HP's new AI PC might look like a laptop that lost a fight with an angle grinder but it's compact and discreet as you could possibly get

Ask any tech vendor and they'll always tell you that smaller is better. CPUs and GPUs have never been tinier underneath the heatsink, but PCs themselves are still big and boxy. Not so HP's newly launched EliteBoard G1a range, because at under 780 grams in weight and 36 cm in length, it's possibly one of the smallest PCs around.

Admittedly, the EliteBoard G1a is essentially a business laptop that's had the screen ripped off and the sides all chopped away. But even so, the remaining keyboard still sports a numpad (though the whole thing is too compact to be classed as full-sized) and the internal gubbins are respectable enough, if just not very potent.

Not that HP is aiming the EliteBoard at gamers, of course. This is an AI PC for business users (the dedicated Copilot button really stands out), but if you got one with the best processor on offer, then you could do a spot of handheld-like gaming while pretending to juggle spreadsheets at work.

The chip in question is an AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 Pro, which is a Kracken Point APU, with eight Zen 5 cores (4x Zen 5, 4x Zen 5c) and a Radeon 860M integrated GPU. That sports eight RDNA 3.5 compute units, which equate to 512 shaders. That's roughly the same as the Steam Deck's GPU, so it should give you an idea as to what kind of gaming you can do on it.

HP also offers the EliteBoard G1a with a Ryzen AI 5 340 Pro (six CPU cores, four GPU compute units) or the miserable Ryzen 3 330 (four CPU cores, two GPU compute units), so if you were offered a G1a at work, I know which chip I'd be demanding.

Naturally, for such a market, RAM options are limited to a maximum of 64 GB, in the form of two DDR5-5600 SODIMMS, and up to 2 TB of Gen 4 NVMe storage. For some reason that I can't fathom just yet, the Ryzen 7 350 variant comes with 32 GB of eMMC flash storage, whereas the others don't. Answers on a postcard as to what one can genuinely use that for.

The whole caboodle requires a 65 W power supply to run, and you can provide that either via the provided adapter, or if you have a suitable monitor, you can use the same USB Type-C cable for sending the display signal. However, the EliteBoard G1a can be configured to house a 32 Wh battery.

For connectivity options, it's barebones, I'm afraid: just two USB Type-C ports (USB4 and USB 3.2 10 Gbps), and either Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7. Oh, and Bluetooth 5.3 or 6, depending on what Wi-Fi module you choose. There's no LAN port, SD card reader, or anything else.

And yet, despite all its limitations, the EliteBoard G1a reminds me somewhat of the first home computers I used in the early 1980s. Those were very much the same thing: just a keyboard with a couple of sockets, plus a cable for the TV and one more for power.

Even though they were incredibly basic, I enjoyed years of programming and gaming on them, and I dare say the same thing could happen with this svelte HP.

Whether anyone outside of the world of business will do so is going to come entirely down to the price tag. The EliteBoard G1a isn't expected to make a retail appearance until March, but if you can't wait that long, you might want to give the Raspberry Pi 500 a look. That's just $100 at Digikey, and while it's only good for retro gaming and emulation, I reckon it's just as fun to use as HP's new G1a.