HP ZBook Studio G9 Review

In the company's mobile workstation lineup, the HP ZBook Studio ranks second only to the titanic ZBook Fury, above the lightweight ZBook Firefly and (relatively) affordable ZBook Power models. This laptop is aimed at designers doing 3D rendering, 4K video editing, data analysis and visualization, or software development. Following the 15.6-inch, 2021 Editors' Choice award-winning ZBook Studio G8, HP's ZBook Studio G9 (starts at $2,499; $4,899 as tested) makes the trendy move to a 16-inch screen while inheriting the latest Intel and Nvidia silicon. HP makes a splendid creative platform but the ZBook Studio G9 narrowly misses Editors' Choice honors this time, with its performance and value topped by newcomers.

HP Puts Up a Bevy of Component Options

HP.com's base model of the ZBook Studio G9 is $2,499 with a Core i7-12700H processor, 16GB of memory, a 512GB solid-state drive, and a 4GB Nvidia RTX A1000 graphics chip. However, our $4,899 review unit drastically raises the stakes, with a Core i9-12900H CPU (six Performance cores, eight Efficient cores, 20 threads) featuring Intel's vPro IT management tech, the maximum 64GB of RAM, and half of the maximum storage: a 2TB NVMe SSD.

Also included in this configuration is HP's 3,840-by-2,400-pixel DreamColor display, a non-touch IPS panel with 500 nits of brightness and a 120Hz refresh rate, backed by Nvidia's 16GB GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. However, you can choose from three GeForce and five RTX A-series GPUs depending on whether you favor gaming or 3D design with independent software vendor (ISV) certifications; the flagship RTX A5500 GPU would add $600 to our system's price.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

You also have the option of a 400-nit OLED touch screen with the same high resolution, along with two more 1,920-by-1,200-pixel non-touch displays, one with HP's Sure View Reflect privacy filter. HP's keyboard flaunts per-key RGB backlighting—plus, if you're coming from a MacBook, you can order a Z Command keyboard that replicates the Apple layout.

A veteran of MIL-STD 810H tests against road hazards like shock, vibration, and temperature extremes, the ZBook is a silver aluminum slab measuring 0.76 by 14 by 9.5 inches. That's an iota thicker than the latest Apple MacBook Pro 16 (0.66 by 14 by 9.8 inches) but a full pound lighter (3.81 versus 4.8 pounds). Another 16-inch creative station, the Gigabyte Aero 16, is 0.88 by 14 by 9.8 inches and heavier still at 5.07 pounds.

Slim bezels surround the screen, while wide speaker grilles flank the keyboard, taking room that might be used for a numeric keypad. A fingerprint reader in the deep palm rest, and a face recognition webcam, give you two ways to skip typing passwords with Windows Hello. Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth are standard, as is Windows 10 Pro (the system upgraded to Windows 11 during testing).

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Two 40Gbps USB4 ports with Thunderbolt 4 support join an audio jack and the AC adapter connector on the laptop's left side. Nano security lock and microSD flash card slots are on the right, along with a 5Gbps USB 3.1 Type-A port and 10Gbps USB 3.2 Type-C port. With no HDMI port, the only way to connect an external monitor is with a DisplayPort adapter in one of the USB4 ports.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

HP's Big Fumble: The Webcam

Recent HP laptops, like the Dragonfly Folio G3, have impressed us with 5- and 8-megapixel webcams optimized for today's frequent video meetings, so it's unfortunate that the Studio G9 has a low-rent, low-res 720p camera. While its images are reasonably well-lit and colorful, they're still slightly blotchy with some static. You do get HP's AI noise reduction technology to improve conference audio and a top-row function key to disable the webcam for security.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Speaking of audio, the ZBook has not only two large upward-firing speakers but two woofers (slits on each side). Loud and crisp, the audio pumped out is not tinny or harsh even at top volume. The bass isn't exactly booming but is more noticeable than most laptops', and it's easy to hear overlapping tracks. HP Audio Control software provides music, movie, and voice presets and an equalizer, plus sound calibration for supported headsets.

Blunted Inputs Under a Brilliant Display

Frankly, this keyboard's customizable RGB backlighting rivals any gaming laptop, but it and the touchpad are slightly disappointing by high-end workstation standards. Not only don't you get real Home, End, Page Up, and Page Down keys—you must pair the Fn key and cursor arrows as you do with cheap consumer notebooks—but the arrow keys are arranged in HP's awkward row rather than the proper inverted T. These hard-to-hit, half-height up and down arrows are stacked between full-size left and right, which is just cumbersome. 

While the keyboard does have a comfortably snappy typing feel, it's a somewhat hollow and noisy one. Similarly, HP's buttonless touchpad isn't ideal for ISV applications because many computer-aided design (CAD) and other programs make use of not two but three mouse buttons. (To be fair, Windows can be configured to perform left, right, and middle clicks with one-, two-, and three-finger taps respectively.) In its favor, the pad is large, smooth, and quiet and responds to gentle presses.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

HP says the change from a 16:9 to 16:10 screen aspect ratio gives you 11% more usable screen area compared to the ZBook Studio G8. We've long been fans of the company's DreamColor workstation displays, and this one is no exception, with deep, vivid colors and razor-sharp detail. Contrast is high, and viewing angles are broad, with white backgrounds looking pristine instead of dingy, helped by a screen hinge that tilts almost all the way back. Brightness is ample, though it falls off sharply as you dial down the backlight. Glare is nonexistent, however, which is quite helpful.

Bloatware is restricted to the Tile Bluetooth tracking app. However, a dozen house-brand utilities provide everything from HP QuickDrop, which transfers files between the PC and your phone, to HP Easy Clean, which briefly disables the keyboard and touchpad while you apply a cleaning wipe. By far, the most important is HP's praiseworthy Wolf Security, which combines AI-based malware and BIOS protection with SureClick execution of apps and webpages in secure containers.

Testing the ZBook Studio G9: Life in the Extremely Fast Lane 

We begin our benchmark charts with two abovementioned rivals of the ZBook Studio G9, the Gigabyte Aero 16 (starts at $2,199.99, $4,399.99 as tested), which also has a Core i9 CPU and a 3,840-by-2,400-pixel screen backed by a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, and the 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro (starts at $2,499; $5,299 as tested) with the mighty M2 Max chip. We're also comparing the HP's performance to that of a recent workstation heavyweight in every sense of the word, MSI's CreatorPro X17 (starts at $3,449.99; $4,899.99 as tested). For the last spot, we're reaching back to November 2021 for the trim but powerful Dell Precision 5560 (starts at $1,839; $4,195 as tested) workstation.

Productivity Tests 

First, UL's PCMark 10 simulates a variety of real-world productivity and content-creation workflows to measure overall performance for office-centric tasks such as word processing, spreadsheets, web browsing, and videoconferencing. We also run PCMark 10's Full System Drive test to assess a laptop's storage load time and throughput. 

Three benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC's suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon's Cinebench R23 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs' Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better). 

Our final productivity test is Puget Systems' PugetBench for Photoshop, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe's famous image editor to rate a PC's performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It's an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.

All these laptops are massive overkill for office apps like Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, hurtling far past the 4,000 points in PCMark 10 that indicate excellent everyday productivity. The ZBook aces our processing tests, but the MacBook Pro and especially the CreatorPro post even higher scores, with the latter's Core i9-12900HX putting up sky-high numbers. The MSI also holds onto the Photoshop gold, with the HP and Apple jockeying for silver.

Graphics and Workstation-Specific Tests 

We test Windows PCs' graphics with two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for laptops with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). 

We also run two tests from the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which stresses both low-level routines like texturing and high-level, game-like image rendering. The 1440p Aztec Ruins and 1080p Car Chase tests are rendered offscreen to accommodate different display resolutions as they exercise graphics and compute shaders, using the OpenGL programming interface and hardware tessellation, respectively. The more frames per second (fps), the better.

Two additional programs simulate workstation applications. The first, Blender is an open-source 3D suite for modeling, animation, simulation, and compositing. We record the time it takes for its built-in Cycles path tracer to render two photo-realistic scenes of BMW cars, one using the system's CPU and one the GPU (lower times are better). BMW artist Mike Pan has said he considers the scenes too fast for rigorous testing, but they're a popular benchmark.

Perhaps our most important workstation test, SPECviewperf 2020, renders, rotates, and zooms in and out of solid and wireframe models using view sets from popular independent software vendor (ISV) apps. We run the 1080p resolution tests based on PTC's Creo CAD platform; Autodesk's Maya modeling and simulation software for film, TV, and games; and Dassault Systemes' SolidWorks 3D rendering package. Results are in frames per second.

HP's Studio G9 shines in Night Raid while taking a back seat in the other synthetic graphics tests, with the M2 Max-equipped Apple crushing it in GFXBench. The HP hangs close to the MacBook Pro in Blender but the MSI workstation makes them both eat dust. In the SPECviewperf benchmark, it's the Gigabyte and MSI that battle for bragging rights, but the ZBook proves plenty fast in its own right.

Battery and Display Tests 

We test laptops' battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel(Opens in a new window)) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off. 

To test displays, we use Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and software to measure a laptop screen's color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).

Mobile workstations spend most of their time plugged in while crunching datasets or rendering VR worlds, but for the record, the MacBook Pro owns, dominates, and embarrasses its rivals in our battery rundown. The HP's DreamColor display produces admirable color quality and brightness, though the Dell and the OLED Aero are even wider in their color coverage for you prepress fanatics.

Verdict: Standing Up to Fierce Competition 

If the HP ZBook Studio G9 is a terrific and relatively light content creation workstation, then why does it miss Editors' Choice honors? Well, the MSI CreatorPro X17 costs the same as our test unit with a larger 17.3-inch display, as well as a CPU and GPU that push it far ahead in our benchmarks. The M2 Max-powered 16-inch Apple MacBook Pro also outpaces the Studio G9 in several tests, and its $400 higher price gets you more memory, twice the storage, and four times the battery life.

That's not to say we don't recommend the ZBook Studio G9. HP's workstation is as impressive a performer as last year's G8 was, especially given its choice of gaming rig or workstation GPUs. It's just that the competition has never been hotter, so creative pros, not laptop makers, are the real winners.