The HP OmniBook 3 is the fastest - and I think the best - laptop you can buy under $500 right now in the US.
You can buy it direct from HP for as little as $449.99, a saving of 50% (or $450) off its SRP of $900. But I believe that the $10 Wi-Fi 7 upgrade (and Bluetooth 6.0) is a no-brainer.
The star of the show is the Intel Core 5 315 CPU. This processor that powers the Omnibook 3 is surprisingly fast according to our go to test site, CPUBenchmark. With a single thread rating of almost 4,000 marks and a multithreaded rating of more than 15,300, it is way faster than the Neo (as a reminder, Apple’s cheapest laptop, costs $699, a staggering 55% more expensive).
The Core 5 315 has a neural processing unit (NPU) that offers up to 15 TOPS, ideal for light AI workloads. None of the comparable chips from Intel in the same price range (Core 5 120U, Core i5-1334) offer this.
The rest of the configuration is fairly standard: 8GB of RAM (soldered and not upgradable), a 256GB SSD (most likely PCIe 3.0, decent for the price tag), a large 16-inch screen (full HD plus optional touchscreen feature).
There are some drawbacks: the battery is a smallish 41Whr model and its sheer size (remember that it’s a 16-inch, 3.61lb device) may not be to everyone’s taste. However, given the plethora of connectors, the not-so-shabby FHD webcam and a dedicated numeric keypad, great for university students and high schoolers, I am ready to forgive all of its shortcomings.
I couldn’t find any reviews of this exact model (16T-BU000) online. Existing reviews like this one from sister publication Windows Central, or that one from PC World, look at a different version that runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor and a completely different configuration. So bear that in mind when doing your research.
Also consider
Want a bigger SSD and don’t care about a slower CPU, then consider the Dell 15 ($489 at Amazon). Not only is it slightly cheaper than the OmniBook, it is also far less expensive than buying direct from Dell where it sells for $700.
Like the HP laptop, it has a large display (albeit with a lower brightness) and a separate numeric keypad. The highlights are the large 512GB SSD and the memory slot. The negatives include a slower processor (20% less powerful), a proprietary adapter (HP’s own uses a Type-C one) and a HDMI port that can’t do 4K.
Want to save a bit more money? The HP 17 has twice the memory compared to its two rivals and cost way less ($419.99 at Newegg). Its CPU is marginally slower than the OmniBook 3 but it has twice the memory and twice the storage (16GB RAM, 512GB SSD).
Its biggest flaw is its screen: it is big (17.3-inch) and has a lower resolution. Big screen means bigger (and heavier) laptop while a worse display resolution means less sharp pictures. Two other niggles I found were the small battery, not idea when you have a large screen, and the HDMI 1.4b port, which doesn’t support 4K.
