Review HP ZBook 15 G6 Review: Maxxed Out Workstation

[Admin]

The HP ZBook 15 G6 is a powerful but expensive workstation with a Xeon processor and a Quadro RTX GPU.

HP ZBook 15 G6 Review: Maxxed Out Workstation : Read more

 

[andreskruse]

Just a correction: The text says "Our model also didn’t have a HDD or SATA SSD, and there’s room for one of those to be added.", however this is not actually true. Please check the photo, on the bottom right hand side it looks like there is space for the 2.5" drive, but some part of the motherboard (about 1" x 2.5", blue with 3 square chips) protrudes into this space. There is also no SATA connector. I know what I'm talking about as I have exactly the same machine and I found to my surprise that I could not add another drive. The HP support people were as puzzled as me but they confirmed that this is true. When you go through the HP "configurator" you will find that the option of an extra 2.5" drive is not actually available if you have the Xeon chip. What makes it very confusing is that HP will ship a cradle for the 2.5" drive, but it cannot be used. A colleague has the ZBook G6 with i9 chip and there the space is available and a 2.5" drive can be added with ease.

 

[hasslehound]

I feel like I have to call out the "Battery Life" graph for this article as being incredibly incorrect. You are graphing 2 values, 5h11m and 5h53m. The 5h11m battery life is visualized as being roughly 1/3 of the time of 5h53m.

 

[omrihar]

I feel like I have to call out the "Battery Life" graph for this article as being incredibly incorrect. You are graphing 2 values, 5h11m and 5h53m. The 5h11m battery life is visualized as being roughly 1/3 of the time of 5h53m.

I was about to say the same! Bar charts make no sense if they don't give the true proportions.

 

[Roobarber]

I've recently bought one and don't recommend it all. I've had constant fan problems with it from the beginning and HP Support has given me minimal, wrong or incomplete instructions. The fan is too loud to use during virtual meetings and on-site visits to clients.
The problems to date have been:

• fans working constantly and very loudly (CPU temperature is between 70 - 80 degrees)
• 1 technician visit to replace 1 heat sink (which didn't help)
• 1 technician visit to replace 1 fan - he should've replace both fans and 1 motherboard but HP Support didn't send him the 2nd fan nor motherboard
• HP Support sending me links to many files to update which weren't included from the factory including several EXE files which hadn't been installed in the factory
• manually update several files which aren't being updated automatically using HP Support Assistant
• been told by HP Support to look for updates myself such as BIOS and chipset drivers on the US site because these aren't (always/never?) included as part of the HP Support Assistant update procedure
• HP Support Assistant itself isn't being automatically updated to the latest version and HP Support doesn't know why
• HP Support telling me to edit several settings in the BIOS which haven't helped the fan problem
• HP Support telling me to do a full reboot/reinstall of the laptop/Windows and backing everything up before because it will wipe the drive.

I ordered a higher spec of this laptop to deal with heavier processing but it can't even manage 1 internet browser being open without the fans working at high speed and are loud. I've asked for another laptop and going to ask for a refund once I've figured out which model to buy instead. HP Support won't exchange the laptop because they want to get to the bottom of this. Yet they haven't figured it out after 4 - 6 weeks of constant problems. They probably won't give me refund either.
This laptop includes next/day on site visit by a technician, but this is only for hardware and all the software problems need to be fixed by me with whatever help I can get from HP Support.
I hope you can find a better alternative.