HP Zbook 15u G2 Ultrabook Review and Specs

HP Zbook 15u G2 Ultrabook Review: HP Zbook 15u look like Ultrabook, but Perform as Heavy Workstation

HP Z Book 15 G2 laptop is closer to Elite Books. It is around 40 mm thick and bending close to 3 kg. Coming with 2.0 kg and just 25 mm thick, new HP ZBook 15u model is a more fashionable version of Z Book. An addition of U in the name means to ultra book. It sports in three shades of gray, an extreme design that looks strong and silent type. Its shiny HP logo in the center of the lid is darkest while area surrounding is a slightly lighter shade of brushed aluminum. It is bordered by a layer of aluminum whose smooth finishing matches rest of this notebook’s magnesium reinforced body. At 4.23 pounds and measurement 14.78 x 9.98x 0.84 inches this version is lighter than other similar notebooks.

It is a tough workstation. It passes MIL-Spec 810G testing, therefore, it is protected against drops from 3 feet altitudes to 15,000 feet, dust and shocks. It can withstand high temperatures and performs regularly in 60-degree weather as well as in boiling 160-degree weather. To add another level of security, it gives us an option to add a finger print sensor and a Smart Card reader. Other options include TPM 1.2 and HP Sure Start. This TPM 1.2 and HP Sure Start check BIOS at startup and automatically self-heal if it detects any corrupted files or viruses. Its full keyboard on this version is comfortable to use and its back lighting makes this laptop easy to see when lights are out. Keys don’t have a lot of travel just. It has 1.42 millimeters and with 60 grams of actuation.

HP Z Book 15u G2

The roomy and smooth 4 x 2.6-inch track pad is under space bar, which slightly too left of center on keyboard deck. Cursor reacted swiftly to all our movements, including pinch-to-zoom and scrolling. It has two sets of left-right keys at top and bottom of the touch pad to click options and Track Point in the middle of its keyboard. Its 15.6-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel display plays the Avengers. It displays a wide range of colors, recreating 103.4 % of RGB color gamut spectrum. That is much better than the category average (82.6), MSI WS60 (78.1), and Lenovo W550s (100.2). It also accurately displays its range of colors, achieving a score of 1.68 on Delta E test (closer to 0 is better). That is a little better than average (1.86), and much better than both MSI WS60 (11.6) and Lenovo W550s (2.72). Its DTS Sound-equipped speakers don’t provide best audio quality.

Vocals are clear, but guitars and other mid parts are weak and they sound like they are playing from miles away. It stays cool at most times. Its touch pad reaches 82 degrees Fahrenheit and area between its G and H keys reach 86.5 degrees after streaming 15 minutes of video on Hulu. Its underside exceeds 95-degree comfort threshold limit, at 96.5 degrees. This notebook’s hottest spot, (measuring 103.5 degrees) is just to right of the HP logo on its monitor.  Its ports and webcam features are that it has enough ports to handle any work situation. It has a VGA port and two USB 3.0 ports on left side of the device. Its right side has the headphone jack, Display Port, memory card (SD Card) reader, two additional USB 3.0 ports, docking port, power connector and Ethernet port also.

This Laptop is powered by a 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7-5500U dual-core processor, 16 GB RAM, and 256 GB PCIE SSD. It never slows down even with 11 Chrome tabs and multiple PDF files open while streaming music. It scores 6,892, that’s better than Lenovo W550s (6,860) but lower than mainstream notebook category average (9,259) and monstrously powerful MSI WS60 (13,003). It completes Open Office Spreadsheet test, and matches about 20,000 names and addresses, within 4 minutes and 15 seconds time duration, that is faster than average (5:10) and Lenovo W550s (4:42), but not as fast as MSI WS60 (3:53). It is moderately fast in file transfer tests, duplicating 4.97 GB of media files with a rate of 175.5 MBPs. That is quicker than Lenovo W550s (159 MBPs), but blow the MSI WS60, which has (365.52 MBPs).

This notebook comes with an AMD Fire Pro M4170 GPU, which is good, but not fast in the market. This system scored 1,461 on 3DMark Fire Strike graphics benchmark test, which is on a par with Lenovo W550s (1,457) but is not nearly as good as MSI WS60 (1,649). In the World of War crafts, this version notched 22 frames per second at 1920 x 1080 on full settings. This is worst of the bunch, with MSI WS60 (44 FPS) and Lenovo W550s (36 FPS) both performing better at the same settings. HP Z Book 15u G2 notebook lasted up to 6 hours and 44 minutes on Laptop MAG Battery Test (Internet surfing via Wi-Fi).  This is about half an hour longer than the average of 6:12 and more than twice as long as 3:05 battery life on MSI WS60. However, Lenovo W550s beats them all out with a 15:54 life.

This notebook comes with Windows 7 Professional 64, but it is also supported with Windows 8. It also has useful programs such as HP Client Security for software and hardware level protection of our information, and HP Drive Encryption. It comes with HP’s standard 3 year’s limited warranty which covers parts, labor, and online services. The company offers four models of Z Book 15u G2, two with Intel Core i5 and other two with Core i7 processors. Once we choose any processor, we can customize RAM and hard drive, creating a machine with up to 16GB RAM and 1.25TB storage. We can also opt to get HP’s Z Turbo Drive, which provides up to 40 percent better performance than regular SSD hard drives.

Some salient features of this Laptop are-

 Reviews of this Laptop-

In my opinion, The HP Z Book 15u G2 is a competent workhorse of a Laptop. It is always fast in downloading files and easy to use with multiple programs. If you are searching for a workstation that you can take on a go, this model will prove a strong choice. But may be HP Elitebook Folio 1040 G1 change your mind.