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|  | | PC World - 23 Sep (PC World)At a glanceExpert`s Rating
Pros
Great combination of CPU performance and battery life
Premium build quality
Runs Copilot+ PC features with full x86 app compatibility
Nice keyboard
Cons
HP should upgrade this display
Many G1a models aren’t Copilot+ PCs
GPU performance lags
Unimpressive speakers
Our Verdict
The HP EliteBook 8 G1a is a Copilot+ PC with an excellent mix of CPU performance and battery life. It’s a solid package, but the display drags down the experience, and the GPU just can’t keep up with the rest of the hardware.
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The HP EliteBook 8 G1a is a 16-inch Copilot+ PC laptop aimed at businesses and professionals. It has an AMD CPU, so it marries a speedy CPU with a neural processing unit that can deliver Copilot+ PC features on some models. Plus, unlike a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Arm PC, this is a traditional x86 PC that is guaranteed to run existing business apps and drivers that may not run perfectly on an Arm PC.
But, although HP proudly markets this as a “next-generation AI PC,” it’s not just about AI features. Overall, it’s a solid laptop that most people would be happy to use for work, although the display doesn’t keep pace with the rest of the experience.
HP recently redesigned its product names, and the EliteBook is HP’s line of laptops aimed at business users. The 8 Series is the entry-level line of EliteBooks, and the “G1a” here means this is a first-generation model in the new lineup with an AMD CPU.
Overall, the HP EliteBook 8 G1a shows how strong AMD’s offerings are right now: Solid CPU performance and an NPU fast enough for Copilot+ PC features at a very competitive price.
HP EliteBook 8 G1a: Specs
The HP EliteBook 8 G1a has an AMD Ryzen AI processor — our review model included AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 hardware. That’s an x86 processor with a 50 TOPS NPU for AI features. However, it’s worth noting that not all the models have an NPU fast enough for Copilot+ PC features. HP has a variety of G1a models, and machines like the base AMD Ryzen 5 230 machine deliver up to 16 TOPS. That means they can’t run Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC features and, if your business does have an NPU-powered AI application, it’ll run much slower than on the models with faster NPUs.
But the processor isn’t the only thing that differs from machine to machine. HP offers a range of configuration options during the purchase process, so you can get a model that’s very different from the below specs.
Our review model had AMD Radeon 860M graphics. While AMD produces a lot of strong discrete GPUs, this is still integrated graphics and it’s not particularly fast.
The RAM in this machine is user-upgradable and swappable, which is great to see on a business laptop. (The Intel-powered EliteBook 8 G1i I reviewed at the same time has soldered RAM.)
Model number: HP EliteBook 8 G1a 16-inch
CPU: AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350
Memory: 32GB DDR5 RAM
Graphics/GPU: AMD Radeon 860M
NPU: AMD NPU Compute Accelerator Device (up to 50 TOPS)
Display: 16-inch 1920×1200 IPS display with 60Hz refresh rate
Storage: 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD
Webcam: 1440p webcam
Connectivity: 2x Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C 40 Gbps), 1x USB Type-C (10 Gbps), 1x HDMI 2.1 out, 1x combo audio jack, 1x security lock slot, 1x USB Type-A (5 Gbps)
Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4
Biometrics: Fingerprint reader and IR camera for facial recognition
Battery capacity: 77 Watt-hour battery
Dimensions: 14.13 x 9.84 x 0.61 inches
Weight: 3.73 pounds
MSRP: $1,799 as tested
HP EliteBook 8 G1a: Design and build quality
Foundry / Chris Hoffman
The 16-inch HP EliteBook 8 G1a has a premium-feeling metal chassis in a “Glacial Silver” color. At 3.73 pounds, it’s a little heavier than some laptops, but it feels solid and durable thanks to that metal build.
The design here is minimal: Dark gray keyboard, black bezel, and silver metal elsewhere. There are a few HP logos (on the lid and just below the screen) and that’s about it. The hinge feels good to use, although I had to use a second hand to hold down the front of the laptop while opening it. It’s a solid hinge and the screen doesn’t move around while you type.
HP bundles HP Wolf security with this machine, and that will be convenient for businesses who want to remotely manage this laptop in a fleet. As an individual knowledge worker, however, I didn’t like the end-user experience. I had to click through extra security dialogs to run PCWorld’s normal benchmark tools, for example — many people will want to disable this, or businesses will want to tune it so it doesn’t nag employees about their business apps.
HP EliteBook 8 G1a: Keyboard and trackpad
Foundry / Chris Hoffman
The HP EliteBook 8 G1a has a full-size keyboard complete with a number pad. It’s spacious and feels like it has a good amount of key travel — more than the 13-inch HP EliteBook 8 Flip G1i I reviewed at the same time. It’s quiet and doesn’t click with the snap of a mechanical keyboard, but it’s still snappy. This is a good keyboard that you can get a lot of typing done on. But I always wish the arrow keys on laptops were full-size.
This machine has a large trackpad that feels smooth to glide your finger over and clicks down with a clean “thunk.” I would prefer seeing a haptic touchpad, but this trackpad is solid. This isn’t a glass trackpad — those feel smoother, but those are premium touches reserved for higher-end laptops. Both the keyboard and trackpad are fairly quiet, which is important for a business laptop.
HP EliteBook 8 G1a: Display and speakers
Foundry / Chris Hoffman
The HP EliteBook 8 G1a has a 16-inch 1920×1200 IPS display with a 60Hz refresh rate and 400 nits of brightness. That’s just nothing special, and that resolution stings on a 16-inch display, especially one in this price range. It’s an anti-glare display, which is nice to see. But HP offers the base model with 300 nits of brightness, which I’d recommend avoiding.
HP does offer a variant of this laptop with a 2560×1600 display with a 120Hz variable refresh rate, and I’d love to see what that machine looks like. But it likely won’t have as much battery life and it’ll be more expensive.
The display here is the one feature that feels the most lacking on this laptop, especially compared to consumer laptops in a similar price range.
The stereo speakers on this machine are okay for a business laptop but, like the display, they feel more serviceable than special. They can get pretty loud, and the sound is clear, but the audio lacks some depth. They’ll do a fine job in video meetings. I test each laptop I review by playing Steely Dan’s Aja and Daft Punk’s Get Lucky. The instrument separation in Aja was reasonable, but a lot of the high notes weren’t particularly crisp. In Get Lucky, the sound was reasonably fun, but more bass would’ve been nice. Pack a good pair of headphones for music.
HP EliteBook 8 G1a: Webcam, microphone, biometrics
The HP EliteBook 8 G1a has a 1440p webcam. Business laptops tend to have solid webcams, so I was expecting a bit more here. It’s nothing special for a business laptop: It’s a little noisy and seems to do much better in ideal lighting. This is the kind of webcam that will look fine in a business meeting, but you’ll want to get an external webcam if you’ll be recording videos for YouTube or social media. HP also built in a privacy shutter above the display, and you can slide it to block the webcam.
The dual-array microphone setup in this machine was clear and did a good job of removing background noise. It’s solid for a business laptop, but it’s not particularly high-end. If you’re participating in meetings all day and you want the best voice quality possible, you may still want an external mic.
The EliteBook 8 G1a has both facial recognition hardware and a fingerprint reader in the power button on the keyboard. You can use Windows Hello to sign into Windows with either your fingerprint or your face, and both work well.
HP EliteBook 8 G1a: Connectivity
Foundry / Chris Hoffman
The HP EliteBook 8 G1a offers a good number of ports, including three USB Type-C ports and two of them are Thunderbolt 4 ports.
On the left side, this laptop has an HDMI 2.1 out port, two Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C 40 Gbps) ports, and a combo audio jack. On the right side, there’s a third USB Type-C port (10 Gbps), a USB Type-A (5 Gbps) port, and a security lock slot.
Since each side of the laptop has a USB Type-C port, you can plug this laptop’s USB-C charger into other side of the laptop. That’s the kind of thing that’s easy to overlook on a spec sheet but makes the laptop much nicer to use in the real world.
You can also get models of this laptop with optional extra ports: RJ-45 Ethernet, a Smart Card reader, and a nano SIM card slot for cellular connectivity. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have an SD card reader option.
Our review unit had future-proof Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 wireless networking, and I had no problems with it.
HP EliteBook 8 G1a: Performance
The HP EliteBook 8 G1a has an AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 processor, and it performed well in web browsers, communication apps, productivity tools, and the apps you’d run on a Windows desktop.
As always, though we ran the HP EliteBook 8 G1a through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs.
Foundry / Chris Hoffman
First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. With an overall PCMark 10 score of 7,605, this AMD-powered machine surpassed similar laptops with recent Intel Core Ultra processors. (And, as we’ll see below, it had similar battery life.)
Foundry / Chris Hoffman
Next, we run Cinebench R20. This is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. It’s a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isn’t a factor. But, since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage.
With a multithreaded Cinebench R20 score of 6,160, the AMD hardware here ran faster than Intel Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake chips.
Foundry / Chris Hoffman
We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark, but it runs over an extended period. This demands the laptop’s cooling kick in, and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load.
The HP EliteBook 8 G1a completed the encode process in an average of 924 seconds — that’s over 15 minutes. This machine can put out some serious CPU performance when it needs to, and it’s a good compromise of performance and power efficiency.
Foundry / Chris Hoffman
Next, we run a graphical benchmark. This isn’t a gaming laptop, but it’s still good to check how the GPU performs. We run 3DMark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance.
With a 3DMark Time Spy score of 3,052, the AMD Radeon 860M graphics in this machine weren’t particularly impressive. It’s slower than Intel’s Arc graphics and is on the lower end for AMD’s graphics hardware.
To be honest, I think most people — including business users — would prefer a laptop with a faster GPU. Lots of businesses use GPU-accelerated tools. I’d prefer to see a faster GPU here, even at the expense of NPU features.
Overall, the HP EliteBook 8 G1a shows how strong AMD’s offerings are right now: Solid CPU performance and an NPU fast enough for Copilot+ PC features at a very competitive price. But this machine cuts a corner when it comes to the GPU, and anyone who uses a GPU-accelerated professional application will want to look elsewhere.
HP EliteBook 8 G1a: Battery life
The HP EliteBook 8 G1a has a 77 Watt-hour battery, which is a good size for a 16-inch laptop. It delivered a good combination of battery life and performance.
Foundry / Chris Hoffman
To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this.
The HP EliteBook 8 G1a lasted an average of 936 minutes in our benchmarks — that’s nearly 16 hours. While you’ll get less in day-to-day computer use, this is likely enough juice for all-workday battery life, which is what really matters for a business laptop.
HP EliteBook 8 G1a: Conclusion
The HP EliteBook 8 G1a combines a premium metal build quality with AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 hardware. In many ways, the result is an excellent, well-balanced machine.
AMD’s chips are highly underrated right now. They don’t match the CPU performance you’ll find in a high-end workstation or the battery life you’ll find in a thin-and-light laptop, but they offer an excellent mix of both. Plus, this delivers an NPU fast enough for Copilot+ PC features, so the AI features here aren’t just marketing. If apps ever start taking more advantage of NPUs, you’ll want a fast one like the 50 TOPS NPU here — not the 12 TOPS NPU Intel is still delivering in most PCs.
But this isn’t the be-all, end-all business laptop. The display drags down the overall experience, and the graphics performance just isn’t up there with the CPU and NPU performance. While it’s a good laptop, it’s not the right pick for everyone. But I’m happy my review model had AMD hardware, and I think you’d prefer the AMD hardware here to Intel’s current offerings, too. Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
|  | | PC World - 23 Sep (PC World)Microsoft is flooding every inch of Windows 11 with AI features… and if you’re like me, you aren’t thrilled about it. I’d rather choose the AI tools I want to use instead of Microsoft shoving them into my PC unprompted.
The good news is, you can turn off the AI features in Windows 11. The bad news is, they’re scattered across various option pages. It’s a bit like disabling all the ads in Windows—you have to hunt down the settings, but it’s possible. I’ll show you where to find them.
Replace your PC’s Copilot key
Most new laptops now come with a Copilot key on the keyboard. Yet while you can’t change the logo that’s printed on your PC’s keycap, you can change what happens when you press the key.
If your PC has a Copilot key, you can head to Settings > Personalization > Text input to configure it. Click the “Customize Copilot key on your keyboard” option. For an AI-free experience, select “Search.” The key will then open the search experience in the Start menu.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
You could also select “Custom,” but Windows will only let you choose AI apps as custom options—for example, you could remap the Copilot key to launch ChatGPT. But if you’d like to have it perform any other non-search non-AI action, you’ll need to use the Keyboard Manager in Microsoft PowerToys or some other key remapping tool.
Remove Copilot from the system tray
Windows 11 includes two separate Copilots: one is “Copilot” and the other is “Microsoft 365 Copilot.” Confused? Yeah, you aren’t the only one. While Microsoft has business reasons for keeping them separate, the choice to include both in Windows as separate apps is still baffling. On many of my PCs, I’ve looked at the system tray and seen both Copilots happily running in the background, each with its own separate-but-similar system tray icon. That’s just silly.
If you don’t use Copilot, you can stop it from launching whenever you sign in to Windows like any other startup program. I prefer using the Task Manager to manage startup apps—launch the Task manager with Ctrl + Shift + Esc, then click “Startup apps” in the left pane. There you’ll find both “Copilot” and “Microsoft 365 Copilot.” Right-click one (or both) and select “Disable” to turn them off.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
If you don’t want to use Copilot at all, you can remove it from your PC entirely by opening the Start menu, searching for “Copilot,” right-clicking the “Copilot” result, and selecting “Uninstall.” You can uninstall Microsoft 365 Copilot in the same way. (If you want them back, both Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot are available in the Microsoft Store.)
Learn more about speeding up your Windows PC’s startup time by adjusting startup apps alongside many other tips!
Delete Copilot options from File Explorer
File Explorer now shows an “Ask Copilot” option when you right-click on files like Word documents, PDFs, and images. It’s a quick and convenient way to send files to Copilot… but what if you don’t want Copilot integrated into your right-click menu?
Well, if you simply uninstall Copilot, these context menu items will vanish. (Microsoft has fortunately made Copilot extremely easy to uninstall.) See the above tip about removing Copilot from your system tray for instructions on how to uninstall it.
If you’d rather keep Copilot installed but get rid of this option, there’s a registry hack that will block the Copilot shell extension.
Stop seeing Copilot in Microsoft Office
Microsoft 365 apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint now have Copilot integrated. With a standard Microsoft 365 subscription, you get a limited number of “AI credits” to spend each month.
Personally, I do a lot of writing in Word—I wrote this very article in Word—but I want to do the writing myself and have no interest in Copilot writing for me when I open a blank document. In fact, I’d rather get rid of the Copilot integration altogether so it doesn’t distract me.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
To turn off Copilot in an Office app like Word, open the app, click File > Options, choose “Copilot” in the left pane, and then uncheck “Enable Copilot.” After you save your changes, it’ll vanish until you turn it back on.
Or, if you never use Copilot in Office apps, you can downgrade your Microsoft 365 plan and save $30 a year.
Hide Copilot in Notepad
Microsoft has gone as far as integrating Copilot into Notepad, allowing you to spend “AI credits” to do things like AI-generate text and summaries, complete with a Microsoft account sign-in system and a profile picture. It’s all a little much for Notepad.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
Fortunately, it’s optional. In Notepad, you can click the Settings gear at the top-right corner of the window, scroll down, and turn off “Copilot” for a more traditional Notepad experience.
Microsoft doesn’t offer a way to turn off AI features in Paint or the Photos app, so it’s nice to see that Notepad has this user-friendly option.
Verify that Windows Recall is disabled
If you have a Copilot+ PC with all those built-in AI capabilities, Windows offers to turn on the Recall feature when you first set up your PC. It’s your choice, but it’s also easy to fly through that screen while you’re rushing the setup process. Maybe you turned it on by accident. (After all the controversy, we don’t recommend using Recall.)
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
The good news is, turning off Recall is easy now. If you’d like to verify that Recall is off, head to Settings > Privacy & security and click “Recall” under Windows permissions. (If you don’t see it, you don’t have a Copilot+ PC, so your computer doesn’t have Recall.)
If you’d rather not have Recall capture screenshots of your PC usage and store them for local AI searches, turn off “Save snapshots” here. You can also select “Delete snapshots” to delete any stored snapshots.
Turn off the Click To Do shortcut
In addition to Recall and those other AI features I’ve mentioned so far, Copilot+ PCs also have a feature called Click To Do, which presents contextual AI actions for the text and images you see on screen. Click To Do can be called up by using the Windows key + Q shortcut or by holding down the Windows key and left-clicking.
You can turn off Click To Do in Settings > Privacy & security > Click To Do. Click To Do doesn’t do anything unless you press this shortcut, but it’s easy to imagine that action getting in the way at times.
Turn off Windows Studio Effects
Copilot+ PCs have a feature called Windows Studio Effects, which is also available on some earlier AI PCs. It can perform real-time visual effects on your webcam image to make your skin look smoother and even fake eye contact so it appears you’re always looking at the camera. It also has silly AI effects that can, say, make you look like a cartoon character.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
If you’d rather look like a real human without any uncanny valley AI effects on your live streams and video meetings, you can turn it off. Click the system status icons near the clock on your taskbar (or press Windows key + A) to open the quick settings. Look for the Studio Effects tile, click it, and customize which AI webcam effects you want to use.
If you don’t see the Studio Effects tile, your PC doesn’t have access to this feature and you have nothing to disable or worry about.
Ditch the AI features in your web browser
Modern web browsers are full of AI features, including Gemini in Chrome, Copilot in Edge, and even local AI features in Firefox. Fortunately, modern web browsers make it easy to turn off said AI features (apart from Firefox, which buries the options). Here’s how in each browser:
Google Chrome
Click the three-dot menu > Settings, choose “AI innovations” in the sidebar, then control AI features from here. You won’t actually have the full Gemini assistant on your toolbar unless you choose to pay for a Google AI Pro plan, so the current Chrome AI experience is restrained.
Microsoft Edge
Click the three-dot menu > Settings, choose “AI innovations,” and turn off experimental features. To turn off the Copilot toolbar icon as well, head to Appearance > Copilot and sidebar > Copilot and turn off “Show Copilot button on the toolbar.”
Mozilla Firefox
You have to type about:config into the address bar and press Enter to access the advanced settings. Then, search for browser.ml and turn off settings like “browser.ml.chat.enabled” and “browser.ml.enable” (which are “machine learning” features). Mozilla doesn’t provide a complete list of AI settings, but you can find user-made lists like this one.
Get rid of AI in Google Search
If you’re searching Google and would rather not see AI Overviews, you can add -ai to the end of your search queries to prevent AI Overviews on a per-search basis. But if you want to permanently disable AI Overviews, I recommend the Hide Google AI Overviews browser extension. It’s the best solution I’ve found so far.
Using AI should be your choice
To be clear, I have nothing against AI tools. I experiment with AI all the time! (As a tech writer, how could I not?) But that doesn’t mean I want every app full of AI features, nor do I want AI features forced upon me.
I’ll choose the tools I want to use and when I want to use them. Don’t feel bad if you feel the same way!
Subscribe to Chris Hoffman’s newsletter, The Windows Readme, for more PC advice from a real human—not an AI. Read...Newslink ©2025 to PC World |  |
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