Top 5 reasons to BUY or NOT to buy the HP ZBook Power G7

These last few days we have reviewed more workstation laptops than ever. First was the Precision 15 3560 and now we have the HP ZBook Power G7. The latter is a true performer, with its processor choices going as high as the Core i9-10885H, with a server-grade Xeon W-10855M also being available. Unfortunately, many manufacturers now have “workstation” laptops, which are powered by low TDP chips that aren’t designed to handle such a heavy load.

The ZBook Power doesn’t fall into that category as the Core i9 CPU inside is plenty powerful, with even the Xeon processor making total sense, allowing for ECC memory support, which is crucial in certain scenarios. The laptop is also outfitted with NVIDIA Quadro graphics, which are made to handle heavy 3D rendering and modeling work.

Today we are presenting you with LaptopMedia’s top 5 picks about the HP ZBook Power G7.

HP ZBook Power G7: Full Specs / In-depth Review


4 reasons to BUY the HP ZBook Power G7

1. Design and build quality

Being a proper workstation device, the build quality is definitely on point, and that’s reflected in the price tag as well. The body is made of 100% aluminum, which makes it incredibly sturdy. There was little to no flex to be seen. The laptop is also incredibly portable, considering the hardware inside and the 15-inch form factor. The laptop weighs only 1.89 kg and is 22.9 mm tall. Design-wise, there is a Z-logo on the lid, which is awfully similar to the Nissan Z logo, not in a bad way, of course. Furthermore, there is a small HP logo on the bottom bezel, below the display.

The lid can easily be opened with a single hand, and doing so reveals the matte display with narrow bezels and an HD Webcam, and an IR sensor for face recognition on top, with a manually operated privacy shutter.

 

2. Upgradeability

The upgradeability here is top-notch. Both the RAM and storage can be expanded, through two SODIMM slots, which can fit up to 64GB of DDR4 memory in dual-channel mode, and two M.2 NVMe slots, which if you configure the laptop with a Xeon CPU, get support for ECC memory, with half of the maximum capacity supported.

If it’s your first time digging into a laptop’s internals, and you are unsure what to do, we will leave our detailed teardown video, which shows all the necessary steps you need to take, to safely access both the SODIMM and M.2 slots.


3. Input devices

The keyboard and touchpad combination is amazing, as the keyboard has spill-resistance and a backlight. The keyboard has decent key travel and a very satisfying, yet quiet click. This makes for a great typing experience and the fact that we saw little to no flex from the base gave us an even better feel when typing. It’s not without its shortcomings, though, as the arrow keys are pretty small and the backspace and power button are identical. However, HP has made sure that a one-time click does nothing, so you wouldn’t accidentally shut off your laptop.

The touchpad is great as well, as it has a smooth, glass-covered surface. It offers smooth gliding and accurate tracking. Furthermore, it has a very comfortable and clicky mechanism.

4. Battery life

With a battery unit that has 83Wh capacity, the laptop lasts for 8 hours and 15 minutes of Web browsing, and 13 hours and 24 minutes of video playback, which is pretty good, considering the powerful hardware that it has. As always, we do our battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with.


1 reason NOT to buy the HP ZBook Power G7

1. Display

Finally, the 15.6-inch display here needs some more work. While it has a Full HD resolution and an IPS panel, it’s not without its falls. We would have loved a better unit, as this one covers only 53% of the sRGB color gamut. However, the laptop still has other redeeming qualities such as comfortable viewing angles and a high contrast ratio of 1170:1. Furthermore, the panel showed no PWM usage, making it safe to use for prolonged periods of time.

Color accuracy isn’t what we would have hoped for either, as even with our Design and gaming profile, we only managed to bring the dE value to 4.0 from 4.5. Here are the results of the color accuracy test. Of course, we don’t see all that as a huge issue since workstations are mostly used with an external display.


Buy our profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for HP ZBook Power G7 configurations with 15.6″ LG LGD064C (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

Health-Guard

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount


All HP ZBook Power G7 configurations:

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