HP ZBook 17 review

We’ve been waiting eagerly to get a closer look at HP’s ZBook range of mobile workstations, and the first has finally arrived in the PC Pro labs – the range-topping HP ZBook 17. The biggest model in the line-up, the ZBook 17 partners a 17.3in display with a burly, upgradeable chassis, a truckload of connectivity and a slew of high-end componentry. See also: what’s the best laptop you can buy in 2014?

Design

There’s no getting away from the fact that the ZBook 17 is an absolute giant. Measuring 416mm wide and 44mm thick, this mobile workstation weighs in at 3.8kg even without the mains charger. Factor in the 120W PSU and the whole package comes in at a back-breaking 4.5kg – it’s telling that one of the suggested accessories on HP’s web store is a wheeled roller case.

The flipside to the ZBook 17’s sheer bulk is that it feels outstandingly well built. Indeed, the construction doesn’t only look burly: it feels nigh-on indestructible. Metal sheets shield the lid and keyboard surround, and tough plastics make for a chassis that’s rock-solid. The base has barely a millimetre of give in it, and the thick, chunky lid is similarly stout – there’s hardly any side-to-side flex, and it wasn’t until we pushed really hard on the centre of the lid that we noted any showthrough on the LCD panel. If you’re intending to cart the ZBook 17 from desk to desk, or office to office, the build quality immediately inspires confidence.

The HP’s ergonomics are top-notch, too. The keyboard has a numeric keypad alongside, and the crisp-feeling keys have a grippy, matte finish. Meanwhile, a touchpoint in the centre of the keyboard partners with a trio of buttons below the space bar. The glass touchpad is excellent: it feels silky smooth under the finger, and, neatly, a quick double-tap in the top-left corner toggles it on and off.

Blowing the budget

If you’re on the hunt for an affordable mobile workstation, however, the ZBook 17 isn’t it. The base model comes in at £1,605 exc VAT, and partners a dual-core Core i7-4600M CPU with an Nvidia Quadro K610M GPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 500GB hard disk. At this price, it’s a tad disappointing to have to make do with a 1,600 x 900 display, let alone a standard hard disk. Upgrade to the model with a Core i7-4700MQ, Nvidia Quadro K3100M GPU and Full HD display, and the price rises to £2,025 exc VAT.

If that weren’t expensive enough to blow any IT budget, we received the range-topping, £2,998 exc VAT model for review. While the Core i7-4700MQ is still there, the memory doubles to 8GB; the GPU is Nvidia’s high-end Quadro K4100M; the 7,200rpm 750GB hard drive is accompanied by a 32GB mSATA SSD for caching duties; and the display is upgraded to HP’s DreamColor wide-gamut Full HD panel.

The lack of a decent-sized SSD seems more than a tad stingy, but overall performance doesn’t suffer unduly as a result. The ZBook 17 sped to a result of 1.05 in our Real World Benchmarks, enough to put it narrowly ahead of Dell’s similarly specified Precision M4800, which scored 1.01. The HP’s Quadro K4100M GPU proved itself significantly more powerful than the Quadro K2100M in Dell’s machine, too: where the Dell’s GPU powered through our GPU-assisted Sony Vegas 12 benchmark in around 1min 56secs, the HP took only 1min 32secs – almost 21% quicker.

Those looking to use the ZBook 17 away from the mains will almost certainly need to shell out on a spare battery or two, though, or go for the optional extended wedge battery that clips to the underside. Despite a meaty 75Wh power pack, the ZBook ran dry after 3hrs 29mins in our light-use battery test. Working flat out, the HP lasted only 1hr 3mins.

Dream display

Clap eyes on the DreamColor display, and it’s clear where a good deal of the budget has gone: it’s simply immaculate. It easily exceeds the screen brightness required for professional usage – we measured a maximum luminance of 323cd/m[sup]2[/sup] – and, crucially, the display is also capable of reproducing a vastly wider palette of colour than most. Put to the test with our X-Rite colorimeter, the ZBook 17’s wide-gamut display proved capable of covering – and slightly exceeding – the Adobe RGB colour space.

The level of customisability is impressive, too. HP’s Mobile Display Assistant software makes it quick and easy to swap between the preset Native, AdobeRGB, sRGB, Rec.601, Rec.709 and DCI-P3 colour spaces, and tweak display brightness levels in cd/m[sup]2[/sup]. Hardware calibration is on the cards, too, but the DreamColor Profiling Solution software only works with HP’s rebranded DreamColor versions of X-Rite’s i1Display 2 and i1 Display Pro colorimeters – our standard OEM X-Rite models weren’t recognised.

Regardless, though, the image quality on offer is excellent right out of the box. Set to the Adobe RGB preset, we recorded an average Delta E of 1.9, a maximum deviation of 3.6, and a contrast ratio of 787:1. In sRGB mode the results were equally impressive, with an average Delta E of 2.4, maximum deviation of 5.1 and a contrast ratio of 780:1.

We scoured the panel for issues and were left empty-handed: there isn’t a hint of backlight bleed, and the LED backlighting is supremely even. If we had to nitpick, we’d much rather have a 16:10 ratio, 1,920 x 1,200 panel – the result would be a more spacious-feeling desktop in everyday use.

Connectivity and expansion

Even by workstation standards, the ZBook 17 is seriously well connected. In addition to the usual suspects found on most mobile workstations, HP is one of the few manufacturers to include a single Thunderbolt 1 port – a welcome addition for daisy-chaining high-speed external storage, displays and professional-class peripherals. There’s nothing else missing, either. There are three USB 3 ports, a USB 2 port, Gigabit Ethernet, an SD card reader and an ExpressCard/54 slot.

Nor is there any shortage of display outputs, with both full-sized DisplayPort 1.2 and VGA sockets, and the security side of things is catered for by a fingerprint scanner and smart-card reader. There’s also a standard HP docking connector on the underside.

Flip the ZBook upside down, flick a latch and a metal access panel slides off to give access to the internal components. Here, there are two 2.5in drive bays (one is free), an mSATA slot, a mini-PCI Express slot (filled with the Intel Centrino wireless card) and an empty M.2 slot. There are two RAM slots, with a further two hidden underneath the keyboard.

There are plenty of optional extras available, too. The optical drive can be supplanted by an optional hard disk upgrade bay, and combined with the other two 2.5in drives to form a three-disk RAID0 or 5 array. The only limitation is that the third 2.5in drive disables the mSATA slot – you can’t run both simultaneously.

Verdict

The ZBook 17 is dauntingly expensive. There are rivals that can match it for performance, upgradability or burly build – Dell’s Precision M4800 is hot on its heels in both areas – but the optional DreamColor display puts the ZBook in a different class. For applications that demand serious portable power and a colour-critical display, there’s simply nothing else like it.

Details
Warranty
Warranty	3yr collect and return
Physical specifications
Dimensions	416 x 272 x 44mm (WDH)
Weight	3.830kg
Travelling weight	4.5kg
Processor and memory
Processor	Intel Core i7-4700MQ
Motherboard chipset	Intel QM87
RAM capacity	16.00GB
Memory type	DDR3
SODIMM sockets free	2
SODIMM sockets total	4
Screen and video
Screen size	17.3in
Resolution screen horizontal	1,920
Resolution screen vertical	1,080
Resolution	1920 x 1080
Graphics chipset	Nvidia Quadro K4100M
Graphics card RAM	4.00GB
VGA (D-SUB) outputs	1
DisplayPort outputs	1
Drives
Optical disc technology	Blu-ray reader
Replacement battery price inc VAT	£0
Networking
Wired adapter speed	1,000Mbits/sec
802.11a support	yes
802.11b support	yes
802.11g support	yes
802.11 draft-n support	yes
Bluetooth support	yes
Other Features
ExpressCard54 slots	1
USB ports (downstream)	1
3.5mm audio jacks	1
SD card reader	yes
Pointing device type	Touchpad/touchpoint
Integrated microphone?	yes
Integrated webcam?	yes
Camera megapixel rating	0.9mp
TPM	yes
Fingerprint reader	yes
Smartcard reader	yes
Battery and performance tests
Battery life, light use	3hr 29min
Battery life, heavy use	1hr 3min
Overall Real World Benchmark score	1.05
Responsiveness score	1.10
Media score	1.05
Multitasking score	1.00
Operating system and software
Operating system	Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
OS family	Windows 8