- ComputerBase's full test finds HP's EliteBoard G1a a well-executed keyboard PC whose biggest problem is its €2,149 price tag
- HP promises a spill-resistant, easy-clean keyboard designed to pass MIL-STD-810, but you probably shouldn't submerge it in water
- The 32Wh battery ran an impressive 6h 21m against HP's 3.5-hour claim, though it powered no display in said test
HP's EliteBoard G1a, the Windows PC built into a full-size keyboard that the company first showcased at CES 2026, has now undergone a full lab test at German outlet ComputerBase, and the verdict is broadly favorable.
In its review, ComputerBase concludes that the keyboard PC is not just an interesting idea but a well-executed one.
Its biggest weakness is the very high price, shared with practically all PC hardware that launched this year that could define it as a reach versus a must-have for many consumers and IT departments alike.
Skipping a touchpad by design and a short memory leash in tow
The review unit pairs AMD's Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350, a Kraken Point chip with four Zen 5 and four Zen 5c cores, Radeon 860M graphics, and a 50 TOPS NPU, with a single 32GB DDR5-5600 SO-DIMM and a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD.
All of that sits beneath the keys of a chassis measuring 358 x 119 x 18mm and 670g. Connectivity includes two rear USB-C ports (one USB4 with DisplayPort 2.1b, one 10Gbps), Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, stereo speakers, and two microphones.
The keyboard passes MIL-STD-810 testing per HP, and testing found it overwhelmingly supports its product page claims of a "spill-resistant, easy-clean keyboard."
Its more practical safeguard might be servicability: HP says the top-mounted keyboard module can be replaced in under 10 minutes, and ComputerBase confirms the bottom panel opens quickly, giving access to the RAM, SSD, and Wi-Fi module.
The EliteBoard also skips a touchpad, but it was never meant to have one; HP ships every unit with a pre-paired HP 675M wireless mouse that seems to do the job in spades, and the reviewer had no complaints, though others have been less forgiving of its absence.
The reviewer's gripes, however, lay elsewhere: they considered two USB-C ports potentially too few and recommend budgeting for a USB-C hub with HDMI, Ethernet, and USB-A, which is how it connected to their own test monitor.
They also found that neither HP's update tools nor Windows Update would move the AMD graphics driver past an October 2025 release, though a manual Adrenalin install worked without issue.
The keyboard-cum-computer has respectable performance but has design limitations that hold it back: with only one SO-DIMM installed, the APU runs in single-channel mode, which AMD's chips tend to punish.
More importantly, after an initial turbo burst above 50W, AMD's Skin Temperature Aware Power Management (STAPM) caps the chip at about 75% of its package power target, roughly 25W, to keep the keyboard surface comfortable.
The result is a Cinebench 2024 multi-core score of 794, slightly behind the 841 ComputerBase recorded from the same chip in Sapphire's Edge AI mini PC.
Though it isn't the intended use case, gaming is largely off the table, with Cyberpunk 2077 averaging 14.1fps at 1080p on high settings, indicating that the EliteBoard G1a largely caters to professionals and enterprises and makes no pretenses otherwise, despite its decent iGPU.
HP's "Next Gen AI PC" branding might be another bone of contention because, while the unit is capable of running AI onboard, it is notoriously slow at this task; in LM Studio, Qwen3 14B ran at 3.9 tokens per second on the CPU and 4.2 on the GPU, while the NPU could not be used at all. Local AI does work on the EliteBoard, the review concedes, but only within tight limits and at a lethargic pace at best.
The 32Wh battery is fitted to all three German configurations but is optional, or absent, in other markets. HP claims 3.5 hours of runtime. ComputerBase measured six hours and 21 minutes in the Procyon office test and four hours and 18 minutes streaming 4K YouTube, suggesting HP's numbers may understate what the unit can do in most use cases.
This might not offset the cost, however: ComputerBase's test configuration carries an MSRP of €2,149, and the cheapest German model starts at €1,299 with four cores and half the RAM and storage.
In the US, ComputerBase found that HP's configurator charges an extra $1,900 to go from 16GB and 512GB to 32GB across two modules and up to 2TB of storage, pushing a configured system to $4,632, while the advertised 64GB option is not offered at all.
Given the price tag and the niche it caters to, one can conclude that the EliteBoard will likely have a hard time in its niche, squeezed between classic desktops and mini PCs on one side and genuinely mobile notebooks on the other, even as it offers precious little versus a Mini PC, many of which double as much more capable AI systems for a considerably high price tag and lack of upgrade potential in tow.
It is, however, an intriguing option that can move from one workplace to another without losing progress, but whether that justifies the premium at a time when consumers are increasingly concerned about higher component prices remains to be seen.
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