HP’s OmniBook 5 14 Brings OLED and Aluminum to the €700 Laptop Fight

The HP OmniBook 5 14 has arrived as a deliberately budget-minded answer to the MacBook Neo, and a hands-on session at an HP event suggests the company has not cut the obvious corners. Priced from €700, the 14-inch machine pairs an OLED display with an all-aluminum chassis — a combination that has been rare in the affordable Windows segment.

What €700 buys

The base configuration runs on Intel’s Wildcat Lake platform with a Core 5 processor, 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD. Buyers who need more can step up to larger memory and storage capacities, and HP also offers Core Ultra 7 versions. Every processor option is rated at 12 W TDP, which points to a power envelope built around everyday use rather than sustained heavy loads.

OLED strengths, glossy trade-off

The screen is the headline feature. OLED delivers deep blacks, intense colors and strong contrast, and at this price it is a meaningful differentiator against rivals with more conventional panels.

There is a catch. The glossy glass front produces strong reflections, a drawback the author of the hands-on article, Benjamin Herzig, singled out as a complaint. The brief does not specify the panel’s resolution, refresh rate or whether it supports touch.

Design: rigid, slim, colorful

HP has used an all-aluminum chassis rather than a unibody construction, but the hands-on left the impression of a rigid build with no flexing. The matte aluminum finish was described as feeling high quality. Starting weight is 1.16 kg and the device measures 12 mm thick, giving it a very slim feel in the hand.

Four colors are available: green, pink, blue and gray. Pink is the most eye-catching of the set, though Herzig preferred the blue version. The screen opens to a full 180 degrees without wobbling and can be lifted with one hand.

Ports and keyboard

Connectivity is limited overall, but HP includes a full-size HDMI port — something Herzig framed as an advantage over the MacBook Neo. The keyboard is backlit, another point in the OmniBook 5’s favor against Apple’s budget model. The brief does not list the remaining ports or describe keyboard travel.

How it stacks up

Apple’s affordable MacBook Neo, currently priced at €700, created demand for budget laptops that still feel well made. Windows rivals had previously lacked comparable affordable quality. Lenovo moved first with the IdeaPad Vibe, introduced at IFA with a starting price of €800 and a partly plastic chassis. HP announced the OmniBook 5 roughly a month later.

As the largest and second-largest PC makers respectively, Lenovo and HP are now competing directly in this sought-after segment. The OmniBook 5 also sits above HP’s recently reviewed OmniBook 3, which has a lower-tier display.

Who it’s for

HP is aiming the OmniBook 5 at students, a group that tends to value portability, a good screen and a keyboard that works in dim rooms. Battery life, benchmark performance, the full port list, webcam specifications and release details beyond the announced pricing remain undisclosed.