HP focuses on mobility with slimline 14-inch and 15.6-inch mobile workstations that go head to head with Dell, Lenovo & MSI
HP is going all out on mobility with a new slimline 15.6-inch workstation Ultrabook, the HP ZBook 15U. The company has also updated its Zbook 14 workstation Ultrabook with new CPU, GPU and storage options.
Starting at 1.91kg, the HP ZBook 15U is almost 1kg lighter than HP’s mainstream 15.6-inch mobile workstation, the HP ZBook 15. The tradeoff comes in performance, with a low powered AMD FirePro M4170 (1GB) GPU and dual core Intel CPUs helping give the mobile workstation its Ultrabook status.
The ZBook 15U comes with a choice of four CPUs from the Intel Core i7-5600U (2.6 GHz, up to 3.2 GHz) down to the Intel Core i5-5200U (2.2 GHz, up to 2.7 GHz), which all look decent options for mainstream CAD.
There’s no scrimping on storage either, with a wide range of options including SATA Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) up to 500GB, SATA Solid State Drives (SSDs) up to 500GB and the 256GB PCIe SSD, HP Z Turbo Drive.
Other features include up to 16GB DDR3RL-1600 SDRAM, a choice of LED-backlit FHD (1,920 x 1,080) displays and 3 x USB 3.0 ports (1 charging).
Comparisons are sure to be drawn to Dell’s Precision M3800, the original lightweight 15.6-inch mobile workstation, which launched at the tail end of 2013. While both machines are almost identical in terms of weight (1.91kg vs 1,88kg), the Dell Precision M3800 is more slender (8mm at the front and 18mm at the rear compared to HP ZBook 15U’s 21mm). However, the HP ZBook 15U does offer enterprise features such as an optional FingerPrint Sensor and docking support with the HP Ultraslim Docking Station.
With Lenovo and MSI also recently launching comparative products, the market for lightweight 15-inch mobile workstations is certainly hotting up. Check out the Lenovo ThinkPad W550s and our reviews of the MSI WS60 and Dell Precision M3800.
Meanwhile, For those that want even more mobility, the 1.62 kg HP ZBook 14 G2 features the same choice of CPUs, memory and storage as the HP ZBook 15U, but a slightly lower spec GPU (AMD FirePro M4150) and a choice of 14” diagonal LED-backlit displays from 1,366 x 768 resolution up to 1,920 x 1,080 with optional 10-point multi-touch.
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