HP Fortis Flip 11" B86CBUT#ABA, Intel N250, 4GB, 128GB SSD

The HP Fortis Flip G1i is an 11.6-inch 2-in-1 notebook built for classroom durability, not performance. Its compact size and rugged hinge are great, but 4GB of RAM, a dim 1366x768 screen, and a slow Intel N250 CPU make it hard to recommend for individual buyers at $669 USD. School districts buying in bulk will appreciate the Windows 11 Pro Education licensing and tough build, but everyone else should look for something with more RAM and a better display.

The Intel N250 is a 4-core, 4-thread chip with a 3.8GHz boost clock. It's designed for light web browsing, document editing, and not much else. In our database, this CPU sits in the 5th percentile, which means it's slower than 95% of laptops we've tested. Opening a handful of Chrome tabs will work, but expect some lag when switching between apps. The integrated Intel Graphics share system memory, and with only 4GB total, there's not much to go around.

Storage is a 128GB NVMe SSD, which sounds fine until you realize Windows 11 Pro Education eats a big chunk of that out of the box. You'll have maybe 80-90GB usable after updates. The SSD itself is decent for this class, but the capacity lands in the 9th percentile. RAM is the real bottleneck here. 4GB of LPDDR5X is fast memory, but it's soldered down with no upgrade path. Once you hit the memory ceiling, the system starts swapping to the SSD and everything slows to a crawl. For a student laptop in 2025, 8GB should be the floor.

Compared to the Apple MacBook Pro M5, the Fortis Flip is not even in the same conversation. The MacBook Pro costs several times more and delivers dramatically better performance, battery life, and screen quality. But that's not a fair fight. The more relevant comparison is against budget Windows laptops and Chromebooks. The Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 6 offers far more RAM, a better keyboard, and a proper 14-inch display for business users, though it's heavier and pricier. The ASUS Zenbook UX3405CA is another step up with an OLED screen and much stronger CPU performance.

Against the Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition, the Fortis Flip wins on price and durability but loses on everything else: screen, speed, battery, and build quality. The MSI Creator A13V is aimed at creators and has a discrete GPU, which makes the Fortis Flip's integrated graphics look like a calculator by comparison. If you're choosing between this and a Chromebook in the same price range, the Chromebook will feel snappier for web-based tasks, but you lose Windows app compatibility.

At $669 USD, the Fortis Flip G1i is a tough sell for individual buyers. You can find 8GB RAM laptops with better screens for less money if you skip the 2-in-1 hinge and rugged build. The value proposition makes more sense for school districts buying in bulk, where the durable chassis, Windows 11 Pro Education licensing, and easy management justify the premium. For everyone else, the CAD 937 and MXN 25,790 prices are even harder to swallow. If you need a cheap 11-inch touchscreen laptop, this works, but you're paying for durability and form factor, not performance.

The HP Fortis Flip G1i is an 11.6-inch 2-in-1 notebook aimed squarely at schools and budget-conscious buyers who need something small, touch-friendly, and tough enough to survive a backpack. It runs Windows 11 Pro Education on an Intel N250 4-core processor with 4GB of soldered LPDDR5X RAM and a 128GB SSD. Pricing sits around $669 USD, which puts it in a weird spot: cheap enough for bulk education purchases, but expensive enough that you'd expect more than 4GB of RAM in 2025.

People searching for an 11-inch touchscreen laptop for students will find the Fortis Flip checks the form factor box. The 360-degree hinge means it folds into tablet mode, tent mode, or standard laptop mode. But the specs tell a story of compromise. The 1366x768 VA panel with 250 nits of brightness is one of the dimmest, lowest-resolution screens in our database. And 4GB of RAM is rough for Windows 11, even the Education edition.

HP built this thing for durability and classroom use, not performance. The compact score hits the 100th percentile, which makes sense given the tiny footprint and 1.47kg weight. But the CPU lands in the bottom 5th percentile and storage in the bottom 9th. If you're wondering whether this is a good laptop for everyday multitasking, the answer depends heavily on how patient you are.

Skip this if you need to run anything beyond a web browser and Office apps. The 4GB of RAM will choke on photo editing, coding environments, or even too many Chrome tabs. If you want a personal laptop for school or work, get something with at least 8GB of RAM and a 1080p screen. A used ThinkPad, a budget ASUS, or even a Chromebook will serve you better for the same money. This is also not a gaming laptop in any sense, the integrated graphics score 4.4 out of 100 for gaming, which is about as low as it gets.

Should you buy the HP Fortis Flip G1i? If you're a school IT administrator buying hundreds of units for students who will drop them, spill on them, and shove them into lockers, yes. The rugged design, compact size, and Windows 11 Pro Education management tools make sense in that context. The 360-degree hinge and touchscreen are genuinely useful for younger students.

But if you're a parent buying one laptop for your kid, or a student buying for yourself, look elsewhere. The 4GB of RAM will frustrate you within a year. The screen is hard to look at for long sessions. And the price doesn't match the specs. You can get a used ThinkPad or a new budget laptop with 8GB of RAM and a 1080p screen for similar money. This is a fleet machine, not a personal one.