - Up to 42 hours of claimed local video playback - 0-50% charge in approximately 30 minutes - 14-inch display, up to 2.5K OLED touch option, 100% DCI-P3, up to 620 nits - Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, HDMI 2.1, dual USB Type-C ports - FHD IR camera with Windows Hello, Poly Studio-tuned audio with DTS:X Ultra ## The Apple Comparison Is Not an Accident HP didn’t invent the strategy of positioning a thin, long-battery-life laptop against Apple’s lineup, but the OmniBook 5’s spec sheet reads like it was built with a specific competitor in mind: a slim, light, metal-bodied machine prized for the kind of all-day battery life that lets you leave the charger at home. HP is betting that a meaningful slice of that audience would rather pay a few hundred dollars less and live with Windows than pay a premium for macOS, especially once you factor in the touch screen and OLED option that Apple’s comparable machines don’t offer at any price. It’s a sound bet on paper. The segment of buyers who want a genuinely premium-feeling laptop but balk at four-figure pricing has always been underserved, and most of the Windows machines that have tried to fill that gap in the past have cut corners somewhere obvious, a dim screen, a flexy chassis, mediocre battery life. If the OmniBook 5 actually delivers on its spec sheet without one of those compromises hiding somewhere, it could end up being the rare budget-premium laptop that doesn’t feel like a budget-premium laptop. ### A Companion Launch for the Office Alongside the consumer-facing OmniBook 5, HP also introduced the ProBook 4 G2iS 14, a business-oriented machine built for IT departments rather than individual shoppers. It packs a 14-inch 2.8K OLED display running at 120Hz, up to 32GB of memory, up to a terabyte of storage, and MIL-STD durability testing for the inevitable drops and spills of office life. Pricing hasn’t been announced yet, and it won’t ship until November, a month after the OmniBook 5 hits shelves, which suggests HP wanted the flashier consumer launch to land first and generate buzz before pivoting to the quieter enterprise pitch. ## What This Means If the OmniBook 5 performs anywhere close to its claimed specs once independent testing kicks in, HP has built a genuinely compelling case for buyers who’ve been priced out of the premium thin-and-light category. A 2.5K OLED touch display, sub-1.2-kilogram weight, and all-day battery life for under $700 is a combination that simply hasn’t existed at this price point, and HP knows it, which is exactly why the marketing leans so heavily on the comparison to pricier Apple hardware. The real test arrives in October when units start shipping and reviewers can put that 42-hour claim through actual daily use rather than a lab benchmark. Battery life figures from manufacturers have a long history of shrinking once real software, real brightness settings, and real multitasking enter the picture. But even if the number settles closer to 25 or 30 hours in practice, that’s still remarkable for the price, and it puts pressure on every other PC maker chasing the same budget-premium buyer this holiday season.