HP 17z Laptop Review: A Mid-Range Business Laptop

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HP 17z Laptop: At First Glance

HP is well known for producing some of the best notebooks out there. The HP 17z is one of those notebooks.

HP has equipped this notebook with lots of useful features and it did so without spiking up its price. To be precise, at the time I wrote this review in February 2022, the HP 17z had a starting price of $499.

However, will the HP 17z sacrifice performance for its low price? Let’s find out in the following sections.

HP 17z Laptop: Design, Dimensions, and Weight

The HP 17z is one of the few affordable notebooks that does not look its price. That is because it has an attractive appearance.

However, despite its good looks, the HP 17z is built from a plastic material like its predecessor. Hence, this laptop is fragile due to the plastic material it is built with.

Furthermore, the HP 17z comes in three different beautiful colors – black, silver, and blue.

Specifically, this HP 17z review is based on a silver color variant. Although any of the three colors suit this laptop, I think the silver color makes it more stylish.

Still on the appearance of the HP 17z, you will find the ”hp” logo at the center of its lid. The inscribed ”hp” logo looked like it is divided into black and silver colors.

This logo tends to be more obvious in silver color than in any other color variant. In terms of physical feel and appeal, the laptop’s lid has a rough texture when you run your palm through it.

When you open the laptop’s lid, there you will find the display held up by two large chrome hinges. Thanks to HP, these hinges are quite rigid and hold the lid firmly.

Although the lid wobbles a bit when trying to adjust it, this is nothing to be worried about.

When it comes to the display, you will be impressed by the 17.3 inch White LED-backlit display of this laptop. The display has an HD+ (1600 x 900 pixels) resolution.

For a brief explanation, the quality of an HD+ resolution display is in between the HD and Full HD resolutions. Hence, a display that has an HD+ resolution is better than one with HD resolution.

However, it is not as good as a display with an FHD resolution.

Furthermore, the HP 17z display features an SVA panel with an anti-glare coating. The SVA panel gives the display a better view angle while the anti-glare coating reduces screen reflections.

Moreover, you can get this laptop in either touchscreen or non-touchscreen options depending on your taste.

For the screen bezels, they are quite slim. However, the top bezel is thick enough to house an HD webcam with an integrated digital microphone.

Likewise, at the middle of the bottom bezel, you will find an ”HP” logo similar to that on the laptop’s lid.

Moving on to the deck, there you will find the keyboard. The keyboard is well built however, the keys are made of plastic.

The keys have shallow key travel and light feedback when typing on. For typing accuracy and speed, some users prefer shallow key travel while some prefer longer key travel.

Hence, if you find shallow keys preferable, the keyboard on the HP 17z will give you a comfortable typing experience. Unfortunately, these keys make a lot of noise when typing which may not go too well with some people.

For clarification, the term “key travel” refers to how deep a computer’s keyboard key dips to register input when you press it.

Moving downward toward the end of the keyboard you will find the dedicated touchpad. This touchpad has a dimension of 11.5 x 5.0 cm which is larger than most notebooks touchpads.

Meanwhile, this HP 17z’s touchpad has an accurate cursor movement when moving upward. However, the cursor feels restricted when moving sideways.

Furthermore, this touchpad supports multi-touch gestures with up to four fingers. Not only that, the touchpad has an automatic palm detection ability.

For clarity, palm detection helps the touchpad to detect finger touches and accidental palm touches while typing.

Moving on, at the sides of the keyboard base you will find the ports. Precisely, the left side features an AC charging port, Ethernet port, HMDI port, two USB 3.0 ports, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

Meanwhile, the right side houses an SD card slot, a USB 2.0 port, and a DVD-Writer drive. Without any doubt, this laptop has enough ports to satisfy your connectivity needs.

Before I move on to the size of this laptop, you should be aware that the laptop’s speaker is just above the keyboard. The HP 17z has one of the best stereo speakers with quality sound.

The multimedia sound from this laptop is enough to fill an entire room without an external speaker. However, with the loud sound from this speaker, you might notice some vibration at the keyboard palm rest.

Now let us talk about the weight and size of this laptop. The HP 17z has a weight of 2553.7 g and a dimension of 414.7 x 272.2 x 24.3 mm (W x D x H).

In comparison with the HP ENVY 17 which is also a 17-inch laptop, the HP 17z is lighter but bigger. Specifically, the HP ENVY 17 weighs 2780 g and measures 399 x 259 x 19.3 mm (W x D x H).

Although the HP 17z is lighter than the competitor I checked it against, it is still quite heavy. Hence, you might find it a bit uncomfortable carrying it around in your backpack for a long time.

In conclusion, the HP 17z has a plastic build but still manages to stand out in the midst of other notebooks in its category. Based on that, I will be rating it an eight out of ten in this design and dimension review section.

HP 17z Laptop: Processor (CPU) Performance

This laptop comes with a powerful AMD Ryzen 5 3500U processor. This processor has 4 cores and has a minimum frequency of 2.10 GHz.

Not only that, but the processor also has a maximum frequency of 3.70 GHz and a 4 MB cache. With its 4 cores, this laptop’s processor can perform multiple tasks simultaneously with ease.

However, in other to be sure about the capability of this processor, I will share the CineBench R15 benchmark result with you.

Cinebench R15 is a test tool that evaluates the performance of a computer’s processor. Meanwhile, the Cinebench test comes in two parts.

The first part of the test is the single-core test where only one processor core is used. Meanwhile, the second part of the test is the multi-core test where all the processor cores are used.

It is important to note that a higher score means that the laptop performed better in these tests.

Hence, the HP 17z scored 142 points in the single-core test which is exactly the average benchmark score. On the other hand, it scored 652 points in the multi-core test which is higher than the 642 points average.

In comparison, HP 470 G7 8VU24EA scored a higher point of 164 points in the single-core test. However, it scored less in the multi-core test with a score of 520 points.

Similarly, ASUS VivoBook 17 M712 scored less with 131 points in the single-core test. Also, it scored is less with 622 points in the multi-core test.

Based on the results above, the HP17z processor has proven to perform reasonably well. Hence, I will be rating this laptop a nine in this processor review section.

HP 17z Laptop: Memory (RAM) Performance

This laptop features a DDR4 SDRAM that runs at a speed of 2400MHz. It has a standard memory size of 12 GB and a maximum memory size of 16 GB.

DDR4 memory is faster and has higher bandwidth compared to other memory types. Hence, with that brief explanation, you will have an idea of how fast this laptop can be with regard to its memory.

It might delight you to know that the HP 17z has two memory slots with removable RAM. Therefore, upgrading the memory up to 16 GB is possible.

With 12 GB of RAM, this laptop is capable of extensive multitasking and it gets even better if you have 16 GB RAM. With 12 GB of RAM, the HP 17z laptop should be able to run 25 Chrome browser tabs simultaneously.

Meanwhile, you can decide to stream YouTube videos in three of these browser tabs without the fear of lag.

For further understanding of the RAM’s performance, I will be sharing the PC Mark 10 benchmark result with you. PC Mark 10 is a benchmark that measures a computer’s memory performance based on real-world applications.

It is also worth noting that in this benchmark test, the laptop with the highest score performed better. Therefore, in the benchmark test, HP 17z scored 3841 points.

Unfortunately, this performance was below the 4377 points average benchmark score.

In comparison, the HP 470 G7 topped the table with 4494 points. However, the HP 17z performed better than the ASUS VivoBook 17 M712 which had a score of 3719 points.

The test result obviously shows that although HP 17z performance is not the best, it performed better than some of its competitors. Therefore, I will be rating it an eight out of ten in this memory review section.

HP 17z Laptop: Storage Options and Performance

The HP17z offers three storage options to choose from. Firstly it comes with a PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD storage with a maximum capacity of 256 GB.

Secondly, it comes with another storage option that combines a 1 TB SATA HDD with a 128 GB SSD. The HDD in this storage option has a drive speed of 5400 RPM.

Lastly, the HP17z offers a storage option that combines a 1 TB SATA HDD that has a speed of 5400 RPM with a 256 GB SDD. In the second and third storage options, you have two independent storage – the HDD and the SSD on the same laptop.

With these HDD+SSD storage options, you have a large storage space from the HDD and fast storage from the SSD. In a nutshell, this laptop does not restrict you to one storage drive, therefore, you can eat your cake and have it.

However, this HP 17z review is based on the first storage option – 256 GB PCIe NVMe M.2 SSD. Sadly, with this option, I can only boast of speed and not a large storage capacity like that of the second and third storage options.

With 256 GB storage capacity on my review model, it might get filled up quickly. Thankfully, this laptop also comes with an external SD card reader for storage expansion.

Hence, one can store more files on the SD card in case the laptop storage space gets filled up.

To confirm the performance of this laptop, I will be sharing its CrystalDiskMark benchmark result. Crystaldiskmark evaluates the sequential read and writes speeds of a storage drive.

For clarity, a sequential read speed is how long it takes a storage drive to open a file. Meanwhile, write speed is how long it takes a file to be saved on a computer’s storage.

Furthermore, the higher the read and write speeds the better the performance of this laptop.

In the CrystalDiskMark benchmark result, the HP 17z had a read speed of 500.1 MBps. On the other hand, the laptop had a write speed to be 325 MBps.

In comparison, Lenovo ThinkPad E470 had a read speed of 476.5MBps and a write speed of 458.7 MBps. This implies that the HP 17z will open files quicker than the Lenovo Thinkpad E470.

Meanwhile, the Lenovo Thinkpad E470 will save files quicker than the HP 17z.

In conclusion, the HP 17z’s performance is encouraging based on the result above. Therefore, I will be rating it a nine out of ten in this storage review section.

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HP 17z Laptop: Graphics Card Performance

This HP laptop comes with an integrated AMD Radeon Vega 8 graphics card. The graphics card has a maximum frequency of 1200 MHz.

Being an integrated graphics card, the AMD Radeon Vega 8 might not be able to perform the most graphics-intensive tasks seamlessly. However, you will get some playable frame rates when you play modern games on medium settings.

For instance, this laptop should be able to play Far Cry 5 (2018) at 16 fps on medium settings. Furthermore, it should be able to play Shadow of the Tomb Raider (2018) at 12 fps on a medium setting.

In addition to that, I will be sharing the 3DMark benchmark result of this laptop with you. 3D Mark is a test tool that measures the 3D rendering performance of a computer’s graphics card.

Also, it is worth noting that the higher the score of the laptop the better the performance. Hence, the HP 17z scored 3871 points in the benchmark test.

Impressively, the laptop’s score is above the 3429 average points.

In comparison, the HP 470 G7 had a score of 2360 points in the same test. Also, ASUS VivoBook 17 M712 had a score of 1878 points in the 3DMark test.

In conclusion, the HP 17z’s GPU is able to play modern games but only on medium settings. However, it delivered an outstanding performance in the benchmark test.

Therefore, I will be rating it a nine out of ten in this graphics performance review section.

HP 17z Laptop: Battery Life and Performance

The HP 17z features a 3 cell 41 Wh Li-ion battery. According to HP, this battery will deliver a battery life of up to 8 hours.

With 8 hours of battery life, you will be able to carry out the day’s job without the need to recharge the battery frequently. However, we need to verify this HP’s claim.

To do that, we will consider some battery tests carried out by notebookcheck.com. Based on the test, the laptop lasted 4 hours 52 minutes of continuous web surfing.

Unfortunately, the battery life of the laptop in the test is not close to HP’s claim. However, before I give my final verdict about the battery, let’s compare it with other laptops.

Therefore, in comparison with the HP Pavilion Laptop – 15t, our test model underperformed. This is because the HP Pavilion had a battery life of 9 hours 30 minutes in the same test.

In conclusion, the HP 17z’s battery life is below HP’s claim and it underperformed in comparison with one of its competitors. Therefore, I will be rating it a seven out of ten in this battery life review section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Considering the heavy weight of the HP 17z, it is designed for the home desk. However, in terms of performance, the laptop is up to the task in areas such as storage, processor, and memory to mention a few.

Another thing that will impress you about this laptop is its price tag. Additionally, this laptop also has an attractive design despite its plastic build.

Therefore, if you are in search of an HP laptop with adequate performance at an affordable price, then you can consider the HP 17z.

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