If only you could buy the hardware. There are very few laptops or similar with the chip. Even the Z13 is difficult to find and (at least in Europe) only with 32 GB of RAM.
throw848494•2mo ago
HP ZBook Ultra is in every eshop in czechia. Just got 128GB for 3200 euro :)
green7ea•2mo ago
Those are very good prices, it's 3700€ in Austria
zamadatix•2mo ago
I was disappointed to see an endless stream of nearly identical mini PCs using it while the options for an actual laptop remained "do you want one of two small touchscreen tablet?". Even Framework only made it available in mini PC form factor!
That said it wasn't too hard to grab a HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14, just not the ideal model I had in mind. The hardware is great though!
dontlaugh•2mo ago
Is HP ok these days? I've been avoiding them because of the atrocious build quality I've experienced in the past.
That particular laptop also seems very heavy.
PaulHoule•2mo ago
I had a friend come over with a recent low end HP laptop to print something and I was shocked at the poor build quality.
wmf•2mo ago
Low end everything has poor build quality (they're probably all made by Quanta).
dontlaugh•2mo ago
Not only. I had a look at a coworker’s Framework 13 and was shocked at the poor build quality. The keyboard flex in particular was terrible. That’s not a cheap laptop.
PaulHoule•2mo ago
I was looking at a school-issue Chomebook from Dell the other day and thought the build quality was pretty good even if the parts inside were weak. I like the build quality of corporate Dell laptops and their 1.5 liter desktops -- though an Alienware 15 I had died earlier than it should have because the battery swelled up and damaged the circuit board. The machine still sorta but made a chime every 30 seconds or so because it thought USB devices were being plugged or unplugged or something.
BoredPositron•2mo ago
From envy upwards they are usually fine besides the x360 hinge problems.
pmontra•2mo ago
The last laptop I bought from HP was a ZBook 15 in 2014. I'm still using it. It's rock solid.
zamadatix•2mo ago
You really have to split this kind of thing into market category, not just what the brand name is. The 3.5k mobile workstation is going to be a different realm than a 0.6k laptop which may well also be a different quality than the mid range enterprise focused laptop.
I'm very happy with the build quality of the G1a though, no complaints in that regard. Just wish it were a few inches larger. OTOH I got my nephew an HP Victus laptop a hear ago and the build quality was a bit garbage, but the price matched.
SomeHacker44•2mo ago
I have the Zbook Ultra G1a since it came out. The USB-C PD implementation is very bad, badly broken. I have not been able to get it to charge or even use anything but the HP 140W charger while on. While off, anything works, but once powered on into Ubuntu (from HP!) of Windows... It does not charge or use the power at all. Even with 140W 3rd party chargers from Anker, Ugreen, Insignia, etc.
Super limits its usability.
nicolaslem•2mo ago
For me the firmware 0x01030b00 solved most of the problem. It now runs well on my previous laptop 65W HP charger, which is much lighter than the literal brick the G1a came with. It still does not work on an Anker 140W power bank I have.
However this firmware was only available on HP's website for a few days. It has now been retracted, but it works well for me so YMMV.
My last remaining hurdle is getting color correction working for the DCI-P3 OLED screen. Maybe it's a Gnome/Wayland thing but I cannot get full display correction to work so colors are ultra saturated.
Edit: the fan curve is also bad, it makes fans spin up/down continuously under certain conditions. Not a deal breaker but quite annoying when it happens.
green7ea•2mo ago
The fan curve also drives me nuts. It seems to be related to the processor's speed so I turn off boost — I don't notice a perf diff for my workloads. The fan noise is much better.
echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/boost
hmry•2mo ago
The AMD Framework laptops have the same issues, I've heard from several people. It seems AMD's implementation of USB C/4/PD is just broken (or at least extremely difficult to write firmware for)
green7ea•2mo ago
I have one as well and haven't had this problem. I've been using mostly the HP G4 dock and a Dell dock at the office with an occasional use of the charger. I'm running Linux 6.17.8-arch1-1, it could also be fixed in newer kernels. When I play demanding games, it pulls quite a few watts and all the chargers are keeping up.
It might be your device that is unlucky, maybe contacting support might help.
sspiff•2mo ago
I had the same issue, where it would only charge with my 100W or above chargers. It worked with Dell USB-C 130W chargers (both genuine and knock off) and the HP charger, as well as a Baseus 100W charger. I have noticed yesterday it was working with my other chargers as well, something it certainly didn't do before. Maybe fixed through firmware update?
zamadatix•2mo ago
> Even with 140W 3rd party chargers from Anker, Ugreen, Insignia, etc.
I think the requirement is your charger + cable both support 140 W single port charging (not just that the charger support 140 W overall or that the charger does but cable doesn't). I've noticed 100 W cables/chargers seem to work, but it says slow charging when I do so I don't use them. Lower negotiated PD rates than that only work when powered off.
Incipient•2mo ago
I think this is deliberate, and stopped me buying HP they don't support third party chargers while powered on to prevent dodgy chargers causing damage.
It was a while ago they said this, but it has put me off HP well and truly.
Bairfhionn•2mo ago
Framework Desktop Mainboard only, mini itx, 128gb, delivery in Q4 (which we are in)
pixelpoet•2mo ago
I set mine up today, what an amazing and beautiful machine. Goodbye Windows, hello Arch btw!
lizardking•2mo ago
My Windows box has been a dust collector since receiving mine last month. Such a fantastic little machine.
rts_cts•2mo ago
Ironically, I'm not keeping my Windows machine around for gaming but rather very specific CAD tools that, despite the developers best efforts, will probably only ever be windows tools.
That said, I'm super close to pulling the trigger on the FW desktop and just installing a second drive for windows.
lizardking•2mo ago
Interesting - how do those sorts of tools run with Wine?
paxys•2mo ago
Beelink GTR9 Pro is a great option as well.
pixelpoet•2mo ago
I actually cancelled my first FD order after seeing how much cheaper the Beelink was. Then after some weeks of waiting I noticed their website said sold out, and when I contacted their support they said oh yeah whoops, you might get your order in 3 months (website said up to one month).
So right then I asked for a refund worrying I'd been scammed (paying a Chinese company in USD from Germany without seeing VAT was pretty sus already).
Another thing is that apparently the ethernet is seriously broken, like makes the machine hang. Sill unfixed apparently, and also apparently the cooling isn't very good.
Soooo I went back to FD preorder, got it soon after. Expensive, but ehhh... every time I look at it I get a little dopamine hit <3333
sliken•2mo ago
The network issue is the windows driver, only relevant if you are running windows. There is a work around by pinning the old version and I believe there's a new driver that works, but isn't the final driver.
Several reviewers have mentioned this.
sliken•2mo ago
I got my framework desktop a few weeks ago, I'm quite fond of it.
green7ea•2mo ago
I have an HP ZBook g1a ultra in Austria. I've had mine for about 4-5 months and I got the 64gb version because I needed a new laptop and the 128gb wasn't yet available. It should now be widely available everywhere.
It's pricey but I have to say it's the best Linux laptop I've used. I'm a Linux user so for me that's as good as it gets :-).
HP are your friend. In laptop or desktop form factor, 128gb ram.
JonChesterfield•2mo ago
I take that back, returning their laptop after two days.
hart_russell•2mo ago
If LPDDR5X's latency is a limiting factor, I wonder if something like HBM would have show significant improvement to speed.
jasonwatkinspdx•2mo ago
HBM has latency similar to DDR. The real benefit is via the interposer (or now die to die connections) you can get 16x 64 bit buses in a single HBM stack.
Tepix•2mo ago
This article doesn't mention the suitability of the Strix Halo systems for running MoE LLMs that use much of its 128GB 256-bit DDR5-8000 memory.
dontlaugh•2mo ago
throw848494•2mo ago
green7ea•2mo ago
zamadatix•2mo ago
That said it wasn't too hard to grab a HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14, just not the ideal model I had in mind. The hardware is great though!
dontlaugh•2mo ago
That particular laptop also seems very heavy.
PaulHoule•2mo ago
wmf•2mo ago
dontlaugh•2mo ago
PaulHoule•2mo ago
BoredPositron•2mo ago
pmontra•2mo ago
zamadatix•2mo ago
I'm very happy with the build quality of the G1a though, no complaints in that regard. Just wish it were a few inches larger. OTOH I got my nephew an HP Victus laptop a hear ago and the build quality was a bit garbage, but the price matched.
SomeHacker44•2mo ago
Super limits its usability.
nicolaslem•2mo ago
However this firmware was only available on HP's website for a few days. It has now been retracted, but it works well for me so YMMV.
My last remaining hurdle is getting color correction working for the DCI-P3 OLED screen. Maybe it's a Gnome/Wayland thing but I cannot get full display correction to work so colors are ultra saturated.
Edit: the fan curve is also bad, it makes fans spin up/down continuously under certain conditions. Not a deal breaker but quite annoying when it happens.
green7ea•2mo ago
echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/boost
hmry•2mo ago
green7ea•2mo ago
It might be your device that is unlucky, maybe contacting support might help.
sspiff•2mo ago
zamadatix•2mo ago
I use a 140 W UGREEN charger with mine (X762 - https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-Charger-Charging-Foldable-MacB...) and it charges fine at full speed on both Windows 11 and Arch. If you're looking for a "it just does all of the things" USB cable to go with that, I pair said charger/laptop with https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DRP25V8T in my bag (1 short and 1 long).
I think the requirement is your charger + cable both support 140 W single port charging (not just that the charger support 140 W overall or that the charger does but cable doesn't). I've noticed 100 W cables/chargers seem to work, but it says slow charging when I do so I don't use them. Lower negotiated PD rates than that only work when powered off.
Incipient•2mo ago
It was a while ago they said this, but it has put me off HP well and truly.
Bairfhionn•2mo ago
pixelpoet•2mo ago
lizardking•2mo ago
rts_cts•2mo ago
That said, I'm super close to pulling the trigger on the FW desktop and just installing a second drive for windows.
lizardking•2mo ago
paxys•2mo ago
pixelpoet•2mo ago
So right then I asked for a refund worrying I'd been scammed (paying a Chinese company in USD from Germany without seeing VAT was pretty sus already).
Another thing is that apparently the ethernet is seriously broken, like makes the machine hang. Sill unfixed apparently, and also apparently the cooling isn't very good.
Soooo I went back to FD preorder, got it soon after. Expensive, but ehhh... every time I look at it I get a little dopamine hit <3333
sliken•2mo ago
Several reviewers have mentioned this.
sliken•2mo ago
green7ea•2mo ago
It's pricey but I have to say it's the best Linux laptop I've used. I'm a Linux user so for me that's as good as it gets :-).
https://geizhals.at/hp-zbook-ultra-g1a-v193148.html
JonChesterfield•2mo ago
JonChesterfield•2mo ago