HP sells nearly a dozen different EliteBook 8 G1a 16 configurations, so your choices are vast before checkout. On top of this, HP lists inflated manufacturer’s suggested retail prices (MSRP) on all of these laptops, only to “slash” them by as much as 60%, and sometimes more. Of course, those more realistic prices are subject to change at any time, making it challenging to evaluate a given configuration.
Also, while those MSRPs are steep, remember that businesses can negotiate lower prices when buying through special channels. In that situation, you can’t really go by what the HP website lets you choose before checkout.
You can sift through all the different configurations, but to save you time, the starting build calls for $3,278 MSRP, cut down to a much more palatable $1,429 at the time of publishing. That one includes an AMD Ryzen AI 5 Pro 340 CPU with AMD Radeon 840M Graphics, one stick of 16GB DDR5 memory at 5,600MHz, a 512GB PCI Express 4.0 NVMe TLC solid-state drive (SSD), and a 60Hz 1,920-by-1,200-pixel display.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)
My review unit includes an upgraded Ryzen AI 7 Pro 350 with Radeon 860M Graphics, two sticks of 16GB DDR5 RAM, a 512GB SSD, and the same display (which doesn’t change from configuration to configuration) for $4,296 MSRP. At this writing, the more reasonable, but ephemeral, price for that loadout was $1,799.
The most decked-out EliteBook 8 configuration lists for $4,593, or $2,099 at its sale price, including the same processor, double the memory to 64GB, and a 2TB SSD. That’s a fine deal at that promotional price, but who knows how long it will last? Only HP does.
HP also sells a number of configurations that do not qualify as Copilot+ PCs, featuring AMD’s previous-generation Ryzen AI 200-series silicon. These machines start at $1,998 on HP’s online store. While you’ll find fewer price wobbles here, the component mix isn’t worth the cost.
