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The Ultimate Mobile Workstation

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workstationLast summer I blogged about HP’s Omen Pro workstation notebook. I liked it a lot, saying it was “a very powerful, sleek, light (for a workstation) and sexy hunk of professional hardware,” but like anything it wasn’t perfect. Because is was based on a high-end consumer model, rather than being built for business from the ground up, it still had a few issues, such as battery life and a glossy touchscreen that maxed out at 1080p.

Still, the idea of a thin and light, yet still very powerful, workstation notebook is very appealing, and for 2016 HP has kept at it and created a much-improved model, the new ZBook Studio G3. I’ve been using one for a week now and have been very impressed with this new model.

Mobile Xeon has Arrived

HP’s Workstation notebooks are called ZBooks, and up until now there have only been two choices. If you wanted the full power of a quad-core processor, lots of RAM, dedicated workstation graphics and a high-resolution display you had a choice between the ZBook 15 and ZBook 17. Although both of these machines are excellent pieces of mobile hardware (in fact, many of Lanworks’ employees use ZBooks, including yours truly), they are some of the biggest and heaviest business-class notebooks HP offers.

The other option, the ZBook 15u, although much thinner and lighter, is built on HP’s EliteBook notebook chassis, so it only offers dual-core processor options, which for some workloads isn’t going to be enough. The ZBook Studio addresses this issue but using Intel’s latest 6th Generation Skylake i7 and new Mobile Xeon processors that are much more power efficient than the previous generation, allowing a machine as portable as the Studio to still come with a quad-core CPU. The latter processor option is significant because this is the first time you’ve been able to get a Xeon processor in a notebook, complete with support for more reliable ECC RAM as found in desktop workstations.

An Ultrabook with HP’s Z DNA

In addition, despite the Ultrabook tag, the ZBook Studio G3 still had all of the features that define the bigger HP Z workstations. It’s ISV certified, passes MIL-STD 810G durability testing, has a dedicated Nvidia Quadro workstation-class GPU, supports up to 32GB of ECC memory, yet it still only weighs 4.4lbs (very light for a 15-inch notebook) and is only 18mm thick. I’ve become accustomed to lugging around my 6.2lb ZBook 15 every day, so replacing it with the Studio was a huge weight off my shoulders, literally.

workstation

As an Ultrabook, you’d expect the ZBook to sport a sleeker design than its bigger brothers, and in this department, the Studio certainly delivers. As we said above, we thought the Omen Pro was a pretty sexy piece of professional hardware but the Studio turns it up a notch. It both manages to look more business-like than the Omen (and closer in style to the other ZBooks), yet still have some unique design elements that make it stand out. For example, when you flip it over, its bottom has an eye-catching textured geometric pattern, and its magnesium chassis has attractive diamond-cut edges.

HP Kills the Laptop Dock

Earlier this year, I wrote a post about some of the top business trends I saw at this year’s CES, and one of them was the death of the traditional laptop dock. The ZBook 15 and ZBook 17 both have dock connectors to mount them on big, bulky and proprietary docking stations to conveniently add more ports and connect the notebook to an external keyboard and mouse. In my post, I talked about how USB Type-C is going to change everything, by allowing for a single cable connected to an external dock to be able provide all a notebook’s power, data and video connection needs. Also, if the notebook has Thunderbolt 3 ports (that use USB Type-C cables) you can connect two 4K external displays to one machine, and what do you know, the ZBook Studio has two Thunderbolt 3 ports!

workstationThis means that you can hook it up to HP’s ZBook Dock with Thunderbolt 3, which adds ten additional ports, including DisplayPort, VGA, Ethernet and USB 3.0. This dock is small and light enough that you will be easily able to throw in your bag with the Studio, so you have the extra connectivity. Don’t worry if you don’t though – even though the Studio is an Ultrabook, it still had a lot of onboard connectivity.

There are three USB 3.0 ports, two Thunderbolt 3 ports (that with adapters can also be DisplayPort-out ports), Ethernet and HDMI.

A 4K Mobile Workstation Marvel

Did I mention that you can get the ZBook Studio G3 with an optional 4K display? Well, you can, and while 4K may seem overkill for a notebook, everything just looks so much crisper and clearer on such a high-resolution display. Furthermore, when working in advanced ISV applications like AutoCAD and other engineering software, the additional screen density of 4K will allow you to display more of your work on a single screen.

workstationFrom the time that I’ve spent with the ZBook Studio I can safely say it’s one of the best notebooks you can currently buy because it combines the extreme power of a workstation with the practical portability of an Ultrabook, all wrapped up in a gorgeous package. However, we understand that perhaps this isn’t going to be the ideal machine for every worker – along with its premium performance comes a premium price and it might be overkill for some.

At the end of the day, though, if your work requires the most powerful portable hardware possible, as does the work of many of Lanworks’ own engineers, then I’d suggest you take a good look at the ZBook Studio G3. For more information about it, you can contact one of our sales team members.

Microsoft Display Dock: The 9 – 5 Mobile Experience Part 2

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Microsoft Display Dock: The 9 - 5 Mobile Experience Part 2

In my previous post, I talked about a new feature and product that Microsoft just announced, which has the potential to change how we use our mobile devices for work. The feature is called Continuum and is a feature of the new Windows 10 Mobile OS coming out later this year. With a phone that supports Continuum, you’ll be able to hook it up to Microsoft’s Display Dock, that has USB and video-out connections. The Dock can then be connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse, transforming your phone into a tiny desktop PC.

Windows Mobile Only…For Now

Of course, the technology does simplify things a little – to start Continuum is a feature that is only going to be available on select Windows Phones, ones eligible to be upgraded to Windows 10 Mobile and the handful of new devices coming out soon that will come with the new OS. The Windows Mobile platform is not the most popular mobile OS, so many business users are not going to have access to Continuum. Also, at the moment you’ll only be able to run Office applications and Outlook on the external display. The mobile device doesn’t act like a full-blown Windows PC, since the current hardware doesn’t have the power to do this…yet.

That’s what’s significant, though – the yet. Right now the average business user has to work on a plethora of devices. In the office, they may work on a desktop or a laptop hooked up to an external display. When working remotely when on the road or at home, they’ll either use that same laptop or if they have a desktop also have a laptop PC. In addition, many workers also have a tablet that they’ll use for basic task that don’t necessarily need the power of a full PC but need more than a phone. Then lastly they have a smartphone, which for most users is mainly used as an email and calendaring tool.

From Many to Few

That means that despite to push by many hardware vendors for businesses to adopt hybrid mobile devices such as 2-in-1 laptop/tablets, the average worker is going to be working from up to as many as four devices. That’s four endpoints that have to be configured, managed, supported by IT staff and secured; whether they are personally or corporate owned. In addition, many workers also use their personal PC at home to work from, so that’s a fifth device accessing company data. Realistically, that number is just too many, and the more devices your users work from, the more work you IT department has to do to support them all.

One Device To Rule Them All

In an ideal situation, your company’s users would only have ONE device that they work from. One device that acts as a desktop PC, notebook, tablet and phone. Microsoft’s Continuum feature is the first step in in that journey. Right now, of course, there are still a lot of hurdles that have to be jumped before this vision can be realized though. To start, the Display Dock only allows your phone to work in two modes – as a fully mobile device, or a desktop PC for lightweight tasks.

However, imagine a future where you have one small device that fits in your pocket that acts as phone. Then you can take that same device and slot it into a mobile dock with a bigger screen, transforming it into a tablet. You can then take that tablet and attach it to a keyboard base, and now it’s a laptop…then when you get into the office, you simply slide out the phone from the tablet dock into a desktop top and voila, you have a desktop PC. All the time this device is securely accessing company data stored in the cloud from any place at any time. This is the future or business computing, and its coming sooner than you think.

There’s More to Come

Hopefully I’ve given you a glimpse at what the future has in store, and how products like the upcoming Windows 10 Mobile and the Microsoft Display Dock will be the beginning of this transformation in how we work. In the third part of this series, I’ll go over some more practical concerns when it comes to preparing for these changes, including the security concerns and the tools that can be used to address them when your users become more mobile.

Microsoft Display Dock: The 9 – 5 Mobile Experience

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Microsoft Display Doc

Last week I told you all about the latest version of Microsoft’s core business productivity suite, Office 2016. In that post, one of the topics I talked about was the focus on the Cloud and the “New Way of Working” for today’s office workers. This week Microsoft announced a whole slew of new hardware products, including a new Surface Pro tablet and its first notebook, the Surface Book.

However, amongst all these big announcements, there was one product that has exciting implications of how employees will want to work in the future; something businesses have to be prepared for.

Your Phone Transformed

At the event, Microsoft announced two new Lumia phones that will run Windows 10 Mobile, the latest version of its not too popular mobile OS. Although the specs of these new phones look great, I’m not saying that these new phones themselves will transform your business.

Despite that, what I’m most excited about is the Microsoft Display Dock. The dock is a new feature of the Windows 10 Mobile, Continuum. The dock allows you to connect the new Lumia phones to an external display, keyboard and mouse…

Leave The Laptop At Work

…which turns your phone into a tiny desktop computer. This means all you’d need to carry with you, instead of a laptop or a tablet, is a phone and the dock. Then wherever you have access to a display, you can just plug it in and work right from your pocket-sized device on your work documents stored in the Cloud.

Being able to work on a bigger screen with full-sized input devices, instead of having to try and edit a complex spreadsheet on a 5-inch display will make a huge difference. The dock doesn’t impede the phone’s functionality, and you can still take calls and send texts from at the same time.

Microsoft Display Dock

It’s Only The Beginning

Of course, this is an overly simplistic and optimistic view of how this technology works, and I understand that there are still many limitations. For example, right now the Continuum feature is designed for you to run Office 2016 applications like Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint. Don’t expect for your phone to becoming a full blown PC that can run any application. Mobile devices simply don’t have the power for this right now.

Another limitation is that while this, for example, will be a great way to take your work home, since setting up a monitor, keyboard and mouse for this is easy to do, it doesn’t work as well for more mobile workers. It’s not like every coffee shop, and airport lounge is going to have stations set up to do this. If Continuum is going to take off, Microsoft needs to develop a mobile dock too that is a laptop-style keyboard and display with a slot to slide the phone into to power it.

Still, this is only the first generation of this new technology and does point the way to how our mobile devices will eventually become the primary tools that we work on. What this means for your employees and your business is something we’ll cover in our next post.

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