I’ve been doing this job long enough to have witnessed several team-ups between laptop makers and luxury car brands – in fact, I’ve still got an Acer Ferrari One netbook (remember those?!) collecting dust somewhere.
I can certainly see the appeal for PC makers, as getting to slap a badge from brands such as Ferrari, Porsche, and others can help associate your device in the minds of consumers with speed, even if, like the Acer Ferrari One, the hardware can only achieve the kinds of speed you’d expect from a particularly lazy tortoise after a large meal. For the car brands, I guess it helps get their name out there and into the hands of people who would usually never be able to afford one of their vehicles.
So, when I was invited to see a new collaboration between HP and Ferrari, I went expecting to see a completely decent, bedecked with fancy car logos; nothing much more than a fancy advert in laptop-form. However, after my time checking out the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari AI PC, I came away happy to be completely wrong.
It’s clear, after talking to representatives from both HP and Ferrari, that this is a much deeper collaboration that’s been a while in the making (two years, no less). The result is a laptop that takes innovations from both companies – but one that you’re probably not going to be able to buy.
Two years in the making
You might think that the combo of HP, primarily known for PCs and printers, and Ferrari, best known for luxury cars and Formula 1, isn’t the most natural of partnerships – I certainly did, but the team-up does actually make some sense.
For a start, HP has been a major sponsor of Ferrari’s Formula 1 team, called Scuderia Ferrari HP, and while that means the HP logo is on the car and driver uniforms, it also involves behind-the-scenes collaboration, with HP providing laptops and other bits of tech.
The fact that Ferrari’s design team spends a lot of time thinking of ways to make products as light, fast, and thermodynamic (keeping key parts of the engine and car as cool as possible) also has obvious parallels with HP’s design team, who do similar when designing laptops.
So, the partnership makes a lot more sense than you might initially think – still, I was concerned that this would be little more than a basic HP laptop with a fancy Ferrari logo on it.
As I was taken through the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari AI PC and the design decisions that were taken, it became increasingly clear that wasn’t the case. A lot of this is due to the attention to detail that both teams brought to the laptop.
Take the color, for example, which is Rosso Magma – the same found on some of Ferrari’s most iconic cars. The deep, rich red is instantly recognisable, and has an almost 3D look to it in places thanks to the CNC-machined anodized aluminum and a zirconium bead-blasted surface. When the laptop is opened, the material of the palm rest beneath the keyboard has a horizontal streak effect which, I was told, is designed to resemble the blur of a fast-moving object, which I think works well.
The glass trackpad used to control the mouse curser is integrated seamlessly into the palm rest, with no visible outline. While this gives the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari AI PC a stylish and minimalist look, I do have some concerns about this design choice.
Like when Dell introduced a similar ‘invisible’ trackpad to its high-end laptops, not being able to see or feel when the trackpad begins and ends isn’t great for accessibility, and means you might find it hard to use without concentrating.
The HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari AI PC mitigates this slightly by having a larger-than-normal trackpad size, and a thin red light runs along the top of the trackpad, indicating where it begins and ends. It certainly helps without compromising the overall design of the laptop, but I do worry that it would still be an issue for visually-impaired users.
The rest of the design of the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari AI PC, however, is impeccable, especially the underside of the laptop (which is often, understandably, neglected as it’s the least visible part of a laptop when being used).
The underside of the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari AI PC is inspired by the engine bays of Ferrari cars, with a Gorilla Glass window that shows off the cooling pipes and components. The glass is lazer-drilled, allowing for essential airflow to the components, and there are some lovely touches such as the coordinates of both the Ferrari and HP headquarters etched onto some of the parts. These little ‘easter eggs’ again highlight the attention to detail put into this laptop by both teams.
While the window is influenced by Ferrari cars, as many gaming PCs with tempered glass panels prove, PC users often like to show off the powerful components that beat at the heart of their devices, so I can see this appealing to both Ferrari fans and PC enthusiasts alike.
The rest of the underside is made of nanocarbon material, again similar to that found on certain performance cars, which keeps the laptop cool and light.
Along the rear hinge, there’s a venting system based on the Ferrari F76, which helps keep the laptop cool by expelling heat generated by the components, and it’s another great example of how the HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari AI PC is a collaboration of both form and function.
High-end specs
The HP Limited Edition Scuderia Ferrari AI PC also features some pretty impressive specs as well. The screen is a 3K Tandem OLED+ touch display, and from what I saw, it looked fantastic with bright, rich colors and excellent contrast.
It comes with the very latest Intel Core Ultra X7 processor, which is a high-end mobile laptop processor, so you can expect mobile workstation-level performance and powerful integrated graphics.
There’s also a hefty 64GB of LPDDR5x RAM, a 1TB SSD, and Wi-Fi 7 connectivity. Three USB-C ports (two of which are Thunderbolt 4) and a USB-A port are also included, plus HDMI and an audio jack.
It’s certainly a beast of a laptop, but with a limited number (just 4,999), and a price of $5,599 (around £4,200 / AU$8,000) when it goes on sale on June 12, 2026, this is likely to be out of most people’s budgets, and while I certainly won’t want to buy one (not that I even have the money for it), it’s cool to see what a combination of laptop and car makers can achieve when they work together to make something that’s not just a fancy branding exercise.
I’d also love to see some of the innovations Ferrari brought to this laptop someday make their way to more affordable HP laptops.
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matthew.hanson@futurenet.com (Matt Hanson)
