HP ZBook Firefly 16 G9 review – great build quality but disappointing performance
Temperatures and comfort, Battery Life
Max CPU load
In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.
Average P-core frequency; Average E-core frequency; CPU temp.; Package Power
| Intel Core i7-1265U (15W TDP) | 0:02 – 0:10 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP ZBook Firefly 16 G9 | 2.32 GHz @ 1.77 GHz @ 63°C @ 26W | 1.62 GHz @ 1.23 GHz @ 57°C @ 12W | 2.02 GHz @ 1.47 GHz @ 55°C @ 15W |
| Dell Latitude 14 9430 | 3.52 GHz @ 2.71 GHz @ 78°C @ 42W | 3.51 GHz @ 2.70 GHz @ 91°C @ 43W | 2.79 GHz @ 2.21 GHz @ 78°C @ 28W |
| Dell Latitude 14 7430 | 3.48 GHz @ 2.66 GHz @ 88°C @ 44W | 2.98 GHz @ 2.37 GHz @ 94°C @ 33W | 2.40 GHz @ 1.94 GHz @ 85°C @ 24W |
| Dell Latitude 14 7430 (2-in-1) | 3.58 GHz @ 2.70 GHz @ 79°C @ 43W | 3.47 GHz @ 2.66 GHz @ 91°C @ 42W | 2.76 GHz @ 2.25 GHz @ 96°C @ 28W |
| Dell Precision 15 3570 | 3.77 GHz @ 2.88 GHz @ 76°C @ 55W | 2.91 GHz @ 2.25 GHz @ 71°C @ 32W | 2.70 GHz @ 2.10 GHz @ 61°C @ 27W |
Weirdly, the HP ZBook Firefly 16 G9 performs exceptionally badly in this test. Its power draw temporarily dropped to 12W, which is unacceptable. Just look at some of its competitors, which are significantly smaller devices. And considering the temperature of barely 55°C, we are pretty confident that some kind of software/firmware nonsense is going on on the inside.
Real-life gaming
| NVIDIA T550 | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min) | GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min) | GPU frequency/ Core temp (Max Fan) |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP ZBook Firefly 16 G9 | 1042 MHz @ 67°C @ 20W | 1046 MHz @ 67°C @ 20W | – |
| Lenovo ThinkPad P16s Gen 1 | 1373 MHz @ 68°C @ 30W | 1324 MHz @ 74°C @ 30W | – |
| Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 3 | 1445 MHz @ 66°C @ 30W | 1417 MHz @ 70°C @ 30W | – |
| Dell Precision 15 3570 | 1413 MHz @ 73°C @ 30W | 1420 MHz @ 73°C @ 30W | – |
Guess what? The situation with the GPU is the same. It has low clocks, a low board power draw, and an acceptable temperature.
Comfort during full load
On the bright side, the laptop is very quiet during long extreme workloads. Only gaming puts it through a little sweat, but nothing to fear. As you can see from the IR image below, the maximum temperature didn’t even manage to break the 40°C barrier.
Battery
Now, we conduct the 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. Our unit features a 51Wh battery. It lasts for 10 hours and 11 minutes of Web browsing, or 8 hours and 3 minutes of video playback.
Brightness: 180 nits; Display Mode: SDR
Time to Full Discharge: Higher is Better
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
Author: Alex Iliev
Author: eng. Kroum NikolovHead of Engineering at LaptopMedia.com, inventor and innovator with 40+ years of experience in electronics and high technology.
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