HP Z book Firefly 15 G8 Review

HP has provided us with a review unit for one of our writers to test. Read our full version.

The HP Book Firefly 15 G8 is perhaps the ideal laptop for many professionals. Lightweight and versatile, it’s a very powerful business laptop that might be perfect for photographers, graphic designers and engineers. I tested it for 40 hours and evaluated its productivity, graphics processing capabilities, battery life and more.

Design: very stylish

Considering the powerful components packed inside, the HP Z book Firefly 15 G8 is remarkably compact. It’s only 0.76 inches thick and weighs just 3.74 pounds, making it surprisingly portable for more aggressive machines.

It has a professional aesthetic that is both modern and robust, and its most notable feature is the large shiny “Z” that adorns the lid. This is especially useful if you’re lucky enough to have a surname beginning with Z, in which case the laptop is, as it were, monogrammed for you.

Inside, the G8 is equally attractive in a serious and trendy way. A laptop doesn’t look bad in an office or other professional environment. The keyboard is a standard size and has a backlight combined with an ambient light sensor; with its beautiful texture and numeric keypad, it makes for a very pleasant typing experience. At the top of the keyboard is a row of media and shortcut keys, including a programmable key.

The trackpad is huge and easy to use, and the G8 has integrated the classic HP locator stick favored by many professionals. In addition to the trackpad keys, you also get large left and right mouse touch keys at the top of the trackpad for use with the pointer. The end result is a laptop that adapts to a wide range of users and their specific preferences.

Installation process: easy

There isn’t much to say about Firefly’s settings; it’s usually just the default installation of Windows 10, although there are some workplace-specific options that set up machines for employees. If you plan to use your laptop’s 5G functionality, you will also need to provide and insert a SIM card from your mobile operator.

New: a complete update

Not only will you get an upgrade to the latest components, but the overall value of a given configuration will increase significantly. One update is enough to make G7 owners seriously jealous of the G8.

Performance: power for the road

For such a thin and light laptop, the Firefly 15 G8 is no problem when it comes to processing power and graphics. At its heart is the Intel Core vapor i7-1165G7 processor, which is not only the latest generation Intel processor, but also aimed at productivity and creative pursuits. It also has 32GB of DDR4 RAM for multitasking and RAM-hungry programs like Photoshop.

In graphics, you have comparable professional productivity and creativity-oriented Nvidia T500 graphics, and a 512 GB Pie NV Me SSD provides fast data transfer speeds and fast response times. While 512GB is plenty, a full terabyte of storage would have been appreciated, but that’s understandable given this laptop’s high network connectivity, which means you can rely more reliably on cloud storage if you decide to use the capacity. 5G.

In Pockmark 10, the G8 performed very well across the board, with scores usually above six and even seven thousand in various categories. Only a very low video editing score ultimately lowered the average. This is consistent with GFX’s bank results, which gave a total score of 13,892 images, and with actual performance.

The Firefly 15 G8 is designed for 2D tasks such as Photoshop, which it handles reliably, as well as design software such as AutoCAD. It works very well as long as you don’t need a lot of built-in graphics power for heavy 3D tasks. Unless you’re using HP’s Central software to remotely connect to a powerful workstation computer.

I’ll talk more about this when we get to connectivity, but suffice it to say that the G8 is a highly specialized machine designed to deliver a lot of power as a highly mobile laptop while offering connectivity options for increased productivity.

Display: clear and accurate

HP has clearly intended the G8’s 4K resolution display for professionals. Color accuracy is at the heart of this 15.6-inch display, which offers 100% DCI-P3 coverage and uses HP’s Dream Color technology to ensure reliable color accuracy and extend battery life.

It looks absolutely gorgeous and brings your photos and videos to life. This is absolutely essential in professional work, especially when it comes to photography and graphics.

The high resolution of the screen also benefits detailed work and is bright enough for outdoor use. To top it off, the G8 includes a light sensor to dim or brighten the screen to the optimum level for certain lighting conditions.

Connectivity: Fast Mobility

The G8 has more than the standard laptop connectivity features. Not only does it include Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5, it also offers 5G cellular connectivity. This means that with an activated SIM card, the G8 can provide a fast internet connection anywhere.

This level of fast connections is critical to enabling HP’s Z Central Remote Boost. In practice, for graphics-intensive tasks that the G8 can’t handle, you can remotely connect to a more powerful workstation PC in the office and overcome the inherent limitations of a mobile device. The Firefly 15 G8 has a wide range of features made possible by Z Central. The film industry has been diligently using this technology in 2020 to overcome the difficulties of remote working.

Camera: Enhanced Privacy

The Firefly 15 G8’s webcam is usually average for a laptop. The 720p camera is perfectly adequate for video calls, although you do have infrared capabilities, which is a potentially useful bonus as it enables Windows Hello. A physical camera cover with manual switch provides more privacy.

Sound: a lot better than the competition

I recently tested many surprisingly decent laptop speakers, which makes the Bang & Olufsen speakers built into the Firefly 15 G8 particularly impressive for their quality.

I’m using Thunders truck’s 2Cellos cover as a speaker benchmark, and the G8’s speakers were able to handle that song’s tough bass, something I’ve never been able to say on a laptop. Greta Van Fleet’s latest album “Battle at Garden’s Gate” also sounded great. Highs, mids and lows are all rendered very well.

It’s also worth noting the G8’s AI-powered noise cancellation, designed for video conferencing, allowing you to have conversations over the network even in a relatively noisy and crowded environment.

Security: Professional Protection

A key feature of the Firefly 15 G8 is its advanced security features, making it ideal for professionals who need to protect sensitive data. In addition to the aforementioned physical webcam shutter, the G8 includes a self-healing BIOS that automatically recovers from attacks or corruption, HP Sure Click that captures malware in an isolated virtual machine, and HP Sure Sense to identify and protect various threats. .

Software: many things happen

The G8 comes with Windows 10 Pro, which is what you’d expect from a business device like this. HP has packed a lot of useful features under the hood of this laptop, most of which have already been discussed here.

One I haven’t touched on yet is HP Quick Drop, which allows you to quickly and easily transfer files from your phone to your laptop and vice versa. I find this a particularly useful feature as it saves money when managing physical connections.

Battery life: all working day

Thanks to the various energy-saving measures, the G8 lasts exceptionally long without having to recharge. HP claims 14 hours, which was correct for my use. It easily lasts throughout the working day.

Final verdict

A powerful and highly portable mobile workstation packed with professional features.

The HP Zbook Firefly 15 G8 is a custom laptop for professionals working in multiple areas where mobility is key. Its impeccable design is ideal for a corporate environment and offers a wide range of security and connectivity options that make it extremely versatile. Add a bright and highly accurate display and the Firefly 15 G8 is a highly portable workstation laptop.