The ZBook Power G8 is poised to be HP’s most affordable mobile workstation when it launches. (It’s expected to ship, and pricing should be announced, in June.) But you’d never know it from the pre-production unit the company sent us. Our preview configuration features a screaming eight-core Intel Core i9-11950H processor (one of Intel’s just-announced “Tiger Lake-H” top-end mobile CPUs), a 4K instead of 1080p resolution display, a hefty 64GB of RAM, and a 2TB solid-state drive. The only less-than-top-of-the-line thing about it is that its RTX A2000 is only the fourth-fastest of the Nvidia’s new professional GPUs. But HP had to save something for the new ZBook Studio G8 and ZBook Fury G8 models higher up the stack and released alongside the Power G8.
A Workstation Workhorse
The budget-conscious Power notebook joined the Fury (the max-expandability flagship) and Studio (the premium slimline) in HP’s May 11 announcement of three new eighth-generation laptop workstations. A fourth member of the family, the lightweight ZBook Firefly G8, debuted in 14- and 15.6-inch versions a few months ago. (See our review of the Firefly 15 G8.)
As the lowest-priced ZBook, the 15.6-inch Power G8 targets engineering and STEM college and graduate students, architects and designers in small offices, and government workers. It’s meant more for 2D design than 3D CGI rendering or virtual-reality creation—the 4GB RTX A2000 is the top available GPU. (Nvidia’s professional graphics silicon has lost the Quadro label in its transition from the company’s “Turing” architecture to the “Ampere” generation first seen in the GeForce RTX 30 Series consumer products.)
Similarly, the memory ceiling is 64GB rather than the 128GB of ZBook Fury models, and Xeon processors and error-correction-code (ECC) memory are not available. While you can choose a full-HD touch or non-touch or our unit’s 4K non-touch screen, HP’s billion-color DreamColor displays are reserved for more upscale ZBooks.
So is the ZBook Power G8 a letdown, just a generic desktop replacement but with independent software vendor (ISV) certifications? Actually, it’s anything but. It jumps to the top of the affordable workstation ranks, and when equipped as lavishly as our preview unit goes well beyond entry level in features and performance.
The Face Is Familiar
The ZBook Power G8 has the same aluminum chassis as its G7 predecessor, measuring 0.9 by 14.2 by 9.2 inches and weighing 4.16 pounds. That’s the exact same weight and virtually the same size (0.98 by 14.1 by 9.3 inches) as the last entry-level mobile workstation we sampled, the Dell Precision 3551. The HP has passed MIL-STD tests for shock, vibration, and environmental extremes; there’s a bit of flex if you grasp the screen corners but none if you press the keyboard deck.
The screen bezels are medium-thick instead of vanishingly thin as on some sleeker laptops. The top bezel makes room for the usual underwhelming 720p webcam; our Power didn’t have the optional face recognition camera but did have a fingerprint reader for Windows Hello logins. Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth are standard.
HP claims that it offers the world’s most secure workstations, with an array of utilities ranging from HP Sure Recover (restoring an operating system corrupted by malware) and HP Sure Run (monitoring critical apps) to the HP Sure Click Secure Browser (a Chromium variant that runs each tab in its own virtual machine). New in ZBook G8 systems are Tamper Lock, which offers responses ranging from simple alerts to BIOS and BitLocker lockdowns if someone removes the laptop’s bottom panel, and Tile functionality that works with subscriptions to the Bluetooth-based location service to find a lost or stolen laptop.
On the Power G8’s left edge, you’ll find Ethernet and HDMI ports, a USB 3.1 Type-A port, a security lock slot, and a SmartCard reader. On the right are two more USB-A 3.1 ports, an audio jack, the power connector, and one USB4 Type-C port with Thunderbolt 4 support.
A Core i7 Should Do Just Fine
We agreed not to run any benchmark tests on this sample since our prototype lacked a production BIOS and drivers, but the eight-core, 2.6GHz (5.0GHz turbo) Core i9-11950H CPU will likely give the Power blazing performance (and would likely put it out of reach of collegiate and small-office budgets). Tiger Lake-H is Intel’s 11th Generation CPU platform for high-end laptops, stepped-up CPUs that run at higher power levels and wattages than the company’s U-Series chips meant for thinner ultraportables.
Six Tiger Lake-H processors are available in the ZBook Power G8: two Core i5s, two Core i7s, and two Core i9s, with and without Intel’s vPro IT management technology:
- Core i5-11400H
- Core i5-11500H
- Core i7-11800H
- Core i7-11850H
- Core i9-11900H
- Core i9-11950H
Even the Core i5s are six- rather than quad-core chips, so crunching large datasets shouldn’t be a problem.
If you don’t need the ray-tracing power of the Nvidia RTX A2000 GPU, HP’s other graphics choices on this model are the Nvidia T600 and T1200. The Power G8 can hold up to 4TB of solid-state storage, and it supports PCI Express Gen 4 drives thanks to the Tiger Lake-H platform change.
The backlit keyboard offers a snappy typing feel and a numeric keypad with dedicated Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys above it, though the cursor arrows are in the awkward row instead of inverted T that’s given this reviewer a career of complaining about on HP laptops. The touchpad glides and taps smoothly, but at least in our preview model had a heavy, hollow click. It’s also buttonless, which could be problematic for ISV apps that use a middle mouse button. (That said, Windows lets you configure a three-finger tap as a middle-click.)
A possible unfinished BIOS or driver issue seemed to keep our Power’s screen from shining as brightly as a panel rated at 400 nits should, though sometimes using the F3 and F4 keys to turn the backlight all the way down then back up coaxed a bit more brightness from the display. Colors were rich and well saturated, and the screen’s 4K native resolution made fine details crystal clear.
In addition to the security software already mentioned, HP preloads the Windows 10 Pro system with a slew of utilities. (Expect to see 14 house-brand apps in the Start menu.) These include the ZCentral Remote Boost solution, which lets the ZBook serve as a host for a distant PC with less powerful graphics, sending the screen image over the internet as you operate the workstation remotely. Another, HP WorkWell, encourages you to leave your chair and exercise periodically, while HP Easy Clean locks the keyboard and touchpad for a couple of minutes while you wipe down the machine.
A Promising Contender
We look forward to testing a production unit of the ZBook Power G8. If pricing is reasonable, it probably won’t make us forget HP’s fancier mobile workstations with their faster GPUs and DreamColor displays—and it probably won’t outshine our current high-end Editors’ Choice award winner in the category, the Lenovo ThinkPad P15. But it should superbly fill its niche as a gateway to CAD, engineering, and data-analysis applications for users starting their professional careers or working in smaller shops.
