The HP EliteBoard G1a is an elegant and innovative device that blueprints a new form of mobile working

With the new EliteBoard G1a, HP has manufactured one of the most interesting bits of kit to hit the corporate world in recent years; it's little surprise that it was an honoree at the CES 2026 Innovation Awards. You can define it in different ways, depending on your perspective. Perhaps it's a mini PC with a keyboard above, or a portable keyboard with powerful components fitted beneath, or perhaps it's even a laptop that's missing a touchpad and screen. Either way, it's highly compelling and guaranteed to turn heads in the office.

Devices like the EliteBoard G1a aren't entirely new – although it's fair to say we haven't seen one like this in a good few decades. It's reminiscent of some of the earliest machines to mark the history of the enterprise laptop, including the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64.

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Like these historic machines, the EliteBoard G1a is fitted with components and devoid of a display – relying instead on you to provide an external screen, whether at home or in the office. Unlike these devices, however, it's portable, stylish, and provides a new dimension to mobile working. You can easily draw it from its fabric sheath should you wish to pick up a portable display and pitch up on public transport, and it's especially suitable if hot-desking is the name of the game. But how does it stack up against your go-to laptops, 2-in-1s, and mini PCs?

HP EliteBoard G1a: What's in the box?

There's quite a lot to unpack when you first set up the EliteBoard G1a. The machine itself is snugly tucked into a stylish felt case with a diagonal etching effect and a magnetic clip to securely open and close the flap. Despite being soft to the touch, it's firm and protective, and neatly complements the keyboard's overall design.

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You'll also find a USB-C charger with a USB-C cable, a second USB-C cable (with premium threading), and a dongle with HDMI output. This gives you a few options when setting up your device and connecting it with an external display.

Plug-and-play via USB-C (with power draw) is straightforward enough, while opting for HDMI via the dongle means recharging with the separate USB-C charger. There are a few ways of doing this; you can either plug the dongle into your monitor and go from there, or plug all cables directly into its input ports, which include Ethernet, HDMI, and two USB-C ports.

The device also comes with a basic pre-paired mouse that you can connect directly using two Bluetooth channels or a USB-C RF peripheral. It's as easy as switching it on and clicking the button on its rear to cycle between these options as you see fit. It's nothing special – but does the job.

HP EliteBoard G1a: Design and build

HP has put a lot of thought into defining the shape of the EliteBoard G1a, not just in terms of its overall look and feel, but the economics of its sizing. The carbon-colored chassis offers minimalist appeal with office-centric credentials thrust front and center. The keyboard sits atop a sloping base that angles upward to maximize ergonomic comfort – with the hardware crammed in underneath.

The sides are flattened, with an exhaust vent subtly carved into the center of the rear, and the base features an expansive grill overlaying in-built speakers. Two USB-C ports are also on the leftmost side of the rear. There's a high degree of plastic in the machine, especially in the slightly indented keycaps that comprise the near-gapless keyboard, but such is the engineering quality that this remains subtle. The unusual font is also a nice touch and adds much-needed character – with HP taking great care to find the right balance between elegance and showmanship. The only hint of color is in the horizontal blue LED baked into the power button in the top right. Helpfully, this doubles as a fingerprint scanner.

There's almost no room to spare on the keyboard itself. The keys, which are well-sized, are packed neatly alongside one another in a gapless formation. You can't get much more change out of it with dimensions of 358.1 x 118.7 x 17.9, making it eminently portable and much smaller than many full-sized keyboard peripherals. Meanwhile, the felt case that accompanies this 670g (1.47lbs) device is a perfect travel companion, with the parallel diagonal grooves on its front a neat design flair.

HP EliteBoard G1a: Keyboard and mouse

With so much riding on the standard of the keyboard, it's essential that HP nailed the brief – and to some extent it's brilliant for its size, with a few caveats. The low-profile keycaps use silicon dome switches for the mechanisms, which lead to a springy and muted touch-typing experience. There's plenty of force feedback in each rather deep 2mm keystroke to make for a satisfying experience, but you won't by any means recreate the noisy clacking when using a mechanical board.

That's where the good news ends, though. While most keys are firm, a modicum of looseness exists in a handful of the smaller keys, meaning that applying some pressure generates minor wobble. The worst culprits are the arrow and function keys. The sound the plastic makes is also very noticeable, and tapping the smaller keys may often feel hollow and (sometimes) shrill.

As with some HP keyboards, the EliteBoard also suffers from placement issues. The inclusion of PG UP and PG DN directly above the Left and Right arrow keys made for a nightmare for accidental taps while navigating for the first few days. The half-sized Enter key, too, is a little irritating. In all these cases, the sizing is a direct consequence of attempting to fit to the extremely tight specifications. The function keys are broadly useful and include shortcuts for sound controls, screenshot taking, as well as system functions like the Settings menu and Windows Search. There's even a programmable key (F9) that you can assign as a custom shortcut. Directly above the numberpad is a shortcut for the Calculator app – which makes logical sense – but you're unlikely to ever really use it.

The pre-packaged mouse is simple but useful. Clicking feels firm, and moving the cursor is smooth, with some grip, thanks to elevated plastic mounds on the base. Rubbery pads also line either side where your fingertips would rest, which offers comfort while you're working. Scrolling with the mouse wheel lacks bite, unfortunately, while the middle button is a Copilot shortcut – for whatever that's worth to you. Sadly, it lacks physical forward and back buttons, but is otherwise everything you'd expect from a basic peripheral. The best part is how it pairs automatically when you turn it on with the switch at its base and press the button to cycle between channels. Hidden under the plastic cover is a USB-C RF receiver that you can plug into a device, or an external monitor. Set-up is simple, and you need not make adjustments beyond tinkering with the cursor speeds to suit your own preferences.

HP EliteBoard G1a: Performance and battery life

The EliteBoard might raise eyebrows in the office, but what ultimately matters is how it stacks up against PCs, laptops, 2-in-1s, and mini PCs given you're using it as your primary work machine. You may find a variety of configurations on the market. Processors including the Ryzen AI 5 Pro 330, Ryzen AI 5 Pro 340, Ryzen AI 5 Pro 350, and Ryzen AI 7 Pro 350. RAM options, meanwhile, including 16GB, 24 GB, and 32GB, while you can also find units with an attached USB-C cable baked in.

Our review configuration included a six-core AMD Ryzen AI 5 Pro 340 processor with an AMD Radeon 840M Graphics card for company, alongside 32GB DDR5 RAM and a 512GB SSD – so fairly high-end if not the most powerful version of this device. There's also a healthy amount of AI processing power to the tune of up to 50 TOPS. Overall, it's a healthy package that should prove capable for most office-based workloads.

In performance testing with Geekbench 6, we registered a single-core result of 2,739 and a multi-core score of 11,095 – both strong results. For reference, Intel Core Ultra 200 Series processors normally hit the same level for single-threaded performance and between 10,000 and 11,000 for multi-core performance. When you compare it with some workstations, it's also just as competent. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 Pro 360 processor, fitted into the HP ZBook 8 G1ak 14, scored 2,797 and 10,809, for example. You tend to squeeze more juice from MacBooks and Qualcomm-powered machines, but the EliteBoard can hold its own against the competition in the enterprise laptop market.

Unfortunately, the GPU lacks punch and registered an underwhelming 12,859 in our OpenCL benchmark. Today's best entry-level Intel graphics cards are considerably better, with the Intel Arc Graphics card capable of reaching between 20,000 and 30,000. The Radeon 840M Graphics chip is more comparable with integrated Intel Iris Xe. That said, it beats the Radeon 860M Graphics chip fitted into last year's HP EliteBook 8 G1a 16. With this setup, you can sustain mid-intensity workloads without a hitch. When connecting the EliteBoard to an external monitor, we could easily sustain a 4K connection at 120Hz, scaling up to 240Hz if we slashed the resolution to 2,560 x 1,440. HP claims you can connect the machine with up to four 4K displays running at 60Hz.

While a 512GB SSD (256GB models are also available) is smaller than the 1TB minimum you'd expect from a premium enterprise notebook, it's fast enough – with average reads of 5,797MB/s and considerably above average writes of 5,962MB/s.

The device comes with a small 32 Wh battery that can prove useful if you're in a pinch and can't link up with an external monitor via USB-C with power delivery. We ran a looped video playback test on a 4K monitor running at 30Hz at 400 nits brightness on Airplane Mode, and the device lasted 7hrs and 53mins. It's a useful amount of reserve power, which you'll need if you're primarily connecting via HDMI, but with the right setup, you'll never need to worry about power supply.

Generally, the machine performs smoothly, and the fact it's a computer itself is incredibly well disguised. The only giveaways are the surface of the keycaps warming up very slightly after prolonged use, and fans that may whirr up completely unprompted from time to time. It's also more noticeable than a desktop or mini PC, because you're physically closer to your keyboard than you are to the actual machine. But for the most part, it remains idle.

The built-in speakers are sub-par, but not much different from those fitted into most laptops. Audio is muffled and tinny, with bass seriously lacking in punch. The volume, however, can get surprisingly loud, but listening to the noise at these levels is uncomfortable. Depending on the quality of the external monitor you use, you may be better off switching your audio output.

HP EliteBoard G1a: Features

We have mentioned biometric security in the form of a fingerprint scanner seamlessly integrated into the power button, but the machine also comes with HP's standard suite of enterprise tools. Chief among these are its Wolf Pro Security package, which is included. You'll benefit here from full-stack protection (with software and hardware layer protection) as well as features like endpoint isolation to stop malware from spreading throughout an organization's fleet of devices. Our review unit was also packaged up with Office Home and Business 2024, a one-time purchase that would give us access to classic 2024 desktop versions of apps, including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and OneNote.

The machine is also easy to service, thankfully. You may remove the base to get direct access to two DDR5 SODIMM slots, a removable M.2 WLAN module and a single M.2 2280 SSD slot. One disappointment, however, is the lack of physical connectivity beyond one USB-C port that offers 40Gb/s and a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port. Both offer DisplayPort 1.4 support and 5V/1.5A power delivery. Yes, you can use the dongle if you want to use other connections, but it's fiddly and native HDMI and USB-A ports would have made the user experience much better. Notable omissions also include an SD Card reader and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There is, however, a security lock slot on the left-hand side of the EliteBoard's chassis. Wireless standards include the very latest Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0, so future-proofing is guaranteed.

HP EliteBoard G1a: Is it worth it?

The EliteBoard G1a is certainly the most interesting enterprise device to hit businesses this year, and is fundamentally a space saver as well as being stylish and practical.

HP representatives weren't able to share accurate pricing information ahead of its full launch, but you can seemingly purchase through some channels already. For example, the wired Ryzen AI 7 Pro 350 version (with 32GB RAM and 512GB SSD) is available for $2,269 (approximately £1,700). Given you'll be looking at north of $2,000 for high-end enterprise-facing machines, this feels reasonable.

We do understand how tempting it is to compare it with laptops and see it through the prism of what you're losing out on rather than what you're gaining. You'll cut out the screen and touchpad for not much of a pricing differential – but there's a cohort of users out there for whom the laptop screen is far less useful than a single or dual monitor setup alongside keyboard and mouse peripherals. Things get a little rosier when you compare it with a desktop computer or a mini PC – and much of that is thanks to some clever engineering and a keyboard that, thankfully, is very enjoyable to use, barring some minor spacing issues.

For the first device of its kind, the EliteBoard G1a offers an excellent blueprint for a different way to approach mobile working. There are, of course, improvements that HP may wish to make in future generations, including a variety in the hardware you can pick up (such as a choice between Intel, Qualcomm, and more advanced AMD chips), or even more ports so you can take advantage of more options for how you work. That said, in its current guise, the HP EliteBoard G1a looks the part, packs a hefty punch, and would make for a fantastic addition to the workplace.

HP EliteBoard G1a: Specifications