Zbook X2 Just Announced

Are you using the Wacom ProPen 2 black plastic nibs or the felt nibs in your zbook stylus?

Do the felt nibs feel any different from the zbook white nibs?

I'm just curious as I don't believe HP will tool up production machines specifically to make nibs - they are more likely to simply order from Wacom and in turn, would wacom just make white plastic nibs and allow HP to market them as "felt?"

 

I don't know about these specific felt nibs, but the "classic" Wacom felt nibs are made out of very dense felt that looks a lot like plastic. I wouldn't recommend them because when the tips start to fray they collect dust and grime and easily scratch the tablet.

 

I do use propen2 black refills or felt refills in my zbook stylus. Felt refills and zbook white refills I can’t answer because the zbook stylus I bought does not come with a white refill.

 

Hey guys so far the Zbook X2 has been handling my work like a champ, the pen responsiveness is such a treat! I have only ran into a few quirks since working on and off on it for the last 3 weeks while we oversee our renovations here:

-Sometimes a little bar saying HP Dreamcolor assistant 1.0.8.130 gets stuck somewhere on the screen. You cant interact with it and it wont go away through any reliable method, it just seems like you have to click the dreamcolor assistant on the task bar a bunch or interact with it somehow to get it to remove the bar. anyone else have this? Its currently stuck in the top left of my screen as I type.

-While we are talking about dreamcolor, sometimes when I put it to sleep and wake it up later the dreamcolor assistant is not recognizing the hardware or software and clicking on the icon shows none of the color profiles available, just a message that says "no dreamcolor detected". In this case restarting is the only solution I've found, but I haven't tried restarting the process yet. More commonly when I wake from sleep my screen flickers brightness and color a bunch when booting up as if switching over from windows profile to dreamcolor.

-It's been a while since the mouse glitch, but using it less just drawing these days. It was effecting my plugged in gaming mouse as well when it flared up so it wasn't the connection between keyboard and tablet. But its been infrequent enough that I'm not too concerned about figuring it out unless it gets worse. Seems like a system interrupt latency thing.

-This tablet feels so powerful on the CPU/SSD/RAM side, as painting huge documents has been mostly breezy. but man oh man this thing sure chugs as soon as you throw any 3D at it, that's for sure. I expected it from the specs, but I'm really tired of seeing these super expensive devices that deliver such terrible 3D performance. It was the same with my T902, and countless other creative devices. Hopefully HP takes a cue from Acer on that one.

Drawing is SO BUTTERY smooooth on this thing I have been just loving it for work while away! Gotta go back to work now, hope you guys are staying safe and healthy.

 

<<...Sometimes a little bar saying HP Dreamcolor assistant 1.0.8.130 gets stuck somewhere on the screen...>>

@stoneseeker : I have never seen this problem, nor any of the other DreamColor issues that you mention. What version of Windows do you have loaded on your X2?

You might consider uninstalling and reinstalling the DreamColor applet. You can find it here:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-zbook-x2-g4-detachable-workstation/13556323

under "Software - Multimedia (1)"

ALTERNATIVELY... and I don't suggest this lightly... you could try running the HP Image Assistant which will check your X2 Windows and driver loads point by point and correct any discrepancies. See this comment by an HP service rep:

"We do normally recommend running HP Image Assistant with Commercial systems and Workstations. Here’s a link to the most recent version:

http://ftp.hp.com/pub/caps-softpaq/cmit/HPIA.html

If that still doesn’t solve that strange behavior, please give our Workstations team a call and they can help out. They can be reached at: 1-800-334-5144, and [say] 'Z-Series Running Windows' [at the voice prompt]..."

 

Nota bene: My X2 was never offered the 20H1 (2004) Update. I finally got disgusted with the whole thing this afternoon and used the Windows Upgrade Advisor to update directly to 20H2 (2009). I just wanted to let X2 owners know that the update worked smoothly and without any issues, and that because these updates are cumulative, it wasn't necessary to first update to 20H1. So far, I haven't seen any abnormalities, but I'll watch closely for the next few days.

If anyone wants to update their X2, so far I see no reason not to. Bear in mind that 20H2 somewhat deprecates Tablet Mode, though...

 

I'll keep an eye on that. I've probably got about 20 of these grey nibs spare now - the very first black plastic nib when the zbook arrived had something funny on one side that I couldn't see even with a magnifying glass but every so often I would hold the pen at just the angle to make this tip catch against the glass.

Had a similar effect to nails on a chalkboard for me which was another reason for swapping to the grey nibs.

I'll say it again though - there's a definite difference in feel when drawing with the grey nib - a lot less like plastic on glass and more like a toothed felt-tip pen on smooth paper.

 

Have any of the HP ZBook X2's been properly offered the upgrade to 2004 yet? Mine says under update tab that the May 2020 update is on the way and will be alerted when its ready, but I don't even know how important it is for my uses. What difference is it to us if we don't receive the update normally? Is HP rolling them out slowly to all the devices? Are many people seeing the same message under updates, or have some been offered the update?

For some reason my HP Support Assistant wasn't running when I clicked the icon anymore, it just showed the splash logo then nothing happened. So I went and redownloaded the newest version of the app from the drivers and software page and installed overtop of the old one and its working again right now. The dreamcolor thing is not a big deal right now, and its working great 90% of the time so i'm not going to bother messing with it right now.

I do wonder what features I might be missing out on if my windows isnt up to date.

 

<<...What difference is it to us if we don't receive the update normally?..>>

At this point, the decision about whether you update or not is entirely up to you. If you are happy with your current version of Windows, then there is no particular reason why you should update. In my case, I finally decided to update because there was a feature that I wanted.

<<...I do wonder what features I might be missing out on if my windows isnt up to date...>>

In general, if you check the Windows 10 forum, Windows 10 News & Reviews, you will usually find links to articles that describe upcoming Windows feature updates. You can also visit WindowsCentral.com for news on Windows. Note that, eventually, Microsoft will stop tailoring security updates for older versions of Windows and they have started forcing updates in some cases to speed putting these older versions "to bed."

 

, for big/feature Windows updates generally more incremental changes, but sometimes handy or interesting niche features (like previous update or earlier added subsystem linux support which for some people is useful) or more general tweaks like a better onscreenkeyboard (previous update I believe).
On my laptop I believe I have the newest update and it seems to let websites pinned to my Taskbar look more like apps (/pwa) compared to my other devices. Also next/new update should finally improve the looks of the startmenu which I personally look forward to.

Windows Central usually offers a good list of patch notes but many other sites also cover it.