HP ZBook 15u G5 Workstation

HP ZBook 15u G5 Workstation

Welcome to a Laptop Battery specialist of the HP Laptop Battery

The ZBook name has been used with HP mobile workstations since superseding the EliteBook in 2013 with battery like HP Stream 11 Battery, HP Stream 13 Battery, HP Stream 13-C077NR Battery, HP Stream 13-C010NR Battery, HP HSTNN-LB6M Battery, HP HSTNN-PB6J Battery, HP PE03XL Battery, HP TPN-Q151 Battery, HP Chromebook 210 G1 Battery, HP Chromebook 11 G3 Battery, HP Chromebook 11 G4 Battery, HP Chromebook 11-2199NF Battery. The new brand survived the change from Hewlett-Packard to HP Inc. and quickly established itself as a mainstay of the workstation market. ZBooks became synonymous with combining high performance, good craftsmanship and HP’s excellent DreamColor displays. HP caters for more just the high-end though and launched the ZBook 1xu series for those who needed CAD-optimized GPUs but still wanted a power-efficient notebook. Our focus in this review is the ZBook 15u G5, one of HP’s latest offerings in its ZBook 1xu series.

Devices of the 1xu series are traditionally equipped with power-efficient ULV dual-core processors. Combining dual-core processors with a workstation has left us unimpressed thus far. The release of Intel Kaby Lake Refresh CPUs could change this though by introducing quad-core computing to ULV processors. We will find out in this review whether these quad-core CPUs can bridge the gap between workstations and ULV processors.

We will be comparing the ZBook 15u G5 against the ZBook 15u G4, the ZBook 15 G4, the HP EliteBook 850 G5 and the Lenovo ThinkPad P52s.

We will be skipping the sections about the case, connectivity and input devices as they are largely identical to the EliteBook 850 G5. The ZBook 15u G5 has only two aesthetic differences from the EliteBook 850 G5: The ZBook 15u G5 comes in a darker color and naturally carries the ZBook logo rather than the EliteBook logo. Information on these areas can be found in our EliteBook 850 G5 review.

Our test device is a more affordable ZBook 15u G5 configuration. Our test device is equipped with an Intel Core i7-8550U processor, 8 GB RAM, a 256 GB SSD and an AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100 GPU. This configuration costs around 1,750 Euros (~$2,059).

A second test unit was also provided by CUKUSA for us to double-check our benchmarks and results between two similar SKUs.

The ZBook 15u G5 has a 56 Wh battery. This is 5 Wh larger than its predecessor and is of a typical size for Ultrabooks. More powerful workstations typically have large batteries. This doesn’t mean they have better battery life than the ZBook 15u G5 though as they typically consume far more power thanks to their higher wattage CPUs. The only exception to this is the ThinkPad P52s, which has an Ultrabook CPU and footprint but comes with a 95 Wh battery thanks to its extended PowerBridge battery.

Clearly, the ThinkPad P52s has far better battery life than the ZBook 15u G5. However, the ZBook 15u G5 performs well, lasting 8 h 34 m in our practical Wi-Fi battery test. In this test, we run a script that simulates the load required to render websites. Our test device also lasted 10 h 23 m in our H.264 battery life test during which we run an H.264 video on a loop. These are good runtimes, albeit not outstandingly so. They are better than the ZBook 15u G4 but marginally less than the EliteBook 850 G5.

The HP ZBook 15u G5 appears to address the reasons for which we criticized the ZBook 15u G4 by packing an updated GPU and a more powerful quad-core CPU.

The ZBook 15u G5 is based on the EliteBook 850 G5, which is certainly not a bad thing. The EliteBook 850 G5 has some impressive qualities like the high-quality metal case and the decent touchpad. HP has even replicated the EliteBook 850 G5’s low surface temperatures and the decent selection of ports and security features. The ZBook 15u G5 has the same warranty period as the EliteBook 850 G5 too.