HP ZBook laptops any good for music?

[kritikon]

So I spotted this for sale and it sounds tempting and a step up from the 4yr old laptop I have. But I'm no computer expert by a long shot. It's refurbished but sounds like it can't be that old and seems to be at the higher end of ZBook specs. Price is NZ$1600, which seems pretty decent from a very quick bit of research at new prices

Specs:
Processor: Intel® Core™ i9-10885H (2.4 GHz base frequency, up to 5.3 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, 16 MB L3 cache, 8 cores)
Processor cache: 16 MB L3
Processor chipset: Intel® WM490
Memory: 64GB DDR4
Storage: 1TB NVMe PCIe SSD
Graphics card: Intel® UHD Graphics
Graphics 2: NVIDIA® Quadro® T2000 with Max-Q Design (4 GB GDDR6 dedicated)
Display: 15.6″ diagonal, FHD (1920 x 1080), IPS, narrow bezel, anti-glare, 250 nits, 45% NTSC

I'm currently on an i7 midrange, so that's a step up. TBH I know little to f**k-all about CPUs but that sounds like a decent one for music? It can't be more than 4 years old, but any good for music processing?
64GB RAM is def a nice-to-have
1TB SSD can't be the standard drive, I guess they up-spec'd it. I'm used to making do with 500, so that's also an improvement.
The graphics I guess isn't that important, but from what little I know that's a high spec card that's not your standard issue in consumer gear.
Screen-wise - don't really care as it'll be hooked up to my studio proper-sized monitor.

I was mulling over getting a dedicated desktop for the studio and would probably end up spending 2.5-3k I guess, but then this popped up and it seems a good buy , though obvs 2nd hand with all the risks that entails...

Opinions?

[whyterabbyt]

My previous work laptop was a G3 ZBook, and as our purchasing agreement is with HP Ive bought more than a few for our staff. I find them to be decent systems. (We also use HP desktops in our labs and they're bulletproof; Ive got some still running after 10-12 years.)
I didnt use it heavily for -my- audio stuff, so never went in-depth as to how 'optimised' it was for audio, but did use it for ProTools, izotope RX, Live etc with no obvious problems, with ASIO4all or an MBox2. 64Gb RAM (and the i9) definitely nice to have. The Quadros are the pro NVidia video card range, and that's a decent one for a laptop, so handy if you ever do video or 3D (for a different aspect of my job it was useful to have a full-blown Quadro in a laptop.)
Im afraid I couldnt necessarily attest that much to latency and that sort of thing, but it looks like a pretty good spec for that price.
You do get them with 1Tb SSDs as a standard option, btw, and if we're going for a ZBook for someone its generally because they're doing video editing or similar, so that's actually what we'd typically get it built with.

[kritikon]

Thanks. It looks higher spec than most 2nd hand laptops I've seen for anywhere near that price, but it's definitely a legit company - I bought from them before for the household desktop, otherwise it seemed a bit too good to be true. But it's a refurbished ex-business laptop apparently so maybe it's just been heavily used. I don't mind if it's a bit dog-eared as long as it works. Likely quite a bit better than my current one. Good to know they're decent machines...the "book" nomenclature made me think of those cheapo budget laptops at first glance.

[ere2learn]

TBH I know little to f**k-all about CPUs but that sounds like a decent one for music?

Compare your old cpu with this one on cpubenchmark(dot)net, this one on the zbook comes out at 14.8k score, then you'll know how much of a boost you're paying for



Looks like a zbook G7, solid if the price is good, only had 1 zbook in my time no issues

[BONES]

Z Books are solid machines, designed for performance but, if you're interested, I've got a couple of laptops to unload that are definitely better than it, although both only have 16GB of memory, which is still plenty for what we do. I've PM'd you the details with my email, if you're interested. I'd be happy with the same price they are asking for the Z Book.