HP Zbook Firely 15 G7

[Jonesboro5CAA]

My office is looking at getting me an HP Zbook Firely 15 G7 to run PP and AE.  Will the Intel® Core™ i7-10710U processor (1.1 GHz, up to 4.7 GHz with Turbo Boost, 12 MB cache, 6 core) + Intel® UHD Graphics (18C32AV)  be enough?

[Jonesboro5CAA]

That should have been Firefly, not firely!  sorry

[RjL190365]

How much RAM is going to be installed in that laptop? Premiere Pro will not run properly if it's equipped with less than 16 GB of RAM.

And don't expect much out of the integrated graphics: It is just yet another warmed-over version of the UHD Graphics 620, which was never a decent performer to begin with.

[RjL190365]

Never mind what I stated about the amount of RAM that's included. That particular model comes with 16 GB of RAM and a 250 GB NVMe SSD.

With that in mind, the GPU is definitely the weakest link in that laptop, followed by the low amount of storage. With only 250 GB of included storage (of which about 160 GB is available), you will definitely need a Thunderbolt 3 external SSD for your working media storage, especially since rendered/exported video may eat up hundreds of GB of space.

At least you will be able to take advantage of Intel QuickSync hardware decoding and encoding in that laptop, when the next point release of Premiere Pro comes out (the timetable is not yet known). The only other GPU choice for the HP ZBook Firefly G7 is a discrete Nvidia Quadro P520 - a weaking of a (discrete) GPU with no NVENC hardware encoder at all, and may also have had its NVDEC hardware decoder disabled in manufacture.

[Michael Grenadier]

unless you're working with 4k a thunderbolt 3 SSD may be overkill.  I work mainly in 1080 with usb3 external hard drives without issues.   And I avoid keeping media, previews, caches, etc on my startup drive...

[RjL190365]

True, but the only other ports that HP ZBook has are USB 3.2 Gen 1 x 1 ports. This copmplicates the external drive choices somewhat. I have discovered that every single external HDD in the 2.5" form factor spins at only 5400 RPM, and none of them can even reach 130 MB/s in sequential reads or writes on the outer tracks of the platters.

With that said, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 x 1 external SSD is a better choice, but it will run at the lower bandwidth on the Gen 1 x 1 ports.

[Jonesboro5CAA]

I don't do extremely high-end production.  I don't do any 4k.  I am however, planning on editing in 360 degree video next year.  Do you anticipate that being a problem for a computer like this?

[RjL190365]

In your case, then that laptop is too expensive for your purposes. In this form that I mentioned above, it costs more than $1,800 USD. And you don't even get a discrete GPU at all for that high of a price.

Generally speaking, 1080p material is a good fit for a laptop that costs closer to $1,000 USD. That Firefly 15 G7 costs nearly double that.

[Michael Grenadier]

this is really a question of what your source properties and sequence settings will be and if you'll be doing complex

effects.   Also, it's probably crucial to get a decent size external monitor for serious editing. 

[Jonesboro5CAA]

I already have the external monitor both at home and the office.  I don't do extremely complex projects, shooting mostly in 1080. I am planning on getting a 360 degree camera.  Will a computer like this be able to handle that?