HP ZBook Studio G7 Laptop Review - The best mobile workstation thanks to vapor chamber and DreamColor?

[Redaktion]

Almost all manufacturers offer slim workstations, but you usually do not get very powerful GPUs. HP on the other hand equips its ZBook Studio G7 with powerful Quadro RTX GPUs from Nvidia and also puts a very good DreamColor display with the 4K resolution and HDR in the stylish chassis. Is the vapor chamber cooling powerful enough to utilize the full power of the components?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-ZBook-Studio-G7-Laptop-Review-The-best-mobile-workstation-thanks-to-vapor-chamber-and-DreamColor.528858.0.html

[fsdfsdf]

91% score for 3550€ peace of garbage, which severely underperforms :)) Guys, are you ok? Why are you doing this...

[Rohi]

This needs 16:10 or 3:2 screen and SODIMM slots! I'm not sure how this machine scored so high at 91%.

[GeneraISoybeans]

This needs 16:10 or 3:2 screen and SODIMM slots! I'm not sure how this machine scored so high at 91%.

Good luck finding a 16:10 or 3:2 laptop that has 700 nit brightness, great brightness distribution, 2000:1 contrast ratio, no PWM, doesn't have the risk of burn-in, and has Apple level calibration. You do realize that companies have to purchase their panels from other retailers such as LG, Sharp, AU Optronics, and HP bought the highest end display they could, which happened to be from LG. If you want 16:10 or 3:2, yell at those companies, not the laptop manufactures.

[Gnomobokkurr]

Echoing what GeneralSoybean said, this panel is clearly outperforming the Shap Panel on Dell XPS in many metrics, and the Sharp panel on XPS is widely regarded as the best 16:10/15' panel available. Given that it is likely Dell has the best access to top-end Sharp panels due to their long relationship (XPS series have been exclusively using Sharp IGZO panels for years), it is easy to see why HP went this route.

This panel does not even show up on panellook, so it might be a "HP special" from LG, even. BTW, I use the new Zbook Power myself (a very good laptop), and the 1920*1080, NTSC100%/8bit panel I got with it does not show up on PanelLook, neither -- I think, it is a pretty good panel aside from its poor default calibration.

About the price, well, nobody should pay the stated price for the custom-configured business laptops from HP. Places such as B&H have pre-configured models available which are more reasonably priced. The HP website sometimes runs heavy discounts of BTO models, which is how I got my Zbook Power. Note that Zbooks comes with 3 years international warranty (which also has the much better support than their consumer products), or have it available as a cheap upgrade. They also have the excellent long-term support, my old Z-book kept receiving BIOS-updates for years. If you depend on your laptop for your job, the great warranty and supports are worth far more than, say, having a bit faster NVidia GPU.:)

[Dorby]

I have ZBook Create 15 "counterpart" with Geforce and 4K UHD Touch OLED display instead of this 4K non-Touch IPS, which I hear is quite spectacular.

This laptop is one of the favorite laptops I've owned, and at the time of purchase, easily beat out the X1 Extreme, XPS 15, Envy 15, ZenBook Pro, MacBook Pro, MSI Creator 15 or any other "Pro" laptop for me, as it was offered with a great deal by a HP rep.
Simply put, no other laptop had a High-end graphics + Touchscreen + under 2kg combo that I needed, so ZBook was my best and only option.

Although not perfect, HP has come a long way with cooling, and IMO the ZBook Studio wholeheartedly deserves more than 91% as their crown jewel.

My only gripe is the hinge angle, I really wish it could lie all the way back at 180 degrees because I'm so use to it.

[Skedoodle]

This needs 16:10 or 3:2 screen and SODIMM slots! I'm not sure how this machine scored so high at 91%.

Good luck finding a 16:10 or 3:2 laptop that has 700 nit brightness, great brightness distribution, 2000:1 contrast ratio, no PWM, doesn't have the risk of burn-in, and has Apple level calibration. You do realize that companies have to purchase their panels from other retailers such as LG, Sharp, AU Optronics, and HP bought the highest end display they could, which happened to be from LG. If you want 16:10 or 3:2, yell at those companies, not the laptop manufactures.

I don't think you get supply and demand. As a consumer, you demand from the manufacturers the features that you'd like to see, and it is up to the manufacturers to work further up the supply chain to get that for you.

Also, 700 nits? Do you want to preserve your vision until you retire or do you give it all to your employer?

[GeneraISoybeans]

This needs 16:10 or 3:2 screen and SODIMM slots! I'm not sure how this machine scored so high at 91%.

Good luck finding a 16:10 or 3:2 laptop that has 700 nit brightness, great brightness distribution, 2000:1 contrast ratio, no PWM, doesn't have the risk of burn-in, and has Apple level calibration. You do realize that companies have to purchase their panels from other retailers such as LG, Sharp, AU Optronics, and HP bought the highest end display they could, which happened to be from LG. If you want 16:10 or 3:2, yell at those companies, not the laptop manufactures.

I don't think you get supply and demand. As a consumer, you demand from the manufacturers the features that you'd like to see, and it is up to the manufacturers to work further up the supply chain to get that for you.

Also, 700 nits? Do you want to preserve your vision until you retire or do you give it all to your employer?

Do you not realize that people go outside? If a display is 700 nits, you don't leave it 100% brightness. People go outside, and since this display is very bright, they don't have to worry about not seeing anything on the screen when they are outside on a bench.

[xpclient]

Mobile workstations with soldered RAM and that clickpad, no pointing stick or buttons, are now the "best"? LOL

[Ridd]

This needs 16:10 or 3:2 screen and SODIMM slots! I'm not sure how this machine scored so high at 91%.

Good luck finding a 16:10 or 3:2 laptop that has 700 nit brightness, great brightness distribution, 2000:1 contrast ratio, no PWM, doesn't have the risk of burn-in, and has Apple level calibration. You do realize that companies have to purchase their panels from other retailers such as LG, Sharp, AU Optronics, and HP bought the highest end display they could, which happened to be from LG. If you want 16:10 or 3:2, yell at those companies, not the laptop manufactures.

I don't think you get supply and demand. As a consumer, you demand from the manufacturers the features that you'd like to see, and it is up to the manufacturers to work further up the supply chain to get that for you.

Also, 700 nits? Do you want to preserve your vision until you retire or do you give it all to your employer?

Do you not realize that people go outside? If a display is 700 nits, you don't leave it 100% brightness. People go outside, and since this display is very bright, they don't have to worry about not seeing anything on the screen when they are outside on a bench.

Outside or not, it is the same amount of flux from the screen. How does being outside protect your eyes from excessive artificial illumination? Do you not wear sunglasses when it is bright outside or are you ok with all that light hitting your retinas?

[Ridd]

This needs 16:10 or 3:2 screen and SODIMM slots! I'm not sure how this machine scored so high at 91%.

Good luck finding a 16:10 or 3:2 laptop that has 700 nit brightness, great brightness distribution, 2000:1 contrast ratio, no PWM, doesn't have the risk of burn-in, and has Apple level calibration. You do realize that companies have to purchase their panels from other retailers such as LG, Sharp, AU Optronics, and HP bought the highest end display they could, which happened to be from LG. If you want 16:10 or 3:2, yell at those companies, not the laptop manufactures.

I don't think you get supply and demand. As a consumer, you demand from the manufacturers the features that you'd like to see, and it is up to the manufacturers to work further up the supply chain to get that for you.

Also, 700 nits? Do you want to preserve your vision until you retire or do you give it all to your employer?

Do you not realize that people go outside? If a display is 700 nits, you don't leave it 100% brightness. People go outside, and since this display is very bright, they don't have to worry about not seeing anything on the screen when they are outside on a bench.

Also outdoor use seems like a more niche use case than 16:10 screens on a creator-type laptop.

[passenger]

2kg 15" with NO sodimm slot? lmao I'm out.

Also, there shall be charging ports on both sides of a laptop like what MBPR 16" does IMHO. Even when using usb PD may limit charging speed; as long as it charges fast enough for light productivity, say 65w.
It's way more convenient this way: cafe, college lecture halls, airports, etc. don't always have nice-positioned wall plugs. It's awkward when you got to route your charging cord all the way around, only to discover that even with this effort the cable is just not long enough and you have to use it in a weird angle.

@Ridd
People don't voluntarily go outside use their laptop under direct sun light instead of walking their dog or something.
People got work to do.
Yeah 16:10 is good, but brightness *options* is also important; after all you could just scale down the brightness as you see fit, or ignore the bright dream color variant at the beginning.

[Ridd]

@Ridd
People don't voluntarily go outside use their laptop under direct sun light instead of walking their dog or something.
People got work to do.
Yeah 16:10 is good, but brightness *options* is also important; after all you could just scale down the brightness as you see fit, or ignore the bright dream color variant at the beginning.

I understand that fully and I'm not debating at all that people work outdoors, but just that if someone IS going to use high brightness (outdoors or not), it would not be very healthy for their eyes in the long term. I would not use a high brightness level to compensate for increased outdoor illumination and I did previously work partly outdoors doing sampling and stuff. We never used these "creator' laptops for that either, we used things like Panasonic Toughbooks or similar stuff and they get tossed around on the dirt quite a lot. We also didn't have a need for 700 nits laptops and just some shade by turning the body usually worked.

Again, I'm not saying that there is no need for 700 nits, but just that if someone does have that need, there is also a corresponding need to watch out for your ocular health and so having this capability is not strictly a positive. Another example might be that cellphones that have higher SAR ratings *may* have a better ability to hold a connection in some cases, but that also comes with an increased dose for the user. Or having routers that can crank up their output 10x to drown out the neighbours. That's a feature sometimes, but I wouldn't rank a router using that.

[Dorby]

If taller aspect ratio, or upgradeable ram and more storage, or touchpad buttons and pointing sticks are more important to you, go buy those laptops. This one isn't for you.

Of course, having all those choices would be great, but adding more options usually come with a heavy cost increase. This laptop is an already expensive flagship, so they had to cut costs somewhere, while still standing out from the sea of competition.

I'm personally far more satisfied to see production costs spent on getting 'Dreamcolor', OLED Touch, and Privacy display options, and Vapor-Chamber Cooling than everything else that might add even more to the price.

[ITStud]

I just wish HP didn't decide to lock down all Zbook BIOSes for undervolting. That was such a great way to keep temperatures in check while maintaining even higher performance for advanced users. It's literally an option they could reintroduce as a toggle. And they took it out without notice, with no way to downgrade to the previous firmware because of some artificial limitation. Really upsetting when I already had an impeccable setup with Throttlestop with my Studio X360, which could still hold the crown for the best 2in1 in the world. Makes me reconsider my future decision about buying their workstations, unless they change their mind.