HP’s ZBook Studio 16 G11 (begins at $3,559; $7,283 as examined) is a (comparatively) skinny and lightweight laptop computer designed for skilled content material creators. It maintains the spectacular high quality we’ve come to count on from the ZBook line, particularly with its excellent DreamColor display screen. Nonetheless, it is awfully costly and has some notable drawbacks, together with temporary battery life and common efficiency. For these keen to sacrifice some portability, our prime pocket book workstation decide, the heftier HP ZBook Fury 16 G11, offers superior efficiency and battery life.
Configurations and Design: C-Suite Type
HP’s ZBook sequence of cell workstations targets prosumers and companies, particularly these centered on content material creation and specialised high-performance duties. The ZBook Energy line is essentially the most reasonably priced, the ZBook Firefly is essentially the most transportable, and the ZBook Fury is essentially the most highly effective. The ZBook Studio 16 G11 seen right here is the posh choice, aimed extra at creators than scientists or engineers—it packs larger efficiency than the Firefly in an equally slim design.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Powered by Intel’s Core Extremely H-class processors, the ZBook Studio delivers considerably sooner efficiency than a typical 16-inch laptop computer with a lower-wattage U-series chip. The bottom mannequin comes with built-in graphics—and therefore does not rely as a workstation in our e-book—whereas each Nvidia’s GeForce RTX shopper and RTX Ada Technology skilled GPUs can be found as devoted choices. What actually units this laptop computer other than most desktop replacements is the out there DreamColor display screen, which offers distinctive colour protection for prepress, video, and different color-sensitive duties.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
On the skin, the ZBook Studio maintains the fashionable black and silver look that HP’s high-end laptops are identified for. It is a stylish laptop computer in any setting.
Measuring 0.8 by 14 by 9.5 inches (HWD), the Studio 16 is about the identical dimension because the Asus ProArt P16 (H7606) however is lighter, beginning at 3.8 kilos versus 4.1 kilos. Against this, the 16-inch Dell Precision 5690 workstation is thicker and considerably heavier, weighing 4.5 kilos.
Many of the ZBook Studio’s surfaces are metallic, together with the chassis and the lid. The plastic backside panel is held on by 5 Torx screws, one among which is hidden behind a rubber door. Inside, you will discover two SODIMM slots and one M.2 2280 improve slot. The battery is replaceable, however the wi-fi card is soldered.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The port choice begins on the left with two 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 3.5mm audio jack, and a barrel-style AC adapter connector close to the rear nook. On the fitting edge, you will discover a microSD card reader, one 10Gbps USB Sort-C port supporting energy supply and DisplayPort out, and a 5Gbps USB Sort-A port together with a Kensington Nano safety lock slot. Alas, an HDMI monitor port is lacking in motion.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The ZBook Studio has a one-year guarantee on configurable fashions, whereas most preconfigured models carry a three-year guarantee. Intel vPro Enterprise expertise is accessible with particular CPU fashions. HP sells quite a few safety features, together with its formidable Wolf Professional safety suite. An infrared webcam and a fingerprint reader within the palm relaxation present biometric safety.
Utilizing the HP ZBook Studio 16 G11: One Stylish Operator
Dealing with the ZBook Studio leaves little doubt that it is a premium product. The metallic often feels cool to the contact; I do not discover the laptop computer’s surfaces getting greater than lukewarm, even underneath heavy benchmarking stress.
Anybody lucky sufficient to get the DreamColor display screen on this method is in for a deal with. Designed for colour accuracy fairly than leisure, it delivers beautiful image high quality. Whereas it does not fairly match the inky blacks of an OLED panel, this 3,840-by-2,400-pixel IPS show produces deep distinction and vibrant colours. Its 120Hz refresh charge ensures butter-smooth window animations and mouse actions. The one function it lacks is contact assist, although HP additionally sells a contact display screen with the identical 4K decision. The bottom display screen is 1,920 by 1,200 pixels.
The Studio 16 G11 has a wonderful pair of audio system for a laptop computer not designed for leisure. Positioned on both aspect of the keyboard, they mission loud, clear sound upwards and supply first rate bass. The Darkish Knight film trailer sounded notably partaking.
The keyboard options RGB backlighting, taking a web page from gaming laptops. The included Z Mild Studio app permits for full management over the lighting on a per-key foundation, with configurable layers and results. Preset lighting results embody Night time Mode, Focus, Chill out, and Create. Whereas easy white backlighting would have been adequate on a enterprise laptop computer, given the price of this mannequin, each additional function is welcome.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The typing expertise is great, with snappy and exact tactile suggestions. I reached my prime typing pace of round 120 phrases per minute within the MonkeyType on-line check. Nonetheless, the keyboard format is not as productive because it may very well be, missing devoted Residence, Finish, Web page Up, or Web page Down keys (secondary capabilities of the arrow keys). The mismatched sizes of the arrow keys can even result in typos. HP’s spacious touchpad is a pleasure to make use of, offering quiet bodily clicks and a {smooth}, stutter-free floor.
One other disappointment with this laptop computer is its low-resolution 720p webcam, which delivers lackluster video high quality. I anticipated at the least a 1080p decision, if not larger, as HP offers on a few of its upscale laptops (the OmniBook X 14 involves thoughts).
Testing the HP ZBook Studio 16 G11: Not a Class Chief
Our ZBook Studio 16 G11 is the utmost configuration, that includes an Intel Core Extremely 9 185H processor (16 cores, 22 threads, 5.1GHz turbo), an Nvidia RTX 3000 Ada Technology GPU, 64GB of RAM, a 1TB solid-state drive, Home windows 11 Professional, and Wi-Fi 7 with Bluetooth 5.4.
On the time of this evaluation, all configurations had been priced sky-high on HP’s website; enterprise consumers will wish to undergo a channel accomplice. The Asus ProArt P16 (H7606) is hundreds inexpensive for particular person shoppers.
Our benchmark comparability techniques embody the Asus above ($2,699.99 as examined) and HP ZBook Fury 16 G11 ($3,564 as examined), plus the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 2 flagship workstation (about $3,500 as examined). We additionally included the Acer Predator Triton Neo 16 ($1,599.99 as examined) to point out how properly a gaming laptop computer can compete.
Productiveness and Content material Creation Checks
We run the identical normal productiveness benchmarks throughout each cell and desktop techniques. Our first check is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates quite a lot of real-world productiveness and workplace workflows to measure total system efficiency and likewise features a storage subtest for the first drive.
The subsequent three benchmarks stress the CPU, utilizing all out there cores and threads to charge a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench 2024 makes use of that firm’s Redshift engine to render a fancy picture. Geekbench 6.3 Professional from Primate Labs simulates fashionable apps starting from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine studying. As with Cinebench, we report its single- and multi-core scores; larger numbers are higher. We additionally put a stopwatch on techniques as they use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p decision; decrease occasions are higher.
Lastly, we run a cross-platform content material creation benchmark: Adobe Photoshop 2024 utilizing the 1.2.20 model of Puget Programs’ PugetBench for Creators. This check charges a PC’s efficiency for multimedia apps utilizing an automatic extension that executes quite a lot of normal and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving a picture to making use of masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The ZBook Studio trailed by a large margin in PCMark’s primary check, although its rating was not at all low for a laptop computer. Within the CPU exams, it barely underperformed in contrast with the Acer Predator, which used the identical Core Extremely 9 CPU. The Asus, ZBook Fury, and ThinkPad topped the CPU charts because of their larger wattage HX-class chips.
Graphics Checks
We check the graphics inside all laptops and desktops with three cross-platform gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark: Metal Nomad and its Mild variant, Wild Life and its Excessive variant, and Photo voltaic Bay.
The Metal Nomad exams use the DirectX 12, Vulkan, or Steel graphics APIs relying on the processor in play. Metal Nomad is constructed for high-end gaming techniques and runs at 4K decision, whereas the Mild model runs at 1440p with much less element. Wild Life and Wild Life Excessive are much less demanding than Metal Nomad, although additionally they run at 1440p and 4K decision, respectively. This check compares midrange Home windows and macOS techniques, tablets, and smartphones.
We flip to Photo voltaic Bay to measure ray-tracing efficiency in an artificial setting. This benchmark works with Vulkan 1.1 for Home windows and Android and Steel for Apple units, subjecting 3D scenes to more and more intense ray-traced workloads at 1440p.
The ZBook Studio can solely achieve this a lot with its RTX 3000 graphics card, which is restricted to 70 watts of whole graphics energy. The ZBook Fury and the ThinkPad predictably produced a lot larger numbers utilizing higher-end GPUs with extra wattage.
Workstation Checks
First, we measure workstation efficiency with SPECviewperf 2020 (model 3.1), which renders, rotates, and zooms out and in of stable and wireframe fashions at 1080p decision. The three subtests are taken from PTC’s Creo CAD platform, Autodesk’s Maya modeling and simulation software program for movie, TV, and video games, and Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks 3D rendering package deal.
Subsequent up is Blender, an open-source 3D content material creation suite for modeling, animation, simulation, and compositing. We report the time it takes for Blender 4.2 to render three distinct scenes to measure CPU and GPU rendering efficiency.
Then, we run an automatic PugetBench extension in Adobe Premiere Professional that exams real-world video modifying duties like stay playback, file export, and high-res encoding with totally different codecs, processing and decoding various kinds of supply media, and making use of GPU-accelerated particular results. We additionally use PugetBench for Creators to check one other demanding video modifying app, DaVinci Resolve Studio 18, with workflows that push each the CPU and GPU.
The ZBook Studio trailed the pack in these exams, which, once more, I anticipated given the opposite workstations’ extra highly effective elements. Though this laptop computer continues to be extremely succesful, particularly with 64GB of RAM, its capabilities are extra restricted than these of the opposite workstations.
Battery and Show Checks
We check every laptop computer and pill’s battery life by enjoying a domestically saved 720p video file (the open-source Blender film Tears of Metal) with show brightness at 50% and audio quantity at 100%. We be certain that the battery is totally charged earlier than the check, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
To gauge show efficiency, we additionally use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Home windows software program to measure a laptop computer display screen’s colour saturation—what proportion of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 colour gamuts or palettes the show can present—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per sq. meter).
By trendy requirements, the ZBook Studio’s temporary unplugged run time spoils its mobility, with even the highly effective Fury lasting longer away from an AC outlet. On the plus aspect, the Studio’s DreamColor show produced excellent numbers, with almost full protection of the DCI-P3 gamut and an impressive 448-nit peak brightness. The ThinkPad was even brighter however barely missing in colour protection.
Verdict: Excessive on Type, Mild on Efficiency
Whereas the ZBook Studio 16 G11 flaunts a pretty design and top-of-the-line laptop computer screens we have seen, its middling efficiency and brief battery life maintain it again. It is also puzzling that it features a max-bling RGB-backlit keyboard however a low-rent 720p webcam. Our prime suggestion for a cell workstation is the HP ZBook Fury 16 G11—though much less transportable and simply as costly, it has not one of the Studio’s shortcomings—with the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 2 a whisker behind.
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The Backside Line
HP’s ZBook Studio 16 G11 artistic workstation offers excessive fashion and a shocking DreamColor display screen, however its efficiency and battery life may very well be sooner and longer for the lofty value.
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