🔬[REVIEW] HP ZBook Studio G9 - Everything is great but...
Channel: LaptopMedia
Date: 2022-11-30

📈 💵  Specs and Prices: https://laptopmedia.com/series/hp-zbook-studio-g9/
👁️  Buy our display profiles: https://laptopmedia.com/review/hp-zbook-studio-g9/#buy-our-profiles
🔬 In-depth Review: https://laptopmedia.com/review/hp-zbook-studio-g9/

➡️  CONTENTS:
[0:00] Introduction
[0:22] Design and construction
[0:47] Keyboard and Touchpad
[1:26] Ports
[1:46] Display quality
[2:24] Battery life
[2:43] Performance
[3:01] Temps and Stability
[3:39] Disassembly and upgrade options
[4:01] Verdict
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🔬[REVIEW] HP ZBook Studio G9
The HP ZBook Studio G9 might be one of the best Creator laptops that you can take with you on the go. It looks very modern, with slim bezels and a great screen on the front, while harnessing Alder Lake H-series processors and both Gaming and Creator-ready GPUs from the RTX 30-series and A-series. 

[Intro]

As we said before, the ZBook carries itself with style, offering a thin and light body, with a weight of 1.78 kg and a thickness of 19.3 mm. The device is durable, and while the lid definitely feels like aluminum, the base has a soft touch coating, so we don’t know the material that’s used for it. The design is striking, with rounded edges and corners in the front, while the back is sharper. 

[Input devices]

Opening the lid is easy with one hand, but what’s more interesting is the hinge mechanism which lifts the rear end, providing ample airflow that will be needed to cool down the hardware inside. 

From here, we see the base, with two large speaker grills, and a fingerprint reader, along with the keyboard and touchpad. The board lacks a NumPad, a bit weird considering the 16-inch footprint, but typing is still great. There is also an option for a Z Command Keyboard, which tries to replicate the MacBook experience. 

The touchpad might be the largest that we’ve ever seen, sporting a super smooth glass surface with fast and accurate tracking.

[Ports]

The ZBook splits the I/O on the left and right. The left has a power plug, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and an audio jack. Then, on the right, we see a security lock slot, one full-sized 5-gigabit USB port, one 10-gigabit USB Type-C port, and a MicroSD card slot.

[Display]

Together with the thin bezels, we get a 16-inch FHD+ IPS display with a 16:10 aspect ratio, signifying the laptop’s focus on productivity. The panel reaches 438 nits at max brightness, with a high contrast ratio. 

It also covers 99% of the sRGB gamut, while providing excellent accuracy with our Design and Gaming profile, which we’ll have linked in the description. 

[Battery]
 
Inside the device, there’s an 86Wh battery pack, which lasts for 15 hours and 14 minutes of Web browsing, or 13 hours and 29 minutes of video playback, an excellent result, given the Core i7-12800H and RTX A3000 inside.

[Performance]

Considering the portable form factor of the laptop, the Core i7-12800H doesn’t do very well, especially in prolonged tasks, as many Core i7-11800H-powered laptops from last year nearly double the Cinebench R20 scores. In quick bursts and short tasks, such as Photoshop, the 12800H is still very fast, making the ZBook Studio G9 one of the quickest devices in its segment.

The RTX A3000 fares much better, however, matching many of its competitors in benchmarks. 

[Cooling]

HP has implemented a decently-sized vapor chamber, with two fans moving the hot air away from the chassis. In the stress test, the Core i7-12800H goes past its 45W base TDP, while maintaining low temperatures and decent clock speeds.

As for the GPU, the ZBook doesn't push its RTX A3000 as hard as it can, as the temperature hovers around 64°C. 

Lastly, comfort-wise, the fans want to scream, which results in noticeably high noise levels. The base does get warm but doesn’t go over 40°C.

[Teardown and upgradeability]

The laptop has slots for both RAM and storage upgradeability, with two SODIMM slots for DDR5 memory, and one M.2 slot that supports Gen 4 drives. 

If you need help getting inside the ZBook Studio G9, then our teardown video is right for you, giving you a step-by-step process. We’ll have it linked in the upper right corner. 

[Verdict]

The HP ZBook Studio G9 is not without its flaws. The build quality, features, and display selection are excellent, however, we would have loved to see more performance from the Core i7-12800H CPU, especially in prolonged tasks, as we think the vapor chamber can take more. However, if you’re not going to use it for video editing, the Studio G9 is still a beast.

If you want to learn more about the HP ZBook Studio G9, you can go over to our website, which has a much more detailed review with more tests and information.