14-inch HP ZBook 8 Gli review: An unimpressive workstation

The concept behind The portable workstation isn’t new or particularly difficult. Load up a laptop with top-tier specs to make it as rugged and future-proof as possible, and don’t care if it adds a few ounces and inches to the load. Ostensibly, these machines are designed with demanding tasks in mind, such as video editing or computer-aided design (CAD) work. Money has historically been no object in a mobile workstation. If you need that kind of juice, you (or more likely your employer) will be expected to pay for it.

New HP ZBook 8G1i It checks all those boxes, though it arrives with a strange twist: a hefty discount of more than $2,500 off the $4,000-plus asking price, significantly bringing the price of the device down to something in line with a traditional laptop. I’m listening.

Photo: Chris Noll

Thick as a brick

If it weren’t for the extra size (27mm) and weight (3.8 lbs), this laptop would easily fit into any older computer 14 inch system. (It’s also available in a 16-inch version.) It’s otherwise anonymous, and not much thought has been given to industrial design here. Standard HP branding is affixed to a gray metal chassis composed of aluminum and partially recycled plastic. The gently rounded corners don’t do much to hide the surprisingly wide bezels around the screen, and the keyboard and trackpad are perfectly functional if utilitarian in appearance. If you were handed this device on your first day of work in 2014, you would probably be very happy.

Mobile workstations are all about specs, and to that end, the ZBook 8 is somewhat surprising. While the inclusion of 64GB of RAM is on point, the choice of CPU – an Intel Core Ultra 7 265H – is odd, as it falls in the middle of the Core Ultra Series 2’s power spectrum. At the very least, the Ultra 9 looks like it would be adequate. A 1TB SSD was included in my test configuration. The screen size of 2,560 x 1,600 pixels is decent for a 14-inch device (without a touchscreen), but it’s just shy of anything I would consider impressive.

Discrete graphics—common in workstations—are present, but the system includes Nvidia GeForce RTX 500 Gen Ada GPUa specialized healer I’ve never encountered in the wild. The Ada 500 is nearly two years old, and is a stripped-down version of the GeForce RTX 4060. Benchmarks peg its performance on roughly equal footing with the mobile GeForce GTX 1000 series. Again, an odd choice for a machine.