HP ZBook
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 32 of 63 laptops by recommenders
Recommended for build quality that people compare to the MacBook Pro, and for good overall performance and running Linux. The most common caveat is short battery life.
Recommended for build quality that people compare to the MacBook Pro, and for good overall performance and running Linux. The most common caveat is short battery life.
14 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 86%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 6 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 9 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Build quality rivals MacBook Pro
“I'm very happy with the build quality of the G1a though, no complaints in that regard.”
Comment from 18 Nov 2025 in “Strix Halo's Memory Subsystem: Tackling iGPU Challenges” “It's basically built like a Macbook in terms of case and screen quality”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too” “It's Strix Halo with up to 128GB of unified RAM and built like a MBP.”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Apple Introduces MacBook Neo” - Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Fedora Asahi Remix is now working on Apple M3”
- Comment from 26 Jan 2026 in “Fedora Asahi Remix is now working on Apple M3”
- Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “Qwen3.8-Max: A New Bar for Coding and Cowork”
Happy overall with the laptop
“Super happy with that thing, only real downside is battery life.”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “GLM5 Released on Z.ai Platform” “Battery life could be better, but pretty happy otherwise.”
Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “MacBook Pro Rival with the Nvidia Powered Surface Laptop Ultra” “the laptop has been perfectly fine”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 on Hacker News - Comment from 22 Sep 2026 in “I said no and Apple said yes”
Screen and keyboard quality
“comes close in computing power, screen, sound and trackpad quality - but not at all in battery life: about 7 hours”
Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Filing the Corners Off MacBooks” “It's basically built like a Macbook in terms of case and screen quality”
Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I dumped Windows 11 for Linux, and you should too” “feels like a MBP with a nicer keyboard”
Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “Qwen3.8-Max: A New Bar for Coding and Cowork” Strong computing power and RAM
“comes close in computing power, screen, sound and trackpad quality - but not at all in battery life: about 7 hours”
Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Filing the Corners Off MacBooks” “It's Strix Halo with up to 128GB of unified RAM and built like a MBP.”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Apple Introduces MacBook Neo”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Short battery life
“comes close in computing power, screen, sound and trackpad quality - but not at all in battery life: about 7 hours”
Comment from 11 Apr 2026 in “Filing the Corners Off MacBooks” “My work laptop will literally struggle to last 2 hours doing any actual work.”
Comment from 8 Feb 2026 in “Why E cores make Apple Silicon fast” “Macbooks undeniably have better battery life (touchpad, sound and display)”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Apple Just Lost Me” - Comment from 1 Jun 2026 in “MacBook Pro Rival with the Nvidia Powered Surface Laptop Ultra”
- Comment from 11 Jan 2026 in “I replaced Windows with Linux and everything's going great”
Other laptops people recommend
The four most recommended other laptops, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple MacBook Pro | 928 | 688 | 57% | 13 | 5 yrs248 owners | — |
| Apple MacBook Neo | 707 | 355 | 66% | 9 | 1 mo8 owners | — |
| MacBook Air | 633 | 209 | 75% | 12 | 5 yrs130 owners | Approved |
| Apple MacBook | 499 | 348 | 59% | 12 | 9 yrs77 owners | — |
| HP ZBookThis page | 12 | 2 | 86% | 9 | — | Approved |
What people said
19 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“My old ZBook has both the stick and the touchpad”
“I'm quite happy with my hp zbook”
“feels like a MBP with a nicer keyboard”
“Local LLM perf is great and I get to run an OS that doesn't drive me crazy.”
“Battery life could be better, but pretty happy otherwise.”
“comes close in computing power, screen, sound and trackpad quality - but not at all in battery life: about 7 hours”
“The 15"-17" workstation class Dell Precision, Lenovo P*, HP Zbook, and Framework 16 laptops are well suited to this purpose.”
“Macbooks undeniably have better battery life (touchpad, sound and display)”
“It's Strix Halo with up to 128GB of unified RAM and built like a MBP.”
“Super happy with that thing, only real downside is battery life.”
“My work laptop will literally struggle to last 2 hours doing any actual work.”
“Laptop charges, but signal doesn't work.”
“The build quality of each are excellent.”
“It has an all-aluminium chassis that feels a lot like a MBP.”
“EliteBook and Z Book from HP seems fine for Linux too”
“just the efficiency and battery life are kind of crap”
“It's basically built like a Macbook in terms of case and screen quality”
“I'm very happy with the build quality of the G1a though, no complaints in that regard.”
“the laptop has been perfectly fine”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.