HP ZBook Firefly 16 G9 review – great build quality but disappointing performance

LaptopMedia.com Reviews and Analysis HP ZBook Firefly 16 G9 review - great build quality but disappointing performance Page 9

From: Alex Iliev 16 May 2023 / 22:16 | 0

9. Verdict

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Verdict

Unfortunately, HP really sunk its own ships with the ZBook Firefly 16 G9. Its performance is really poor. So much, in fact, that its CPU botches down to 12W of power.

The situation with the dGPU is not much better. It only runs at 20W, which is 10W lower than the competition. And this is essentially what workstations stand for – performance and reliability.

Other than that, the battery life is good, even though we had the smaller 51Wh battery pack. We got 10 hours of Web browsing, or 8 hours of video playback on a single charge. Honestly, this wouldn’t be enough for a whole workday on battery power, considering the power-intensive nature of the workflow.

HP ZBook Firefly 16 G9’s IPS panel has a WUXGA resolution with a 16:10 aspect ratio, comfortable viewing angles, and a good contrast ratio. Thankfully, its backlight doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment. On the other hand, the colors are nothing to write home about, as the coverage is only 52% of the sRGB gamut.

On the bright side, the laptop has two Thunderbolt 4 connectors, an optional LTE (even 5G) support, two SODIMM slots for up to 64GB of RAM, and one M.2 PCIe x4 slot for Gen 4 SSDs.

Also, it is worth mentioning the extremely good keyboard and touchpad. Comfort all the way. As is the chassis by the way. It is designed in such a way that your wrists will never experience pain from the “edges” of the base because they are curved, instead of sharp.

At the end of the day, this device is not really recommendable. At least with this state of its performance. Yes, it is packed with features – the IR face recognition, the camera shutter, and the fingerprint reader really elevate your privacy. This would be great for a business-grade notebook. Unfortunately, not for workstations.

You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-zbook-firefly-16-g9/

Pros

No PWM (AUO B160UAN03.0 (AUOF49A))
The spill-resistant keyboard is great for typing
Wi-Fi 6 and LTE support plus optional super-fast fingerprint reader and IR face recognition systems
2x Thunderbolt 4 ports
Super portable