WE KNOW WHAT you’re thinking. Will you
just look at those bezels? And that price.
What the heck is HP doing with the ZBook
X2, a $5,000 tablet that looks a decade
old? But bear with us, because while this
is a flawed device, it’s also pretty special.
HP says the ZBook X2 is the world’s
most powerful detachable PC. A punchy
claim at first glance, the detachable PC
segment is in reality distinctly niche. In
other words, the competition is fairly
limited. Devices like the latest Microsoft
Surface Pro 6 spring to mind, but despite
being available with precisely the same
Intel Core i7-8650U quad-core CPU as the
ZBook, it isn’t actually that comparable.
That’s because of the ZBook’s overall
feature set and functionality, which is
remarkable, if not quite always for the
good. For starters, the ZBook offers
not just discrete graphics but discrete
workstation-class graphics, in the
form of Nvidia’s Quadro M620 GPU. If
that sounds impressive, the somewhat
sobering reality is that the M620 is based
on the GM107 chip, and is thus not only
based on the fairly ancient Maxwell
architecture, but a low-end variant
thereof with 512 shaders.
More impressive is the ZBook’s
14-inch DreamColor display. It’s not only
4K , but ver y high fidelit y, w ith 10 -bit color,
and support for fully 100 percent of the
Adobe RGB color space. It’s also paired
with a Wacom EMR input pen, offering
4,096 pressure-sensitive levels, and
claimed ultra-low latency. Other majorA quirky but powerful tablet workstation
HP ZBook X2
8
VERDICT HP ZBook X2PULITZER PRIZE Stellar build
quality; great features for pros.
AIRPORT TRASH Terrible battery life;
very expensive.
$5,308, http://www.hp.comSPECIFICATIONSSize Intel Core i7-8650U
Graphics Nvidia Quadro M620
RAM 16GB DDR4
Screen 14-inch 4K IPS
Storage 1TB NVMe SSD
Ports
2x Thunderbolt 3/USB-C,
1x USB A, HDMI,
headphone, SD card
Connectivity
Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC
8265 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2x2)
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2
Weight 4.78lb
Size 0.75 x 14.35 x 8.94 inchesitems as configured include fully 32GB of
RAM, and a 1TB Toshiba NVMe SSD.
Arguably, however, it’s the industrial
design that really stands out. This thing
feels as though it could survive an all-
out nuclear holocaust. It’s all-alloy,
totally rock solid, and beautifully put
together. Even the hinged kickstand feels
impeccably engineered. The only obvious
shortcoming in this area is the fact that
the input pen doesn’t have a home or slot
in the chassis itself. HP simply provides a
small wallet for storage.
If the build quality oozes professional
intent, what to make of those bezels?
Well, the point of them is to accommodate
shortcut buttons either side of the display.
HP’s intent is to expedite navigating
the dense menus and options in Adobe
Creative Cloud applications, which can be
awkward using an input pen. The result
is a set of 12 buttons, six on each side of
the display, which offer 18 preconfigured
shortcuts customized for Adobe
applications. Known as HP Quick Keys,
the functions include quickly switching
brush stroke size and hardness, turning
touch on and off, pan and zoom, lock and
unlock, and seeing a full-screen preview.
Finally, in terms of connectivity,
the ZBook has two USB Type-C ports
with Thunderbolt support, enabling
two external 4K monitors, one USB 3.1
Type-A, HDMI 1.4, an SD card reader, and
a headphone jack. There are also two
webcams, front and rear, the front-facing
camera with infrared functionality andWindows Hello facial recognition support.
The side-mounted fingerprint scanner,
meanwhile, provides an alternate method
for biometric authentication.
As for raw performance, there are
no real surprises. The Intel quad-core
U series processor is a known quantity,
and the ZBook’s relatively chunky chassis
means it performs to expectations.
Likewise the Nvidia GPU and Toshiba
SSD. In this age of relatively thin and light
eight-core laptops, it’s not going to set
new standards for portable power, but it
does offer real computing performance
in a tablet form factor. What it doesn’t
offer is great battery life. Four hours
is very poor indeed. Better battery life is
possible using the integrated graphics,
but that requires a trip into the BIOS, and
comes at the cost of some functionality.
Ultimately, the ZBook is a niche
product. For mainstream users, it offers
poor value, but for content creators who
d o r e a l w o r k o n t h e m o v e , i t ’s a n i n t r i g u i n g
and very high quality device. It’s also been
on sale for a little while now, so deals that
undercut the fairly punitive official pricing
should be available. –JEREMY LAIRDOur notebook zero-point is the HP Spectre X360, with an Intel Core i7-8565U, integrated Intel UHD Graphics 620, and
8GB of DDR4-2400. All games tested at 1080p at the highest graphical profile.BENCHMARKS
ZERO-
POINT
Cinebench R15 Multi (Index) 561 575 (3%)
CrystalDisk QD32
Sequential Read (MB/s) 3,100 3,157 (2%)
CrystalDisk QD32
Sequential Write (MB/s)^557 1,005 (80%)
3DMark: Fire Strike (Index) 1,062 2,856 (169%)
Rise of the Tomb Raider (fps) 5 14 (180%)
PCMark 8 (Index ) 2,543 3,634 (43%)
Battery Life:
Movie Playback (Mins)^840 247 (-71%)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%in the lab
82 MAXIMUMPC JAN 2020 maximumpc.com