HP takes on Apple's MacBook Pro with top-of-the-line ZBook Studio

HP on Wednesday announced the ZBook Studio, a 15.6-inch ultrabook aimed at power users. The device will go on sale in select regions in December at a starting price point of $1,699. In case the image didn’t give it away, the company has officially stated that it is going after Apple’s MacBook Pro.

The ZBook Studio offers top-of-the-line specifications. The company’s slickest mobile workstation to date sports a 15.6-inch display (the ZBook 17 offers 17.3-inch display) with an option going up to UHD screen resolution. On the processor side, users could pick between Intel Core i7 or Xeon chipset. Other features include up to dual 1TB HP Z Turbo Drive G2 (which means 2TB storage, in total), up to 32GB of ECC RAM, and either Nvidia’s Quadro M1000M with 2GB of GDDR5 memory or Intel HD Graphics 530 for GPU.

On the connectivity front, you’re looking at two Thunderbolt 3 port, three USB 3.0 ports, one HDMI 1.4, and as SDXC memory card reader. The ZBook Studio supports Wi-Fi a/b/g/b/ac 2×2 and Bluetooth 4.0. For speakers, the company is offering Bang & Olufsen HD audio, and a dual microphone array. On the software side, it runs Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. We’re sure you will be able to upgrade to Windows 10.

Commenting on the launch, Jeff Wood, VP of Product Management for Workstations at HP said,

“Apple continues to abandon the professional market, and leaves a huge expansion opportunity for our business in media and entertainment, video production, 3D animation, and even in a situation where broadcast is looking to upgrade to a more reliable solution.”

The company is also offering a new Thunderbolt 3 docking station. It’s called the HP ZBook Dock, and it adds up to four USB 3.0 inlets, an ethernet inlet, a VGA, a combo audio port, and two DisplayPort outputs. It is priced at $229.