HP’s ZBook line of mobile workstations has been expanded and renamed—the flagship ZBook 15 and ZBook 17 now go by the family name “ZBook Fury.” It even includes a system that isn’t technically a workstation: the ZBook Create G7. The ZBook Create (starts at $2,749; $4,491 as tested) is a 15.6-inch laptop for digital content creators that has Nvidia GeForce rather than Quadro graphics and lacks independent software vendor (ISV) certifications for specialized computer-aided design, rendering, or scientific apps. Competing with elite machines like the Dell XPS 15 and the 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro, the ZBook Create is far from cheap, but it’s a sleek system with blazing performance that will dazzle multimedia pros. (And, as a pandemic plus, HP says it’s tested to withstand 1,000 cleanings with commonly available disinfecting wipes.)
A Creative Pro’s Dream Machine
If you want a Quadro GPU and ISV certifications, of course, HP is happy to oblige in other models—not only the ZBook Fury but the Create’s close cousin the ZBook Studio offer those things, along with an Intel Xeon instead of Core processor. The company positions the Create line versus the Studio line for “professional creators” versus “corporate creators,” citing fields like photography, video editing, and game design rather than engineering or architecture.
The $2,749 base model includes a six-core Core i7 CPU, 8GB GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q graphics, and a full HD (1080p) display. My amped-up $4,491 test unit has the same GPU but steps up to an eight-core Core i9-10885H processor, 32GB of RAM, a hefty 2TB NVMe solid-state drive, and a 4K (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) OLED touch screen with a Gorilla Glass 6 coat. Two other screen choices are a 1080p Sure View privacy panel and a 4K non-touch, Pantone-certified IPS DreamColor display. Shoppers really serious about maximum graphics power (say, for gaming on the side) can opt for the Max-Q version of Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 2080 Super.
HP’s website calls the ZBook Create the world’s smallest 15-inch notebook for creators, though at 0.69 by 13.9 by 9.2 inches it’s minutely bigger than the XPS 15 (0.71 by 13.6 by 9.1 inches). To be fair, the ZBook is a few feathers lighter at 4.3 pounds. Its anodized aluminum chassis bears a Z logo on the lid and has passed 21 MIL-STD 810H torture tests against shock, vibration, and environmental extremes. The body is indeed quite rigid; there’s no flex if you grasp the screen corners or press the keyboard deck. In a thoughtful touch, the system switches on when you open the lid, even if you shut it down first instead of simply closing the lid to put it to sleep.
On the laptop’s left side, you’ll find a USB 3.1 Type-A port, an audio jack, and a security lock slot. Two Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, a mini DisplayPort, and an SD card slot join the connector for the AC adapter on the right…
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 6 handle wireless communications. A face-recognition webcam lets you skip typing passwords. There’s also a fingerprint reader in the palm rest, though its driver seemed to be missing—Windows Settings’ sign-in options said, “We couldn’t find a fingerprint scanner compatible with Windows Hello Fingerprint.”
Above-Average Temperatures, Above-Average Audio
Equipped with two woofers and two tweeters, the ZBook Create pumps out loud and lavish sound, with surprisingly strong bass and soaring midtones and highs. Few laptops can match its propulsion and clarity. It’s easy to distinguish overlapping tracks and there’s no buzz or tinny sound even with volume cranked to the max. The speaker grille above the keyboard is definitely an asset, though it gets uncomfortably hot to the touch when the machine is handling strenuous software like our graphics benchmarks—the keyboard and palm rest aren’t quite as toasty, but the system definitely runs warm.
I’ve raved about HP mobile workstations’ billion-color DreamColor displays, one of which is available on the Create, but my test unit’s thin-bezeled, 400-nit 4K OLED touch screen is terrific in its own right. The panel is wonderfully bright, with rich, vibrant colors (HP says it covers 100% of the DCI-P3 gamut), snowy white backgrounds, and inky blacks. Contrast is ultra-high and viewing angles ultra-wide; fine details are razor-sharp.
If laptop reviewers had such a thing as greatest hits, mine would be complaining about HP keyboards’ cursor arrows. For the thousandth time, they’re arranged in a clumsy row instead of the correct inverted T, with half-height up and down arrows sandwiched between full-height left and right. On a more positive note, the keyboard is nicely backlit and has dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys, as well as a smooth, buttonless touchpad.
Typing feel is snappy but shallow, with unyielding feedback that might grow tiring in long work sessions. In an intriguing option, buyers coming from a MacBook can order a keyboard whose lower left keys try for an easier transition (Fn/Windows/Alt/Control instead of Control/Fn/Windows/Alt).
The 720p webcam captures reasonably bright and sharp images, though colors looked a bit blotchy and I saw a little noise or static. The Windows 10 Pro system is bristling with HP manageability and security utilities, ranging from SpareKey password recovery to Sure Run hardware-based and Sure Sense AI-based malware protection. The whole works is backed by a three-year warranty.
Testing the ZBook Create G7: Creative Stars Go Head to Head
For our benchmark tests, I pitted the ZBook Create G7 against not only the Apple MacBook Pro 16 and Dell XPS 15 but two other 4K OLED deluxe design platforms, the Razer Blade 15 Studio Edition and the Gigabyte Aero 15 OLED. The recently reviewed Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 3 is another competitor, but its six-core CPU and GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics make it a bit underpowered for this group. You can see the contenders’ basic specs below.
Productivity and Media Tests
PCMark 10 and 8 are holistic performance suites developed by the PC benchmark specialists at UL (formerly Futuremark). The PCMark 10 test we run simulates different real-world productivity and content-creation workflows. We use it to assess overall system performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet work, web browsing, and videoconferencing. PCMark 8, meanwhile, has a storage subtest that we use to assess the speed of the system’s boot drive. Both yield a proprietary numeric score; higher numbers are better. (See more about how we test laptops.)
All four Windows notebooks easily cleared the 4,000 points that indicate superb productivity in our most important benchmark, with the HP taking second place behind the Gigabyte. PCMark 8’s storage test was no match for the laptops’ speedy PCIe solid-state drives.
Next is Maxon’s CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is fully threaded to make use of all available processor cores and threads. Cinebench stresses the CPU rather than the GPU to render a complex image. The result is a proprietary score indicating a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads.
Cinebench is often a good predictor of our Handbrake video editing benchmark, in which we put a stopwatch on systems as they transcode a brief movie from 4K resolution down to 1080p. It, too, is a tough test for multi-core, multi-threaded CPUs; lower times are better.
The ZBook’s 2.4GHz (5.3GHz turbo) Core i9-10885H blitzed these benchmarks, taking the gold medal in Cinebench and posting an exceptionally fast time in Handbrake. The six-core Razer brought up the rear.
We also run a custom Adobe Photoshop image-editing benchmark. Using an early 2018 release of the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop, we apply a series of 10 complex filters and effects to a standard JPEG test image. We time each operation and add up the total (lower times are better). The Photoshop test stresses the CPU, storage subsystem, and RAM, but it can also take advantage of most GPUs to speed up the process of applying filters.
When the flagship MacBook Pro finishes last in a Photoshop race, you’ve got one ridiculously fast set of competitors. The Create and Aero tied for the win, but any of these systems will deliver image-editing nirvana.
Graphics Tests
3DMark measures relative graphics muscle by rendering sequences of highly detailed, gaming-style 3D graphics that emphasize particles and lighting. We run two different 3DMark subtests, Sky Diver and Fire Strike. Both are DirectX 11 benchmarks, but Sky Diver is more suited to laptops and midrange PCs, while Fire Strike is more demanding and lets high-end PCs and gaming rigs strut their stuff.
The ZBook isn’t a gaming rig, but HP won’t mind if you play a game or two after hours. It may tax the cooling capabilities of a slimline, but the GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q is undeniably a powerful GPU.
Next up is another synthetic graphics test, this time from Unigine Corp. Like 3DMark, the Superposition test renders and pans through a detailed 3D scene, this one rendered in the eponymous Unigine engine for a second opinion on the machine’s graphical prowess.
The Dell balked at this test and the Apple won’t run our Windows benchmarks, leaving only three systems competing. The HP settled for bronze, but still managed the 60fps that gamers crave at 1080p resolution.
Battery Rundown Test
After fully recharging the laptop, we set up the machine in power-save mode (as opposed to balanced or high-performance mode) where available and make a few other battery-conserving tweaks in preparation for our unplugged video rundown test. (We also turn Wi-Fi off, putting the laptop into airplane mode.) In this test, we loop a video—a locally stored 720p file of the Blender Foundation short film Tears of SteelTears of Steel—with screen brightness set at 50 percent and volume at 100 percent until the system quits.
The Dell and especially Apple excelled here, but the Create showed plenty of stamina considering its 4K OLED screen’s appetite for battery power. It should get you through most if not all of an unplugged workday.
A Worthy Addition to the ZBook Family
The HP ZBook Create G7 comes within an eyelash of an Editors’ Choice award, missing only because it’s awfully expensive and a tad hot to the touch. But make no mistake, this is a world-class laptop, combining stunning performance with a spectacular screen, splendid sound, and the superb design and engineering we’ve seen in ZBook workstations. Any visual or multimedia professional would be lucky to have one.
