HP Laptops

HP ZBook Ultra G1a front

HP Laptops for Work, Creativity & Performance

HP Laptops deliver reliable performance, sleek design and powerful features perfect for business, productivity and everyday tasks. From lightweight models for on‑the‑go work to high‑performance machines built for demanding workflows, HP offers dependable devices designed to keep your team efficient and connected.

  • Find the right HP laptop to boost productivity and support your workflow.
  • HP ZBook Ultra G1a front
  • Front view image of the HP ZBook Fury G1i
  • Front view image of the HP ZBook X G1i
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Support Plans. Warranty, Support & Loan Device.


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Loyalty Rewards Programme.

IT Leasing Reinvented

Choose your Solution. Bespoke IT leasing with inclusive Support Plans
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  • Switch IT – change to alternative devices at 12 months
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  • Own IT – at the end for £1
  • Lifetime Support
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HP Laptop FAQs

Which HP laptop is best for business users?

The HP’s EliteBook range is HP’s flagship business line, offering strong security features, robust build quality and reliable performance for everyday professional use. While the HP ZBook Ultra G1a is the best option for those who need workstation power in a more portable design.

Can I charge my HP laptop with USB-C?

Most modern laptops support USB-C charging alongside their standard power adapter, offering flexibility for travel. It’s worth checking the wattage requirements of the specific model, as some need a higher-power USB-C charger to charge at full speed.

What is the lifespan of a HP laptop?

An HP business laptop typically lasts 4-6 years with normal use, with battery health usually being the main factor prompting replacement. Enterprise-grade HP models are built to withstand heavier daily use than consumer laptops.

Are HP laptops suitable for creative professionals?

HP’s ZBook range is designed specifically for creative and technical professionals, offering powerful graphic options, colour-accurate displays and workstation-class performance. Standard HP laptops are better suited to general office and business tasks rather than intensive creative work.

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HP Desktops

HP ZGX Nano G1n AI Supercomputer front

HP Desktop Leasing for Reliable Business Performance

HP desktop leasing gives your business access to dependable, high-performance computing with predictable monthly payments. HP desktops are built for professional environments, enterprise-grade security, and flexible configurations to suit different workloads. IT leasing ensures your team stays productive with up-to-date hardware while maintaining budget control and scalability as your organisation grows.

  • Full support to keep your team productive and your IT scalable.
  • HP ZGX Nano G1n AI Supercomputer front
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Cancellation Option. Peace of Mind.

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As Flexible as you need. Solutions to Suit.

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Support Plans. Warranty, Support & Loan Device.

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Loyalty Rewards Programme.

IT Leasing Reinvented

Choose your Solution. Bespoke IT leasing with inclusive Support Plans
Flexi
  • Switch IT – change to alternative devices at 12 months
  • End IT – cancel after 12 months
  • Own IT – at the end for £1
  • Lifetime Support
  • Earn Rewards Points
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PC Laptops

surface laptop

Business‑Ready PC Laptops for Growing Teams

Explore a wide range of PC laptops from Dell, Lenovo, HP, Asus, and more — carefully selected to support the needs of modern teams. From procurement and deployment to ongoing support and secure end‑of‑life handling, everything is managed through one trusted provider, giving you simplicity, control, and cost certainty as your team grows.

  • dell pro 16
  • surface laptop 7 silver top view
  • Lenovo think book 14 2 in 1
  • SAMSUNG galaxy book5 pro 360 folded
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Cancellation Option. Peace of Mind.

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As Flexible as you need. Solutions to Suit.

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Support Plans. Warranty, Support & Loan Device.

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Loyalty Rewards Programme.

IT Leasing Reinvented

Choose your Solution. Bespoke IT leasing with inclusive Support Plans
Flexi
  • Switch IT – change to alternative devices at 12 months
  • End IT – cancel after 12 months
  • Own IT – at the end for £1
  • Lifetime Support
  • Earn Rewards Points
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Dell

Dell XPS 14 front

Get the Best of Dell for Business

Explore Dell’s most powerful business devices, from Dell Pro and Dell Pro Max workstations to XPS laptops and high-performance displays. Built for demanding workloads, Dell technology delivers the performance, reliability, and scalability teams need to stay productive. Get the setup your team needs on a flexible monthly subscription with no upfront costs and seamless upgrades.

  • dell pro 13 premium
  • DELL XPS 13 open
  • DELL P Series 24 Monitor
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A Single Source. No Middle Man.

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Cancellation Option. Peace of Mind.

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As Flexible as you need. Solutions to Suit.

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Support Plans. Warranty, Support & Loan Device.

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Loyalty Rewards Programme.

IT Leasing Reinvented

Choose your Solution. Bespoke IT leasing with inclusive Support Plans
Flexi
  • Switch IT – change to alternative devices at 12 months
  • End IT – cancel after 12 months
  • Own IT – at the end for £1
  • Lifetime Support
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Pure
  • Switch IT – change to alternative devices at 24 months
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Dell Laptop FAQs

What is the lifespan of a Dell laptop?

A well-maintained Dell laptop typically lasts 4-6 years, depending on the usage and build quality. Business-tier models such as the Dell Pro range are built for longer working life than consumer models.

Which is better a Dell or HP laptop?

Both brands offer strong business laptops; The Dell Pro range is known for durability and enterprise manageability, while the HP’s EliteBook range often edges ahead on design and display quality. The “better” choice usually comes down to specific business needs, budget and existing IT fleet standardisation.

What is Dell's Base, Plus and Premium laptop tiers?

Dell recently restructured its entire laptop range into three simple tiers, replacing the old Inspiron, Latitude, and XPS naming. See our full breakdown of what separates each tier, and which one fits your budget and performance needs.

Which Dell laptop is best for business?

It depends on the role: the Dell Pro 14 and Dell Pro 13 Plus suit remote and hybrid employees who need portability and long battery life, the Dell Pro 14 Essential is a budget friendly option. The Dell Pro 16 Plus model is built for power users like engineers and video editors who need workstation performance. See our full comparison to match a specific model to your team’s workload and budget.

How much RAM does a business laptop need?

For general office work, 8-16GB of RAM is sufficient, while users running multiple applications, virtual machines or data-heavy software should look at 16-32GB. Choosing more RAM upfront also extends the useful life of the laptop as software demands grow.

The Rise of the Dell XPS

Dell XPS 14 and 16
Dell XPS 14 and 16

The Rise of the Dell XPS

Dell XPS laptop front and back

Quick Summary

The Dell XPS laptop is back from oblivion. 

After retiring their flagship XPS range back in January 2025, Dell has brought the XPS name back for 2026, alongside updated AI-ready hardware and several design changes that address feedback from long-time XPS users.

For business buyers, that’s good news. The XPS range has always sat at the premium end of the Windows laptop market, being one of the first to offer premium features and edge-to-edge displays. 

Now, the question is no longer whether the XPS is back. It’s which laptop belongs on your team’s desk.

What’s Changed From Previous Dell XPS Models?

Dell has made several notable changes to the new XPS range:

  • Physical function keys are back, replacing the touch-sensitive function row found on previous models
  • The seamless touchpad now has a subtle physical edge, making it easier to locate during everyday use
  • There is no fingerprint reader, despite it being available on previous XPS 13 configurations.
  • XPS is displayed on the lid
  • The new laptops weigh significantly less than prior laptops

These changes won’t matter on a spec sheet, but they make a real difference to how the laptop feels to use throughout a busy working day.

man putting Dell XPS laptop into bag
Dell XPS front

What Is Included in the New Dell XPS Range?

HardSoft leases two of Dell’s new premium XPS laptops:

1. Dell XPS 14: Balanced business performance and portability

2. Dell XPS 16: Larger display and higher performance for power users

But Dell also released:

3. Dell announced the XPS 16 Creator Edition AI PC, which is built with the NVIDIA RTX Spark Chip instead of Intel core platform

4. Dell XPS 13: Which is primarily for education (comparable to the MacBook Neo)

If you’re weighing these up against a MacBook Pro for your team, here’s the short version: the XPS 14 and 16 are Dell’s most premium laptops, aimed at people doing demanding creative or technical work. They’re not the right call for a standard laptop refresh – but for the right role, they’re excellent.

Both are Copilot+ PCs, so your team gets access to Microsoft’s on-device AI features out of the box.

They’re also the thinnest and lightest XPS laptops Dell has made:

Here’s what your people would actually be getting, and who should be on the list for one. 

Processors

Both run Intel’s new Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” chips, with a choice from: Core Ultra 5, 7, X7 or X9. We recommend X7 or X9 for anyone doing sustained, demanding work (e.g. development, video editing, CAD) where the extra cores and graphics keep things smooth for the length of the workload, not just in a quick burst.

Performance & Connectivity

Both laptops feature three USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports, distributed across either side of the chassis, alongside a combined headphone and microphone jack. Dell also claims fast-charging capabilities, with the battery reaching up to 80% charge in around 40 minutes.

However for a premium laptop range, the lack of Thunderbolt 5 is likely to be a disappointment. While Thunderbolt 4 will be more than sufficient for most day-to-day business requirements, if your organisation is investing in premium devices with a long refresh cycle, you may question why Dell’s flagship XPS range has not adopted Thunderbolt 5.

With devices such as the Dell Pro Max 16 Plus and MacBook Pro (M5 Pro) already offering the latest connectivity standard, you may find these alternatives better aligned with your long-term future-proofing strategy.

panther lake chips
Dell XPS display

Display

Both the XPS 14 & 16 are available with either a 2K InfinityEdge (non-touch) display or a premium 3.2K TandemOLED InfinityEdge touchscreen. The Tandem OLED upgrade is one of the standout features of the range; it uses two OLED emissive layers stacked on top of each other to improve brightness and deeper contracts, compared to traditional OLED displays. It also saves energy as each layer is working at a lower efficiency. 

While Tandem OLED is not a new technology, having already appeared in devices such as Apple’s iPad Pros, its inclusion in the XPS range brings the technology to a wider audience of premium Windows users.

To put the display quality in perspective, Dell’s Tandem OLED offers a different experience to the Liquid Retina XDR display found in MacBook Pros. 

Apple’s mini-LED technology remains the benchmark for sustained brightness, particularly in bright environments and HDR workflows. However, the XPS’s OLED panel provides deeper blacks and pixel-level contrast that many users associate with a more immersive and visually impressive viewing experience. The OLED panel also covers 100% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut, the industry standard used in film and video production. 

Security

Security-wise, both come with facial recognition (Windows Hello) for sign-in, but no fingerprint reader. If your business relies on fingerprint login for shared devices or specific security policies, that’s worth flagging to your IT team.

In contrast, Dell continues to offer fingerprint authentication on selected higher-spec configurations of the Dell Pro 16. 

Keyboard

Both laptops feature a zero-lattice keyboard design with clearly defined, physical borders around the trackpad. This is a major improvement to the previous invisible trackpad. 

Key Consideration

One of the standout features of the Dell XPS 14 and XPS 16 is their portability. Interestingly, the higher-spec XPS 16 configuration with the 3.2K Tandem OLED display weighs just 1.65kg, making it lighter than the lower-spec model at 1.74kg.

woman working on Dell XPS
Dell XPS 16Dell XPS 14
ProcessorSeries 3 Intel Core Ultra 5 325 / 7 355 / X7 358H / X9 388HSeries 3 Intel Core Ultra 5 325 / 7 355 / X7 358H / X9 388H
Display (lower spec)16”, Non-Touch, 2K14”, Non-Touch, 2K
Display (higher spec)16”, Touch, 3.2K, Tandem OLED14”, Touch, 2.8K, Tandem OLED
Ports3 x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), 1 x Audio jack3 x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), 1 x Audio jack
Weight1.74 kg for 2K LCD / 1.65 kg  for 3.2K OLED1.36 kg for 2K LCD and 2.8K OLED
Leasing from£22.72 + VAT per week£21.14 + VAT per week
woman working on a Dell XPS 13

Where Do the XPS 13 and XPS 16 Creator Edition Fit Into This Range?

We believe the Dell XPS 13 and the Creator Edition are designed to fill specific gaps in the XPS range. For people who love Dell and are looking for a more budget-friendly option or dedicated GPU processing power, these two laptops make a lot of sense. 

However, if you’re an IT admin or business manager who isn’t particularly tied to the Dell ecosystem, we’d generally recommend focusing on the Dell XPS 14 and XPS 16. They represent the core of the range and are likely to be the best fit for most businesses. The XPS 13 and Creator Edition are both good laptops, but they’re aimed at more specific audiences rather than offering something completely new.

Honest Trade-Offs

This is the part worth being upfront about: the XPS 14 and 16 are expensive, and unless your team needs what the higher-spec configuration offers, that price is hard to justify. And the step up to the OLED display and X7/X9 processors is a real jump in cost – one you should only make for people whose work actually needs it.

Financing your XPS with Leasing

As laptops get more capable — AI features, better displays, faster chips — the price tag climbs with them. Leasing is how you stop that upfront number from being the thing that decides who gets a good machine and who doesn’t. 

Imagine a video editor looking to get the Dell XPS 16 with the Tandem OLED touchscreen display, Intel Core X7 processor and 32GB of memory to support their large files and creative software without slowing down. 

Spread across one of our leasing plans, that large upfront cost becomes a smaller monthly payment instead:

  1. Pure plan: £22.72 per week +VAT
  2. Flexi plan: £28.40 per week +VAT

Take a look at our new Dell XPS range to help lower the cost of your productivity today.

Similarly, if the ports on the laptop feel limiting for the way your team works, we can recommend and price the right accessories too – a dock with extra HDMI and SD card support, for example – so you’re not working around a laptop’s limits at the desk.

Dell XPS laptops
woman working on Dell XPS in cafe

Running a Dell-Only Team?

If your business runs 100% Dell, our Devices for Teams solution covers you from 50+ staff upwards, including the new XPS range. 

The weight and slim design of the XPS 14 and 16 make them close to a one-size-fits-all option across a Dell fleet — and if something isn’t working out, or your business scales up or down, you can switch, add, or return devices rather than being locked into what you first ordered.

Devices for Teams also comes with around-the-clock support, from Silver through to Platinum plans, so you can pick the level of cover that actually matches your team’s needs.

Lease your laptops and get expert support today.

Whether it’s one XPS for a new hire or a full team rollout, we’ll help you land on the right configuration, and the right lease, for what your people actually do all day. 

Get in touch with HardSoft and we’ll take it from there.

one payment per month

FAQs

The headline changes are size and power. The 2026 XPS 14 and 16 are the thinnest and lightest XPS laptops Dell has made — the 14 weighs about the same as a 13″ MacBook Air, and the 16 about the same as the older Dell Premium 14. Under the hood, they move to Intel’s new Panther Lake processors, brighter and more colour-accurate displays, and Copilot+ AI features built in as standard. 

Yes. The chassis is made from recycled, low-emissions aluminium, and the range is certified ENERGY STAR and registered EPEAT Gold with Climate+. Pair that with HardSoft’s carbon offset service on your lease, and it’s a genuinely sustainable choice for equipping your team — not just a badge on the box. 

Better than you’d expect from a business laptop. Both models use a quad-speaker setup, tuned with Waves MaxxAudio and supporting Dolby Atmos, which adds up to clear, full sound rather than the thin, tinny audio a lot of laptops settle for. In practice, that means video calls come through clearer and anyone using the laptop for presentations or media doesn’t need to reach for headphones or a speaker as often. 

Built to hold up to daily business use: a CNC-machined aluminium chassis for strength, and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 over the display for scratch resistance. Over a three-year lease, that durability is what keeps repair and replacement costs down. 

COMING SOON | Googlebook

Google book front view with dark screen and light grey keyboard

<h3>The AI-Powered Laptop, Reimagined</h3>

<p>Googlebook is a new generation of AI-first laptops designed to help you work smarter, create faster and stay productive wherever business takes you. Combining powerful hardware with Google Workspace, Gemini AI and seamless cloud integration, it delivers a modern computing experience built for today’s workplace.</p>

<h3>Key Specifications</h3>

The Business Guide to On-Device AI: How to Cut the Cloud Cord in 2026

AI supercomputer devices, MacBook Pro, NVIDIA DGX Spark, Surface, lenovo

The Business Guide to On-Device AI: How to Cut the Cloud Cord in 2026

Claude, Z, Copilot and open ai logos

Quick Summary

If you’ve spent the last two years watching your team test-drive AI tools, you’ve probably noticed two things: it’s incredibly powerful, and your cloud bills are becoming weirdly expensive.

In 2026, businesses are realising that sending every single prompt to a distant data centre is slow, pricey and a compliance minefield. That’s why the tide is turning toward AI independence — running powerful AI models directly on the laptops and desktops your team uses every day.

This guide pulls together everything you need to know: why businesses are switching, who’s building the best AI hardware right now (Apple, NVIDIA and AMD have all thrown their hats in), and exactly which setup fits your team. 

We’ve been kitting out UK businesses for 40 years, so these aren’t generic picks — they’re the machines we actually put on people’s desks.

First, What Does “On-Device AI” Actually Mean?

Let’s clear up the jargon, because three very different things get lumped together.

  • Consumer cloud AI is opening a browser to ask ChatGPT or Gemini a quick question. Handy, but a standalone service — not part of your core IT.
  • Enterprise cloud AI is the corporate platforms and background automations that rent processing power from distant data centres. This is where the costs live.
  • True on-device AI means the actual language models are installed and executed entirely within your physical hardware. If a tool needs an active internet connection to function, it isn’t on-device.

That last one is the game-changer — and it’s finally practical for everyday business machines.

lenovo, surface,  asus and MSI AI logos
AI Chips, AMD, M5, Snapdragon, DGX Spark

The “Cloud Hangover”: Why Businesses Are Switching

The honeymoon period with cloud-based AI is ending. According to recent market data, a staggering 91% of enterprise IT leaders report significant issues with their cloud AI partnerships — citing data security, cost and disappointing performance. A pivot toward on-device AI tackles three headaches:

  • The “experimentation tax.” In the cloud, every time you ask AI to “summarise this report” or “fix this code,” a meter runs. These are inference costs — the price of the AI actually doing the work — and they’re wildly unpredictable as more staff pile in.
  • The privacy paradox. To use cloud AI, you send your data to a third party. Even with “enterprise” protections, 76% of organisations worry about data leakage. If you handle proprietary designs or sensitive client info, risk mitigation isn’t enough — you need risk elimination.
  • The visibility gap. It’s easy to track a monthly SaaS bill. It’s much harder to see the hidden costs — the hours your technical teams burn on security reviews and compliance paperwork just to get a project over the line.

Local AI also simply feels faster. There’s no internet round trip to a remote data centre, so responses often begin almost immediately.

The Privacy Advantage

At HardSoft, we talk a lot about architectural privacy. It sounds technical, but it’s dead simple: data that never leaves your computer cannot be leaked.

Run AI locally and your customer data, codebases and internal research stay behind your firewall. You can pull the internet cable out of the wall and everything still works — because all the capability and data is on your machine. No 20-page Data Processing Agreement required, because the data isn’t going anywhere.

In regulated sectors like healthcare, finance and law, where data sovereignty is a legal requirement rather than a nice-to-have, that’s enormous.

AI supercomputer devices, MacBook Pro, NVIDIA DGX Spark, Surface, lenovo
man working on AI laptop

Understanding the “10 Billion Rule”

“Surely my laptop isn’t powerful enough to run a ‘real’ AI?” In 2024, you’d have been right. In 2026, you’re likely wrong.

One of the biggest myths is that you need a massive, trillion-parameter cloud model for everyday tasks. In reality, 57% of the AI tasks businesses run rely on lightweight models with fewer than 10 billion parameters — the ones handling routine data formatting, file indexing and document summaries.

Here’s the catch: most companies are still renting cloud space to run these lightweight models, racking up needless API bills. You’re paying for the big daddy but getting a (more than capable) minnow to do the work.

A 10-billion-parameter model doesn’t need a data centre. It only needs around 12GB of memory to run well, because modern AI formats shrink big models so they run locally without a noticeable drop in quality (it’s called quantisation, if you’re curious). Most high-end business laptops today handle this with ease.

Jargon alert — “parameters.” Think of these as the brain cells of an AI. The headline-grabbing models have trillions, but an AI with 10 billion cells is more than smart enough for conversational AI, complex summarisation and even advanced coding assistance.

The best news for business? This is no longer a one-horse race. In just eight short months the market has completely transformed, and there’s now an AI-ready machine tailored to every role in your company.

Apple: the unified memory long game

It’s a common misconception that Apple jumped on the AI bandwagon. In fact, the company started baking “neural engines” — parts dedicated purely to AI — into its chips back in 2017. Every lesson learned went into the M-series processors that power today’s MacBooks, where the CPU, GPU and Neural Engine all work together.

Apple’s secret weapon is Unified Memory Architecture (UMA). In a traditional PC, the processor and the graphics card have separate pools of memory, and shuttling data between them creates a bottleneck. Apple gave the whole chip one massive, shared, high-speed reservoir instead. That’s why a 128GB MacBook Pro can run a 70-billion-parameter model with ease — no cloud required. Need to go bigger? The Mac Studio, with up to 512GB of unified memory, chews through models over 100 billion parameters right at your desk.

This isn’t “toy model” territory, either. Forward-thinking firms are now running massive open-weight models locally with output quality practically indistinguishable from top-tier cloud models — at zero per-token cost and with absolute privacy.

working on a MacBook with apple Mac mini, good for AI
Mac mini for on device AI

The Mac mini as a 24/7 “AI agent hub”

One of the most interesting trends of 2026 is the humble Mac mini as an “AI agent hub” — a small, quiet, low-power machine running background AI 24/7, organising files and monitoring data while you sleep. Under the latest macOS you can even daisy-chain several together into a private AI supercomputer in the corner of the office. For some firms, moving routine tasks off the cloud and onto local minis has cut total cost of ownership by more than 50%.

Bonus: Apple’s Private Cloud Compute handles the occasional oversized task on secure Apple Silicon servers without retaining your data afterwards — and it’s included natively in Apple Intelligence, no extra token fees.

NVIDIA: raw power and universal compatibility

NVIDIA took the early crown by dropping powerful discrete GPUs straight into Windows workstations, letting businesses stop paying per-token cloud fees and start running models in-house. And it isn’t backing down.

Interestingly, 56% of organisations using Macs for local AI also deploy NVIDIA hardware — they’re not switching teams, they’re building hybrid fleets to get the best of both. 

NVIDIA’s real trump card is compatibility: because most of the world’s AI software is built for its tech, technical teams prefer it for heavy-duty projects. It’s also pushed into mobile with the RTX Spark platform, powering AI-ready Windows laptops like the Surface Laptop Ultra. 

For serious local AI teams, dedicated systems like the HP ZGX Nano and Lenovo ThinkStation PGX run models up to 200B+.

NVIDIA DGX Spark for on device AI
AMD ryzen chip for on device AI

AMD: the efficiency enablers

The biggest surprise of 2026 has been the rapid rise of AMD. Rather than chase the biggest, most power-hungry chip, AMD built a brilliant middle ground: significantly more AI performance than a standard office laptop, but without the heat, noise and eye-watering energy bills of a top-tier rig.

Its new Halo chip lineup launches at roughly 20% cheaper than competing NVIDIA options — which makes AMD-powered devices ideal for wide-scale company rollouts, not just a treat for the developers.

It lets whole teams effortlessly run the 57% of everyday AI tasks that don’t need a massive, expensive tech stack.

Cloud vs Local: Where Do Your Tools Actually Run?

To build a smart hardware strategy, you need to know which tools need the internet and which run entirely offline.


AI Tool / Platform

Deployment Type

How It Works
Top-end commercial models (e.g. GPT-4o, Gemini Pro, Claude)Cloud onlyToo large for standard business hardware. They need data centres, so your data must leave your network.
Corporate assistants (e.g. Microsoft Copilot, Google Workspace AI)Hybrid / cloudIntegrated into your apps, but the heavy processing and data retrieval still happen on external servers.
Open-weight models (e.g. Llama, Phi-4, Gemma, Qwen, DeepSeek)100% localThe full model files sit on your hardware and process data entirely offline, behind your firewall, with total privacy.

The 2026 rule of thumb: use cloud platforms for massive, creative or web-scale research where data sensitivity isn’t a barrier. For routine automation, private company data and 24/7 background agents, run open-weight models locally on your leased hardware to kill subscription costs and guarantee privacy.

Jargon alert — “open-weight model.” Standard cloud AI keeps its system locked away behind an internet wall. An open-weight model hands you the finished, fully trained settings so you can run it 100% offline with total privacy.

office lifestyle of 3 people in  meeting using copilot AI

Match the Hardware to Your Team

The smartest businesses right now aren’t just buying “faster computers” — they’re building targeted technology portfolios. Think of the switch you made to Netflix: you didn’t rip the aerial off the roof, you kept the BBC and ITV too.

Here, the cloud is Netflix and your local machines are the trusty aerial. Whatever your team size, the goal is identical: absolute privacy, predictable costs and flawless performance.


Business Type

Recommended Hardware

Why It Works

Cloud Use?
Agile team of 10 — creative, marketing, consultingMacBook Air (24GB)Runs lightweight sub-15B models locally; perfect balance of portability and capabilityRare — only for occasional heavy workloads
Tech-heavy team of 20 — developers, data, sensitive client workMacBook Pro M-series (128GB)128GB unified memory loads 70B–122B models natively for offline code review and deep logicOptional — for deployment and huge datasets
Professional services firm of 50 — legal, finance, recruitmentStandard laptops + Mac mini “agent hubs”Minis run 24/7 indexing behind your firewall; can cut cloud costs by 50%+Yes — for deep analysis across large archives
Scaling team of 100+ — everyone needs AIAMD-powered Windows laptops + NVIDIA workstationsAMD = efficient everyday AI; NVIDIA = heavy technical workloads, without breaking the budgetYes — for high-volume spikes and multi-department tasks
Enterprise of 500+ — global, complex automationMac Studio clusters (1TB+ pooled memory)Sovereign, high-memory local processing for sensitive R&DDefinitely — for ultra-massive, multi-layered workloads


The strategy today is never about buying the most expensive machine available — it’s about matching the right tool to the job. For raw memory capacity, the Mac Studio and MacBook Pro are hard to beat. For specialist engineering, NVIDIA workstations offer industry-standard software support. For a mobile workforce, AMD ultra-portables and Copilot+ Windows laptops deliver local AI speed with all-day battery.

Don’t see your setup? Talk to our AI leasing experts

Your On-Device AI FAQs

Is on-device AI really as good as the cloud? For what most businesses do day-to-day, yes — and it’s often faster, because you’re not waiting on a busy cloud server to respond.

Does “on-device” mean we can’t use the cloud at all? Not at all. The future is hybrid. Modern operating systems are smart enough to process everyday tasks locally for free, then tap secure cloud infrastructure only when you need the extra muscle. You get local privacy and infinite cloud scale.

Isn’t the upfront hardware cost too high? You’re trading a never-ending monthly bill for a fixed cost you can manage. Buying outright is a big CapEx hit, though — which is exactly why leasing is so popular (more below).

What about data security? This is the single biggest win. What never leaves your computer cannot be leaked to third-party servers. No complex data agreements, no exposure.

So the future is hybrid? That’s where we’d put our money. On-device AI brings speed, security and savings; cloud AI is your super-sub for when things get heavy.

AI Cloud on laptop, in an open office
one payment per month

Leasing AI Supercomputers With HardSoft

Here’s the honest bit: the hardware that makes on-device AI possible isn’t cheap to buy outright. A capable AI workstation runs anywhere from £2,000 to £7,000+, and buying a fleet of them is a serious capital hit. That’s why the shift to local AI and the shift to leasing go hand in hand — you swap unpredictable cloud fees for one fixed, predictable monthly cost.

Thousands of UK businesses already lease their workplace devices from HardSoft. For a single all-in monthly payment, we supply fully AI-ready tech, pre-configured to your exact specs and backed by Apple- and Microsoft-certified support. You can bundle in insurance, lifecycle logistics, security software and MDM — all on one agreement, with one point of support.

Build Your AI-Ready Fleet with HardSoft

We’ve spent 40 years helping businesses get the right tech at the right time — from global brands like LG and Levi’s to hundreds of fast-growing smaller firms. It’s IT leasing, reinvented.

Whether you’re kitting out a creative team of ten or building a private AI supercomputer cluster, the question is no longer if your business should run AI locally — it’s where. Explore the full range of NVIDIA-powered supercomputers, Copilot+ PCs and Apple Intelligence machines ready to lease today, and cut the cloud cord for good. 

Surface 13″ vs 13.8″: Does 0.8 Inches Actually Matter?

surface laptop 13" and 13.8"
surface laptop 13" and 13.8"

Surface 13″ vs 13.8″: Does 0.8 Inches Actually Matter?

surface 13" vs surface 13.8"

Quick Summary

On paper, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 13″ and the Surface Laptop 13.8″ (8th Edition) sit a fraction of an inch apart. Both are Copilot+ PCs, both run Intel Core Ultra (Series 3) silicon, and both have a 3:2 PixelSense touchscreen.

But when you look closer 0.8 inches turns into a meaningful fork in the road: different displays, different specs and different features.

For IT teams and business owners about to lease these across a team, those differences shape who gets which device.

You’ll find both on our Surface Laptop range page.

Display

Both panels are 3:2, touch-enabled, and individually colour-calibrated. That’s where the similarity ends.

For email, documents, and Teams, the 13″ panel is genuinely good. For anyone working with images, video, dashboards, or design tools all day, the 13.8″ is a different class of display — sharper, brighter, smoother, and HDR-accurate.

surface display
intel core ultra 5 and 7 chip

Performance and Memory

The 13″‘s Intel Core Ultra 5 handles typical office workloads comfortably. What it can’t do is scale as far: 24GB of RAM is the maximum. For finance teams, analysts, developers, and anyone running large datasets, the 13.8″ is the only one of the two that has the headroom — up to 64GB with options up to Intel Core Ultra 7 and X7.

Both deliver the same 50 TOPS NPU (Intel AI Boost), so all Copilot+ features (Recall, Click to Do, Studio Effects, AI-powered search) run identically on either.

Models and Configurations

Both laptops come in the same core build options — your choice of processor, 256GB / 512GB / 1TB storage, and (on the 13.8″) up to 64GB RAM — all on a removable Gen 4 SSD.

Where they differ is the security hardware you can add at order. The 13″ comes in standard configurations only. The 13.8″ can be ordered as standard, or specced with two business-grade extras:

  • Integrated privacy screen — a built-in filter that narrows the viewing angle so on-screen content stays unreadable to anyone beside or behind the user. Ideal for finance, legal, HR, or anyone working with sensitive data in open-plan offices, on trains, or in client sites.
  • Smart Card Reader — a built-in reader for physical smart-card authentication, often a requirement in government, healthcare, and other regulated or high-security environments.
removable chip in surface laptop 13.8
surface laptop 13.8" ports and docking

Ports and Docking

Both share the same USB-A 3.2 port and DisplayPort 2.1 over USB-C.

Two things to flag here. First, the 13″ charges over USB-C and ships with a 45W USB-C wall charger (in select markets and configs); for faster charging you’ll want a 60W+ USB-C PD charger.

Second, the 13″ has no Surface Connect port. If your business is already standardised on Surface Dock infrastructure, the 13″ won’t slot in — you’d be looking at USB-C docks instead.

USB4 on the 13.8″ runs at four times the bandwidth of the 13″‘s USB 3.2, and supports a third external 4K display.

Security and Biometrics

Both are Windows 11 Secured-core PCs with Microsoft Pluton TPM 2.0 and full Microsoft Defender support, so they’re equally manageable from an IT fleet perspective.

Biometrics is where they differ:

  • Surface 13″: Windows Hello fingerprint reader built into the power button
  • Surface 13.8″: Windows Hello facial recognition with Enhanced Sign-in Security

For hot-desking, frequent docking and undocking, or regulated environments where face authentication is preferred for compliance, the 13.8″ has the edge.

security on surface laptop 13" and 13.8"
audio on surface laptops

Build and Battery

Neither model supports pen input. Teams that need pen-and-touch should look at the Surface Pro instead.

Which Should You Lease, and for Whom?

For most teams, the Surface Laptop 13″ is the smart default. It’s lighter, cheaper, and shares the things that actually matter day-to-day with its bigger sibling: the same 50 TOPS Copilot+ NPU, the same removable Gen 4 SSD, Windows 11 Pro, and Secured-core management. So the AI features, the security posture, and the IT manageability are identical.

Reserve the Surface Laptop 13.8″ for the roles that really need more: anyone scaling past 24GB of RAM, driving a triple-4K dock, leaning on the sharper 120Hz HDR display for design or data work, or where face-unlock is a compliance requirement. For those people the premium is money well spent. For everyone else, it isn’t.

one payment per month

Leasing through HardSoft

Leasing via HardSoft means you get to match each role to the right device rather than picking one compromise for everyone. 

Plus you get full lifetime support, the option to switch devices at 12 months on Flexi, and managed offboarding when staff leave (on both devices).

PriceSurface Laptop 13″Surface Laptop 13.8″ (8th Ed)
Weekly lease (from)£10.05£13.62

Not sure what the right split is for your team? Get in touch and we’ll help you spec it out.