Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1151081
58 CINEMONTAGE / Q3 2019 58 CINEMONTAGE / Q3 2019 TECH TIPS by Joseph Herman I t's amazing how far mobile computers have come. The first laptops were more luggable than portable, and severely limited compared to the desktop. That was especially true for graphics work or other demanding tasks such as video editing. They might have been okay for general office work, but if you were a media creator, you pretty much had to rely on the big iron to do your work — desktop workstations that included muscular builds by Hewlett-Packard, as well as other computer manufacturers. Sometime in the mid-2000s, a new breed of mobile computer emerged: the mobile workstation. These machines boasted more powerful components, which made them able to handle graphics better and opened the door for video editing and 3D modeling. While the first generation of mobile workstations was impressive and allowed for creatives to do more ambitious projects on the road, once the layers and effects started building up in Photoshop or After Effects, or you started rendering sequences, it wasn't long before you headed back for the power of the desktop. Fast-forward to the present. Sure, workstation towers will always be more powerful than a portable computer. But nowadays, with their ability to handle gobs of memory, speedy solid-state storage, powerful graphics chips and high-resolution 4K displays, mobile workstations provide more than enough power for most projects. No longer are they something to tide you over until you can get back to your desktop machine. Mobile workstations, in many cases, are all you really need. A SPECIAL MACHINE I have seen and reviewed many workstations over the years, including desktops and mobile computers. However, the HP ZBook Studio x360 immediately struck me as something special (see Figure 1). Before we get into the details of what makes it so, let's talk briefly about where it fits into HP's family of workstations. TECH TIPS Going Mobile A Look Under the Hood of HP's ZBook Studio x360 Convertible Figure 1: The innovative HP ZBook Studio x360 mobile workstation is convertible; in other words it can assume a remarkable variety of forms and is especially useful for creative artists. Figure 2: The ZBook Studio x360 in the classic "clamshell" form, for when you just want to use it like a traditional laptop.