school me on ultrabook laptops
 

what are the pros and cons of owning a ultrabook?

ultrabooks are the new laptops now. They are solid, very light weight and portable. That said it is thin and has sleek design.

Pros: they are fast (most have very fast cpus and gpus), slim, light weight, battery life
Cons: some say they are expensive, tbh I dont think so because technology has grown and the cost is not that bad for what you get. Also, most ultrabooks dont have with an optical drive.

i really want the hp envy 14 spectre ultrabook lol

http://www.hp.com/united-states/camp...l#.UDHi3KmPWVo

I was just going to post a similar thread. I'm looking for a 13"-15" ultrabook for school. I'm debating between three different models:

MBA 13" (1.8, 4gb, 128gb)
Asus UX31A-DB71-CBIL
Samsung NP900X4C-A01CA

I know the specs of the three models, but I've no experience with any of 'em. I also haven't used a Mac since '01 when I used it solely for editing videos with Final Cut Pro, so getting reacquainted with Apple's OS might take a while.

Any thoughts as to what would be the best option of the three? I'm hoping this laptop will last three or four years of school use. I wont be using this computer for gaming or video editing.

asus.

I picked up a Sony t13 ultrabook with a 500gb HDD + 32gb cache drive for $680 when I was down in the states. I love it way more than carrying my 13" white macbook around. It has USB 3.0 so I've thought about swapping an SSD into it. The thing I really like about this model is that it has a removable battery and a removable panel for access to the HDD and RAM.

That's a pretty good deal for the Sony T13.. Sandy Bridge I assume? But for the T13, to me at least it doesn't fit the ultrabook style.

the Samsung NP900 is pretty secks.
the 15" 1600 x 900 sells me. SSD is great too.

I agree. I played around with it at NCIX and it's quite awesome. It's the thinnest at the moment (based on reviews from Engadget) yet packs good battery life and all the works. It also seems the most aesthetically pleasing.

I don't see why ASUS is getting so much love, especially with issues of having non-responsive keyboards / trackpads. They have great displays/resolution but there goes your battery life. I suppose it depends which aspect is a higher priority.

The ASUS Zenbook is much better value for your dollar, that's why.

ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A-DB51

vs.

13.3" Samsung Series 9 and 15.6" Samsung Series 9

If I had a choice, I would've went with the Samsung too since I think it's one of the most beautiful laptops on the market, but the aesthetics does not justify an extra $250 of my pocket's money. That extra money could be spent on a nice case and external hard drive instead since the hardware is essentially the same.. The ASUS also has the bonus of a nicer screen and a standard US keyboard. It does lose in the battery department with 6 hours vs. 7 though.

I would buy the Lenovo X1 Carbon instead (in fact, I just ordered one).
14" screen in a 13" body, and starts at $979 with the RFD code (just google X1 Carbon on RFD). It's also made from carbon fiber, and I think it's skinnier than the Series 9.

RFD post: [Comp] Thinkpad X1 Carbon $974.22 - RedFlagDeals.com Forums

Video of the X1 Carbon getting dropped:

Video comparing the display between the X1 Carbon and the MBA 13"

I've spent the last 3 months debating on which ultrabook/MBA to get. The X1 Carbon won out. The only draw back is that the battery life is shorter than the Zenbook/MBA 13". It's more in line with the 11.6" MBA/Zenbook with the reduced capacity due to size issues.

Also to note, the mSATA HDD is up-gradable on the X1 Carbon, and it doesn't use a custom connector like the new Macbook Pros

This is a good read on the Samsung Series 9 vs the Macbook Air, although a few of their facts about the Macbook Air are out of date (MBA was revised June 2012 and now has USB 3.0 and a few other goodies). I LOVE the Samsung and if I was buying a PC ultra book, it would be that one hands down, price be damned, but now that I am a Mac user, I am not going back... there is virtually nothing that can be done on a PC or Mac that can't be done on the other so it really comes down to the experience. For me, the single thing that sways me to Mac, or keeps me there, is the headache free experience - no viruses or spyware. That to me is worth it, I don't worry about visiting a sketchy site by accident when I am googling or anything like that and there is no obtrusive antivirus program sucking up memory in the background.

Mark

http://imgur.com/I6GSf.gif

http://img.playground.ru/images/9/2/...99_Popcorn.gif

http://www.dippedincream.com/wp-cont...08/popcorn.gif


If you're a corporate user, certain features in Office 2010 are no where to be found on the MAC version. About the virus thing:


Apple drops virus immunity claim for Macs - Telegraph

(Disclaimer: I was this close to buying the MBA13, but I've been very happy with my old IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads.. Hence the X1 Carbon)

Yeah the no Virus/Spyware thing on a Mac is a thing of the past nowadays. The benefit is that they make the hardware and software so compatiblity is high.

I'd get the X1 but the battery life is bad. It crams a 14" in the size of a 13.3" as well.

I am not saying that Macs can never get viruses and am also not saying that PCs suck! My point is simply that my experience has been good with my Mac to the point that after being a dedicated PC power-user for many years, I am not expecting to switch back anytime soon. Nothing wrong with PCs, I use one for work and it works just great as long as you are careful with it... I just like that my Mac seems to keep chugging along without reformats, etc.

Mark

IMO, the only benefits of ultrabooks are size/portability (including battery life) and the cool factor. If that's what you need, by all means, go for it. However, that size and portability come at a price, and for me, that price difference is too big to justify the incremental benefit in portability. Performance / computation power should not be a consideration because you can get similar (if not higher) performance from slightly bigger notebooks at a much cheaper price.

^Not all ultrabooks are over $1K. The Acer S3 and Samsung 5 series have the same form factor as an ultrabook, and costs between $600-700. Though you'll only get a regular hdd + ssd cache, and an I3/AMD processor.

hp envy any good?

AFAIK, the HP Envy still uses the older Sandy Bridge CPUs, so I would not recommend it.

Just throwing this out there in case anyone is interested in snagging my ASUS Zenbook Prime - ASUS ZENBOOK PRIME UX31A-DB51 ULTRABOOK - 13.3" i5-3317U 4GB 128GB SSD - $1050