HP ZBook G7 lets you create with ease on the go
HP ZBook G7 Create
Mobile workstations are more popular than ever and it’s not surprising considering the number of people who can now work from anywhere without being tethered to their desks.
This year HP launched two models into this growing category the ZBook G7 Studio and ZBook G7 Create. The only difference between the two laptops is the choice of GPUs, the Create comes with GeForce RTX GPUs and the Studio uses the Quattro RTX. I received the ZBook G7 Create with the RTX 2070 with Max Q, Intel i9 10 Gen CPU, 32GB of RAM, 1TB of NVMe M.2 SSD storage and the HP DreamColour 15.6-inch 4K display.
The G7 manages to fit a lot of high-end power inside an attractive and sleek design. From the specs, I was expecting a large and thick gamer style chassis and instead, the G7 is relatively thin, with premium materials and a finish that won’t look out of place in an office or creative studio.
The chassis is aluminium but both the rear and top lids are plastic and have a textured matte finish. The lid features the ‘Z’ logo in a chrome finish to denote the ZBook line. The left and right sides are brushed aluminium which really adds to the premium styling and overall look.
I always like it when you can open a laptop lid one-handed and the G7 makes it even easier thanks to the ‘V’ shape the lid makes with the base.
My review model came with a 15.6-inch IPS display that features an anti-glare coating. This makes a big difference in reducing glare from lights and reflections but as a result, clarity is reduced a little. The anti-glare works well and makes using the G7 for long periods less straining on the eyes than if it were glossy. Personally, I prefer this since a glossy screen can be a pain to use if you can’t control the lighting in your environment
As you’d expect from a laptop geared towards creative professionals, the colours are accurate, yet vibrant and vivid with 100% DCI P3 colour coverage and HDR 400 certification. This is also a 10-bit colour panel which is a major plus for those wishing to edited 10-bit colour video.
I had no issues using the G7 in my garden on sunny days but I wouldn’t like to spend long periods doing this as the peak brightness isn’t enough to overpower a really sunny day.
The webcam and IR sensors are located in the top bezel of the display.
On the right side, are the proprietary round power connector, two SuperSpeed USB Type-C ports (10Gbps signalling rate), a Mini DisplayPort and an SD card reader. On the left is a nano security lock, USB 3.1 type A with charging and a 3.5mm headphone/microphone combo.
Wireless features include an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2x2) and Bluetooth 5.0 combo. During my testing, both performed properly when connecting to my home WiFi and multiple Bluetooth peripherals.
The keyboard doesn’t have a numbers pad which may turn some off. There are two brightness levels of backlighting. There’s a decent amount of key travel with good tactile feedback and I found I could type quickly and accurately for long periods without getting fatigued. The keys are soft and quiet too, which was a nice change from the noisy mechanical keyboard I’m used to on my desktop PC.
The keyboard is spill-resistant, and there's a drain hole in the main vent underneath, which is a good feature not commonly found on laptops.
The touchpad is nice and large and placed right in the centre. It comes with Microsoft precision drivers multi-touch gesture support and it’s a joy to use.
The ZBook G7 Create comes with the best sounding speakers I’ve used in a Windows laptop. They’re simply outstanding for gaming, watching movies or even listening to your favourite tunes. The Bang & Olufsen tuned audio system and speakers produce sound with a depth of detail and bass not found in laptops much larger than the G7. The volume can get pretty loud too and it doesn’t distort but I rarely felt the need to go past 50%.
In an age where video calls are the norm, a good webcam is essential, but unfortunately, the G7’s 720p camera falls way short of what is otherwise a class-leading laptop. The resolution is not the biggest problem but rather the lack of clarity and terrible low noise performance. In really good light the image quality is acceptable so I wouldn’t say it’s unusable.
The G7 Create is all about performance on a mobile platform and it delivers for those who need the power of a desktop on the go — albeit with some caveats. Unlike a desktop that can have up to 1,000 watts of power, liquid cooling and lots of space to quickly dissipate heat, a laptop will always be restricted to a lesser or greater degree due to size.
Some systems handle this better than others but there’s always a trade-off between performance and energy consumption. The G7 manages to get the right balance for the tests I put it through from gaming in titles like Cyberpunk or high-end editing in PhotoShop and Premiere Pro.
The power to the G7 is supplied by an external 200w power adaptor. HP designed a vapour chamber to distribute and transfer the heat generated from the CPU and GPU twin polymer fans to suck in and blow out hot air through the free vents at the side and by the hinges. In general use, fan noise is kept to a minimum but boot up a game or start rendering a video in Premiere Pro and the fans will kick into full speed. The fans do a great job of keeping the system relatively cool but when under extreme loads, it will get too warm to keep on your lap.
Gaming performance is impressive based on the RTX 2070 with Max Q and Intel i9 CPU on my review unit. It will run games like Cyberpunk but with the graphics and video setting turned down and real-time tracing turned off to make it run smoothly. Also, the display is locked at a 60Hz refresh rate so while it’s nice to have a decent gaming experience, the G7 Create is not designed for full-on gaming.
Where the extra CPU and GPU grunt does come in handy are for video rendering and photo editing large files in PhotoShop with loads of layers and filters. I also found the dedicated GPU improved performance in photo apps like Topaz Denoise and Adobe Lightroom in handing the uncompressed 61MP RAW files from my Sony A7RIV.
The G7 Create has a myriad of security features to keep your data secure including a fingerprint sensor, Windows Hello facial recognition, microphone mute button, Trusted Platform Module TPM 2.0 Embedded Security Chip, HP Sure Sense, HP Sure Click, HP Secure Erase, HP
Manageability Integration Kit, HP Sure Recover Gen3, HP Image Assistant, HP Client Security Manager Gen6, MS Bitlocker Encryption and HP Proactive Security.
The G7 Create has a large six-cell 83-watt hour lithium-ion polymer battery to keep up with the high-end hardware specs. HP claims up to 18-hours of battery life and battery recharge time is up to 50% in 30 minutes. In real-world use, I never achieved anywhere near 18-hours but with a mix of gaming, office tasks and photo editing I was able to manage up to six or seven hours.
The HP ZBook G7 Create looks great and has a gorgeous screen with superb colour accuracy while managing workstation levels of performance.
The excellent sound system was a pleasant surprise as well as an SD card reader and headphone jack which are essentials for creative professionals.
The fact that the memory is soldered to the board and tops out at 32GB means you should order the G7 with as much RAM as you can afford. I generally work off external SSDs and NAS drives on my network so large internal storage isn’t a big deal for me but at least 512GB is a must to store all your apps and essentials on.
If you’re on the market for a good looking, high-end mobile workstation the HP G7 Create is well worth a look.
For more information, see HP
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