Intro
Recently there’s been a growing market for slim, lightweight technical and creator professional mobile workstations. HP launched two models to enter this expanding category with the ZBook Create and Studio G7. The only difference between the two laptops is the choice of GPU’s. The Create uses the GeForce RTX and the Studio uses the Quadro RTX depending on your usage. We’ll be reviewing the HP ZBook Studio G7 with a Quadro RTX T1000 graphics. Is it up to snuff? Let’s find out.
Design
Lift the Studio G7 out of the box, and you will be met with a grey exterior colour with a large ZBook logo on top of the display lid. It’s sturdy and robust when you hold it in your hands. Your fingers touch the bevelled chrome lathed edges, making it easier to lift the display lid. Weighting in at 1.74kg or 3.84 pounds, which is 22% more compact.
There’s no flexing anywhere on the keyboard deck and the lid is well supported too.
The dimensions have been shrunken down (14% thinner) to compete with the Apple MacBook Pro 16 making the Studio G7 slightly smaller than the MacBook and only a little taller in height. Plus the MacBook Pro is heavier at 2.0kg or 4.3 pounds. The Studio G7 has passed 21 MIL-STD 810H tests.
The internals are fairly straight forward to access. Loosen the seven Torx T8 screws on the bottom cover. Release the edges near the hinge and lift up the bottom cover to reveal the components.
Unfortunately the memory modules are soldered on to accommodate the compact mobile workstation dimensions. The PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD is replaceable along with the battery.
Display
This review model has a new 15.6” 4K Dreamcolour IPS display panel. The matt finish is preferred over AMOLED and glossy touchscreens. Colours are accurate, vibrant and vivid thanks to 100% DCI-P3, HDR-400 display with Pantone validation and 10-bit colour.
At 600 nits, the HP ZBook Studio G7 is the king of brightness.You’ll find that you can easily dial it down to 50% and still work comfortably. When you need to work in bright conditions, this anti-glare panel has no issues.
The webcam and IR sensors have shrunken on the thin bezels to accommodate the 87% screen to body ratio.
Connectivity
On the right we have one power connector, two USB Type-C Thunderbolt 3 ports, HDMI port, and SD 4.0 media card reader. On the left we have a nano security lock, USB 3.1 Type-A 5Gbps with charging and a headphone/microphone combo.
Wireless connectivity is managed by the Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 2×2 and Bluetooth 5.0 combo. There’s a noticeable difference in faster wireless speeds when you connect the Studio to a modern AC wireless access point or a Wi-Fi 6 router. Bluetooth signal is good with cordless headsets or mice.
Keyboard & Touchpad
The keyboard is designed with quiet typing in mind. Butterfly keys, anti-rattle brackets and two level back-lighting. There is 1.3mm key travel with good tactile feedback. In practice the keys are really quiet for typing in lecture theatres, libraries or a busy meeting room. The keyboard is spill resistant and there’s a drain hole in the main vent underneath. There’s no space for a number pad. But there is a programmable hot key to launch an application or website.
The clickpad has Microsoft Precision driver multi-touch gesture support. The glass touchpad is generously large in size with a smooth glide action. No issues with using it for hours on end. For those with OCD tendencies, the touchpad is central rather than to one side.
Audio & Webcam
My god, the audio on the Studio G7 is amazing. Lots of depth, detail and the bass, where did that come from? Volume is really loud without getting distorted. Most of the time you find 15% volume is loud enough. The three speakers are tuned by Bang & Olufsen, with bass down to 150 hz and volume up to 179 db, for accurate audio workflow.
The slim webcam unit is surrounded by IR sensors and dual microphones along with a further two microphones on the display lid. Giving superior microphone audio during Zoom or Teams calls. The same can’t be said for the 720P webcam which is so poor with grainy footage that I would go out and spend the loose change from buying this £2.5K laptop with a better webcam.
Performance
This review model has an Intel® Core™ i9-10885H Comet Lake processor running at a 2.4 GHz base frequency, up to 5.3 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology. 8 cores are ticking at the heart of the CPU with a power consumption TDP of 45 watts.
With this in mind HP have designed vaporforce thermals with a vapor chamber to distribute and transfer the heat generated from the CPU and GPU. Twin polymer fans suck in and blow out hot air through the three vents at the side and by the hinges.
Fan noise is kept to a minimum with general usage. When it spins up it gets loud for around 30 seconds before dying back down. Other times during heavy tasks the fan stays on and it can be annoying in noise.
The laptop never gets too hot to use. Even when under load it only gets slightly warm. Side left vent never gets too warm either. The fans do a great job of pushing out the hot air.
On the Cinebench stress testing, the Studio G7 scored an average of 3494 points. The CPU sustains 4.30Ghz consistently thanks to the excellent thermals. PCMark10 benchmark produced a score of 4699 points and 4412 points on SuperPosition Benchmark.
The i9-10885H is partnered on this Studio G7 with 16GB DDR4 memory and a
Samsung 512 GB PCIe MVMe M.2 SSD storage. Performance is strong in Adobe Creative Cloud tasks. Premiere Pro took 26 ½ minutes to encode 10 and a half minutes of a 4K60 video. The Studio G7 is also highly capable with AutoDesk and SketchUp.
Target Audience
Here’s a list of the target audience for the HP ZBook Studio G7.
Product Developers – SolidWorks, AutoDesk, Creo
Architects – Revit, SketchUp, Unity
Creative Professionals – Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, Blender, Final Cut
Graphics
Graphics is looked after by the integrated Intel® UHD Graphics 630 iGPU and discrete NVIDIA® Quadro® T1000 with Max-Q Design (4 GB GDDR6 dedicated). The Max-Q variants are clocked lower and work in a more efficient state. When taxed the GPU stays at around 67c. Depending on your work requirements, HP offers higher discrete graphics models from the Quadro T2000, Quadro RTX 3000 and 4000, right up to the flagship Quadro RTX 5000 with 16GB GDDR6 memory.
Gaming
The Quadro T1000 will happily run most games in high 1080P settings if you fancy a spot of gaming after hours. It’s behind the GTX 1650 but games like Forza Street from a couple of years ago runs perfectly. Newer titles like Flight Simulator 2020 will run fairly smoothly in slightly lower detail.
Security
The ZBook has a plethora of security features to keep your data secure. There’s a fingerprint sensor, Windows Hello facial recognition, Microphone mute button, TPM 2.0 chip, HP Sure Sense, HP Sure Click and HP Client Security with security applications like Sure Run and Sure Recover.
Battery Life
The Studio G7 has a large 6-cell, 83 Wh Li-ion polymer battery to keep up with the high end hardware specs. The battery lasted six hours of video playback with 50% brightness and better battery. In my general usage of the ZBook, surfing, spotify, office tasks, and emails the laptop lasts around 6 to 7 hours. If you are running Blender animation or Adobe Premiere Pro at full performance expect 2-3 hours.
Luckily with the 150 W Slim Smart external AC power adapter, you can recharge the battery pretty rapidly from zero to 67% in 30 mins with fast charging.
Top 3 Pros and Cons before buying the HP ZBook Studio G7
Dreamy Display – The Dreamcolour 4K screen is a joy to use as a creative professional. Accurate colour, excellent brightness levels and a matt finish to reduce eye fatigue
Sonic Speakers – The speakers on the ZBook Studio G7 are special. When you first play a tune on Spotify, whether it’s the latest pop song to rock, sound is rich with a powerful performance. Dynamics is impressive along with a deep bass that most laptops don’t have.
Compact Workstation – The ZBook Studio G7 has been trimmed down to a compact and thin dimension for a mobile workstation. You can easily take it around with you without compromising on top hardware specs.
Limited memory – The Studio G7 and its twin, the Create G7 has soldered on memory to keep its compact size. Therefore it would be wise to order the maximum 32GB memory model as you won’t be able to upgrade it later.
Poor webcam – Not sure why HP didn’t include a privacy shutter, whether mechanical or electronic with the Studio G7. If you are paying nearly several thousand pounds for this workstation, I am very surprised they couldn’t factor in a privacy shutter OR a decent webcam.
Fan Noise – When the ZBook is installing a heavy game like Flight Simulation or encoding a 4K video, the fans can hit some audible noises to be distracting. Wish it came with HP Command Center like on the Spectre and Envy models to give you the option whether you wanted full performance or silent mode rather than relying on the BIOS to decide.
Competition
There’s healthy competition in the slim mobile workstation category. What are the alternatives to the ZBook Studio G7? In no particular order here are some to consider.
Lenovo ThinkPad P1 GEN 3 (15”)
Dell XPS 15
Apple MacBook Pro 16 inch
Gigabyte Aero 15
Razer Blade 15 Studio
Summary
The HP ZBook Studio G7 is a beautiful compact mobile workstation designed for someone who wants powerful components to help them achieve their daily tasks with minimum effort. It’s no surprise that HP is aiming at the Apple MacBook Pro 16 inch crowd. Gorgeous build quality, 4K Dreamcolour display panel, top CPU/GPU specs and excellent audio speakers ensures the Studio G7 goes toe to toe if not exceed the MacBook Pro in features.
However, like the Apple MacBook Pro 16 inch, the ZBook Studio G7 is not cheap. You are paying top dollar and upgrades are limited due to its small dimensions. If you need more memory, power and upgrade options go for the HP ZBook Fury G7 otherwise the HP ZBook Studio G7 won’t disappoint.
What do you guys think? Leave your comments and discuss below.
Hope you guys enjoyed the review of the HP ZBook Studio G7 laptop?