MacBook Pro competitors: HP ZBook Studio amps up on specs to rival Apple's best sellers

Hewlet-Packard Inc. (HP) introduced its upcoming laptop, ZBook Studio to rival Apple's.

"Apple continues to abandon the professional market," said Jeff Wood, HP vice president and head of product management for workstations, told Slash Gear. "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 site adds that HP ZBook Studio is the first quadcore workstation in the world that qualifies as an ultrabook. According to PC Magazine, this means that it is capable of long battery life and a strong processor while being portable. It measures 15.6 inches in length and 18mm in thickness and weighs 4.4 pounds.

For the specs, it can either come with the 6th-generation Intel Core i7 or Skylake's Xeon processor. It is capable of up to 2TB of storage and maximum 32GB memory. It also has three USB 3.0 ports, HDMI 1.4 and an SDXC card reader with Bang & Olufsen HD audio, WiFi a/b/g/n/ac 2x2 and Bluetooth 4.0.

The HP ZBook Studio also features the first dual Thunderbolt 3 ports. Users can have the option of having it with a DreamColor UHD (4K) display or a Full HD touchscreen. The graphics can be Nvidia Quadro M1000M graphics with 2GB of its own GDDR5 memory or Intel HD graphics 530.

The ZBook Studio price will start at $1,699 and will go on sale this December.

According to Tech Radar, there are three new ZBooks lined up as well. The third-gen HP ZBook 15 G3, the HP ZBook 15U and the HP ZBook 17 G3.

The ZBook 17 G3 has been praised by the website as "one of the best mobile workstations in the world."

It is apparently 25 percent thinner, 11 percent lighter and has 67 percent more battery life than its previous generation. The 2014 ZBook 17 was 1.33 inches thick and 3.4 kg heavier. The laptop will reportedly be available in Jan. next year.

The Hp ZBook 15 G3 will feature 64GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage in a frame that is an inch thick and 2.6 kg heavy. There is no pricing information available yet for this year's ZBook 17 or 15.

Meanwhile, the HP ZBook 15U will have up to 32GB RAM, 1.5TB storage with a Full HD touchscreen. It will be 1.9 kg heavy and 19mm thick. You can get it in Jan. 2016 for a retail price of $1099.