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Comment by zamadatix | Hacker News Reader

I was disappointed to see an endless stream of nearly identical mini PCs using it while the options for an actual laptop remained "do you want one of two small touchscreen tablet?". Even Framework only made it available in mini PC form factor!

That said it wasn't too hard to grab a HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14, just not the ideal model I had in mind. The hardware is great though!

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I have the Zbook Ultra G1a since it came out. The USB-C PD implementation is very bad, badly broken. I have not been able to get it to charge or even use anything but the HP 140W charger while on. While off, anything works, but once powered on into Ubuntu (from HP!) of Windows... It does not charge or use the power at all. Even with 140W 3rd party chargers from Anker, Ugreen, Insignia, etc.

Super limits its usability.

For me the firmware 0x01030b00 solved most of the problem. It now runs well on my previous laptop 65W HP charger, which is much lighter than the literal brick the G1a came with. It still does not work on an Anker 140W power bank I have.

However this firmware was only available on HP's website for a few days. It has now been retracted, but it works well for me so YMMV.

My last remaining hurdle is getting color correction working for the DCI-P3 OLED screen. Maybe it's a Gnome/Wayland thing but I cannot get full display correction to work so colors are ultra saturated.

Edit: the fan curve is also bad, it makes fans spin up/down continuously under certain conditions. Not a deal breaker but quite annoying when it happens.

The fan curve also drives me nuts. It seems to be related to the processor's speed so I turn off boost — I don't notice a perf diff for my workloads. The fan noise is much better.

echo 0 > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/boost

> Even with 140W 3rd party chargers from Anker, Ugreen, Insignia, etc.

I use a 140 W UGREEN charger with mine (X762 - https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-Charger-Charging-Foldable-MacB...) and it charges fine at full speed on both Windows 11 and Arch. If you're looking for a "it just does all of the things" USB cable to go with that, I pair said charger/laptop with https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DRP25V8T in my bag (1 short and 1 long).

I think the requirement is your charger + cable both support 140 W single port charging (not just that the charger support 140 W overall or that the charger does but cable doesn't). I've noticed 100 W cables/chargers seem to work, but it says slow charging when I do so I don't use them. Lower negotiated PD rates than that only work when powered off.

I had the same issue, where it would only charge with my 100W or above chargers. It worked with Dell USB-C 130W chargers (both genuine and knock off) and the HP charger, as well as a Baseus 100W charger. I have noticed yesterday it was working with my other chargers as well, something it certainly didn't do before. Maybe fixed through firmware update?

The AMD Framework laptops have the same issues, I've heard from several people. It seems AMD's implementation of USB C/4/PD is just broken (or at least extremely difficult to write firmware for)

I have one as well and haven't had this problem. I've been using mostly the HP G4 dock and a Dell dock at the office with an occasional use of the charger. I'm running Linux 6.17.8-arch1-1, it could also be fixed in newer kernels. When I play demanding games, it pulls quite a few watts and all the chargers are keeping up.

It might be your device that is unlucky, maybe contacting support might help.

I think this is deliberate, and stopped me buying HP they don't support third party chargers while powered on to prevent dodgy chargers causing damage.

It was a while ago they said this, but it has put me off HP well and truly.

Is HP ok these days? I've been avoiding them because of the atrocious build quality I've experienced in the past.

That particular laptop also seems very heavy.

You really have to split this kind of thing into market category, not just what the brand name is. The 3.5k mobile workstation is going to be a different realm than a 0.6k laptop which may well also be a different quality than the mid range enterprise focused laptop.

I'm very happy with the build quality of the G1a though, no complaints in that regard. Just wish it were a few inches larger. OTOH I got my nephew an HP Victus laptop a hear ago and the build quality was a bit garbage, but the price matched.

I had a friend come over with a recent low end HP laptop to print something and I was shocked at the poor build quality.

Low end everything has poor build quality (they're probably all made by Quanta).

I was looking at a school-issue Chomebook from Dell the other day and thought the build quality was pretty good even if the parts inside were weak. I like the build quality of corporate Dell laptops and their 1.5 liter desktops -- though an Alienware 15 I had died earlier than it should have because the battery swelled up and damaged the circuit board. The machine still sorta but made a chime every 30 seconds or so because it thought USB devices were being plugged or unplugged or something.

Not only. I had a look at a coworker’s Framework 13 and was shocked at the poor build quality. The keyboard flex in particular was terrible. That’s not a cheap laptop.

From envy upwards they are usually fine besides the x360 hinge problems.

The last laptop I bought from HP was a ZBook 15 in 2014. I'm still using it. It's rock solid.

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