Featuring up to 11th-gen Intel Core i7 processors, 4K display and NVIDIA Quadro T500 Mobile GPU, and 5G connectivity, the HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 is a highly customizable mobile workstation for power users offering pro-level performance.
The ZBook is lightweight at 1.7kg and portable at 0.76in thickness. It’s 66Wh battery that can deliver up to 12-15 hours of operation on a single charge.
Specifications
| CPU | 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1165G7 (2.8GHz, Turbo up to 4.7GHz, L3 Cache 12MB) |
| RAM | 16 GB (2×8 GB) DDR4 3200 |
| GPU | Intel Xe Graphics NVIDIA T500 Graphics 4 GB GDDR6, Boost Clock 1560MHz |
| Storage | 512 GB PCIe NVMe TLC SSD |
| Display | 15.6″ diagonal FHD (920×1080 LED UWVA Anti-Glare 250 Nits |
| Ports | 1x headphone/microphone combo 1x USB Type-A (charging) 1x Power connector 1x USB Type-A 1x HDMI 2.0b 2x Thunderbolt 4 with USB4 Type-C (USB Power Delivery, DisplayPort 1.4, HP Sleep and Charge); |
| Connectivity | Intel AX201 Wi-Fi 6 (2×2) Bluetooth 5.0 Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 LTE+5G |
| Camera | Integrated HD 720p DualAryMic Webcam |
| Audio | Dual stereo speakers Audio by Bang & Olufsen |
| Battery | 56Wh lithium-polymer battery 65-Watt USB-C Adapter |
| Dimensions | 14.15 x 9.19 x 0.76 in (WxDxH) Approx. 1.7 kg |
View full specifications of the HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 here.
Packaging, Design & Build Quality
The HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 comes in a brown cardboard box. Inside are the laptop, charging adapter, laptop sleeve and manuals.
The laptop exterior is made of aluminum and magnesium exterior and comes in a dark gray color, with a Z logo on the lid. The ZBook looks classy, minimalistic and will look right at home in a professional setting.
The chassis is quite rigid, the hinges feel sturdy while folding. There is no flex in the chassis or screen wobbles.
The HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 also features a fingerprint sensor, The built-in reader scans your finger, so you don’t have to go through multiple steps or worry about forgetting your password.
The workstation is surprisingly light and portable with dimensions of 14.15 x 9.19 x 0.76 in (WxDxH) (WxDxH) and with a weight of 1.7 Kg, it can be easily carried around in laptop bags and backpacks.
Ports
There are no connections at the back, all ports are on the right and left sides of the notebook. On the left is 1x audio jack combo and 1x USB Type-A.
On the right side are 1x power connector, 1x HDMI 2.0b (4K/60Hz output), 2 Thunderbolt 4 USB4 Type-C (USB Power Delivery, DisplayPort 1.4, Charging) and 1x USB Type-A. There is also a tiny cutout here for a nano SIM card slot that uses the built-in Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G WWAN card.
The USB4 Type-C ports also promise a transfer speeds of up to 40 Gbps and next-gen interface support.
Display
Our review model features a 15-inch Full HD non-touch 1920×1080 IPS display with an anti-glare coating and thin bezels. The laptop can also be customized with a 4K or 1080p display that supports touch and the sRGB and DCI-P3 color standards for graphics and video work.
The display features 250 nits brightness and while this works well indoors, its rather difficult in outdoor and well environments.
Colors are rich, vivid, and saturated and really pack a punch with no signs of stuttering or ghosting, but the viewing angles are limited for privacy reasons.
At the top of the display is a HD webcam with a physical sliding privacy cover. The webcam image quality is mediocre. It comes with an IR biometric sensor and supports Windows Hello facial recognition.
Keyboard & Trackpad
The chiclet keyboard has a short key-travel and feels great to type on. The keyboard is backlit with three levels of brightness. The layout is standard with dedicated shortcut buttons and a numpad. The first row of function keys are smaller in size which allows adjusting simple things like screen brightness, multimedia controls etc. Typing experience is good and has solid feedback.
The HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 also features a fingerprint login on the lower right corner of the keyboard, making waking up the laptop as simple as unlocking your phone. Coming to the touchpad, it’s easy to navigate, multi-touch gestures are recognized and handled properly.
There are two dedicated tactile buttons for left and right click that can be used with the dedicated cursor stick, similar to the iconic ThinkPad TrackPoint, which lets you control the mouse pointer.
Performance
Powered by the latest 11th Generation Intel Core i7-1165G7 processor, The HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 offers with up to 16GB of DDR4 3200MHz RAM, NVIDIA T500 Graphics 4 GB GDDR6and 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD storage.
CPU
The i7-1165G7 has four cores at a clock frequency of 2.80 GHz each reaching up to 4.70 GHz with eight threads, offering good multitasking performance.
GPU
The HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 is powered by a NVIDIA T500 GPU and Intel Iris Xe Graphics which is powerful enough for daily tasks, work and photo editing. However, gaming performance is really poor and most games fail to achieve playable frame rates in full resolution/quality.
RAM
In terms of RAM, The HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 is equipped with 16 GB of DDR4 RAM at a frequency of 3200MHz.
STORAGE
Our review unit came with a 512GB PCIe NVMe SSD, but can vary based on the configuration. The SSD offers good performance with read speeds of up to 3,269MB per second and write of up to 2,935MB.
BENCHMARKS
In Cinebench R20 tests, the i7 1165G7 scored 571 in single core benchmark and 2,025 in multi-core benchmark. In PCMark 10 Benchmark, the HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 scored 4,991.
Since this isn’t a laptop built for gaming, we haven’t benchmarked any games with the laptop. With the said the hardware can run games at low-res with low quality settings.
| BENCHMARK | SCORE |
| Cinebench R20 single core | 571 |
| Cinebench R20 multi core | 2,025 |
| PCMark 10 Benchmark | 4,991 |
| 3DMark Time Spy | 2,184 |
| 3DMark Fire Strike | 4,105 |
Temperature & Noise
With typical day-to-day tasks and using the silent profile, the noise and heat remained at very low levels. Even with resource-intensive tasks, the noise is minimal and the laptop does not get excessively warm.
Battery & Audio
The HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 comes with a 56Wh battery and 65W power adapter. On paper, it’s rated for about 14 hours of battery life. On a full charge, based on the usage and screen brightness, the laptop lasts about 12 hours.
The laptop also supports battery fast charging: and charges to about 50% in 30 minutes
The HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 features dual stereo speaker setup tuned by Bang & Olufsen. The sound quality is good and loud enough without much distortion at high volume and the highs, mids, and bass are well represented. But as with most laptops, we recommend using a headset.
HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 Verdict
The lightweight chassis, performance, 5G connectivity and long battery life make the HP ZBook Firefly 15 G8 a practical on-the-go mobile workstation. It has excellent build quality and the hardware can be configured to your liking making it versatile for business use.
In terms of security, some of the highlights include HP BIOSphere that help protect against a variety of attacks or corruption, HP Sure Click that quarantines malware in an isolated VM, HP Sure Sense to guard against threats, HP DriveLock that prevents unauthorized access to valuable data and many more.
The only downside here is the price as there are really some good alternatives currently available for much cheaper, although not as secure or configurable.
