The best HP laptops in 2022

The best HP laptops are known for delivering excellent value, with stunning premium looks and top-rate performance. That’s while keeping things relatively affordable, especially next to the steep price hikes we've seen from Dell recently. So what's the best HP laptop for you? Well, that largely depends on what you’ll be needing it for.

If you’re looking to edit your photos and videos, you might require a higher-end laptop with a dedicated graphics card. However, if you already have a powerful desktop PC at home for your editing needs and you just want something to travel with, a thinner and lighter HP laptop may be a better bet. 

Either way, we’re here to help you find a terrific choice, by rounding up the best HP has to offer below.

The best HP laptops in 2022

The HP Spectre line is all about versatility, offering its users a lot of power and long battery life in a hybrid design that lets you go from being productive to consuming media in no time. It’s a gorgeous piece of kit as well, fitting its robust innards and excellent features – not to mention that 13.5-inch touch display – in an elegant gem-cut chassis that's unlike all the other laptops in its class. 

You can upgrade to a 3K2K screen if you need more real estate for your work. And, while it’s not exactly cheap, it is slightly cheaper than its Dell equivalent. For more details, see our full HP Spectre x360 14 review (opens in new tab).

If you want a business laptop with robust security features that guarantee the safety of your data, here's our top pick. The HP Elite Dragonfly G2 is among the best business laptops out there, and while it’s expensive, it’s worth the extra cash for security features like the HP DriveLock and Automatic DriveLock, HP Secure Erase, and embedded TPM 2.0 security chip. 

That’s just to name a few of the many features this premium HP laptop has. And as well as getting through your business-related workload, it also has more than enough power for photo editing and light video editing tasks.

Budget-friendly premium laptops are rare and hard to find, but HP’s got you covered with its HP Envy line. Even though it's one of the best value laptops, the HP Envy x360 15 doesn’t compromise on power, delivering best-in-its-class performance and long battery life at a very reasonable price. 

You have a choice of AMD or Intel chips, if you feel strongly about processors. And its touch display is not only fantastic, it also gives you a lot of screen real estate to spread out when doing your creative work. 

There are a couple of compromises to keep the price down: it isn’t as portable as the Spectre, for example. But if you want something more affordable, this will live up to your expectations.

Hold an HP Spectre x360 13-inch in your hand for the first time, and you’ll develop an instant I-have-to-have-this moment, even if you don’t really need a new laptop. Combining that exquisite Spectre x360 gem-cut design with a portable form factor that’s ever so slightly lighter than its Dell rival, the 13-inch model is the ideal travel companion, especially if you’re looking to do some light photo editing on-the-go. 

It comes with a surprisingly large and comfortable keyboard, too, which should make all your email-typing and contract-making a more pleasurable experience. Just bear in mind that because there’s little space in its chassis, its fans can get pretty loud when doing intensive tasks. (However, that isn’t really unusual for laptops this size.)

Need a lot of power, either for gaming, or resource-intensive creative software? The HP Omen 16 can have a robust RTX 3060 that will handle the heaviest AAA titles or video rendering and batch photo editing workloads. 

This is the HP laptop you want if you need a primary device to edit on, especially since it gives you 16.1 inches of screen real estate. As a bonus, because it’s a gaming laptop, you can use it to de-stress with your favorite PC game after a long, hard day of editing work.

If you’ve got a couple of thousand to spare, you should get a proper creator’s laptop that’s designed specifically for graphics-heavy tasks. And here's a great option. The HP ZBook Studio G8 is among HP’s most powerful laptops, armed with up to Nvidia RTX A5000 graphics that makes everything beautifully effortless, including 4K video editing and 3D design. 

The high price means this won't  be the most appealing option for everyone. But it does come with the power that photographers, designers, videographers, and other content editors need to get through any creative task, however intensive. Just keep in mind that it has a tendency to get hot and loud when performing such workloads.

Chromebooks are a great alternative to Windows laptops for two reasons. Firstly, because the manufacturer isn't having to pay for a Windows licence, they're cheaper. And secondly, because they don't have to run Microsoft's buggy and bloating operating system, they tend to be much faster. The flipside is that you won't be able to use a lot of popular Microsoft software, although Google Drive has a lot of good equivalents.

If you like the idea of a Chromebook, or are already on board with the concept, then here's the best model from HP. This hybrid device boasts a lovely 11-inch touchscreen with 2.1K resolution (2160 x 1440) and comes with an attachable keyboard, which is nice and comfortable.

Other highlights include getting up to 11 hours 15 minutes of battery life, and the two mics and noise reduction software which make you sound nice and clear on Zoom calls. On the downside, it's not the lightest Chromebook around, but at this price, the X2 offers excellent value overall.

Laptops that greatly exceed the average amount of processing power and graphics capabilities are popularly known as workstations, and here's the best from HP. The HP ZBook Fury 17 G8 will be overkill for most users, but for people performing highly intensive tasks such as rendering CG animations will find a lot to like. That includes a beautiful 4K, 17.3-inch screen, audio by Bang & Olufsen, the superior HP Premium Quiet Keyboard and, most importantly, the incredible CPU/GPU performance.

How we test laptops

When reviewing a laptop, we assess its internal hardware features, build quality, ergonomics, performance in a variety of usage scenarios, value for money, and its overall suitability for its target buyer. Although we'll evaluate a laptop with a typical user in mind, we will also pay particular attention to the perspective of photo and video enthusiasts, with special focus given to screen quality and color space coverage. Where possible, a monitor calibrator will be used to measure a laptop's display performance to assess whether it matches a manufacturer's claims, and software benchmarks like GeekBench are used to measure a laptop's processor and graphics card capabilities.

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