HP ZBook Studio G3 – top of workstation laptop design

This is a HP ZBook Studio G3,15″ laptop computer with significant poke. Simply take a look at the specifications and try not to whimper with pleasure: a 2.8GHz quad-core mobile Xeon processor with Hyper-Threading, 32GB of RAM, a 512GB PCI Express-based NVMe SSD, and Nvidia Quadro M1000M graphics generating a 15.6″, 3,840 x 2,160 HP DreamColor display.

Offered such a specs, you could possibly forgive HP for neglecting style. Fortunately, the ZBook is as luring in the flesh as its technical specs are in black and white. Through its dimpled, aluminium-clad lid to its glass-topped touchpad and shining chamfered edges, this laptop computer is a pleasure to view.

It’s comfy to use, as well. The laptop keyboard is flanked by Bang & Olufsen stereo audio speakers, and has a key action that’s light to the touch and has merely the right level of travel and feedback. The soft, frosted-finish touchpad is big and responsive, and while We are not usually a supporters of built-in buttons, these ones do the job well with a reliable, positive click.

The many impressive design accomplishment, however, is how much power HP pushes into so very little space. The HP ZBook Studio G3 is closer in weight and slimness to an Ultrabook than to your typical lumpen workstation. You still won’t want to carry it around all day – it weighs 2.1kg – but in comparison with most laptops in its category, it’s efficiently limber. Moreover, at 21mm thick it’s amazingly slender. It does not quite match the 17mm Dell XPS 15, but it’s not really far away.

Regardless of its compact dimension, you’ll find a lot of ports and sockets arranged all-around the edges. On the left, sit a Gigabit Ethernet connector, two USB 3 ports and an SD card slot. On the right are two Thunderbolt 3/USB Type-C ports, and also an HDMI output, one more USB 3 port and a 3.5mm audio jack. Wi-fi connectivity, at the same time, stretches to 2×2 stream 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.
HP has not forgotten the display. It’s a wide-gamut, non-touchscreen, high-DPI display with a matte finish. At initial glance it looks razor-sharp, colourful and punchy in all the right ways.
Under the beady eye of our X-Rite colorimeter, the contrast ratio hit a high 1,212:1, which ensures punchy images and an inky black level. I was also suitably pleased by the panel’s sRGB coverage of 99.2%.

However, colour precision isn’t up to same quality, with an average Delta E figure of 2.96 seeing it fall behind its main rival, the Dell XPS 15’s (1.48), by quite a long way. Meanwhile, maximum brightness reaches only 259cd/m2, which is some way short of the Dell XPS 15’s 363cd/m2. As long as you don’t venture outdoors with it, though, that should not prove too much of a issue.

We was considerably less taken with the speakers. Even though Bang & Olufsen-branded, they’re absolutely nothing exclusive. They’re clear and provide music with lots of atmosphere, but there isn’t much warmth or body to the sound, and precious little bass.

Is actually HP ZBook Studio G3 really worth the money? If you want a portable ISV-certified notebook computer, then definitely. No workstation laptop we have tested includes a chassis this thin and light with performance this extremely fast. It stands at the top of workstation laptop design, with only the Dell Precision M3800, a 3.2kg workstation laptop that can at the moment only be specific with a Haswell Intel Core i7.Price:$6,000