Hi Everyone, new member here... Found the forums recently when sweeping the internet for information on the ZBook 17 G3. Actually I was reading in the ZBook 15 g3 Owners Lounge recently.
Well I got delivery of one of these today. Ordered on 2/16, shipped 3/16 from Shanghai (original quote 3/1) delivered on 3/21.
$2,078.77 + Tax, Free Shipping (6 days)
Intel® Core™ i7-6820HQ (2.70GHz w/Turbo, 8MB L3 Cache)
Intel® 530 HD Graphics
Product number: M9L92AV
•No Microsoft Office Software
•Elite Services Card
•3 year Battery Warranty Card
•Upgrade to Foxit Phantom PDF Business Software
•ENERGY STAR Qualified Configuration
•17.3 inch LED FHD UWVA Anti-Glare flat (1920x1080) for Webcam
•Integrated 720p HD Webcam
•8 GB 2133 DDR4 SDRAM (1 DIMM)
•1 TB 7200 rpm Hard Drive
•Intel 8260 ac (2x2) + Bluetooth 4.2
•No HP Mobile Broadband
•6-Cell (96 WHr) Long Life Battery
•Integrated Fingerprint Reader
•Intel® vPro™ Technology Enabled
•Back-Lit DualPoint Keyboard
•Destination Country Kit Localization
•Power Cord - 1.8 Meters
•200 Watt Smart PFC Slim AC Adapter
•Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
•Intel® Core™ i7 Processor vPro Label
•AMD FirePro W6150M with 4 GB dedicated GDDR5 video
memory
•No Secondary Internal Storage
•3/3/3 Warranty
•Drivers for Windows 10 (Driver Media)
Some of that stuff is still a mystery, I may ask support. I was told by sales that 'Drivers for Windows 10 (Driver Media)' was a USB Flash Drive, but didn't see one. Also, no idea what the Elite Services Card does, there was nothing physical in the box about it. The PDF Software was $1, I'll see if it is any use.
My immediate plans are:
Create recovery USB Flash (used a 16GB) (done)
Remove 1TB rotating drive (done)
Install SSD (this one is just for testing right now)
Fresh install of Win10 from USB Flash Drive
Replace 1TB rotating drive from another system that has my data on it. As secondary storage.
Run it for a week or two.
I may not keep it, as it seems a touchscreen version will be out later. It depends on how I like it. Free returns for 30 days on my deal.
Future plans:
Add another 8GB RAM Module (one bank out of four is populated now, HP was price gouging on the RAM, max with my CPU is 32GB)
Possibly M.2 SSD, there is room for 2 I beileve, the one I want is a little pricey now, the Samsung 950 is about $180@256GB now.
What I have now is a HP Pavilion DV7-6195US, i7-2630QM (SandyBridge), 16GB, SSD boot drive, rotating drive for storage. It was very snappy with Win7, not such good boot with Win10. It's at least 5 years old.
I was intrigued by the powerful CPU, FOUR DRIVE BAYS, FOUR MEMORY SLOTS, the USB 3.1/Thunderbolt, and the other power features. I hope I don't miss the optical drive. Already the external one is giving me a problem using it as the source for the Win10 clean install. I'm prepping the USB media while I type this, so I haven't had success with the OS replacement operation yet.
First reactions. The brick is still heavy although a little smaller than the DV7, at about 1x4x8in. The notebook is about the same weight as the DV7.
The keyboard is satisfactory so far, no sagging as reported on the 15 G3. There is a pointing stick between G H and B. Hasn't gotten in the way yet, we'll see, I'm a touch typist. I think I'm gonna like the backlit keyboard because I sometimes work in natural light indoors.
There are four indicator lights, very small and not easy to see, but thank goodness they're there, especially the HDD activity light, I use the feedback from that a lot. The others are battery charging/full, Power, and WiFi (which is a little odd because there is s dedicated WiFi on/off button that is lighted too). One other dedicated button is a sound mute. The power button is lighted also so that's another duplicate. There's also a light near the power jack, doesn't change color like the other one does with battery charging/full.
Initial performance reaction is not available yet, I didn't want to run it with the factory OS on a rotating drive, and as I said am still on the mission of loading a fresh Win10 onto a (2.5 inch) SSD. I'm hoping it's pretty fast, but time will tell.
One bonus, the hard drive parts kit (pn 847863-001) required to add a second 2.5 in drive was included in the box. The kit included four screws to mount the drive to the frame, a frame to mount the the drive into the chassis, and the cable to wire it to the motherboard. VERY NICE HP!!!! I was prepared to accept that because I ordered it with one 2.5 in drive that the hardware to add a second was not going to be in the chassis. Well it wasn't in the chassis, it was in a baggie with the docs.
One PITA so far is the access to the internals. HD/RAM/WiFi/M.2/Battery, everything is behind one large cover, essentially the whole bottom of the chassis. There are 11 screws to loosen and re-tighten each time you go inside! (To HP's credit, they are 'captured screws' so they don't fall out if you do it correctly.) I've been in there three times today already, and will be back in there a few more. The screw tip is a Torx M8, for the nerds among you. The battery is not a removable module like most. Yes you can swap it, but only after fighting the 11 screws.
I'll probably visit back here with more reactions and to read what y'all have to say.
-VT
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