HP ZBOOK 15U G2 LAPTOP REVIEW

HP ZBOOK 15U G2 LAPTOP REVIEW

Tough but portable, HP's ZBook laptop will appeal to a professional audience. We review the HP ZBook 15u G2. 

Now that HP has migrated its mobile workstation laptops from EliteBook to ZBook, we find two distinct version of the 15-inch workhorse from which to choose.

The regular ZBook 15 G2 is closer to the original brick-built EliteBooks, around 40 mm thick and bending the scale needle close to 3 kg – although that’s still a trim and toned-up take on the classic bombproof mobile power laptop.

Coming in at a little over 2.0 kg and just under 25 mm thick, the new HP ZBook 15u is the more fashionable variation of ZBook. The added U in the name seems to point to Ultrabook, Intel’s much abused marketing name for a MacBook Air-style ultraportable running Windows.

The ZBook 15u appears to be in its second generation (G2) although since this is a brand new product we suspect the suffix was added so it wouldn’t look out of date next to the revised G2 version of the ZBook 15. While far from emulating the carry-anywhere sub-20 mm, sub-1.5 kg notebooks of today, it’s relatively compact form puts it alongside other thin and light workstation notebooks such as the 15-inch Apple MacBook Pro and Dell Precision M3800.

HP ZBOOK 15U G2 REVIEW: BUILD AND DESIGN

The case of the ZBook 15u is almost entirely constructed from metal, a lightweight cast alloy for the main chassis, with metal top plate around the keyboard and lid back. The 15.6-inch widescreen display with matt anti-glare finish is available as either a budget TN or higher-grade IPS version, both at 1920 x 1080 resolution. There’s no option for a touchscreen display, arguably a wasteful frippery on a professional mobile workstation. 

On the left side is the exhaust outlet for the single internal cooling fan, a VGA D-Sub video port, two USB 3.0 and a slot for smart cards. Along the right we find a 3.5 mm headset jack, full-size DisplayPort 1.2, another two USB 3.0, gigabit ethernet (with sprung flag, to help fit into the slim edge), DC power inlet, and a proprietary docking slot. There’s no underside docking-station port as you’d find on most business laptop, but HP promises to supply an adaptor to fit this side port with two more digital video outputs. Missing from the port line-up is the Thunderbolt 2 port now found on the non-U ZBook 15 G2.

The entire case bottom is easily removable from one slide-release button, providing access to most of the upgradable components such as memory, storage and wireless connectivity.

Our sample had 16 GB of memory on two 8 GB SO-DIMM modules and a PCIe-attached M.2 SSD, 256 GB in size. You can add a 4G LTE module, access the 802.11ac mini-PCI card and change the 50 Wh battery from here too. Even with the solid-state drive fitted, there’s also space to add a 2.5-inch SATA drive.

For main processor duties, this model had a new Broadwell series 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7-5600U, and unusually for a notebook billed as a professional workstation, this is a dual- rather than quad-core chip. This is the top specification, with an option on the 2.4 GHz version of the same chip (5500U)

HP explains that thermal issues prevented it from fitting a quad-core processor into this relatively thin case. In contrast, both Apple and Dell do use quad-core Intel Core i7 mobile processors in their counterparts, although the latter at least can suffers from cooling issues, requiring its fans to rev up to high speed to keep internal temperatures within limits.

For graphics processor there is a choice of just the integrated Intel HD Graphics 5500 from the Intel CPU, or this with an additional AMD FirePro M4170 dedicated GPU. Unlike the fat ZBook 15, there’s no Nvidia option here.

The AMD FirePro includes 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, and is designed to switch into action when required with AMD’s Enduro Technology, a rebrand of its Dynamic Switching Graphics (DSG) system.

At time of review, the only variants of the ZBook 15u G2 we could find offered from the HP UK website were without discrete AMD graphics, and up to 8 GB of system RAM only. With the lower 2.4 GHz processor, integrated graphics powering the IPS display, and 256 GB Z Turbo Drive (HP’s name for the PCIe-attached SanDisk SSD), the ZBook 15u G2 is priced at £1320 inc VAT.

HP ZBOOK 15U G2: SPECS

• 15.6-inch (1920 x 1080) 141 ppi IPS matt anti-glare (Samsung SDC5344)
• Windows 7 Professional
• 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7-5600U (32. GHz Turbo) 2C, 4T
• AMD FirePro M4170 with 1 GB GDDR5 / Intel HD Graphics 5500
• 16 GB (2x 8 GB) 1600 MHz DDR3 RAM
• 256 GB SSD (SanDisk SD6PP4M-256G-1006)
• gigabit ethernet
• 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2x2 MIMO (Intel Wireless-AC 7265)
• Bluetooth 4.0
• optional 4G LTE module
• 4x USB 3.0
• 1x DisplayPort 1.2, 1x VGA D-Sub
• Kensington lock slot, HP FingerPrint sensor
• SDXC card slot, smart card reader
• stereo speakers
• 0.9 Mp webcam
• dual mics
• 3.5 mm headset jack
• US tiled, backlit, spill resistant keyboard
• 104 x 65 mm, 2x three buttons, trackpoint
• 50 Wh lithium battery
• 65 W mains charger with C5 inlet
• 375 x 253 x 24.5 mm
• 2045 g

How to Migrate your Blog from Blogger to WordPress

Your blog (abc.blogspot.com) is hosted on Blogger and you would now like to move the blog from Blogger to WordPress (self-hosted) with a personal domain name like abc.com. What is the easiest way to switch from Blogger to WordPress without losing Google search traffic, page rank and your existing feed subscribers?

WordPress provides an easy one-click option for importing blog posts and reader comments from Blogger into a new WordPress blog but there’s more to migration than just transferring content. For instance:

• Some of your articles on the old blogspot blog could be ranking very high in search engines for certain keywords but once you move these articles to a new WordPress blog, you will lose the organic search traffic since the permalinks (or URLs) of your blog posts will change.
• People come to your blog through search engines, browser bookmarks and referrals from other web sites that have linked to your blog pages. If you migrate to WordPress, Blogger will not automatically redirect these visitors to your new website.
• When you switch from Blogger to WordPress, existing readers who are subscribed to your Blogger RSS Feed may be lost forever if they don’t manually subscribe to your new WordPress feed address (and most won’t).

The Importer tool available inside WordPress will only transfer content from Blogger to WordPress but if would also like to take care of the various issues listed above, follow this step-by-step tutorial. It takes less than 5 minutes to complete and you’ll also be able to transfer all the Google Juice from the old blogspot.com address to your new WordPress blog.

How to Move your Blog from Blogger to WordPress

Before you start the migration, it may be a good idea to backup your Blogger blogincluding the XML template, blog posts and comments just to be on the safe side.

If you need assistance with the Blogger to WordPress migration, please get in touch with contact form.

1. Register a new web domain, buy web hosting and install WordPress on your new domain.
2. Open your WordPress Admin Dashboard and under Tools -> Import, select the Blogger option. Authorize WordPress to access your Blogger Account, select your blogspot.com blog and within minutes, all your Blogger blog posts and comments will be available on the new WordPress site.
3. Open the WordPress themes editor under Appearance -> Editor and open the functions.php file for editing. Most WordPress themes include a functions.php file or you can upload it manually into your WordPress themes folder through cPanel or FTP. Copy-paste the following snippet of code inside your functions.php file (at the beginning of the file) and click the “Update File” button to save your changes.

<?php

function labnol_blogger_query_vars_filter( $vars ) {
  $vars[] = "blogger";
  return $vars;
}

add_filter('query_vars', 'labnol_blogger_query_vars_filter');

function labnol_blogger_template_redirect() {
  global $wp_query;
  $blogger = $wp_query->query_vars['blogger'];
  if ( isset ( $blogger ) ) {
    wp_redirect( labnol_get_wordpress_url ( $blogger ) , 301 );
    exit;
  }
}

add_action( 'template_redirect', 'labnol_blogger_template_redirect' );

function labnol_get_wordpress_url($blogger) {
  if ( preg_match('@^(?:https?://)?([^/]+)(.*)@i', $blogger, $url_parts) ) {
    $query = new WP_Query ( 
      array ( "meta_key" => "blogger_permalink", "meta_value" => $url_parts[2] ) );
    if ($query->have_posts()) { 
      $query->the_post();
      $url = get_permalink(); 
    } 
    wp_reset_postdata(); 
  } 
  return $url ? $url : home_url();
}

?>

4. Open your Blogger Dashboard and choose Templates. Scroll down the templates page and choose the “Revert to Classic Templates” option to switch from the XML-based Blogger templates to the classic Tag based templates.
5. Copy-paste the following snippet into your Blogger template editor but before you do that, replace all occurrences of labnol.org with your new WordPress site URL. For instance, if your WordPress site is located at example.com, replace labnol.org with example.com and paste the modified snippet in the Blogger template editor. Save the changes.

<html>
 <head>
  <title><$BlogPageTitle$></title>
  <script>
    <MainOrArchivePage>
      window.location.href="http://labnol.org/"
    </MainOrArchivePage>
    <Blogger><ItemPage>
      window.location.href="http://labnol.org/?blogger=<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>"
    </ItemPage></Blogger>
  </script>
   <MainPage>
    <link rel="canonical" href="http://labnol.org/" />
   </MainPage>
   <Blogger>
    <ItemPage>
     <link rel="canonical" href="http://labnol.org/?blogger=<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>" />
    </ItemPage>
   </Blogger>
 </head>
 <body>
  <MainOrArchivePage>
    <h1><a href="http://labnol.org/"><$BlogTitle$></a></h1>
  </MainOrArchivePage>
  <Blogger>
   <ItemPage>
    <h1><a href="http://labnol.org/?blogger=<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>"><$BlogItemTitle$></a></h1>
    <$BlogItemBody$>
   </ItemPage>
  </Blogger>
 </body>
</html>

We are almost done. Open any page on your old Blogger blog and it should redirect you to the corresponding WordPress page. We are using a permanent 301 redirect on the WordPress side and therefore all the Google Juice and PageRank should pass to your new WordPress pages. (video)

The above method works for regular blogspot.com URLs and also country-specific Blogger domains like blogspot.co.uk, blogspot.com.au or blogspot.in.

The Blogger Import tool moves only posts and comments from Blogger to WordPress but not images. And that should be fine because the image URLs in your imported WordPress posts are still pointing to blogspot.com (where the images were originally hosted) and therefore nothing would break.

Switch RSS Feed from Blogger to WordPress

When you move from Blogger to WordPress, the URL of your RSS feed will change as well. Go to Blogger -> Settings -> Other and choose Post Feed Redirect URL under Site Feed. Here you can type the web address of your new WordPress RSS feed here and the existing RSS subscriber will automatically move to your new feed.

If you are using Feed Burner, just replace the source from Blogger RSS feed to your new WordPress feed.

Migration to WordPress Complete – What Next?

Now that your new WordPress site is up and running with all the old Blogger posts, here are a few important things you should do:

1. Add your new WordPress site to Google Webmaster, verify the site ownership and and also submit a XML Sitemap listing the URLs on your new site.
2. Follow these WordPress optimization tips, install some of the essential plug-ins and pay special attention to improving the security of your WordPress site.
3. Follow these blogging tips and take your blog to the next level.