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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Dell XPS 14 vs Dell XPS 16: Key Differences Compared
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
<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>
The Business Guide to On-Device AI: How to Cut the Cloud Cord in 2026
Cloud AI bills are spiraling. New laptops and desktops now run powerful AI right on your team’s machines — cutting costs, locking down data and killing the monthly meter. Here’s how to build the right AI setup for your business.
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.
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.
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.
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 Contenders: Apple vs NVIDIA vs AMD
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.
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.
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.
The 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.
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, consulting
Sovereign, high-memory local processing for sensitive R&D
Definitely — 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.
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.
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.
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?
Two Copilot+ PCs, 0.8 inches apart on paper — but very different machines underneath. Here’s how the Surface Laptop 13″ and Surface Laptop 13.8″ compare for IT teams leasing across a business, and which model belongs with which role.
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.
Both panels are 3:2, touch-enabled, and individually colour-calibrated. That’s where the similarity ends.
Display
Surface 13″
Surface 13.8″
Resolution
1920 × 1280 (178 PPI)
2304 × 1536 (201 PPI)
Refresh rate
Up to 60 Hz
Up to 120 Hz
Brightness
500 nits
600 nits
Contrast
1000:1
1300:1
HDR / Dolby Vision IQ
No
Yes
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.
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.
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.
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.