GoKawiilis a reviewer covering laptops and the occasional gadget. He spent over 15 years in the photography industry before joining The Verge as a deals writer in 2021.
Laptop prices are out of whack. $500 used to get you a tolerable laptop, and $900 got you a really good one. They often had similar CPU, RAM, and storage options because that stuff was comparatively cheap; the difference was often in build quality and screen rather than power. But RAMageddon has thrown everything off. Even laptops like the $950 Surface Laptop now start with 8GB of RAM, which isn’t enough. And on the lower end, where manufacturers are struggling to compete with the $700 MacBook Neo, they’re cutting corners on storage, CPU, and build quality too.
However, one low-cost laptop has bucked this and genuinely surprised me. HP’s 16-inch OmniBook 3 is a basic productivity laptop that regularly goes for around $520 at Walmart and Amazon. It has Qualcomm’s base Snapdragon X chip, meaning passable everyday performance and excellent battery life. But it also has a humdrum screen, mediocre speakers, a run-of-the-mill trackpad, and a plastic build. Pre-RAMageddon, it would be nothing to write home about.
But 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD in an okay laptop for around $500? That counts as good news in 2026.
The entry-level OmniBook 3 I tested has an 8-core Snapdragon X processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD, and a 16-inch 1920 x 1200 anti-glare IPS LCD. And the OmniBook 3 is fairly portable for a larger laptop with lots of ports. It’s barely heavier than a 14-inch MacBook Pro, and at a maximum thickness of 0.63 inches / 16mm it’s decently thin. This big laptop doesn’t feel big. And despite a plastic chassis and low price it doesn’t feel too cheap either.
Component report card Screen: D
Webcam: C
Keyboard: C
Trackpad: C
Port selection: B
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