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Ultrabooks

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    Ultrabooks

    I'm looking for some advice from others who've bought a new laptop or ultrabook recently.

    I'm getting sick of the heavy brick laptops that I've had over the years, so I'm starting to think an ultrabook is the way forward. I was originally keen on a convertible but the mechanisms used to flip the screen into table mode still seem to be in their infancy. I think I'll wait for that to settle down a bit.

    I'm an architect so my usage is mainly MS Outlook, Word, Excel and a quite a bit of Visio. Screen can't be too small as I need to view a detailed diagram all on one page. Being able to fire up a VM occasionally is important too. I attend a lot of meetings and I take my laptop into most of them. I do plug into a projector quite a lot too, most of which are the VGA kind.

    Priorities are lightweight, powerful and small enough that I can open it on a train. I currently have a 15" laptop screen that I can't open fully when sitting airline on a train. I reckon 14" would work, 13" at a push. Must be robust and powerful (i7 CPU and 8GB RAM ideally). VGA ports are not common on ultrabooks and is something I will have to live with by using an adapter.

    To the annoyance of many reading this I'm not interested in Apple Macbooks, or Airs. I work in enterprise IT and want to be seen as a promoter and user of such. i.e. Professional and serious about managed IT, not the 'creative' and 'fashionable' BYOD crowd.

    I've looked at a few laptops and my attention is now on the Lenovo X1 Carbon Touch as it seems to be a decent ultrabook that is light, robust, powerful.

    Anyone have one of these or can suggest something else that may fit?

    #2
    +1 for the Lenovo. For slightly cheaper, 2nd hand T410/420s?

    DEWISOTT.

    qh
    He had a negative bluety on a quackhandle and was quadraspazzed on a lifeglug.

    I look forward to your all knowing and likely sarcastic and unhelpful reply.

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by CheeseSlice View Post
      I'm looking for some advice from others who've bought a new laptop or ultrabook recently...

      I've looked at a few laptops and my attention is now on the Lenovo X1 Carbon Touch as it seems to be a decent ultrabook that is light, robust, powerful.

      Anyone have one of these or can suggest something else that may fit?
      Here's a good review of the Carbon Touch from Scott Hansleman
      with the good and the bad. I rate Hansleman so a review by him actually means something to me.

      I've bought a Lenovo Helix a few months ago, it's screen size is less than your requirement and it's a tablet with a mechanism which you are wanting to avoid. Still, I've managed to spend time developing on it's 11.6 inch screen and found it to be perfectly functional. The mechanism is fine, no issues.

      Comment


        #4
        I've got an ASUS Zenbook, which has a i5 Core processor, 25oGb SSD and 4Gb of memory that copes with Gb-sized spreadsheets without trying. Mine's the smaller one but there is (or was, given the speed things move) a bigger 13 inch one.
        Blog? What blog...?

        Comment


          #5
          Just be careful on the i7s, they are not all equal for laptop processors

          Some are dual core and really no better than getting an i5 just dearer
          Doing the needful since 1827

          Comment


            #6
            ASUS Zenbook - not bad at all

            I've a Zenbook I got nearly two years ago. Core i7, 128GB, UX31E model: 13" screen with 1600x900 resolution.

            Conclusions, in no particular order:
            • The USB3 port stopped working other than for charging after a few months. Probably due to abuse from me! Likewise the SD slot.
            • 128GB is too small for a software dev. Seriously. Get a 256GB SSD as a working mininum.
            • The screen density and quality are gorgeous- and the more recent models have even higher resolution.
            • For a laptop, it's ridiculously fast.
            • It's ludicrously robust. If it can survive me, it can survive a war zone.
            • Both the laptop and charger are beautifully lightweight. I can fit it into an inside pocket in my AyeGear travel vest. Big win for saving on airline carry-on weight!
            • The touchpad was almost unusable at purchase; later driver versions improved it, but it's not the best. Bit of a strange quality fail for such a nice device.
            • Two USB ports - particularly with only one of them USB3 - just ain't enough. Doubly so, when one of them dies.
            • No Kensington slot? Seriously? For a £1000 laptop?


            I've still got it, it's still my main working laptop, and it's gorgeous to look at and to use. And I use too many adverbs describing it...

            I'd seriously consider another Zenbook to replace it. Given how I treat it, it's coped rather well.

            Comment


              #7
              Zenbook sounds like a much better price than the Lenovo, but I don't see any options for on-site repairs and replacements. If my laptop goes boom I'm screwed unfortunately.

              Comment


                #8
                I recently picked up a Dell XPS 13, very impressed so far, great screen, good battery life, has 8GB RAM, i7 and SSD disk so is nippy too.

                I got the Developer Edition (which has Ubuntu Pre-Installed), though I understand you can get Windows versoins too.

                I am also an Architect and find I can run my 'enterprise' desktop no-problem in a Windows Guest, though as an Architect that does a lot of Linux stuff too, having that as a base OS is good too.
                Politicians are wonderfull people, as long as they stay away from things they don't understand, like working for a living!

                Comment


                  #9
                  Get something from apple with os x mavericks - it's the best software stack for productivity on the go in terms of battery life vs performance vs size and weight etc.

                  The new 13" MBP is pretty sweet: retina display, 9 hours of movie watching on said display, fast cpu, decent (but integrated GPU), thunderbolt 2, 802.11ac and starts at $1299. What's not to like?
                  Last edited by yasockie; 22 October 2013, 17:31.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by CheeseSlice View Post
                    To the annoyance of many reading this I'm not interested in Apple Macbooks, or Airs. I work in enterprise IT and want to be seen as a promoter and user of such. i.e. Professional and serious about managed IT, not the 'creative' and 'fashionable' BYOD crowd.
                    A truly professional approach would be to choose the best hardware that meets your requirements, regardless of brand. If you dismiss Apple hardware because you're afraid somebody might mistake you for a hipster, you're allowing irrational prejudice to colour your supposedly professional opinion.

                    A MBA or MBP, particularly one of the new MBPs announced within the last hour, might well prove to give you the best bang to buck ratio. In particular, if you work a lot with visual tools like Visio, the retina display may be of great value.

                    Remember, it's easy to run Windows on a Mac, either as the primary (or only) OS, or using virtualisation. Booting straight into Windows would probably be best for your requirements.

                    Anyway, I would suggest that you look a bit more closely at the Apple range, treating it purely as a potentially viable hardware platform and ignoring whatever feelings you might have about people with highly ornamental facial hair owning a product that happens to bear the same logo as the tool that helps you do your work most effectively

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