HP ZBook 15 review: This mobile workstation packs the features—and the pounds

When mobile productivity means using CAD software or other computationally intense applications, you need more than a desktop replacement—you need a workstation. HP’s ZBook 15 is fast and it includes all the latest technology, including Thunderbolt connectivity for bandwidth-hungry applications such as digital video editing. But one thing this mobile workstation is not is light.

The ZBook 15 is a handsome and substantial machine, with a magnesium frame, brushed-aluminum surfaces, and a dark gray and black paint scheme. But it’s a stocky 1.2-inches thick and it weighs 6.2 pounds—that’s a good pound heavier than most of the 17-inch desktop replacements we’ve seen. It feels rock solid at rest, and there’s a docking port on its bottom if you’re desk-bound more often than not. But when you do toss it and its two-pound AC adapter in your bag, your shoulder will get a workout.

The HP ZBook 15 is made for work, not play. It’s equipped with a high-end CPU, 16GB of memory, and a discrete workstation-glass GPU.

Buying the configuration we reviewed—HP’s model D5H42AV—will give your wallet a bit of workout, too. It’s currently selling at HP’s website for $3233, but a 20-percent eCoupon brings that down to $2586 (less-expensive, less-powerful configurations are also available). That buys a lot of horsepower, including a fourth-generation Intel Core i7-4800MQ processor (with Intel’s vPro management technology), 16GB of DDR3/1600 memory, and a discrete Nvidia Quadro K610M graphics card—with its own 1GB GDDR5 frame buffer—to supplement the Intel HD Graphics 4600 integrated into its CPU.

HP offers powerful connectivity options with the ZBook 15. Our eval unit was equipped with an HP hs3110 HSPA+ mobile broadband card and an Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 wireless 802.11n-plus-Bluetooth adapter. (But if you order a ZBook 15, we’d strongly recommend upgrading to Intel’s Centrino Advanced-N 7260 adapter. It costs just $5 more, and it delivers 802.11ac speed as well as Bluetooth connectivity).

Toshiba’s Qosmio X75 desktop replacement laptop is a little faster than the HP’s ZBook 15, but that machine has a consumer-oriented CPU and GPU. 

Our eval unit came with a 500GB, 7200 rpm hard drive augmented by a 32GB mSATA SSD cache. Slide open a pair of friction locks and you can remove the ZBook 15’s bottom panel to access and upgrade it memory, storage, and wireless modules. The battery which is also removable, lasted 5 hours and 23 minutes in our run-down test. That’s a good long while considering all the silicon its powering.

Our test unit felt quick and responsive during our hands-on evaluation. High-resolution video looked smooth as silk on its 15.6-inch, 1920-by-1080 display, which has matte finish to eliminate reflections in bright environments. The Zbook 15’s speakers sound pretty good, too. There’s not a lot of bass, but they have a solid low-midrange that at least hints that a bass guitar and kick drum are in the mix.

The ZBook 15 turns the tables when it comes to battery life, keeping you productive twice as long while away from an electrical outlet.

Port-wise, the Zbook 15 has everything you could wish for: gigabit ethernet, VGA and full-sized DisplayPort (you’ll need an adapter for HDMI), three USB 3.0 ports and one USB 2.0 port, a headset jack, Thunderbolt, and a Kensington lock port. There’s also an impressive array of slots: ExpressCard, SmartCard, and the usual SDHC slot. A fingerprint reader, 720p Webcam, and a DVD burner round things out. The ZBook 15 covers all the bases, but HP gives you the option of deleting components you don’t need, saving you a little carry weight and cash.

The please-everyone philosophy is also in play with the input devices. Along with the aforementioned fingerprint reader comes a touchpad with two sets of buttons: one at the top and one at the bottom. It looks odd, but assures that one set is always within easy reach whether you’re typing or swiping. 

The ZBook 15 has a gorgeous 15.6-inch anti-glare display. 

The ZBook 15’s backlit island-style keyboard is nearly full sized, and there’s a keypad for number crunching. It types decently, although the flat keys make for insecure initial finger placement. If the trackpad doesn’t float your boat, there’s an eraser-head cursor controller amid the B, G and H keys. But I found its rigid plastic cover too slippery to be effective, despite its being concave and covered with bumps.

Our ZBook 15 shipped with the Windows 7 Professional operating system (you can order Windows 8 Pro as a no-cost option). Corporations are migrating to Windows 8 slower than they did to Vista, so this is an important option. A three-year warranty is standard with every ZBook 15, but there are four- and five-year next business-day, on-site plans available for $149 and $259 respectively. Accidental damage and post-warranty coverage is also available.

The ZBook 15 is a solid piece of hardware in every sense of the word.

From PC World. Electronics product reviews and advice for best reference

Dell Precision T3610 review: A workstation with exceptional fit and finish

There’s a sense of focused, purposeful design that you get when you kick the tires on Dell’s Precision T3610 midrange workstation. The attention to fit and finish, especially inside the case, is outstanding. You see that with a lot of major vendors in the workstation market, of course, but the T3610 takes it up a notch compared with a workstation like HP’s Z230 Tower.

Dell sells the Precision T3610 in eight configurations, starting with a $1100 model featuring a 3GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5-1607 CPU; a 512MB Nvidia Quadro NVS 310 graphics card; 4GB of non-ECC (error-correcting code), DDR3/1600 memory; and a 500GB, 7200-rpm hard drive. The top-of-the-line configuration we tested costs $2210 and consists of a 3.7GHz quad-core Xeon E5-1650 processor; a 3GB Nvidia Quadro K4000 graphics card; 16GB of ECC DDR3/1866 memory; and a 1TB, 7200-rpm hard drive.

ROBERT CARDIN

Dell’s Precision T3610 features impressive fit and finish. 

AMD FirePro graphics boards are also available, and the motherboard supports up to 128GB of memory, but you get no solid-state drive option. And unless you’re a Premier customer buying in bulk, you’re restricted to one of the eight somewhat limited configurations Dell offers, or you can buy one and upgrade it yourself.

Back to the T3610’s outstanding design. The midsize-tower case is especially sturdy, and a handle is integrated into the front of the unit for easier lugging. The power supply is mounted at the bottom of the case for better stability. The unit runs quietly even with plenty of airflow though it. The memory is situated inside tunnels that allow air to pass across the DIMMs, with waste heat whisked directly out of the unit so that it can’t affect other components. Same deal with the CPU.

ROBERT CARDIN

The T3610 channels cooling air over critical components, and ensures that warm air is exhausted outside the enclosure. 

The system has two side-facing 3.5-inch drive bays with slide-in trays, plus two vertically oriented, externally accessible 5.25-inch drive bays. One of these harbors the system’s half-height 8X DVD burner. The side panel detaches easily when the center-mounted latch is disengaged, and a beefy chassis-intrusion switch is available to blow the whistle on unauthorized access when said feature is enabled.

The motherboard has plenty of expansion slots: two PCIe 3.0 x16, one PCIe 3.0 x8/x16, one PCIe 2.0 x4, one PCIe 2.0 x1, and a legacy PCI 32 slot. It also offers six SATA ports: four 6Gb/s and two 3Gb/s. On the front you’ll find one USB 3.0 port and three USB 2.0 ports. The back serves up another three USB 3.0 ports, as well as a whopping five USB 2.0 ports. If that’s not enough, two additional USB 2.0 headers are on the motherboard. A serial port, a gigabit ethernet connection, and legacy PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports reside in back as well. 

Bearing in mind that PCWorld’s WorldBench 8.1 test suite isn’t designed for workstations, which are focused on math and CAD, the T3610’s score of 188 is solid.

Our E5-1650–based system came with Windows 7 Professional, as do all the configurations I saw online. Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows 8 Ultimate, and Red Hat 8.5 Enterprise are available, but again only to Premier customers on bulk orders.

The lower-priced T3610 configurations come with a standard one-year warranty, and the high-end version we tested is covered for three years. You’ll find all the service options you could wish for, though: The price is $172 for the basic five-year on-site plan, or $301 for on-site service with 24/7 phone support and assistance with software issues.

You won’t regret a Precision T3610 purchase once you see the attention to detail that Dell has put into it, assuming that you’re a Premier customer and/or you find a configuration that suits you. If one of the eight available doesn’t fill the bill, check out Dell’s other workstation lines.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
More by Jon L. Jacobi

From PC World. Electronics product reviews and advice for best reference

Review: MuLab is a little-known gem of a digital audio workstation

At first glance, Mu.Lab from MuTools might appear to be one of those simple, feature-deprived efforts you see from a multitudes of software vendors trying to cash in on Garage Band's success. However, just a few minutes with the free edition of this audio recording and MIDI sequencing program, and you'll realize there's much, much more to it than first meets the eye. Indeed, it's now my favorite track-based recording app--and I've used nearly every product on the market. It's available for both PC and Mac.

Where Mu.Lab shines is in hiding its power while still keeping it in easy reach. The secret is right-clicking--much of the program functionality is found in context menus. Everything looks nice and the use of icons is for the most part spot on--minimal and limited to those that are easily intuited. Too many vendors try to squeeze every feature onto the main screen, use too many similar-looking icons and wind up with a severe case of information overload. The interface isn't perfect, but it's a lot closer to it than the majority of competition.

The session mux lets you see and edit the super flexible audio signal routing.

Mu.Lab supports drag and drop so you can import MIDI and audio files directly from the desktop (there's also an integrated browser). I recreated/imported an entire 12-track MIDI/audio Studio One project in about ten minutes. The program also fully supports VST effects and instruments and includes its own reverb, EQ, sample player, drum set, synth, etc. You must scan for VSTs manually, but I find this approach appealing it doesn't waste time automatically scanning each time the program boots as other DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) do.

Besides power and simplicity, perhaps Mu.Labs greatest asset is its incredibly flexible routing, which reminds one of a modular synthesizer. You can send signals along any path to any effect, Mu.Lab rack (versatile routing and mixing strips), input, output, etc. You can also view and edit the entire routing scheme in the session mux routing schematic. Once you're used to the power of free-form routing, it's difficul to go back to the stricter mixing board concept.

MuLab is not without foibles. It makes you confirm deleting any object and unlike most programs, you won't see a representation of what you're recording in real time. You get  a visual waveform only after you've finished recording. For those used to programs that provide more feedback on the process, this requires an initial leap of faith, but you'll get used to it quickly and it's less distracting. Some of the visual elements draw your eye to the wrong area, but by and large, the interface is top-notch.

Looks can be deceiving in MuLab. Right-click any object and you'll usually find the functionality you need.

MuLab lacks one feature that some users will miss—audio punch in/punch out. Called punch because the process originally involved a recording engineer punching a button, it allows recording to start when you reach a marker, and cease when it reaches a second marker. You can of course record on another track (MuLab does this automatically where there are overlaps), then cut and paste, and to be honest, I'm so used to this now that I don't miss punch all that much. I'd also like to see Music XML support, but I could say the same thing for nearly the entire industry.

A major Mu.Lab perquisite is portability; you can install it on a flash drive and take it with you for use on any computer. Many competitors hand out seat licenses that must be activated online, which can be a major pain for the musician about town. Mu.Lab is also very light weight for a DAW, weighing in at less than 19MB--including a fair number of instrument samples. And it's self-contained, i.e. it doesn't install any third-party or Microsoft Visual C++ DLLs as some programs to.

Any musician who records audio and MIDI, even if entrenched with their current DAW, should download Mu.Lab and explore it for an hour or two. It's not what you're used to, so give it some time. It's powerful, clean, simple, and the right-click functionality is highly efficient, not to mention addictive. So addictive that you might have a hard time not plopping down 25 Euros for the 8-track/16-bit XT version (not the 70s tape format!) or 75 Euros for the 32-bit version without limits on tracks, effects, or instruments. Consider that fair warning.

Note: The Download button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software. The free 4-track version is perfect for small recording projects like the local school play, church choir, etc. but you'll hear intermittent noise if you exceed its (or the XT version's) track, instrument, or effects limits.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Julliard, and now he power mods his car for kicks.
More by Jon L. Jacobi

From PC World. Electronics product reviews and advice for best reference

HP Z1 Workstation Review: Pretty, Powerful, and Pricey, but Not Perfect

The new HP Z1 Workstation is the most attractive, most powerful, and most expensive all-in-one PC I've ever seen. And that isn't an exaggeration: This all-in-one workstation, the first of its kind, has a gorgeous 27-inch edge-to-edge glass screen, packs desktop-class components, and will set you back a cool $5673 (as configured, and as of April 10, 2012).

Our review model sports an Intel Xeon E31280 processor, 16GB of RAM, and an Nvidia Quadro 4000M graphics card, and runs a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional. The graphics card alone currently goes for around $750 online, so that's a big chunk of the Z1's hefty price tag. The model we tested also features built-in Bluetooth 3.0, built-in Wi-Fi, a high-def (1080p) 2-megapixel adjustable webcam, and a Blu-ray Disc writer. Budget-minded shoppers can pick up the Z1 with lower-end specs (such as a 32-bit OS, a DVD-RW drive, or an Intel Core i3-2120 processor) for less, as the Z1's base configuration starts at $1899.

Performance

I'll just go ahead and say it: This machine is, hands down, the most powerful all-in-one PC we've ever tested. In PCWorld's WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, the Z1 posted an impressive score of 159. That means the Z1 is 59 percent faster than our baseline model, a desktop with an Intel Core i5-2500K processor, 8GB of RAM, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card. The score puts the Z1 well ahead of the rest of its class (most large-screen AIOs score in the 80-to-100 range on WorldBench 7), and even ahead of some of our lower-end performance tower desktops.

The Z1 also offers impressive graphics performance, thanks to its Quadro 4000M professional workstation graphics card, which supports high-quality 3D. In PCWorld's Dirt 3 graphics tests, the Z1 delivered very good frame rates of 69.1 frames per second (high quality, 1680-by-1050-pixel resolution) and 112.9 fps (high quality, 1024-by-768-pixel resolution).

Design

The Z1 is housed in a gorgeous, if large, all-in-one chassis. The machine sports a glossy 27-inch screen with edge-to-edge glass across the slim black bezel. It sits on a sturdy plastic stand that flexes and folds to allow you to lay the screen flat and snap open the chassis. The stand is rather deep--16.5 inches, to be exact--which is necessary to support the Z1 when it's vertical and when it's horizontal. The depth is unfortunate, however, since it means that this otherwise slim PC takes up a lot of desk space.

Ports are mostly located on the back of the Z1, inconveniently underneath the point where the stand connects to the machine. Making things even more inconvenient, these ports angle upward, so plugging anything in is extremely frustrating. On the back of the Z1, you'll find four USB 2.0 ports, one gigabit ethernet connection, DisplayPort in/out, S/PDIF, a subwoofer connection, line-in, and line-out, as well as a lock slot. A few convenience ports--two USB 3.0 ports, one FireWire port, a four-in-one card reader, and microphone and headphone jacks--are located on the side of the system.

Unlike most all-in-ones, the Z1 is made to be opened and tinkered with. However, while it is housed in a toolless chassis, opening the Z1 is tricky. First you have to lay the screen flat, which involves a lot of pushing and hoping that nothing breaks (putting the screen upright again is much more difficult, too). Then the screen snaps open from the bottom, and you're treated to the neat-but-cramped interior of an AIO. Inside you'll find four PCIe slots (one PCIe x16 slot that's full, plus three open MiniPCIe slots), four memory slots (32GB maximum), and three USB 2.0 ports.

Screen, Speakers, and Peripherals

The Z1's crowning glory is its 27-inch LCD In-Plane Switching screen, which has a native resolution of 2560 by 1440 pixels. The screen is very bright, with striking contrast and crisp images and text. Thanks to the IPS technology, colors look accurate, and viewing angles are very good. The screen is not a touchscreen, which is disappointing, since most higher-end AIOs have touchscreens these days.

Multimedia looks and sounds great on the Z1. Video playback is smooth, with very little artifacting (and much of the artifacting we saw was due to the video source, not the Z1's playback). Audio sounds very good, with full, rich bass and decent surround-sound simulation. The speakers are quite loud, so this AIO could easily double as a TV substitute. (Not that you'd be watching much media, when you should be working.)

The Z1 comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse, both of which are mediocre at best. The keyboard, which has regular-style keys, is easy to type on but offers weak feedback. The optical mouse is typical, with two buttons and a scrollwheel, and is slightly jumpy and oversensitive.

Bottom Line

The HP Z1 Workstation is gorgeous and powerful, but it's definitely not perfect. My biggest issue with the system is that it lacks a touchscreen, a feature that most of its competitors have. The Z1 also has difficult-to-access ports, an inconveniently deep stand, and mediocre peripherals. These problems aren't usually deal breakers, but for $5673 I pretty much expect perfection.

Still, the Z1 is exceedingly powerful for an AIO, and it's also extremely attractive. So if you like traditional input devices (and you have your own), and if you have a lot of desk space to spare, you may want to check out this beauty. Plus, the ability to open the PC up and swap out parts--even if it's fairly cramped in there--is something you won't find in any other all-in-one.

From PCWorld. Visit Amazon Computer and Notebook Center here