HP OmniBook 7 Aero in Glacier Silver, lid open at roughly 120 degrees, showing the Windows 11 colorful wallpaper on a 13.3-inch display.
Image: HP

This is the second hands-on entry from a recent Micro Center trip. The ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura piece was the first. Different vendor, similar weight class, deliberately similar review format so the two can be read side-by-side.

A brief visit with a display unit. Not a review — first impression.

A note on the threshold

The OmniBook 7 Aero on display is listed at exactly 2.20 lb / 1.00 kg. That puts it right at the under-1 kg line, not below. For practical carrying purposes it’s indistinguishable from the laptops we cover that are technically a few grams under, and so it’s in scope for the site — but worth flagging up front rather than burying.

What the unit was

The Micro Center configuration on display, per their listing:

HP's official dimensions diagram for the OmniBook 7 Aero showing 13.3-inch display, 11.7 in width, 8.3 in depth, 0.69 in thickness, and weight under 2.20 lb.
HP's official dimensions diagram. Note HP's wording is 'less than 2.20 lb' — Micro Center's listing rounds to exactly 2.20 lb. Same chassis. Image: HP

What I noticed

The chassis is light and feels solid. At 1.00 kg the OmniBook lifts the same way the ThinkPad does — you reach for it expecting the heft of a 14-inch laptop and instead the wrist gives a bit. The Glacier Silver chassis (HP says it includes recycled metals in the lid and base) felt rigid under normal handling. Not as confidently dense as the X1 Carbon’s carbon-fiber sandwich, but not flexy either.

The screen is sharp and pleasing. This is the one place where the OmniBook clearly out-specs the X1 Carbon’s IPS option: 2560 × 1600 at 13.3 inches works out to about 227 PPI, versus roughly 169 PPI for the X1 Carbon’s 1920 × 1200 at 14 inches. In person, the difference is real — text edges are crisper, fine UI elements look cleaner, and the matte anti-glare finish is well-tuned. 400 nits isn’t OLED-bright but it’s plenty for indoor use. If you spend the day looking at text, this panel is a real asset for the price.

HP OmniBook 7 Aero seen from behind, lid up showing the Glacier Silver finish with the HP logo, and the right-side ports visible.
From behind. The lid is plain Glacier Silver with a centered HP mark — quieter visual identity than the X1 Carbon's matte black. Image: HP

The trackpad click is the one thing I’d complain about. Tracking and gestures feel fine — pointer moves where you expect, two-finger scroll is smooth, the surface is large enough. But the physical click is notably softer and less defined than the click on the X1 Carbon Gen 13 in the same store. Where the ThinkPad clicks with a confident, short travel and a clear tactile edge, the OmniBook’s click feels muted — like there’s a layer of foam between your finger and the switch. Not broken or unusable, just less satisfying. If you’re someone who clicks a lot rather than tapping, you’d notice this every day.

For context: I’m comparing two display units in the same retail environment, back-to-back on the same visit. The OmniBook’s trackpad isn’t bad on its own — it suffers in direct comparison.

The keyboard, in passing

Backlit, full-size, has the Copilot key. I typed a few sentences. Decent enough but I didn’t have a strong reaction either way — neither particularly impressive nor disappointing. ThinkPad keyboards tend to spoil you and the OmniBook didn’t displace that, but it didn’t feel cheap either.

HP OmniBook 7 Aero from the front-left, showing the left-side ports including USB-A and USB-C.
Left-side ports. The OmniBook keeps two USB-A ports total (one each side) plus two USB-C, full HDMI, and the audio jack. No Thunderbolt — just USB-C 3.2 Gen 2. Image: HP

Pricing — what I saw on this visit

Point-in-time, not a current quote.

For a sub-1 kg laptop with a 2.5K IPS display and a current AMD Ryzen AI chip, that’s an aggressive price. For comparison, the X1 Carbon configurations I covered ran $999 (refurb low-spec), $1,799 (new IPS-touch), and $2,589 (new OLED). The OmniBook is cheaper than all three — including the factory-refurbished X1 Carbon — while having the highest-resolution panel of any of them.

The trade-offs — honestly

For the price difference there are real compromises worth knowing:

What I’d pair it with — a light wired mouse

The trackpad complaint above isn’t actually load-bearing for me, because I’d never use the trackpad as my primary pointing device anyway. A laptop trackpad is a fallback. Any real mouse — even a cheap one — is more than twice as good for every task I care about, and that’s true for every laptop I’ve ever owned, not just this one.

If I bought the OmniBook 7 Aero, my pairing would be the Endgame Gear OP1 8k v2 in white — a mouse I personally use daily and have come to like a lot. It’s marketed as an esports mouse but it’s excellent for plain office use:

Wired specifically. The OmniBook has Bluetooth 5.3, so a BT mouse works fine — but BT mice still have occasional input-latency hiccups that wired peripherals don’t. For a daily-driver pointing device, a USB-A wired connection is the simplest reliable answer, and the OmniBook keeps two USB-A ports for exactly this kind of thing.

No commercial relationship with Endgame Gear — I just own one and it’s one of my favorite peripherals. If you already have a wired mouse you like, that’s fine too; the point is to skip the trackpad complaint by not using the trackpad.

What I still don’t know

A brief visit at a retail kiosk can’t tell me:

A short note on which to pick (vs the X1 Carbon)

If the things that matter most to you are display sharpness and price — and you can live with 16 GB RAM and no Thunderbolt — the OmniBook 7 Aero is genuinely competitive and might be the better buy.

If the things that matter most are the keyboard, trackpad click, build feel, option to spec 32 GB, and Thunderbolt ports, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 13 Aura is harder to beat at any of its three price points.

I won’t pretend I’ve made a final call between them. The OmniBook’s panel is better at this size, but the X1 Carbon’s input feel made a stronger impression on me overall. A second visit specifically to compare them side by side would help.

Caveats