Technology & Science World

For earbuds in the $150 range, there’s usually not a lot to get excited about. Sure, those models typically offer the basics with decent sound quality, but very few have a stand-out feature that leaves a lasting impression. For its ATH-CKS50TW2 ($149), Audio-Technica sought to do this with extremely long battery life and a neat trick that will help you make the most of it. There’s a lot more to like on this set, including a list of tools that rival more expensive alternatives, but the ATH-CKS50TW2 is far from a complete package. The satisfying audio performance and ability to use them for over 20 hours on a charge might be enough to entice you to overlook those shortcomings.
The good: battery life, magnets and sound quality
When Audio-Technica announced the ATH-CKS50TW2 at CES, the first item on the spec sheet that struck me was the battery life. The company says you can expect up to 25 hours on a full charge without active noise cancellation (ANC) and up to 40 more hours from the charging case. With ANC enabled, you’ll still get a whopping 15 hours of listening time, which is about double what a lot of the competition offers these days. Importantly, those claims actually held true during my tests.
To maximize those numbers, the company equipped the ATH-CKS50TW2 with so-called Magnetic Switch technology. Specifically, the earbuds snap together with magnets to turn off before you put them in the case. Much of the competition doesn’t power down until the earbuds are inside of the case, but with the ATH-CKS50TW2, you don’t need to worry about that extra step. Simply take them off and snap them together, then you’ll know you’re no longer wasting precious battery power while the buds are resting on your desk. This also means the ATH-CKS50TW2 won’t always be charging in the case when you’re not using them, which should help extend battery longevity.

I’m also happy to report that Audio-Technica brought its trademark warm, inviting sound profile to the ATH-CKS50TW2. More specifically, the stock audio isn’t overly tuned, so bass remains pleasantly thumpy when needed and dialed down when it’s not. The bassline of Kendrick Lamar’s “tv off” booms while the hi-hats, claps and vocals cut through clear. When you switch over to something more mellow with less low-end bombast like Turnpike Troubadours’ “Be Here,” you get the full gamut of the acoustic instruments and light drums without bass overpowering the mix.
It doesn’t deliver the enhanced clarity and pristine detail that more expensive, flagship-level earbuds do, but the ATH-CKS50TW2 is plenty good for $150. In fact, this may be the best option in terms of sound quality in this price range. On Jason Isbell’s Foxes in the Snow, for example, the acoustic guitar — the lone instrument on the album — doesn’t have the expressive nuance as it does on Technics’ AZ100 or Bowers and Wilkins’ Pi8. But I’ll admit the ATH-CKS50TW2 holds its own against similarly priced competition. That, and the extended battery life alone make these earbuds a compelling package.
The not so good: design, controls and a missing feature
By 2025 standards, the ATH-CKS50TW2 earbuds are big and bulky. They also feel unbalanced, with much of the weight sitting well outside the curves of your ears. This means they’re not as comfortable as smaller models and feel unsteady. I never had issues with them falling out, but they feel like they could, which isn’t great. Perhaps Audio-Technica needed the extra space for bigger batteries, which I’m guessing will be an acceptable trade-off for users searching for longer listening times between charges.
Audio-Technica gave the ATH-CKS50TW2 physical controls, which is usually a good thing. Like some of the company’s previous models, the buttons are small, positioned along the top edge of the earbuds. Due to the design of the ATH-CKS50TW2 though, you have to hold the earbuds in place while pressing those buttons. It’s cumbersome, mostly due to the size and weight of each bud. The bulky, unbalanced construction has trickle-down effects on other aspects of the listening experience.

Billy Steele for Engadget

The ATH-CKS50TW2 is missing a crucial feature — wear detection. But the company has done well to include ANC, Hear-Through (ambient sound) mode, a five-band EQ, soundscapes, media controls and battery updates in its app. There’s also a “private timer” and low latency mode for games and video. You can even adjust how many steps volume adjustments will jump and test your microphone to see if optional noise reduction is needed during calls. Additionally, a quick-attention, Talk-Through mode that reduces volume and activates ambient sound for brief chats too. But you won’t find the simple, and handy, automatic pausing when you remove the earbuds from your ears.
The final verdict on the ATH-CKS50TW2
My initial assumption was correct: the main reason to buy the ATH-CKS50TW2 is the extremely long battery life. I don’t think the Magnetic Switch feature is necessary to hit the promised runtime, but it’s nice to know the earbuds are off without having to put them in the case where they’ll recharge even when you don’t need them to. Audio-Technica’s sonic prowess is on display here as well, albeit to a lesser degree than some of the company’s other earbuds and headphones.
The design isn’t the most comfortable and the controls are awkward to use, but the full list of the ATH-CKS50TW2’s features is quite long. Despite a few flaws, there’s plenty to like here, including the two most important things for a lot of users: sound and battery life.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/audio/headphones/audio-technica-ath-cks50tw2-review-long-battery-life-and-satisfying-sound-for-150-130042531.html?src=rss

At a glanceExpert’s Rating

Pros

Long battery life

Sleek build quality with nice touches like a haptic touchpad

Bundled AI software is more useful than on past AI PCs

Cons

It’s just too expensive

No discrete GPU, which is necessary for many AI tasks

Lunar Lake’s multithreaded CPU performance is lacking

Glossy OLED display isn’t ideal in direct sun

Our Verdict
The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i combines a premium Lunar Lake laptop with lots of AI software tricks, but the price tag feels too high.

Price When Reviewed
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The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is a “next-generation AI PC” from HP. I feel like I’ve been hearing about AI PCs for years now, and it’s easy to tune that out. Despite the machine’s capable hardware and attractive build, HP’s primary focus remains on AI. HP really wants to talk about all the AI software it bundled with this PC, so I’ll try to focus more on that in this review than normal. Indeed, this is a high-quality portable PC with solid Lunar Lake hardware.

Assuming you don’t want a discrete GPU, it’s a good pick. But that’s the catch, isn’t it? For lots of local AI tasks, you actually do want a powerful GPU. Or you may at least want strong multithreaded performance and Lunar Lake doesn’t deliver that. This machine is more of a premium laptop with AI tricks than an AI-centered workstation. With an MSRP of nearly $2,429, that’s hard to swallow.

HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Specs

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is a laptop powered by an Intel Core Ultra (Series 2) CPU. This series is the line of processors codenamed Lunar Lake. Specifically, this machine has an Intel Core Ultra 7 268V processor. It’s combined with 32 GB of RAM, and the Lunar Lake NPU handles much of the AI processing this machine is touting.

However, you’re just getting onboard graphics here and that’s normally fine for a lightweight, ultraportable laptop. But, if I’m taking this machine’s AI aspirations seriously, I’ll say I feel that the Intel GPU isn’t the ideal fit for what I’d picture from an AI PC, where lots of workloads — Stable Diffusion image generation, for example — still require a GPU.

CPU: Intel Core Ultra 7 268V

Memory: 32 GB LPDDR5X RAM

Graphics/GPU: Intel Arc 140V

NPU: Intel AI Boost (up to 48 TOPS)

Display: 14-inch 2880×1800 OLED touchscreen

Storage: 512 GB PCIe Gen 4 SSD

Webcam: 1440p camera

Connectivity: 3x Thunderbolt 4 (USB4 Type-C), 1x USB Type-A, 1x combo headphone jack, 1x Kensington nano lock slot

Networking: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4

Biometrics: Fingerprint reader and IR camera for Windows Hello

Battery capacity: 64 watt-hours

Dimensions: 12.35 × 8.55 × 0.48 inches

Weight: 2.68 pounds

MSRP: $2,429, as tested

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is a nice laptop: solid build quality, beautiful OLED screen, reasonable all-around Lunar Lake performance, and serious battery life.

HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Design and build quality

IDG / Chris Hoffman

The 14-inch HP EliteBook Ultra G1i does have great build quality. The chassis is available in a nice dark “Atmosphere Blue” color with a black bezel around the display, giving it an unassuming yet premium feel. Magnesium makes up the chassis, giving it a solid yet lightweight feel characteristic of a high-quality metal laptop. At 2.68 pounds, it’s a good weight — not unusually heavy, but not going out of its way to be unusually light, either.

The laptop’s AI aspirations aren’t exactly loud: The lid has an “HP” logo, but nothing about AI. The only sign of those AI aspirations is the small blue “AI” logo at the bottom-right corner of the keyboard, below the right arrow key.

HP bundles various apps here, including the HP AI Companion app, which includes a support assistant that can answer questions based on HP product manuals and change PC settings. The HP AI Companion app has various features that use GPT-4o in the cloud — the same model you could pull up with ChatGPT. While the integration is interesting and the AI features are much less half-baked than they were on early AI PCs, they probably won’t sway many people to buy this laptop in particular. (But perhaps they may sway you!)

For the price, I wish some of the software was a little less intrusive out of the box. As I write this, I see an “HP Wolf Pro Security” pop-up that touts the software’s AV-Test rating and urges me to register it for full protection. For $2,000 and up, we deserve a more streamlined experience out of the box.

HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Keyboard and trackpad

IDG / Chris Hoffman

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i’s keyboard feels excellent, and I say that as someone who’s been spending more time with mechanical keyboards lately. This isn’t a mechanical keyboard at all, but something about it feels crisp and responsive to me. It’s not mushy at all. You press a key and get a crisp response with a quick lift. It feels great to type on.

The trackpad is also a winner. HP has chosen to use a haptic trackpad here — that’s something I’ve been asking for from PC manufacturers. It’s a nice big, smooth surface, and you can click down anywhere on the surface thanks to the haptic feedback.

HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Display and speakers

IDG / Chris Hoffman

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i has a 2880×1800 OLED display with a variable refresh rate that goes up to 120Hz and 400 nits of brightness. It’s a touch screen, too.

It’s a beautiful OLED screen, and it looks great.

The variable refresh rate should also reduce power consumption, eliminating the need to constantly lock the laptop to 60 Hz. I’m a big fan of OLED displays, but just bear in mind that this is a fairly glossy display (no surprise for OLED displays) and that 400 nits of brightness isn’t the brightest display you’ll find. That means the reflections on this screen can be rather intense, especially in direct sunlight. It’s just something to be aware of, it’s the nature of a glossy display.

This laptop has a “quad speaker design,” according to HP. They sound pretty good for a laptop of this size. They manage to reach a decent level of volume and clarity. There’s perhaps even a bit more bass than I might expect, but this is still a speaker system built into a 14-inch lightweight laptop.

HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Webcam, microphone, biometrics

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i has a 1440p camera with a physical shutter, which is always nice to see. As far as AI features, you’ve got both Windows Studio Effects (thanks to the NPU) along with Poly Camera Pro built in. Poly Camera Pro offers a variety of features like “magic backgrounds” for transforming the way your webcam background looks in any app — replacing it, stylizing it, or applying effects. The webcam image looks unusually high quality and clear, it’s excellent.

HP touts dual-array microphones that make for “loud and clear” sound. They sound fine to me, although I’ve heard clearer audio from some other laptops.

This machine does have a good selection of biometric hardware: both an IR camera for facial recognition with Windows Hello and a fingerprint reader at the top-right corner of the keyboard above the Backspace key.

HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Connectivity

IDG / Chris Hoffman

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i has a decent number of ports, assuming you’re looking for Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) ports. On the left, you’ll find a combo audio jack, a USB Type-A port, and a Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) port. On the right, the machine has two more Thunderbolt 4 (USB Type-C) ports as well as a Kensington lock slot for physically securing the machine.

That’s all — no microSD reader, for example. And bear in mind that this laptop charges over USB Type-C. For more ports, you’ll need a dongle.

Thanks to Lunar Lake, this machine also has the hardware for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4.

HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Performance

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i performs well in day-to-day desktop use. That’s no surprise, as we’ve got an Intel Lunar Lake CPU, a speedy SSD, and 32 GB of RAM here.

As always, though, we ran the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i through our standard benchmarks to see how it performs.

IDG / Chris Hoffman

First, we run PCMark 10 to get an idea of overall system performance. With an overall PCMark 10 score of 7,324, the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i was a little on the speedier side compared to some other Lunar Lake systems we compared it to. However, it wasn’t as fast as the HP OmniBook Ultra 14 with its AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX hardware.

IDG / Chris Hoffman

Next, we run Cinebench R20. This test is a heavily multithreaded benchmark that focuses on overall CPU performance. It’s a quick benchmark, so cooling under extended workloads isn’t a factor. But, since it’s heavily multithreaded, CPUs with more cores have a huge advantage.

With a multithreaded score of 3799, this machine came in behind some other Lunar Lake systems and well behind other PCs with CPUs that have more cores. Lunar Lake CPUs only have eight cores, so they struggle on this sort of synthetic benchmark. That doesn’t mean they struggle in day-to-day computer use, but they aren’t ideal for multithreaded compute-heavy tasks.

IDG / Chris Hoffman

We also run an encode with Handbrake. This is another heavily multithreaded benchmark, but it runs over an extended period of time. This demands the laptop’s cooling kick in, and many laptops will throttle and slow down under load.

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i finished the encode process in 1,576 seconds — that’s over 26 minutes. It’s on the slow side even for Meteor Lake, suggesting throttling under load may occur. This isn’t the ideal system for sustained CPU performance.

IDG / Chris Hoffman

Next, we run a graphical benchmark. This isn’t a gaming laptop, but it’s still good to check how the GPU performs. We run 3DMark Time Spy, a graphical benchmark that focuses on GPU performance.

With a score of 4,186, this machine delivers pretty standard Lunar Lake graphics performance. Intel’s integrated graphics are a lot better than they used to be, but they still can’t compare to a good discrete GPU.

Overall, the HP EliteBook Ultra G1i delivered reasonably standard Lunar Lake performance — slower on some benchmarks and faster than others. There weren’t any big surprises here.

HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Battery life

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i combines a 64 watt-hour battery with Intel’s theoretically power-sipping Lunar Lake hardware, so we’d expect to see better battery life, but not as long as it could be, as some other machines have bigger batteries.

IDG / Chris Hoffman

To benchmark the battery life, we play a 4K copy of Tears of Steel on repeat on Windows 11 with airplane mode enabled until the laptop suspends itself. This is a best-case scenario for any laptop since local video playback is so efficient, and real battery life in day-to-day use is always going to be less than this.

We set the screen to 250 nits of brightness for our battery benchmarks, and it’s worth noting that the EliteBook’s OLED display has a bit of an advantage, as OLED screens use less power to display the black bars around the video.

This machine lasted for 1,089 minutes before suspending itself — that’s over 18 hours. It’s a substantial number that matches what we generally see with Lunar Lake-powered systems, although the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 pulled way ahead of its competitors here.

HP EliteBook Ultra G1i: Conclusion

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is a nice laptop: solid build quality, beautiful OLED screen, reasonable all-around Lunar Lake performance, and serious battery life. That’s without even considering the AI features and if I have to evaluate a laptop based on its AI features, this is one of the better packages I’ve seen so far. HP definitely made a strong effort here.

Still, this is just such an expensive machine. At an MSRP of nearly $2,500, you could choose from so many other Lunar Lake-powered PCs. Consider the Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro, for example. It’s substantially cheaper and has much longer battery life.

Furthermore, if you really are looking for an AI workstation, this machine isn’t it. Lunar Lake doesn’t really deliver the multithreaded CPU performance you might want, and the lack of a discrete GPU means many more demanding local AI tasks are effectively out of reach. This limitation is significant given the high cost of the machine.

The HP EliteBook Ultra G1i is a lovely premium laptop, but its price just means it’s not the right fit for most people.