Intro
It’s been a year since we reviewed the HP ZBook G6 mobile workstation aimed at users that demand the very best hardware specs in a laptop chassis. The ZBook Fury G7 usurps the G6 with updated hardware specs, a smaller design and plenty of upgrade options. Does it do enough to stay at the pinnacle of mobile workstations? Let’s find out.
Design
The Fury G7 is the practical big brother of the current ZBook mobile workstation range. The engineers managed to shave 12% in dimensions from the G6 predecessor. It’s also slightly lighter at 2.35kg or 5.18 pounds. The bezels around the Full HD screen are thinner too.
At just over one inch thick, the Fury G7 is not one to move around with you too much or even attempt to hold with one hand due to the weight.
It’s an aluminium/magnesium laptop tested to MIL-STD 810H to withstand drops, shocks and other environmental hazards. Even up to a thousand cleaning cycles with household wipes in this COVID world.
Upgrade Options
The bottom cover is tool-less to open up. Slide the service door release latch and undo the security screw to unlock and the bottom slides off.
Slide the battery latches to the left to unlock and remove the 94Wh battery. This exposes the 2.5” hard drive SATA enclosure for additional archive storage. Unscrew the EMI and heat covers to show the two SODIMM slots along with a slot for the PCIe NVMe M.2 drive.
The Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 wireless card is removable. There is space for a WWAN 4G LTE module as an optional extra.
To access the 3rd and 4th SODIMM slots plus the second M.2 SSD slot, undo the three keyboard screws, detach the pointing stick cable and insert a release plastic tool through the keyboard release opening near the fan. This will pop open the keyboard slightly to allow you to remove the keyboard held with plastic clips. Release the ribbon connectors and the EMI covers to expose the two SODIMM slots and the second NVMe SSD slot.
A maximum of 32GB per memory slot, to give you a whopping 128GB non-ECC memory capacity for data-intensive workloads. The two M.2 drive slots give you the flexibility of RAID options if required.
Display
The 15.6 inch Full HD IPS Anti-reflective display panel is excellent to use with intensive 3D tasks or just writing a 100 page report. Viewing angles are great from the IPS screen and colours are vivid with true blacks thanks to the 100% sRGB colour coverage.
There’s no backlight bleed from the panel and it’s rated at 400 nits brightness to assist with great contrast and viewing from strong outdoor lighting.
The strong dual hinges fold down to 180 degrees to give you the best reading angles and collaboration work with colleagues if needed.
Connectivity
On the right we have an AC Power Connector, two Thunderbolt™ 3 (40Gbps signaling rate) with SuperSpeed USB Type-C® 10Gbps signaling rate (USB Power Delivery, DisplayPort™ 1.4, HP Sleep and Charge), one Mini DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.0b and a SD 4.0 media card reader.
On the left we have Gigabit RJ45, a nano security lock, two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, one with charging, headphone/microphone combo jack and a smart card reader.
Wireless connectivity is taken care of with the Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 2×2 vPro wireless module and Bluetooth 5 combo card. WiFi 6 coverage was excellent over two floors and between three office rooms. Bluetooth was excellent too when connected to headphones or a bluetooth mouse.
Keyboard & Touchpad
The HP Premium Quiet Keyboard is full size and spill-resistant with a drain hole underneath. The keyboard is nicely spaced out with a numeric keypad and a HP programmable key to launch shortcuts like a favourite website or application.
Typing is a joy with good travel on the chiclet keys. Certainly not an issue with using the keyboard for a full working day. If your day stretches to the evening, the two level backlit keys will help.
The sizeable precision clickpad is surrounded by two sets of physical buttons, one for the touchpad and one for the pointstick, located between the G, H and B keys.
The clickpad is superb thanks to the glass surface along with the generous dimensions. The pointstick is accurate when you prefer to use this over the clickpad.
Audio & Webcam
The dual stereo speakers are tuned by Bang & Olufsen with the result being impressive. The speakers are located above the keyboard for top-firing orientation. Along with a discrete amp, there is no noticeable distortion at high levels. Whether you are listening to your college virtual tutor talking or listening on Spotify to some Jazz or James Arthur, sound is great especially as this is a workhorse mobile workstation.
The ZBook has dual facing digital microphones and two at the back of the display lid for optimal pickup of audio when you are on a Zoom or Teams meeting.
The Fury G7 is configured with a 720p webcam and IR Camera for facial recognition safe sign-in with Windows Hello. There’s a privacy shutter slider to block out the view. The IR camera worked well with quick logins. However I can’t say the same for the webcam. It’s a poor webcam with blocky artefacts and weak colour accuracy. For an expensive workstation and a year since the pandemic started, manufacturers should be beefing up this area by now.
Performance
The ZBook Fury G7 lineup is all about delivering high performance hardware, our test model has an Intel® Core™ i7-10850H processor based on the Comet Lake architecture. The 2.7 GHz base frequency goes up to 5.1 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology. The 6 cores run at a TDP of 45 watts.
Our review laptop came with a single stick of 16GB DDR4 memory and a 512GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD. Working on Adobe Premiere Pro on one of my 4K reviews, even with just 16GB of RAM was easily manageable. Along with Photoshop open, several browser tabs and Spotify streaming provided no challenge to the workstation.
Benchmarking results show excellent scores. Cinebench R23 testing produced a score of 6813 multi-core and 1308 in single core. 3DMark Time Spy results came in with a CPU score of 5921 and a graphics score of 3159. PCMark 10 had an overall score of 4819 and Superposition resulted in a score of 6252. Geekbench 5.3.1 CPU tests gave a multi-core score of 5655 and 1250 single core. While the Compute test gave a score of 42104 with the Quadro T2000 GPU.
Of course, the i7-10850H is no match for the 8 core AMD Ryzen 7 4800H processor especially on multi-core processing tasks. The i7-10850H manages to hold onto some gains on single core tasks but overall the 4800H is superior.
The Fury G7 performs better when it’s plugged into the mains, whereas throttle management hits the processor on battery life to keep thermals down.
Fan noise is kept to a minimum thanks to HP’s Vapourforce thermals at work. Cold air is sucked in from the bottom through the dual fans and out at the vents between the chassis and display. While I had it taxed with running benchmark tests like SPECviewperf for 40 plus minutes, the dual fans kept noise down to a quiet humming sound.
As for thermals, the chassis stayed slightly warm to the touch both at the top of the keyboard and bottom cover. The vapour chamber and larger chassis dimensions help to keep things cool while under heavy load. Note, if you go for the T2000 GPU or higher, more heat will be generated.
Target Audience
Here’s a list of the target audience for the HP ZBook Fury G7.
Data Scientists
Product Designers and Engineers – Unity, Unreal Engine, and Creo
Media and Entertainment Professionals – Adobe Premiere Pro, 3DS Max, and AutoDesk Maya
Graphics
Graphics on the Fury G7 is provided by the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 iGPU and dedicated graphics from the NVIDIA® Quadro® T2000 with 4 GB GDDR6 dedicated memory. The T2000 GPU Turing architecture sits below the Quadro RTX big boys like the RTX 3000 to 5000. T2000 does not feature raytracing and Tensor cores compared to the RTX cards.
The Fury G7 range has numerous graphics options depending on your work requirements. Here is a list of the GPU options available to the 15 and 17 inch models.
Options:
NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 (16 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
NVIDIA Quadro RTX 4000 (8 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 (6 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
NVIDIA Quadro T2000 (4 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
NVIDIA Quadro T1000 (4 GB GDDR6 dedicated
AMD Radeon Pro W5500M (4 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
AMD Radeon RX 5500M (4 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
Gaming
After a long day at the office or campus, will the Quadro T2000 play a spot of gaming? Absolutely. The GPU is similar to a GTX 1650Ti, so it will play most games at 1080P. Games like Doom Eternal will happily play in high settings along with titles like Wasteland 3 that was launched in the middle of 2020. Even Microsoft Flight Simulator will play in medium settings with no issues, which normally likes high end specs to run successfully.
Security
HP has provided excellent security features on the Fury G7. Fingerprint sensor for login authentication, a Kensington slot, Integrated webcam cover for privacy and an integrated TPM 2.0 security chip.
On the software front, HP has a wealth of tools to choose from. Examples include HP Sure Click to protect from websites in an isolated virtual machine. HP Sure Recover ensures fast, secure, and automated recovery of your OS with only a network connection. HP Sure Run to keep critical security protections up and running and prevent unwanted changes to security settings.
Battery Life
The ZBook Fury G7 has a 8 cell 94Wh battery. In testing battery life on average is around 4 to 5 hours with general, light usage like web surfing, YouTube and Microsoft Word. Heavy work is expected around 2 and a half hours. Video playback, expect around three and a half hours.
Fast charging with the 150 W Slim Smart external AC power adapter takes around 30 minutes to charge to 50%. Three quarters full in around an hour.
Top 3 Pros and Cons before buying the HP ZBook Fury G7
Fantastic Upgrades – The ZBook has almost desktop like upgrade options at its disposal. Three storage options and four memory slots for a potential 128GB of fast DDR4 memory.
Hardware Configurations – If you have deep enough pockets, the Fury G7 range has a multitude of hardware configuration options. For starters, you can configure it with a Xeon W-10885M processor, 128GB of memory, option for four M.2 drives, 4K Dreamcolour display panel, a NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 graphics and 4G LTE mobile broadband card.
Plenty of Ports – There’s no denying the Fury G7 has a plethora of ports at its disposal. Two Thunderbolt 3 ports, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, two USB Type-A ports, Ethernet and two types of card readers.
Thick and Heavy – The ZBook Fury G7 has slimmed down from the G6 model, but it’s still bulky and awkward to hold due to it’s thick dimensions. However, it’s manageable if you are just moving it from your rucksack to a desk and back.
Battery Life – It’s unsurprising that the ZBook Fury G7 didn’t last a full work day on a charge considering the hardware specs that it’s packing. If you go for the 4K panel over the Full HD model, expect a further reduction in battery life.
Expensive – The base model starts from around 2000 pounds or dollars, but if you start adding options to the shopping cart, you can easily spend over ten thousand pounds or dollars. Of course, we are talking top of the line mobile workstations for heavy workloads.
Competition
There’s healthy competition in the mobile workstation category. What are the alternatives to the ZBook Fury G7? In no particular order here are some to consider.
Lenovo ThinkPad P1 Gen 3
Dell Precision 7550
MSI WS66
Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition
Summary
The HP ZBook Fury G7 is designed for heavy workloads in a tough chassis. There are plenty of hardware options to choose from. The tool less entry is a bonus along with desktop level upgrades to increase memory and storage options. The display panel is excellent along with a good set of speakers and a full size keyboard.
Battery life takes a massive hit and it’s bulky in size, but its aim is to sit at a desk all day with a Thunderbolt 3 dock to external monitors. Plus the bonus of it’s bulky size is excellent thermals and plenty of ports to choose from.
If you are looking for the prettiest and slimmest laptop in the room, the ZBook Fury G7 is not the one for you. If you care more about top performance, practical upgrade options and getting the job done, the HP ZBook Fury G7 is hard to beat.