HP EliteBook 6 G1q Review: An Always-Connected Laptop

Benchmark scores were unsurprising, turning in slightly above-average numbers across the board when compared to other Snapdragon X Plus laptops. Even its battery life of just over 17 hours when playing a full-screen video via YouTube (over Wi-Fi, not HP Go) is about in the middle of all Qualcomm-based systems I’ve encountered—though that’s admittedly still an excellent mark compared to all laptops.

The industrial design is utilitarian, though just shy of being completely boring. The silver machine, crafted from partially recycled aluminum and plastic, has a look that feels dated, and at 24 mm thick and 3.2 pounds, it’s also very heavy for a 14-inch system. (It feels heavy in the hand and on the lap as well.) Props, however, for the textured surface on the keyboard caps, which makes for a more pleasant typing experience than most laptops provide—though note it does not offer any backlighting. The trackpad is spacious without being obtrusive in size.

Port selection is also solid, including two USB-C ports with USB4 support, two USB-A ports, a full-size HDMI jack, and a drop-jaw Ethernet port. The SIM card slot is also accessible from the side of the device; users can bring their own data plan if they don’t want to use the multicarrier HP Go, which works via eSIM.

The G1q is a Copilot+ PC and, as with more general workloads, it turned in perfectly acceptable scores on AI-based jobs like image generation and computer vision tests. It’s plenty stable in daily use; in fact, the only trouble I encountered was during initial setup, when it lost its internet connection midway and forced me to start over from scratch—annoying, but a one-time problem that never cropped up again.