HP ZBook G3 (Studio, 15u) Owner's Lounge

My sales rep at HP SMB said I was the first purchaser of a ZBook Studio G3. Ask for Joe T at HP SMB, he has personally owned a series of HP Z towers and mobile WS and needed nothing repeated or explained. He was hip to the jive. He sold me a preconfigured i7-6700HQ, 16GB RAM, 512GB Zdrive, plain UHD panel (T6E17UT#ABA) for $2349. I am replacing an 8740w with DC. The DC panel has spoiled me. I was very clear with Joe T. that when the Dreamcolor 4K panel preconfigured or CTO came online, I would return the unit I bought. No problem, so long as it's in the return period.

Presently, you can buy a preconfigued 15u G3. As of this post, the pages for the preconfigured Core i7-6700HQ and Xeon E3-1505M units (list $2899, plain HD panel) are offline. Must have had a good sales day yesterday.

Last month I purchased and returned a Dell XPS 15 (Skylake), MS Signature version (UHD non-touch). I thought I could live without a numpad... maybe on an ultrabook, but not on a workstation (ProTools, CS5.5). No numpad, smushy spacebar, and sticky CPU clock (stays throttled when previously on DC). Nice try, Dell, but a fail.

I think the Skylake XPS 15 launch caused the G3 launch to be rushed. The OM is not online, the online datasheet doesn't recite the panel in the preconfigured units, the linked white paper is about the G2. My unit should ship on 05 Jan. 2015. More later.

We can fork a 15u G3 thread, as needed.

 

should ZBook Studio and ZBook 15u have separate owner's threads? two totally different beasts

 

I anticipate the thread forking. In the first few weeks after launch, many prospective buyers will be deciding between the 15u G3, 15 G3, and the Studio G3.

According to an answer I received from HP, the boot drive in my model will be a Samsung SM951 NVMe, M.2 2280, PCIe3 x4. MLC NAND. Reads 2260 MB/s. Writes 1260 MB/s. ATA Security. TRIM. L1.2, confirming the data on page 20 of the QuickSpecs. A major performance boost over the ZBook G2.

Lovin' those lanes in the quadcore.

I've asked HP about the interface and size of any storage slot(s) other than the two M.2 2280 slots that can be configured in RAID 0 or RAID 1. My sales rep thought that there were only two slots total.

 

Do you know if it's possible to just buy a Dreamcolor display when they're available? And then unscrew the display lid and swap out the display on an existing ZBook Studio? If DC is not available at launch next week, I'm suspecting that early buyers will be outside the return period when the DC units become available.

You do realize that the ZBook Studio doesn't have a numpad either, right? It does however have dedicated Home/PgUp/PgDn/End keys.

 

None of the preconfigured models now on offer are DC, and my sales rep said there's no firm date for DC release. That's another reason I think the G3 release was rushed. There's still no OM online.

It's better for me to have the expense this CY, which is why I first tried the XPS 15. My plan is to keep doing returns until the DC is available, or if I tire of that, to return the Studio and revert to my 8740w until there is.

It's the nano-dongle era. The missing numpad was the least of my problems with the latest XPS 15.

 

15u G3 doesn't come with Core i7-6700HQ or Xeon E3-1505M, maximum you can get is Core i7-6600U.

 

I'd really like to get mine on this CY expenses too but it's not looking good.

The regular Zbook 15 G3 still has the numpad. It's a bit more than a pound heavier and about 1/4" thicker than the studio, though. Don't recall other dimensions off-hand.

 

@ oruvin. I should have been clearer about the 15u and Studios being different G3 models. The Studios are still not in the Store, but the 15u is. Must have sold out the initial Studio production run on day one.

 

Interesting, where did you find the 15u g3? I can find some of the Studios if I just do a search on book studio but I'm not finding the u or regular zbook.

 

Copy paste from my previous post:

HP ZBook 17 G3 http://www8.hp.com/au/en/products/laptops/product-detail.html?oid=8693765

Spoiler

Intel® Xeon® E3-1575M v5 with Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics P580 (Available 1H16)
Intel® Xeon® E3-1535M v5 with Intel® HD graphics P530 (2.90 GHz, up to 3.80 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 2133 MHz, 8 MB L3 Cache, 4 cores)
Intel® Core™ i7-6820HQ with Intel® HD graphics 530 (2.70 GHz, up to 3.60 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 2133 MHz, 8 MB L3 Cache, 4 cores)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ with Intel® HD graphics 530 (2.60 GHz, up to 3.50 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 2133 MHz, 6 MB L3 Cache, 4 cores)
Intel® Core™ i5-6440HQ with Intel® HD graphics 530 (2.60 GHz, up to 3.50 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 2133 MHz, 6 MB L3 Cache, 4 cores)
Maximum memory
64 GB DDR4-2133 ECC SDRAM or 64 GB DDR4-2133 Non-ECC SDRAM
(Transfer rates up to 2133 MT/s. Non-ECC memory only available with Intel® Core™ procesors. ECC memory only available with Intel® Xeon® processors. )
Memory slots
4 SODIMM

17.3" diagonal HD+ SVA anti-glare LED-backlit (1600 x 900)
17.3" diagonal FHD UWVA IPS anti-glare LED-backlit (1920 x 1080)
17.3" diagonal FHD Touch UWVA IPS LED-backlit (1920 x 1080)
17.3" diagonal UHD DreamColor UWVA IPS anti-glare + PSR LED-backlit (3840 X 2160)
Dimensions (W x D x H)
420 x 280 x 30 mm

HP ZBook 15 G3 http://www8.hp.com/au/en/products/laptops/product-detail.html?oid=8693763

Spoiler

Intel® Xeon® E3-1545M v5 with Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics P580 (Available in 1H16)
Intel® Xeon® E3-1505M v5 with Intel HD graphics P530 (2.80 GHz, up to 3.70 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 8 MB cache, 4 cores)
Intel® Core™ i7-6820HQ with Intel HD graphics 530 (2.70 GHz, up to 3.60 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 8 MB cache, 4 cores)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ with Intel HD graphics 530 (2.60 GHz, up to 3.50 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 6 MB cache, 4 cores)
Intel® Core™ i5-6440HQ with Intel HD graphics 530 (2.60 GHz, up to 3.50 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 6 MB cache, 4 cores) 3
Maximum memory
64 GB DDR4-2133 ECC SDRAM or 64 GB DDR4-2133 non-ECC SDRAM
(Transfer rates up to 2133 MT/s. Non-ECC memory only available with Intel® Core™ procesors. ECC memory only available with Intel® Xeon® processors. )
Memory slots
4 SODIMM

15.6" diagonal FHD SVA anti-glare LED-backlit (1920 x 1080)
15.6" diagonal FHD UWVA IPS anti-glare LED-backlit (1920 x 1080)
15.6" diagonal FHD Touch UWVA IPS LED-backlit (1920 x 1080)
15.6" diagonal UHD DreamColor UWVA IPS anti-glare + PSR LED-backlit (3840 X 2160)
Dimensions (W x D x H)
386 x 264 x 26 mm

Zbook Studio G3 http://www8.hp.com/au/en/products/laptops/product-detail.html?oid=8934839

Spoiler

Intel® Xeon® E3-1545M v5 with Intel® Iris™ Pro Graphics P580 (Available in 1H16)
Intel® Xeon® E3-1505M v5 with Intel HD graphics P530 (2.80 GHz, up to 3.70 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 8 MB L3 cache, 4 cores)
Intel® Core™ i7-6820HQ with Intel HD graphics 530 (2.70 GHz, up to 3.60 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 8 MB L3 cache, 4 cores)
Intel® Core™ i7-6700HQ with Intel HD graphics 530 (2.60 GHz, up to 3.50 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 6 MB L3 cache, 4 cores)
Maximum memory
32 GB DDR4-2133 ECC or non-ECC SDRAM
(Transfer rates up to 2133 MT/s. Non-ECC memory only available with Intel® Core™ procesors. ECC memory only available with Intel® Xeon® processors. )
Memory slots
2 SODIMM

15.6" diagonal FHD UWVA IPS anti-glare LED-backlit (1920 x 1080)
15.6" diagonal FHD Touch UWVA IPS LED-backlit (1920 x 1080)
15.6" diagonal UHD UWVA IPS anti-glare LED-backlit (3840 x 2160)
15.6" diagonal UHD DreamColor UWVA IPS anti-glare LED-backlit (3840 x 2160

Dimensions (W x D x H)
375 x 255 x 18 mm

Zbook 15u G3 http://www8.hp.com/au/en/products/laptops/product-detail.html?oid=8693764

Spoiler

Processor
Intel® Core™ i7-6600U with Intel HD Graphics 520 (2.6 GHz, up to 3.4 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost technology, 4 MB cache, 2 cores)
Intel® Core™ i7-6500U with Intel HD Graphics 520 (2.5 GHz, up to 3.1 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost technology, 4 MB cache, 2 cores)
Intel® Core™ i5-6300U with Intel HD Graphics 520 (2.4 GHz, up to 3.0 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost technology, 3 MB cache, 2 cores)
Intel® Core™ i5-6200U with Intel HD Graphics 520 (2.3 GHz, up to 2.8 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost technology, 3 MB cache, 2 cores) 3

Maximum memory
32 GB DDR4-2133 ECC or non-ECC SDRAM
(Transfer rates up to 2133 MT/s. Non-ECC memory only available with Intel® Core™ procesors. ECC memory only available with Intel® Xeon® processors. )
Memory slots
2 SODIMM

Display
15.6" diagonal FHD SVA anti-glare LED-backlit (1920 x 1080)
15.6" diagonal FHD UWVA IPS anti-glare LED-backlit (1920 x 1080)
15.6" diagonal UHD UWVA IPS anti-glare LED-backlit (3840 x 2160)
15.6" diagonal FHD Touch SVA LED-backlit (1920 x 1080)
Graphics
Integrated:
Intel® HD graphics 520
Discrete:
AMD FirePro™ W4190M (2 GB dedicated GDDR5)

Dimensions (W x D x H)
383.3 x 257.7 x 19.9 mm

 

You are definitely missing something. Studio can be found in store (as other users reported), but 15u G3 is nowhere to be found, just like Zbook 15 G3.

 

Dell's XPS 15 UHD (4k) panel comes with multi-touch only, unless you got some "special non-touch edition".

 

Interesting how the all the CPUs, Xeon included, are limited to 4c/8t. I wish they started putting 8c/16t or higher on mobile Xeons.

 

Thanks for that, but those info listings have been on the US site for a while also. The references to the store are related to the Studio model that can be purchased in pre-built configurations or customized in the US store now, while the U and regular Z3 models aren't listed yet.

 

The MS Signature version spec
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.326871600
has changed. The unit I ordered was non-touch. The specs on that page when I ordered said non-touch; today it says touch-screen. Touchscreen is about a 25% penalty in battery life, but I didn't use the unit long enough to see whether there was a power drain from a touchscreen, which can be disabled in software, but it still draws power..

 

On that page, "Buy Now" for the 15u alternates with "Notify Me" in irregular cycles.

The day I bought my Studio, the Studio had a similar page, with "Buy Now". For the past several days, the Studio page has been brochureware, not even Notify Me buttons. Could the "Notify Me" response for the Studio have been overwhelming?

My shipment date is now 13 Jan. 2016. It slipped 8 days from the original estimate. I anticipate it will slip again.

 

HP SMB has no idea when the G3s will actually ship. One CS agent said my unit had already shipped.... but there was no tracking number. Another agent said the usual "check your order status", which has been "Processing" since my order on day one. I just cancelled my order. I waited a month for shipment, but no more.

I also decided that the G3 would be awkward to use without the USB Type C adapter.

 

Oh man, that's a bummer. I'm a little concerned that HP charges for stock-configuration units when you order...and then takes more than 30 days to actually ship the machine. And the FTC has rules requiring re-confirmation or auto-cancellation of non-shipped orders after 30 days, so I'm hoping that doesn't delay things more--because these machines look pretty awesome.
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/bus...s-guide-ftcs-mail-internet-or-telephone-order

Is there a particular port you're missing? I know that DisplayPort requires the adapter cable, but I'm wondering if that will eventually become a non-issue since in theory we could just replace our DisplayPort cables with USB-C/Thunderbolt3 to DisplayPort cables which plug straight into the computer and straight into the TV. In other words...won't USB-C effectively just become the new "DisplayPort" connector on the PC side...and possibly on the display side too eventually, one universal plug standard?

 

I'm in the same boat as many of you - eagerly awaiting the Studio to start shipping or the G3 15 to become available. I just called HP and the agent told me two things. 1) That he's not aware of any of the G3 machines getting a touch option in the future (even though the HP site says there will be one). And 2) that the G3 15 will likely not be available until March. I really wanted a Zbook over a Precision or Thinkpad, but if it's going to be March...

I just wish these companies would publish estimates based on real information (based on their supply chain intel, etc.) instead of making consumers guess and wait months beyond the expected release dates. Lenovo announced the Thinkpad P50 in August and just released it for ordering this week with a 3 week ship time. Crazy...

Any recommendations? I really need a new machine along the same lines as the Precision 7510/Thinkpad P50/ZBook Studio or 15 soon (but really was hoping for the ZBook due to reported issues with the others) and have absolutely no patience at this point.

 

You could consider going with one of the current-gen models. The ZBooks are nicely priced in the HP Outlet, especially the 15 G2.

Otherwise there's not a whole lot of options. I believe the Dell Precision's are shipping.

Gotta agree that the wait for these is a bit ridiculous. Skylake has been out since early Sept; its adoption in business notebooks is happening at a snail's pace.

Charles

 

Zbook Studio shows a shipping date of late late January if ordered online. I'm waiting for their pre-configs to stock through various vendors.

The new XPS 15 had a lot of issues since release, I didn't follow the 5510 threads but it turned me away from them since they share the same basic components. The other Dells were hurried and obviously missing the Thunderbolt ports (am I correct on this?) until this year. Lenovo was supposed to ship their P-series last quarter so I'm not giving them any credit for pushing out the P50 finally.

All these problems for workstations, bought by people who need these things to work and pay a lot more for that assurance, is disappointing. Hoping HP's postponed release dates avoid major issues.

 

Same scenario here. Really hope the regular 15 G3 doesn't get pushed back that far but it doesn't sound promising. Looking at the same alternatives you mentioned and not very excited about them.

 

CDW and Zones.com have already started loading listings for a "ZBook 15 G3" machine. So it can't be too far off, hopefully?

 

Could be on Intel's end. Skylake was released but it had supply issues in the desktop side. Maybe the 4K panels are hard to source (e.g. new Dell XPS 15 launch) and since these companies need to secure orders plus some backstock, it could be held up a bit longer than expected.

 

The SMB rep I ordered from kept quoting 1/22 as the release date for the other (non-Studio) G3's for stock units. I guess we'll know if that's true in a couple of days. The customize to order units appear to all have a 2-week lead time. Mine should ship on the 25th; I'll let you know next week whether that happened or not!

 

Let's hope the price is far off but not delivery. Pushing $5000?!
I noticed the 15u showed up on some of the Euro HP sites a few days before it hit the US store so it might be worth keeping an eye on some of them for the 15 G3.

@seadan, I like that answer better. Hope your rep was right. Good luck getting your Studio!

 

Here's a link of the model range to order - http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/workstations/product-detail.html?oid=8693764#!tab=models

 

Gah, I missed that the regular 15 G3 only offers UHD with the Dreamcolor display (June availability?). You can get the non-DC UHD in the Studio now, and I'm curious how the performance of the 4 GB M1000M compares to the M2000M option in the regular G3. Really can't wait until June...

 

Technically it says first half of 2016, which could be any time between now and June 30th. Unless you've heard for sure June.

 

You're right, I misread/misinterpreted Billy's post in one of the other threads.

 

Evening folks!

I am trying to figure out which model (15, 15u or Studio) I should buy. Here's a list of requirements:

* UHD 4K display
* At least 32 gigs of memory
* Powerful CPU, which I believe cancels out 15u?
* Z Drive as boot/OS disk, at least 512GB
* Space and connectivity for at least one 2.5" SATA drive, to be used for non-performance data storage -- I read some models come with physical space for a 2.5" but no connector??
* Good-to-have non-mandatory stuff: numpad, smart card reader, dedicated touchpad and keystick buttons -- cancels out both 15u and Studio?

I can't see a Zbook G3 15 model with UHD anywhere (I live in Sweden). Whyyy?

Regards,
Ulf

 

The UHD on the regular G3 is DreamColor only, which HP has said will be available 1st half of 2016. You can get non-DreamColor UHD in the Studio now, at least in the US. The Studio won't have the numpad, dedicated buttons for it, or the touchstick at all.

 

Yikes that was a fast reply! Thank you for the update.

Guess I'll have to wait for the Dreamcolor one then. Hopefully by then they'll have the E3-1545M CPU and 1TB Z drive available also. The complete package will be quite pricey methinks...

 

The ZBook 15u has the 15W dual-core processors, which are good for everyday usage but not the best choice for rendering, encoding, and other CPU-intense applications. They'll work, but only have half the performance of the full-power quad-cores in the ZBook 15 and ZBook Studio.
Charles

 

Hi folks,

I wanted to drop by and write up a brief review of the HP Zbook Studio G3 15" mobile workstation. First off I want to mention that I am very familiar with the realm of business class and gaming laptops. I've managed fleets of PCs for large businesses, and have been in charge of procurement and computer, mobile, and peripheral testing for a 4,000+ user organization. I've used most business class laptops you can think of over the last decade especially from Dell, Fujitsu, Panasonic, and Lenovo.

I bought several Zbook Studio G3's. Specs as follows:
Xeon E3-1505M
1920x1080 display
Samsung MZVPV512 SSD
16GB DDR4


The big con:

I'm going to jump right into my biggest complaint. NOISE. The fans are LOUD. And they kick on for like no reason at all. And this goes for all three that were purchased. One is running the HP OEM Windows 7 image, another Windows 10, and another Ubuntu. The two Windows installs have all the correct drivers and settings configured, as well as having the correct BIOS options configured regarding power management and CPU capabilities. I've also toggled each and every feature related to power options, CPU features, and thermal management in the BIOS. Disabled all the overclock (or "turbo boost" as HP calls it) features in troubleshooting attempts. Plus spent several hours on the phone with HP elite support. In the end HP followed up with me and stated the fan noise is normal - per design - to be expected.

With the ZBook studio G3 the fans will kick on after being powered up for about 90 seconds. The fans run for about 3 minutes on, then 1 minute off endlessly while the PC is totally idle 1% CPU usage. Doing something that increases CPU usage to so much as 10% even for a moment will cause the fans to kick up loudly and fluctuate intensity and not turn off for 10 minutes at least. I also ran the new battlefront game medium settings 1920x1080 (almost solid 60 FPS by the way) and the fans got so loud within 60 seconds that I swear they were running as loud as a poweredge 720 server under load. The odd thing was though that the ZBook's chassis didn't even get warm until playing the game for about 10 minutes. This has me thinking that there's hope for a future BIOS update that will fix the excessive and unnecessary fan noise. I haven't seen a laptop with such a loud fan under minimal load in many years. And I am amazed that the fans even kick on under 30% CPU usage with the discrete graphics card doing nothing. On my ThinkPad, Precision M3800, or Razer Blade 2014 laptops I can run multiple virtual machines or play 3D video games without the fan even turning on! And those have 4th and 5th gen processors. I expected Skylake to run way cooler.

Other cons:

The track-pad is Alps GlidePoint in lieu of Synaptics. Alps' software is decent but it lacks one major feature which i've seen some Synaptics builds have (like on my Razer and ThinkPad laptops) - which is the ability to assign 3 or 4 finger flicks to swap between virtual desktops on Windows 10. This is a major let down as I use this feature heavily just like when switching desktops in OS X.

The AC adapter is small and light for a 150w brick - but the connector that plugs into the laptop is cheap plastic easily broken. One good tug on your AC adapter cable and it will snap right off and damage the motherboard or chassis.

The trackpad is just one solid surface but has hidden buttons when you press the bottom left or right. It feels kinda cheap.

There is a large font BANG & OLUFSEN logo on the top left of the monitor besel. I hate that. Nobody gives a crap what brand speakers are in a laptop and it certainly doesn't need labeled on the chassis.

The fans are on the bottom only and easily blocked. In fact the location of the fans and exhaust on the bottom line up exactly with where legs would be when sitting it on your lap. Meaning it's gonna get very hot when used on your lap, a sofa, or basically any non-flat surface.

There are no drivers available from nvidia for the Quadro M1000M that comes with this laptop (yet). I received confirmation of that from both HP and nvidia. The old .inf file hack using the hardware IDs does not work for installing new drivers (it recognizes the hardware but driver fails to install). Therefore it is only possible to use up to nvidia driver version 354.61 supplied in an HP update package... and that's is a very outdated driver. I was told it's probably because the M1000M included is a 4GB model.... which isn't supposed to exist. The M2000M is supposed to be the 4GB model.... but this one is definitely a 4GB M1000M so I don't know what's up with that.

The chassis is two kinds of plastic. The screen/lid and where you rest your wrists when typing are of a higher quality plastic, but the rest of it is just like all your cheap-o laptops from retail stores. Fortunately the screen/lid doesn't bend in a backpack or with something set on it. Still, the chassis doesn't even come close to the quality of the aluminum chassis of a macbook pro or razer blade, nor is it up to par with the durable light plastic found on thinkpad and toughbook laptops. The closest comparison I can think of for the chassis is the HP omen. The two have very similar chassis and nearly identical undersides.

There's nowhere on the bottom of the chassis to place an asset tag.

Major pros:
CPU Horsepower - This thing is outpacing every laptop i've ever used as far as VM performance needs go.
The SSD is crazy fast. 2100 read 1500 write.
Lightweight for a 15" workstation with so much horsepower.
Very good battery life - So far i've only drained it twice. One was 7 hours under medium load and the other I think about 10 hours with Wifi on, low/medium load, no sleep, screen dimming, or blackout enabled.

Pros:

For a workstation laptop this thing sure can run games well. Some games crash using certain features like some depth of field settings because it's a quadro card, but so far it's been decent in testing. For example the game can run borderlands 2 at maximum settings 1920x1080 at 60fps. The P530 intel GPU only manages 20-30fps at low settings.

The F10 key which functions as a microphone mute button when holding function has a tiny amber light in the key that illuminates when the microphone is muted. This is great for mobile conference calls, webex, etc.

Backlight on keyboard can be configured in BIOS to shut off after a delay (default 15 seconds). This is a battery saving feature not found on too many laptops.

All the enterprise features you want. TPM, out of band management options, etc.

Comfortable keyboard for typing (except for num pad users or those who frequently use home/pageup/pagedown/end)

Still requires testing:
The thunderbolt dock (back-ordered)


This is not a laptop I would buy to be used as my sole laptop or daily multipurpose laptop. Mainly because of the noise but also because I don't think the chassis is durable enough.

 

Agree with most of your review. The B&O sign is a cheap joke and the noise is here to stay.. as it seems. It wouldn't be that depressing if it stood constant though but spinning the fans up and down continously is really annoying. Otherwise, I really love the machine, the keyboard is really great, the FHD display is fair enough, I feel the chassis sturdy enough and the SSD rocks.

 

How is the sound? B&O are supposed to produce good sound without distortion.

 

@ Pec
Thanks for the review. Just 2 questions.
1. How would you rate FHD matte screen?
2. Noob question Do you think that matte screen is better than glossy? I have never used matte screen, so I'm a little bit worried about that. AFAIK, there will be FHD glossy touch version in 1H2016, so I want to make the right decision.

Thanks.

 

The 1080 screen is fine. Mine appear to be matte. I would never buy a glossy screen on a laptop, or any device that is exposed to light sources. I also see no point in a touch screen laptop outside of hybrid tablets like a surface.

 

Hi Pec,

I just took delivery of a new HP ZBook Studio. Like you, I have the same position on the cons of this machine, but overall I think HP did a fantastic job. I was hoping you could check something for me on your machines. Mine seems to have a noticeable amount of keyboard flex in the middle. Especially near the D, F, G, H, J, K, and L keys. Would you be able to check yours and see if this is the same?

Thanks,

Mike

 

I only have one of the laptops with me but I gave it a good testing. There's no flex in the location you describe. Solid as a rock. I place my fingers on ASDF & JKL; and press hard and there's no flexing of the keyboard at all. It's sturdy and uniform where it counts (heavy typing locations) across the modular keyboard base between the speakers. The only place I can get it to flex is the bottom left corner and top-right corner maybe a couple centimeters inward from the corner.

 

Ducati6,

To echo what pec said, the keyboard on my ZBook Studio is solid. It's one of my favorite things about the laptop. I can bang on the keys and don't feel any flex at all. If I push hard on the material between the keys, I could probably get that to flex a little bit--but I assume you're seeing actual flex in the keys themselves on your machine. Interesting.

Comal,

The B&O sound was a delightful surprise. I had to go into the B&O app (icon in notification tray) and change the settings to "Music". And turned off audio hardware acceleration in the Sounds control panel app to deal with Groove Music issues. Now I really enjoy listening to music on my ZBook Studio. The only thing that trips me out a bit is how (correctly) strong the stereo separation is: sometimes when I'm listening to podcasts I can get a bit agitated when the podcaster bobs his head around his stereo microphone and doesn't realize that he's erratically switching between two microphone inputs.

pec,

On fan noise: spin-up didn't bother me on my ZBook Studio except for the fact that for whatever reason the decorated grill on the bottom made the fan noise a little higher pitch (i.e. sound noise instead of just wind noise) on my unit. So I may or may not have downloaded NoteBook FanControl ( https://github.com/hirschmann/nbfc), built and installed it, and then selected the "ZBook 15" profile with "auto fan" settings. You can also specify an exact constant fan %. It will show the current CPU temperature in your notification tray. I can't recommend doing any of the above.

Also to keep in mind: the GPU and Xeon CPU probably run really aggressively in this laptop in "high performance" mode, so "balanced mode" In power settings might be a better pick for day-to-day use. I'm assuming that you already went there.

 

I have the same issue. My keyboard flexes a lot in the middle, fading to nothing at the left and right edges. Seems like something is not taped, glued, or screwed down correctly. Also the bezel plastic near the "BANG & OLUFSEN" is a bit wavy and doesn't sit flat on the display. It is probably taped down and not sticking properly. Overall the fit and finish is feeling pretty cheap compared to my macbook pro.

 

Just bought ZBook Studio G3 with the same keyboard issue:

 

Yep. That is exactly the issue I'm seeing. The whole structure appears to flex and is unsupported. I noticed right away when I started typing just by the feel of it and then looked down and was surprised to see so much flex. Here are some shots of the bowing in the bezel mine has has well, in the upper left and right, as well as bottom center. I was really expecting the build quality of this to be much better. I will be calling support today. It's particularly frustrating considering I waited another 6 weeks to get this over the Dell Precision 5510 thinking it would be a better machine.

http://imgur.com/a/joKse

Edit: I talked to HP support and they are not very knowledgeable about this machine yet, but agreed that this isn't normal. Even though this machine comes with on-site service, they recommended getting another one since it is brand new. B&H is cross-shipping me a replacement. My fingers are crossed that it doesn't have the same issues. Turns out that the price at B&H has dropped by another $220 between my first order and this one which is one plus.

 

That's bad. In comparison mine is as sturdy as a rock.

 

What are each of your notebook's specs? Perhaps one of you has a different config, there might be some component residing under the keyboard (like the graphics card, etc.) that one of you has and the other doesn't.
If it's the same config, then that's really strange.
I hope the replacement notebook works out for you.

Charles

 

I ordered a preconfigured unit from B&H Photo.

i7-6700HQ | 4k+webcam | 16GB | 512GB

 

Mine is:
T7W01EA HP Zbook 15 Studio G3 i7-6700HQ / 256GB Z Turbo Drive PCIe / 8GB (1x8GB) 2133 DDR4 / W10p64/DongradeFacilitationWin764 / 15.6 LED FHD AG / NVIDIA Quadro M1000M / WLAN Intel 8260 ac 2x2 non vPro BT 4.2 / FPR / 3yw

 

I received my second Zbook today from B&H. It has the same keyboard flex issue as the first unit, maybe a tiny bit less, but still quite noticeable. I have never seen something like this on any laptop, cheap or expensive, before. It's really hard for me to believe it was designed this way. I'm beginning to wonder if all of the Zbooks are like this but some people just aren't noticing it. The video posted earlier in the thread illustrates the problem pretty clearly though.