Hardware

This machine’s screen is an 11.6-inch TFT LCD with 1136 x 768 pixel resolution working with LED Backlit technology and 350 nits of brightness. This display has a 170 degree viewing angle both vertical and horizontal, and its certainly good enough to work long hours worth during the day. If you’re thinking about working with this device in the dark, you might want to take a test-drive in the store first.

With blacks this dark and a keyboard that’s not backlit, you’ll want a bright lamp over your shoulder at least. If you want to bring this device to the coffee shop, you’re looking at a winner. This machine is 11.7 x 8 x 0.61 inches small, and save the MacBook Air itself, we’ve never experienced a more portable system. With just 2.73 lbs to its name, this machine is ready to be tossed in your backpack or large purse without effort.

Because this machine is made by Lenovo, it’s extremely rugged. While when we’re working with essentially any other notebook this size, there’s always a thought of “ah, gotta make sure I’m not dropping it.” With the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11, we’ve got a machine that we’re as close to “lemme toss this to you across the room” as we’ve ever gotten with a computer. With soft-touch plastic around magnesium aluminum alloy both on the top and on the bottom – in a lovely set of colors, might I add – you’ve got what feels like a top-notch complete package.

Inside you’ve got a few more specifications you might want to hear about if you’re planning on using this device for anything other than word processing, internet browsing, and some basic gameplay. Have a peek:

• 2 GB std / 2GB max / PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3L*, soldered to system board, no sockets *System automatically clocks down to 1500MHz for NVIDIA Tegra3 T30 processor
• Audio: High Definition (HD) Audio, Realtek® ALC5642 codec / stereo speakers (0.5 watt x 2), microphone, microphone input and headphone combo jack (3.5 mm)
• 64 GB / eMMC (embedded Multi Media Card) flash memory onboard
• 2 x USB 2.0, HDMI, SD card reader, 3.5mm Mic/Headphone Combo
• Ambient Light Sensor, Accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, Digital Compass
• OGS Panel – Single piece of glass as both cover lens and sensor substrate

The hardware is solid and really, really high quality. You’ll be considering the software it’s paired with next – and more than likely last, too. Make sure you know what you’re working with here and follow the Windows RT news before you jump in, feet first.

Software

It’s not easy reconciling the fact that this beautiful machine is working with Windows RT. Having a touchscreen up front that’s able to be used in several different modes is awesome, but when you’re crippled by an operating system that looks and feels like Windows 8 but isn’t – that’s confusing.

Using Windows RT is almost like eating an off-brand cereal without seeing the box: it certainly looks like the real deal, but once you taste it, you get wise. You’ll be unable to run Google Chrome, Valve’s Steam for games, or Geekbench for benchmarking your system. With Windows RT, you’re getting what’s closer to what seems to be intended as a tablet system rather than a full-fledged notebook setup.

That said, you do get the option of ordering this system with the full Microsoft Office suite running right out of the box. Microsoft has been pretty good about making sure their own basic set of apps works on Windows RT, and you do have access to the NVIDIA TegraZone Windows RT Edition as well – however limited that may still be. If Judge Dredd VS Zombies and Hydro Thunder are enough to wet your whistle, then by all means go for it – NVIDIA is also growing this collection too as the NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor (found inside this device) stays strong through 2013.

Up against the Competition

Your big question might be at this point what the benefit is in having this device over any other – especially one so inexpensive as, say, a Chromebook. When it comes down to it, this device has that same acceptance curve as a Chromebook has – you just can’t run everything you run on your full-powered PC. We’d even thought about trying to work with this device as a sort of top-tier Chromebook too to test how it’d be, but again, Chrome doesn’t work on Windows RT.

If you’re comparing this device to a full Windows 8 Lenovo notebook, you’ll be in for a trick – working with Windows 8 on the IdeaPad Yoga 13 is a good enough to feel a bit left out with the Yoga 11′s relative lack of oomph – and it’s certainly not a device you’re going to want to compare to a MacBook Air unless you only need it for word processing and browsing the web (on Internet Explorer). The price for this machine does remain enticing: anywhere from $599 to $849 USD and you’ve got a real draw. Compare it to the relative greatness of the Yoga 13, on the other hand, and you might as well drop the extra few bucks to work with full Windows 8 and the larger display.

Wrap-up

You’ll have to think this one through – unlike the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13, you’ve not got a full-powered PC on your hands here. This device is made to be a traveler, and certainly not your one single machine if you’ve got a computer-based job. Should you want to use your PC for nothing but social networking and play, this is a good choice – it’s relatively inexpensive and it’s good for travel.

Lenovo has created a bit of a bitter winner here. While many devices in this category are pretty awesome from top to bottom save their end product, the IdeaPad Yoga 11 is rough and tough and is something I’d put in my backpack for a trip. If I were going on a business trip with my SlashGear compatriots, I’d have to leave it at home.

Hardware

This notebook, also known as model NP540U3C-A01US, is not the thinnest beast on the block, nor is it the lightest. But it’s no monster, either. Instead what you’re getting is a 12.4 x 8.6 x 0.6-inch notebook made from a mix of aluminum and plastic parts, certainly sturdy enough – and aesthetically pleasing enough on the outside – to be your daily driver in a public place. As an Ultrabook such as this will likely be used by you for doing work first and foremost, it’s important to take a peek at the keyboard right out of the box.

What you’ve got here is a top-class keyboard that’s not unlike what we’ve seen from the generation of Samsung notebooks that’ve come out over the past year. If you’re used to working with a MacBook, not a PC, you’ll still feel rather at home with this layout and pressure sensitivity. The keyboard features a real no-nonsense set of keys as well, so no worries pecking away at the bits you’re not wanting to hit.

The display is certainly nice looking, and if you’re not used to the ultra-high-definition eye-shattering screens that are also out there on the market today, you’ll have a great time with the 1366 x 768 resolution here with LED HD technology and 10-finger touch. That means that if you’ve got an app that needs every single one of your fingers at once, you’ll be able to do it here. Covering this display you’ve got Corning Gorilla Glass – resistant against scratches and damage like a pro. This display is also 300 nits bright, working with SuperBright Technology so you know you’re backed up by a brand that means business.

Inside you’ll be working with 8GB of system memory, a hard drive of 128GB (SSD), and a find little web camera peeking up at you above the screen. You’ve also got Intel HD Graphics 4000, perfectly generous for your everyday movie watching, and you’ll be connecting to the web either wirelessly with Intel WiDi and Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 802.11 a/b/g/n or wired with this machine’s built-in ethernet port.

Next to your ethernet port (which pops open or closes down for a more compact experience, mind you), you’ll see one USB 3.0 port, HDMI out, and your very own headphone/microphone jack. Lucky you! On the right you’ve got another two USB 2.0 ports and a multi-card reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC). Altogether you’ve got a really solid package, certainly one you can bring home to mother.

Hands-on

This device is only surprisingly heavy because I’m so very used to handling computers now that are lighter than they have any business being. When you’re working with Ultrabooks and MacBook Airs and the like every single day of the week, having one like this UltraTouch will seem like a slight change. But as it is with most notebooks and such, the weight and the shape of this machine feels natural rather quickly.

The location of each of the ports feels quite natural, and though it does still feel a bit odd to be pulling open the ethernet port on the left hand side whenever it’s needed, it’s not been a burdon in any way. Toss this and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 and the GALAXY S 4 in your pockets and backpack and you’re set!

Software

Samsung is particularly proud of its collection of apps made specifically for Windows 8, including such winners as Quick Starter. With Quick Starter, you’re able to grab your own toolbar and start button (otherwise willfully yanked from your life by Windows 8) so you’ll have a more familiar user interface if you’ve never used Windows 8 before. You’ll also have all kinds of awesome AllShare Play action going on – particularly awesome if you’re a Samsung Galaxy S III or GALAXY S 4 or Galaxy Note user.

With AllShare Play you’ll be connecting with your mobile devices with ease, sharing your media from device to device in a personal mobile network instantly. This interface also works with Samsung Smart TVs and tablets as well as smartphones.

Above and you’ll also find some read-outs we’ve taken of the notebook. You’ll see some additional details about what this Ultrabook is packing as well as some benchmark results from our standard test: Geekbench. Feel free to head back to our archive of reviewed devices to compare and contrast as well!

Battery Time

Off the wall connection we’ve found the Samsung Series 5 UltraTouch to be getting a little over 5 hours of battery life. That’s without streaming video – if you’re going to be doing heavy processing tasks, this may not be the workhorse for you. Instead you’ll find this device best for daily work on-the-go without demanding a full 8-hour workday spread without power.

That said, battery life on this device isn’t all that different from the rest of the Ultrabooks out there right now. You’ll find a machine like the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 working with essentially the same amount of battery time where the newest era of MacBook Air units are some of the only mobile notebooks we’ve worked with that last longer in the field. Choose wisely!

Wrap-up

With the Samsung Series 5 UltraTouch you’ve got an Ultrabook that’s ready to be your best buddy in college, your friendly office companion, or your coffee shop cohort. While the Samsung notebook line doesn’t hold quite the “cool” factor their smartphones and tablets have earned over the past few years, they still connect in more ways than any other machine – particularly if you want to work with the oddity that is AllShare.

The model we’ve reviewed here will cost you a cool $859.99 USD and is available everywhere fine Ultrabooks are sold. We’d recommend, as always, heading out to your local notebook dealer to see how this unit feels before picking one up for yourself. Samsung has made a fabulous notebook here, and you’re going to want to take it out for a test drive before you make the big jump.

Google’s Chromebooks have all been budget devices that match perfectly with their web-focused streamlined user interface, but this is different. The Pixel is in a category all by its lonesome self, and shows Google knows how to make some serious hardware that could truly contend with the competition. Well, the hardware can at least.

Hardware & Design

The design and elegance of the Pixel truly is a winner. It won us over the minute we laid our eyes, and hands on it. The same way we felt when Apple went to the unibody design for the Macbook Pro is how this device makes us feel – and it should. If you’re going to go from offering $249 laptops to a full out $1,299 Chromebook it better WOW. This certainly did exactly that. We’ve long been using the MBP for a benchmark to compare laptops in terms of quality, and the Chromebook certainly lives up to that benchmark.

The Pixel just completely screams “premium” when you touch and use it. The pictures and video truly don’t do this machined aluminum and anodized unibody device justice. With a dark gunmetal finish (although a bit fingerprint happy) you’ll instantly notice the amount of precision and time that went into making the Pixel. The design isn’t radical and instead everything is squared off, tapered when needed, and just smooth and simple – but in a good way. There’s absolutely no flex or creaks to the body, the display is as durable as can be, and all the squared edges have a nice rounding off to keep it comfy. Oh and did we mention the keyboard is a joy to use. The keys are a bit stiff, but Google’s certainly got the keyboard right – even if we’d like some options for the backlight.

It just feels right. The Pixel is elegant and beautiful yet dead simple in design. Add in the fact that this gorgeous piece of technology is as durable as it is, yet only weighs 3.3 lbs. You’ll be happy to know it’s comfortable to carry around too. The only part that isn’t squared off is that round piano hinge on back, which also adds comfort while carrying the device in hand running around campus – or walking into that Starbucks nearby. It’s slightly thinner and lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Pro, but still loses to the Air. Now lets talk about the real hardware that’s important. That being the astonishing display and the goods under the hood.

The Pixel features a 12.85-inch ‘Pixel’ display with a 2560 x 1700 resolution at 239 PPI and 4.3 million pixels – and it absolutely looks amazing. Sporting a Gorilla Glass 2 protected multi-touch panel it offers excellent viewing angles. Under the hood you’ll be working with a 1.8 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 32GB SSD for storage. That isn’t all either. With your purchase users get 1TB of free Google Drive cloud storage. Basically Google wants us putting anything and everything on the cloud. Then you’ll get two USB 2.0 ports and sadly no 3.0, Displayport, and 3.5mm for headphones all on the left edge, then a full SD slot on the right side for when you need more than the integrated 32GB of storage. The right also houses the Verizon 4G LTE sim slot for those opting for the 64GB 4G LTE model priced at $1,449.

Then we have that awesome notification light on back which has all sorts of glowing colors. It’s blue during use, white while on standby, and will let the people behind you know the battery is low by glowing red. Sadly you won’t see it, but the OS will let you know so don’t worry. Then on open and close you’ll get a neat little rainbow of Google colors. It’s a neat little extra polish, and we like that Google’s keeping things fun. Sadly we don’t like the large and cumbersome charger that came included, however it also features a ring LED with green, yellow, and red for when you’re charging.

We’ll talk more about the display and the actual performance below, this was just a quickie rundown on the hardware. One last time we’d like to mention how gorgeous the Pixel display is. It’s sooo crisp, can’t all things be this way? Google’s certainly reached that higher level of hardware and design, that’s for sure. The question is whether or not the rest can complete the picture.

Display

If you’re going to call it the ‘Pixel’ and give it a multitouch touchscreen it better be amazing. Don’t worry though guys, the display is the best thing this laptop has going for it, and surely won’t disappoint. Again, front and center is a 12.85-inch 2560×1700 ‘Pixel’ HD IPS LCD display. The pixel density comes in at 239 ppi which is slightly higher than the MacBook Pro Retina 13-inch for being slightly smaller, and a few extra pixels. While comparing the two, the Pixel had a slight yellow hue compared to the MBP Retina, but that would be the only negative – if one at all – that we can hold against it. Everything else is just stellar. The screen obviously is amazingly crisp, colors are bright, vivid, and pop, and the brightness was excellent. You truly have to see it to enjoy it.

Before the touchscreen hands-on video below we did want to mention a few things about the display. Sadly the Chrome OS is pretty plain and that amazing HD resolution is wasted by lots of blank white space inside the OS. Being a simple web-based OS there’s really nothing to fill it up. Of course that’s why you go to SlashGear and enjoy a good read. The second thing being screen glare. Uhh, it’s awful. Apple did an excellent job with reducing glare almost making that a feature in itself on the Retina. Sadly Google didn’t do the same. It handles fingerprints amazingly well since you’ll be touching the screen, but the glare is something we couldn’t look past.

Screen glare aside, the display is still the star of the show here and will certainly stand out to anyone that uses this device. While we wish the Chrome OS had more use for a touchscreen display, here’s a quick look at what you’ll be working with on the Chromebook Pixel.

As you can see our smartphone and tablet-aimed minds will feel right at home with the Pixel. Flipping through webpages was fun, easy, and smooth. Then of course using pinch-to-zoom in Maps and such works as you’d expect. Sadly there wasn’t too many other moments where this is extremely needed – at least not on the Chrome OS – but all the apps and games surely will benefit from the option. For now the OS doesn’t fully need a touchscreen, or at least we don’t think so, but hopefully that will change in the future.

Overall we don’t want to keep beating the horse here, but the screen is truly top notch. We absolutely love it! Viewing angles are great being an IPS display but get too high or to the side and they quickly wash out with yellow and pink, but for day to day use we had absolutely zero issues. Compared to anything else available nothing compares expect the MacBook Retina’s – which have already been readily available for some time.

Keyboard & Trackpad

Google certainly put the Pixel in a class of its own here too, on multiple levels. The chiclet or island style keyboard is present, and even features backlit keys. Adjusting the lighting could be easier instead of a keyboard combo, and randomly my backlight was off for about 2 hours – that aside the backlit keys are excellent. Make no mistake about it, the keyboard closely matches that of Apple’s. They sit in a slightly recessed area but float up and are easy to hit, comfortable, and as we mentioned above just gives users a stellar typing experience. The keys have a perfect blend of spacing, and the same perfection is there for the pressure and resistance while typing. However, the top row of quick-keys were slightly more resistant than the rest, for whatever reason.

The only complaint about the keyboard would have to be the slightly tougher and not spaced top row of keys. On the other hand everything we enjoy about the keyboard and display is mirrored with the Trackpad. Made of etched glass the trackpad works as expected. It’s smooth, accurate, and comfortable although many HP’s still just feels better in my opinion. It has a nice black matte finish that slightly makes it not as smooth to the touch, but don’t worry you’ll be using that glass touchscreen more than you think.

The last thing worth mentioning regarding the keyboard has to do with sound, in two different ways. One being the Chromebook Pixel has a few noise cancellation microphones to cut down on the keyboard typing sound if you’re using a mic or enjoying a Google+ hangout, but this could be improved. Secondly, the built-in stereo speakers are calmly integrated under the keyboard. There’s no speaker grills to make the device unnecessarily long, and the sound isn’t hindered by that either. I was actually extremely impressed with the Pixels overall volume levels. Obviously you’ll still get that laptop tin-can airy sound, but the sound quality and volume levels are some of the best we’ve used.

Software & OS

Hmmm. Google Chrome OS. It certainly is a far more usable and enjoyable OS than it was a few years ago introduced with the CR48, but it’s still far from being perfect – or capable for that matter. As we said above the Chrome OS is something we have a love-hate relationship with, and beautiful hardware can’t change that. We’re not going to get into a huge Chrome OS review here, since we all already know what to expect there. Amazing fast boot up and shut down times, worry free browsing, and essentially everything in the cloud. Is this window into the cloud worth $1,299 though. That’s a tough sell.

Again we’re not going to get into the OS as a whole, but rather mention some things regarding it and the Pixel specifically. For one, the awesome touchscreen is great but not all that useful. You’d think Google would introduce more touch sensitive – or even supported – features and options to the OS to take advantage of this. They have not. Surely some are coming soon, but at the moment that feature will only be slightly useful for the web and a few web apps from the Chrome store. Secondly, the trackpad. Google offers a top-notch trackpad yet we have no gesture support in the Chrome OS. Two finger swipes to go back in the browser, quick minimize, pinch-to-zoom, or anything of this sort is all absent. You can’t even pinch-to-zoom in the image viewer in Chrome OS to use the awesome trackpad. Why Google, Why?

However, in Google Maps a two finger swipe will zoom in and out, but pinching does nothing. Pinch-to-zoom works on Maps with the touchscreen, but not the trackpad. An epic failure when it comes to the possibilities here. Again, they’re probably coming in the future but we need them now if we’re paying top dollar for the machine.

Above is a small gallery of a few screenshots from the OS. Google’s conveniently added a huge Chrome OS support page that’s even better than before. Details on how to get the most usage and productivity from their web-focused OS, as well as what will help you with tasks whether they are work, play, and everything else. So one more time we don’t want to review the OS as a whole here, but it’s seriously underpowered for this piece of luxury.

With a built-in apps and things like Google Music, a minimal media player, as well as a file browser Chrome OS has the essentials, but that’s it, the bare minimum essentials. Google Drive (with 1000GB of space included) certainly helps with these types of tasks and you can transfer from the Pixel to another device. Doing anything intensive for photo editing, video, or anything else for that matter the OS just doesn’t support it. This brings us to something we mentioned in the video above. Chrome’s webstore has tons of awesome games, most which don’t work on the Chrome OS. They don’t get filtered out and you’ll install something on the Chromebook only to later realize it only runs on Windows or OSX. Google needs to clear this out of the webstore for those primarily on a Chromebook.

Last but not least, the software can and will be improved. There’s absolutely zero doubt in our minds that Google has huge plans for the Chrome OS, tons of features coming soon, and will improve it with frequent updates. On another bright note, you can change out the Chrome OS for something like Linux. I don’t know about you guys, but this would be the best looking Fedora or Ubuntu device I’ve ever seen. What do you guys think?

Performance & Battery

As far as performance go we can’t really compare to anything from the Windows camp, and benchmarks aren’t something we can do either. However, thanks to the Core i5 dual-core processor at 1.8 GHz and 4GB of DDR3 RAM this device is speedy at all times. The specs might be light compared to well priced Mac’s and Windows 8 powerhouse laptops, but they are more than enough to run the Chrome OS. There’s nothing that will tax this hardware to the full extent in its current form, that’s for sure.

There’s really not anything to say here about performance. The browser-based OS is blazing fast. The dual-core also handles HD video with ease, and any games that manage to be supported from the Chrome Store play without a hitch too. Things do get a bit hot though, we must say. The keyboard acts as vents, and the Piano-style hinge for the display Google claims acts as a heatsink to keep the device cool, but sit it on your lap and enjoy some 1080p video and it will warm up quick. On a cooler note, I actually only heard the fans once on the device. So that’s a plus.

Battery life. Chrome OS sips on the battery, and the dual-core isn’t strong enough to drain it too fast either. However Google states the Pixel will get “up to 5 hours of continuous use.” As a comparison the Macbook Pro and most other laptops usually aim for at least 6. In real world usage the Chromebook Pixel with brightness at 65% viewing multiple videos, playing Angry Birds and a few other games I found, and browsing Reddit for a while it barely lasted 4 hours. Actually 3 hours and 57 minutes to be exact. I wouldn’t call that great, but it isn’t too bad either. Make sure to have that charger nearby if you’re doing anything too intensive.

Pricing & Competition

There’s only two options that will be available from good old Google, and that is the 32GB WiFi model priced at $1,299. Then the 64GB WiFi + Verizon 4G LTE for $1,449 so you’re options are pretty limited. The competition however, options are nearly endless on all fronts. We’d rather not compare the Pixel to the Macbook Pro – because honestly there’s no real comparison from the full view of things – but on a hardware level that’s the closest thing. Not to mention some of HP’s nice laptops like the Spectre XT.

The Pixel certainly isn’t cheap, not one bit. In fact, that’s actually pretty darn expensive for what’s merely a window for the web. That 1000GB of free Google Drive cloud storage for 3 years costs more than the Pixel in general, so you could look at it from that way. To be honest though comparing the Chromebook Pixel to others, especially a Macbook Pro just almost doesn’t seem fair given the limited OS. This certainly will not be replacing my MBP anytime soon, if ever, but on a hardware level it certainly comes close. I hate to be so blunt but there’s just no way in good conscience compare the two fairly given the extremely limited OS compared to the powerhouse that is OSX. There is really no comparison.

Wrap-Up

Unfortunately for Google the Chromebook Pixel is grounded by the OS, but make no mistake they’ve crafted one beautiful computer. We’ve always had a hard time recommending or giving a thumbs up overall to a Chromebook of any type, except for someone that absolutely needs a minimal computer experience. So while the Chrome OS works great for that, there’s multiple devices with ALL the same shortcomings for much less money. You could pay $199 for Acer’s C7 Chromebook and have the same experience and get all the same things done. You just won’t look as classy doing it, the screen won’t be as crisp, and the very limited touch features won’t be available to you. You’ll have a heck of a lot of cash leftover in your pocket though. Enough for months and months of Starbucks.

In the end what makes the Pixel a winner and absolutely amazing also makes it a loser – and that is the price. There’s no doubt that the Chromebook Pixel very well could be what the future of laptop computing holds for many, but at the same time it’s here too early, and will dent our pockets way more than anyone would like. The Pixel is an amazing piece of hardware but no matter how amazing it is, the $1,300 price is an extremely hard pill to swallow.

So just like we asked in our initial Pixel hands-on: Does Google tempt the daring? For us the answer is sadly a clear as day no, but others might feel different. It saddens me to say it but this is a Ferrari with a 4-cylinder engine. We can’t wait to see what the future holds for cloud computing, Google, and the Chrome OS, but this is too much too soon.

Hardware & Design

At first glance, the Aspire M Touch looks like your typical slab of aluminum gadgetry, which it is, but it’s really sleek. Both the lid and the palm rest are made from brushed metal, while the bottom is lined with plastic. It certainly looks like an expensive laptop, but the build quality from just holding it and grabbing onto it isn’t all that great. The lid caves in from very little pressure, as does the palm rest. It’s a little unnerving at first, but babying the laptop — as most people do — shouldn’t cause any problems.

The laptop comes with a great-looking 14-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1366×768, which is fairly odd for a computer screen, and we’re slightly disappointed that it didn’t come with a higher resolution, especially for a 14-incher. Viewing angles are average, but as with any typical LCD, colors start to get washed out if you’re not looking at it from the optimum, straight-on angle. The touchscreen is 10-point, meaning it’ll detect all ten fingers if need be, and we found responsiveness of the touchscreen to be fairly good.

Inside you’ll find an Intel Core i5 3317U dual-core processor clocked at 1.7GHz with 4GB of RAM. This particular model has a 20GB solid state drive along with a 500GB hard drive. The solid state drive allows for quick boot ups and launching your most-used apps, while the hard drive is there to store all of your bigger files, like photos, videos, music etc. As for graphics, there’s Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics, so you won’t be able to do any hardcore gaming other than the occasional casual title.

As for ports and different connectivity options around the outside edges of the laptop, there’s a small bevy of options, but the placement of the ports is rather odd. Most of the important ports are on the back, including the power port, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, ethernet, and the Kensington lock. On the left side there’s the lone DVD-RW drive, and on the right side there’s an SD card slot and a combined headphone and microphone jack. As for the power button, it’s placed on the front of the laptop near the status lights — an odd place for it considering that most laptops have the power button in one of the upper corners near the keyboard.

As for the capabilities of the keyboard and trackpad, I wasn’t too impressed by either, but it was definitely a better experience than other laptops I’ve messed around with. The keys have very little travel, making it awkward to type until you finally get used to it. However, the keyboard is backlit, which is perfect for typing into the wee hours of the night, but you can’t adjust the brightness of the LEDs — there’s just an on/off toggle. As for the trackpad, it’s simply just made of plastic, making it a bit more difficult to slide your fingers around on compared to the glass trackpads on MacBooks or even the new Chromebook Pixel. The trackpad is large, however, which is always a good thing to have, and it makes navigating much easier.

Software

The Aspire M Touch runs a full version of Windows 8 as usual, and there definitely is no shortage of bloatware on this bad boy. Acer includes a couple of their pieces of software, and the rest are mostly pre-installed apps that could prove useful to some users, but maybe not quite everyone. There’s Acer Explorer, which is an app that basically teaches you how to use the other apps on the computer, and then there’s Acer Cloud, which is the company’s own cloud storage service that shares files across multiple Acer devices. Lastly there’s Acer Crystal Eye, which is a companion app for the webcam, and it comes with a few features that you may find useful, such as different effects.

However, that’s only the Acer apps. The company pre-installed a ton of other apps on the computer, such as Evernote, Skitch, Kindle, eBay, Netflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, Skype, Spotify, and McAfee. All of these will probably be useful to you, since they’re popular apps, but Acer also pre-installed a few apps that you’ll probably end up never using, including 7digital, Britannica, iCookbook, ChaCha, TuneIn Radio, StumbleUpon, Social Jogger, newsXpresso, and WildTangent Games. Obviously, you can delete the apps you won’t be using, but your first bootup into Windows 8 on this machine won’t be a clean one.

Performance

The Aspire M Touch runs off of an Intel Core i5 3317U dual-core processor clocked at 1.7GHz with 4GB of RAM. This keeps the machine pedaling along nicely, and the solid state drive allows for fast bootup times and quick app switching. Running the M Touch through Geekbench, we ended up getting a score of just over 7,000, which isn’t anything fantastic, but it’s also not terrible. This laptop isn’t really meant for the true power user, but rather the everyday average consumer just wanting to stay connected. The integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics prove that this laptop won’t be able to handle any intense gaming, but those wanting to watch a movie won’t have any problems.

As for battery life, this is where we were pleasantly surprised. We were averaging around five hours of use, with the occasional six hour cycle if we purposely tried to stretch it. This may not seem that impressive, but with so many laptops today not even able to last four hours on a single charge, we have to give it up to Acer for being able to pull it off.

Wrap-Up

The Aspire M Touch is a sleek-looking laptop, and there’s no doubt about that. Some of the design elements are a bit wonky, though. For example, most of the important ports that you need to get to are all located on the back, save for the headphone/microphone jack and the SD card slot. It makes sense to have the power port and the HDMI port on the back, that way you have cables sticking out from the sides, but having all the USB ports located on the back of the laptop is just a plain nuisance. However despite the low travel of the keyboard keys and the plastic trackpad, using both actually wasn’t too bad; it was certainly a better experience than other Windows laptops that I’ve played with, so I can’t complain too much in that respect.

You can grab an Aspire M Touch for around $800, which might seem a bit on the pricey side, but it’s actually relatively lower than most other laptops like it. It’s certainly a machine that we’d recommend to anyone looking for something portable to get them by with their everyday computing needs, and we’d have a hard time believing that users weren’t having a good experience with the laptop.

Hardware

With an ASUS piece of hardware you know you’re getting a machine whose creators spent some time perfecting its casings, and here we’ve got a design that’s been perfected several times over. This notebook will not look unique to you if you’ve worked with an ASUS laptop in the last few years. It’s certainly thin at between 6-19mm from its thinnest to its fattest, and it’s light enough to fit in your standard backpack at just 1.55Kg.

The panel you’re looking at is 13.3-inches of Full HD IPS LCD at a 16:9 aspect ratio. The front-facing camera you’re working with is HD 720p for video chat and you’ve got a standard integrated microphone so you can chat without additional accessories. If you do want to plug in, on the other hand, you’ve got 3x USB 3.0 ports, a Mini VGA port, full-sized HDMI-out, and an SD card reader so you can rock and roll.

The keyboard here is a really standard ASUS setup – working with a bit more breathing room than we’ve seen on the slightly smaller Transformer tablet units over the past couple of years with a touchpad that’s also had some usability improvements. Of course if you continue to compare an Android tablet user experience to a Windows user experience here with full Windows 8, you’re going to feel that this device is rocking and rolling in the hardware department – it does have a bit to do with the fact that Windows 8 is made for a desktop environment, of course.

Inside you’ve got a choice between 2.5῀ 7mm 500 GB HDD and 2.5῀ 7mm SSD 128GB as well as DDR3 1600MHz 2GB (on board) with either 2GB or 4GB Slot DIMM. It all depends on what you need to keep you kicking. You’ve also got a choice between AMD Radeon HD7600G and AMD Radeon HD7620G graphics on either AMD A8-4555M or A10-4655M Quad-Core APU processors. All this magic comes clean with the AMD A70M Hub Controller – your only choice for chipset.

You’ll also find that you’ve got a built-in Bang & Olufsen ICE Power audio system that’ll make dorm room video watching a successful venture without a doubt. Each speaker is 2.5 W and you’ve got the guarantee that Bang & Olufsen worked with the ASUSA special Golden Ear team for an “exclusive” SonicMaster Technology experience. In short: this laptop sounds very, very nice.

Software & Performance

With Windows 8 you’ve got a fully touch-friendly experience ahead of you from start to finish, and with the 5-finger touch functionality of the ASUS U38N series, you’ll be tapping all day long. To keep you running strong, you’ve got AMD to keep you warmed up nice and toasty, complete with several AMD-exclusive features. Have a peek here first at a system readout for this unit:

With this build of Windows 8 you’ll be seeing a fairly clean design with not one whole heck of a lot of extra software pushed by ASUS. That said, there are some interesting additions you’re going to want to see in our hands-on with the system coming up next. Note while you’re watching how sleek the system is and how well touch is responded to right here with this basic out-of-box build.

Finally have a peek at our basic benchmark result from Geekbench. This notebook is certainly not the most powerful we’ve come across, but it definitely gets the job done for your everyday computing needs. If you’re looking for some notebooks to compare to, feel free to head down into our Laptop Reviews tag portal for machines from each of the finest manufacturers on the market. AMD does seem to be holding its own against some of the more visible names in the public today!

Wrap-Up

With the ASUS VivoBook U38N you’ve got a rather well-rounded solution for your school or everyday home use. With the high-quality audio system and the Full HD picture right in front of your face, you’ll also do well to work with this machine as a home entertainment blaster, especially if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t use a giant TV. If you DO use a giant TV, you’ve also got the option to output via HDMI as well – easy as pie!

This is easily one of ASUS’ finest efforts to date, and with AMD under the hood you know you’ll have a unique solution that your best buddy will be interested in fiddling around with. ASUS also works with a collection of their own accessories that work with this notebook, and the manufacturer continues to support their ever-growing line of products with both hardware and software upgrades into the future. Let us know if you’re onboard!

Hardware & Design

The 2570p is built to last, and it’s somewhat thick structure gives it some ruggedness so that it’ll withstand more than the usual beating. It has a magnesium alloy shell, which should tell you right away that this thing isn’t messing around. Plus, it’s extremely portable, even with it’s added thickness. It’s got a 12.5-inch display with a 1366×768 resolution. Certainly nothing magical in that case, but considering it’s only a 12.5-inch screen, an HD resolution is a welcomed surprise. The hinges connecting the display to the bottom portion of the laptop are made of aluminum, which means you could open and close the lid as much as you want and the hinges won’t weaken one bit, which is a big plus, especially since I’ve seen my fair share of hinges weaken over time.

However, while the palmrest and the top outer shell are made of magnesium alloy, the bottom of the laptop, as well as the screen bezel, is made of plastic. Granted, it’s a really durable plastic that’s a bit more sturdy than what you’d find on most other plastic-lined notebooks, but it’s a slight bummer that the entire laptop isn’t encased in the beautiful aluminum that we’re big fans of. Either way, the entire thing weighs about 4.6 pounds, which certainly isn’t bad at all and it makes it easy to stow away in a bag without having to use two hands. However, for a 12.5-inch laptop, 4.6 pounds definitely isn’t light, so don’t expect to be twirling it around in your hands, and while I was able to carry it around and pick it up with one hand, it definitely wasn’t a breeze to do so.

As far as hardware is concerned, the 2570p definitely isn’t messing around, but it’s also not a powerhouse machine. It sports an Intel Core i5 3210M dual-core processor clocked at 2.5GHz with 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive. This kind of performance will definitely allow you to open apps quickly and browse without a hiccup, and I’ll discuss the overall performance a bit later, but the 2570p only comes with Intel HD 4000 graphics, which will be able to play HD video depending on your player, but don’t expect to do much else graphics wise.

The keyboard is quite impressive. It’s a chiclet-style keyboard and the keys have a DuraFinish coating on them, making them resistant from long-term wear. It’s also spill-resistant, meaning that a small mug of coffee won’t do any damage, but it may leave a sticky mess. Of course, you won’t be able to dump a tall glass of liquid all over the surface, but it can withstand some minor spills if they do end up happening. The keyboard isn’t black-lit, which almost seems like a must nowadays, but the laptop does come with a retractable LED light where the webcam is. It’s not extremely bright, but it works in a pinch. To round out the keyboard, there’s a biometric fingerprint scanner on the right side of the palm rest, just in case you want added some security to your laptop — a subject that many companies are serious about.

As far as the touchpad goes, it’s extremely tiny. There’s not a lot of room to move around your finger to navigate windows and such, but there are several different options that you can choose from. First, the touchpad has top and bottom mouse buttons. Traditionally there only on the bottom of the touchpad on most laptops, but you now have the choice of having them on top, which I actually find more suitable. There’s also a mini joystick in the middle of the keyboard that you can use to navigate the mouse cursor. It takes some time to get used to and I wouldn’t say it’s any better than the touchpad, but it’s there if you want it.

As far as ports go, there’s quite a bevy of them. On the left side is the power jack, Ethernet port, optical drive, and then a smart card reader that may come in handy for a lot of business folks. On the right side, there’s an ExpressCard 34mm slot, SD card reader, dual headphone/microphone jack, DisplayPort jack, eSATA and USB 3.0 port (combined), and a docking connector towards the back. On the back of the laptop, there’s a VGA-out port, one extra USB 3.0 port and a USB 2.0 port. So in all, there’s three USB ports, which is certainly respectable, and along with all the other ports you get, we have to say there’s not a lot that HP left out. Businesses most likely won’t be disappointed by the 2570p offerings.

As far as the 2570p’s display, it’s just a normal LED screen, and there’s no IPS technology included, meaning that viewing angles are extremely limited. This probably won’t be a huge deal for most business users, but it’s at least something that’s worth keeping in mind. I personally didn’t have a problem with it since there was need to view the screen at an odd angle, but if you’re in a business meeting, for example, and need to quickly huddle around your laptop to show coworkers something, it may not be ideal.

Software

The EliteBook 2570p runs Windows 8, which from a business standpoint is a huge downside. Windows 8 has yet to prove to be a solid OS for business use. Personally, it’s an OS strictly meant for consumers, and it no way does it scream, “business.” Granted, when the laptop was first released, it came with Windows 7, but if you plan on buying any laptop anytime soon, it’ll have Windows 8 on it, no doubt. Luckily, if you buy the 2570p directly from HP, you can actually configure the laptop to include Windows 7, so not all hope is completely lost in this case.

As far as bloatware goes, there’s no shortage of it. It comes with the CyberLink Media Suite, which includes a photo organizer/manager, media player, video editor, and webcam software. There’s also an HP support app, HP Client Security (which uses the fingerprint scanner), and HP’s SoftPaq download manager. Other than that, the computer comes pre-installed with Evernote and PDF Complete, two apps that are proven business tools.

There’s definitely a lot more bloatware than what we’ve seen on past HP computers that we’ve reviewed, but for a business-oriented laptop, that’s not too surprising. My only huge complaint with the software is that it’s Windows 8. I’m not quite sure if PC manufacturers realize that Windows 7 is the business OS that we need to use, or if they’re only concerned about updating to the latest and greatest OS, no matter what. Maybe there are actually some business men and women out there that prefer Windows 8 for their business needs, but it seems that most companies aren’t jumping on the upgrade bandwagon just yet. Again, we’re glad that HP is still giving us the option to stick with Windows 7, but that won’t last forever.

Performance & Battery

As mentioned earlier, the 2570p comes with a dual-core 2.5GHz Core i5 processor and 4GB of RAM, with integrated Intel HD 4000 graphics. Everyday use proved to be speedy, and while more-intensive apps tended to take a bit longer to load, other apps like Google Chrome, Mail, Calendar, etc. opened up swiftly. However, as expected, benchmarks weren’t anything to write home about, but they also weren’t bad by any means. The 2570p scored just under a 7,000 in Geekbench. Either way, the average user probably isn’t going notice a lot of hiccuping with everyday use. Plus, those business folks that’ll primarily use this type of laptop will mostly use it for documents, spreadsheets, and maybe some video conferencing, but video performance was excellent. Even viewing a 1080p YouTube video wasn’t a challenge for the laptop. It played it nearly flawlessly with little lag.

The really good news is that fan noise remains low most of the time. While streaming video would cause my MacBook to get really hot and force the fans to spin at max speed, the 2570p stayed calm the entire time, and I didn’t even notice the laptop getting too hot at any point. This was probably the most impressive facet of the performance of the laptop. I hate fan noise, and while you can still hear the fans running most of the time, they hardly ever get to the point where they start to sound like jet engines.

As for battery, you’re looking at anywhere from 4-6 hours, and this is from my own testing. Light browsing and document work doesn’t put a lot of strain on the battery, but doing more intensive tasks like video conferencing or watching movies will definitely see a hit on the battery. Of course, screen brightness plays a huge roll as well, and just lowering it down a bit added a good hour of extra battery time for me.

Wrap-Up

In the end, the EliteBook 2570p is a sturdy, well-built laptop that screams professionalism, and can prove itself out in the field. The Core i5 keeps the laptop humming along nicely, and while the integrated graphics aren’t anything too special, they prove that big things can come in small packages. As far as price, the 2570p starts at $949, which certainly isn’t cheap by any means, so what you’re paying for is ultimately the build quality of the laptop, along with all of the port options along the edges of the notebook. Sure, you could get a laptop with similar specs for slightly cheaper, but the 2570p will last you a long time, and needing a laptop that’s rugged will be well worth the investment that you put into it.

Hardware

The Acer Iconia W510-1422 is not just a tablet first, notebook second sort of situation like many modern multi-mode machines are. Instead you’ve got full Windows 8 (as opposed to the tablet-centric Windows RT) along with a solid touchscreen display and a keyboard dock thats clearly made to be part of the full package rather than an after-thought. The keyboard here is clearly the bottom half of the unit rather than the piece you leave at home when you’re feeling no need to key.

Because you can bend the display back to a display position (with the keys of the keyboard then facing down towards the table) you’ve got a rather nice and nearly unique situation on your hands. While we’ve seen this position for tablet convertible machines several times over the past few months, you can rest assured that Acer does it right with a well-balanced and relatively rugged delivery of all pieces involved. And it feels natural to use this machine in each of its three major positions – that’s important when it comes to this modern touch-friendly Windows 8 environment we’re in here in the first part of 2013.

On this unit you’ve got a LED-backlit TFT LCD HD 10.1-inch display up front with 1366 x 768 pixel resolution covered by a smooth sheet of Gorilla Glass 2. Viewing angles are essentially perfect across the grid and the brightness you’ve got here is ready for everyday action (everywhere save direct sunlight). You’ll be rolling out with 5-finger touch as opposed to the 10 you’ll find on desktop PCs in 2013 for the most part, but unless you’ve got something rather unique on your hands that needs more than a couple fingers at a time, you’ll never notice.

Inside you’ve got wireless connectivity as well as Bluetooth 4.0+HS and all around the rim you’ve got high-quality connections and blasters of media. Two speakers sit on the sides of the tablet portion of this setup to the left and the right, this allowing sound to bounce off your palm and into your ears with ease. This machine has an integrated digital microphone that works well with the cameras in front and back and you’ve got a set of ports for USB connectivity as well.

On the tablet itself you’ve got a microUSB port and a microHDMI port for 1080p output as well as multi-display. With this port you’re able to use a massive display as a second screen – as you well should – and it works smooth as if it were a single-unit solution. The microUSB port allows you to connect to whatever other PC you’ve got handy and works with the microUSB-to-full size USB converter accessory that comes in the box as well – great for mice.

The keyboard portion of this setup also has a full-sized USB port for additional accessories, and the whole setup is powered by a port (with included power cord) that exists on the tablet itself and on the keyboard dock. When the tablet is connected to the keyboard, it does so with this port, leaving the keyboard dock to do all the powering of the whole unit.

Camera

The front-facing camera you’ve got here is more than ready for great video chat – better than some desktop machines these days with 1920 x 1080 resolution and 1080p video recording ready for action. The back-facing camera is also decent, though not exactly on-par with the camera you’re getting on most modern smartphones with the same specifications. have a peek at a few demo photos below to get an idea of what you’re working with here.

Note that most of the photos are taken with the back-facing camera indoors while the photo looking upward at the dog was taken with the front-facing camera. Again, this front-facing camera should be used primarily for video chat rather than photography, mind you.

Software and Performance

The full Windows 8 experience you’ll be working with here offers up a collection of Acer-added applications for cloud computing, security, connectivity with your other wireless devices on the web, and everything in-between. This machine features the “Acer Ring” with its ability to quick-launch apps and websites as well as take screenshots on-the-fly. Acer Ring is essentially a home screen replacement app that allow you to take control of your machine in tablet mode, this version of the app made specifically for this device. You’ll find each of the ports sitting in their right places and all of your media action controllable from one location – great stuff!

You’ll be able to run nearly every kind of app you’d be able to run on any other Windows 8 machine (within reason.) While the whole experience is fluid and surprisingly powerful for what the physical size of the unit implies, you wont be anywhere near the monstrous power of desktop machines like the Acer Predator. Don’t expect to play Hawken at full power here (not yet, at least).

Under the hood you’ve got an Intel Atom Dual-Core processor from the Clover Trail generation that proves its might by doing well with every app the device comes with and some of the more interesting nearly high-powered oddities you’ll find like Remote Desktop. With Remote Desktop you’ll be able to work with your computer from another over a wireless network – the Iconia W510-1422 keeps up rather nicely. The exact model we’ve got here is the Intel Atom Z2760 1.5GHz (dual core) complete with Intel Burst Technology up to 1.8GHz (1MB L2 cache).

Also under the hood you’ve got a 64GB Solid State Drive, 2GB of DDR3 SDRAM, and Intel Graphic Media Accelerator technology with 64MB of dedicated system memory. Battery time with the tablet alone has proven to be right between 7 and 8 hours when we’re using it and several days if it’s just sitting on the desk on its own, asleep. The tablet itself works with a 3450mAh battery while the base includes an additional battery that adds nearly as much battery time again. Together you’re looking at several days of standby time at LEAST with around 11 hours of up-time just so long as you’re browsing the web and playing videos (high-powered games give you a bit less).

Wrap-up

This machine is ready for the 2013 season of Windows 8 action, but it’s not going to replace your MacBook Air. It’s not meant to – if you’re a Windows user and want a mobile device ready for everyday action and a relatively large amount of battery time, that’s where you’ll find the greatness in the Iconia W5. The whole setup is solid, the presentation is ready to take on the top competition in the market today, and it’s easily one of our top choices for convertible tablets running full Windows 8 today – and not just because there aren’t many of them out there!

Hardware

This machine measures in at 13.3 x 9.09 x 0.75 in (33.8 x 23.1 x 1.89 cm) and works with a lovely 14-inch LED-backlit HD anti-glare 1366 x 768 pixel resolution display and is cased in mostly hard and soft plastic. While the bulk of this machine is metal, its ever-so-slightly soft along the top and the bottom while a ridge of almost rubbery soft plastic runs along the head – above the display, the area that you’ll use to pull the notebook open – very well placed. This notebook is 3.6 pounds – not the lightest Ultrabook in the universe – and is 0.74-inches thick.

Along the sides you’ve got more ports than you’re going to know what to do with, including 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 3.0 (charging), DisplayPort 1.1a, VGA, AC power, headphone/mic jack, RJ-45, and a single SD/MMC card slot. You’ve also got an ethernet port so you can hard-wire to the web if you’re not all about wi-fi connectivity. You’ve also got a Kensington lock slot so you can keep the machine secure if you’re at a trade show or in a particularly nefarious office setting.

Note also that HP has made a point of assuring the public that their Elite line of products is hardcore – have a peek at our HP Making of Elite Tour Roundup to see our adventures all those months ago – smashing inside!

Also important if you want to keep your machine secure is the built-in HP Fingerprint Sensor which appears on the right side of your palm rest – make sure you’re not eating too much cake before you try to get read. Up to the right above your keyboard you’ve got dedicated on/off switches for both wi-fi and sound (muting, basically), and up and to the left you’ve got your power button – heavy metal!

The model we’ve got here works with a 3rd Gen (Ivy Bridge) Intel Core i5-3427U (2.80/1.80 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache, 2 cores) and has a Mobile Intel QM77 Express chipset. You’ll be able to see some standard performance results in the benchmark listing we’ve got below, but know this: this machine is performing at a 2013 level. It’s swift and powerful, more than ready to take on your standard business needs.

Software

The security and business-friendly options you’ve got on this machine are just what your manager’s been looking for, including HP’s ProtecTools suite with so many tools to keep people out of your computer that you’ll forget why they wanted to get in in the first place – pre-boot authentication and a password vault included! You’ve also got SpareKey for when you forget your own password. And of course, a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) built-in.

You also get a tossing of apps that HP’s decided to add-in above what Microsoft’s Windows 7 or 8 gives you, including such gems as PowerDVD and PDF Complete. You do get Evernote right out of the box though, a good incentive to keep taking notes on your smartphone as well as your laptop. You get the option of working with Windows 7 Pro, Windows 7 Home Premium, or the version of Microsoft’s OS that we’re working with here, Windows 8.

If you do choose Windows 8, you’ll need some time to get used to the gestures you’ll be needing to make your own in order to get friendly with your everyday average apps. If you’ve got no touchscreen (this device does not have one, mind you), you’ll be dragging two fingers to the right or the left to navigate your Live Tiles. If you don’t know what that means, we suggest you pick this machine up with Windows 7, without a doubt.

The display on this machine is decent, but not spectacular. The same can be said about the speaker system. HP didn’t put as much effort into this machine’s entertainment abilities as it has with some of its more eye and ear-pleasing machines like the HP ENVY Spectre XT Ultrabook. This Folio machine is, on the other hand, one of the more well-put-together business-minded machines we’ve seen through the past 12 months.

Have a peek below at our standard benchmark test results for this machine and remember that it’s not an entertainment machine, and certainly isn’t made for gaming. Instead you’ve got a bit of a worker her made for a worker, inside and out.

Battery Life / Options

On the bottom of this machine you’ve got both a docking connector and a secondary battery connector. HP doesn’t mess around when it comes to a strong accessories ecosystem and will certainly have your back when you look to expand with extra long-life-loving batteries and/or if you want to dock this beast up at your house when you get home from the cube. That said, the battery life on this machine is rated by HP for “up to 9 hours and 30 minutes” with its HP Long Life 4-cell (52 WHr) Li-Ion unit, and we’ve seen it bringing on easily 5-6 hours of up-time while using it for medium-to-heavy lifting on an average day.

Lifting, in this case, consists of editing enough video and photos for a full day of work on SlashGear, browsing massive amounts of content on the web, and items as simple as editing text documents (plus lots, lots more, of course). If you’re all about document editing and basic reading, you’ll have no trouble reaching up further for the beastly time HP suggests.

Wrap-up

With the HP EliteBook Folio 9470m Ultrabook you’re getting one of the nicest business-minded computers on the market today. Priced at $1,349.00 USD straight from HP, you’re going to get what you paid for. This is a machine you’re going to be able to use for years to come, and with the hardware this Ultrabook comes with right out of the box, it’s unlikely you’ll need to update your innards any time soon.

Hardware

This machine works with a set of two USB 3.0 ports, one micro-HDMI-out port, a combo headphone/mic jack, and a DC-in jack for your power cord. On the right you’ve got a dual memory card reader for SD and MMC, and also included in the box you’ve got a couple of adapter cords, one made for VGA output, the other allowing you to use an Ethernet cord (USB to RJ-45). The camera up front is a 1.3 megapixel HD webcam able to pick up 1280 x 1024 for video chat, the battery inside is a 4-cell lithium polymer at 4680mAh, and you’ve got 4096MB DDR3 dual-channel memory (4GB onboard memory) as well as Intel HD Graphics 4000 to keep that massively dense display high-powered.

This machine works with Optimized Dolby Home Theater v4 audio enhancements with two built-in stereo speakers and high-definition audio support. There’s also a built-in digital microphone for use with your video chat adventures, and under the hood you’ve got a lovely 256GB SSD drive as well. The touchpad is what Acer calls their “ZoomPerfect” unit with single and multi-finger scroll action – that’s up to 5 fingers to scroll, pinch, rotate, flip, and the like.

Weighing in at 2.86 lbs / 1.3kg and measuring in at 17.2″ W x 3.58″ D x 10.67″ H (437mm W x 91mm D x 271mm H), you’ll find this mix of metal and glass to be a joy to use – and to look at. When you open it and feel the unique edges around the touchscreen as well as the Gorilla Glass top, you’ll find yourself dually impressed. This machine is an Acer triumph without a doubt in its hardware build – the aesthetics alone make this easily one of the most beautifully full-looking notebooks on the market – and not just in the Windows 8 category.

The machine folds down to a thinness that’s straight up surprising, making it opening it for the first time an experience that may very well have you skipping the pleasantries and kicking your pocketbook out immediately. But you’ll want to take heed: there are some drawbacks to such a thin beast with a display that’s both touch-capable and incredible sharp, not to mention bright as you could possible want it to be. Battery life – as I’m sure you’re wondering about – will betray you if you’re expecting to go more than 4 hours at full-blast high-action video streaming and interactive touchscreen gaming.

But if you’re a realist and never go anywhere with your notebook computer without a power cord anyway, you’re going to have a bit more difficult a time finding reasons not to want this machine. Of course the price is always going to be a factor here in our present when it’s above $1,600 USD. That’s a massive price for a computer, especially if you only plan on using it to impress your friends and surf the web. That’s not what this computer is made for.

Instead you’re going to want to focus on what you get for the price. Acer has created a masterpiece for the Windows 8 generation. This is the computer Steve Ballmer should be carrying around to show off what Windows 8 can do – it’s that slick.

Peruse the rest of the reviews of this machine as they appear popping up across the web over the next few weeks and see where the low points are – you’ll find many folks saying the price is prohibitive while the rest suggest that the battery life in any notebook should be 6 hours or more. First you should know that we’ve gotten 5+ hours out of the device on multiple heavy-use occasions – great by your average user’s standards. Next you’ll be glad to hear that standby time for this notebook is undeniably great – Acer assures that with “Acer Hybrid Standby Technology” you’ll be able to get 80 days of standby power: that’s intense, and we’ve not seen any evidence yet to suggest they’re telling us anything less than the truth there with months of up-time. These “low points” are completely forgivable for what Acer is presenting here in the Autumn of 2012.

Software

The 10-finger touchscreen you’re working with here includes some software enhancements – most of them aesthetic – that make your Windows 8 experience the best we’ve seen thus far. You get tiny momentarily-visible transparent dots wherever you tap the screen, and as you move your fingers around, you get ghostly trails from your fingertips, allowing you to instantly understand how your tips are touching and moving. Having used several touchscreen PCs before the dawn of Windows 8, we can safely say that this is a major leap forward in real-world usability, without a doubt.

Have a peek also at our full Windows 8 review to see exactly what we’re dealing with here, with a few additions that include mostly new apps and security measures from Acer. You’ve got Acer Theft Shield, Acer Cloud, Acer Backup Manager, ePower Management, and eRecovery Management, and a whole lot more. For the most part, Acer’s additions to the basic Windows 8 build include connections to their own ecosystem – most of which are entirely positive and worth the effort you’ll be using to attach yourself.

You’ll be using your touchpad here in combination with the touch screen, but you’ll be able to use one or the other exclusively if you’re up for it. There’s an on-screen touch keyboard you can use if for some reason you want to move your hands up 4 inches above your perfectly capable physical keyboard, and the touchscreen isn’t necessarily required, so to speak, for anything if you don’t want to. You also get a Bluetooth mouse with the package if you’re feeling like some standard plastic mouse action – it’s standard, and certainly usable, but not a whole lot more than that. The physical keyboard also uses the computer’s light sensing abilities to keep your eyes happy, with backlighting activating as the atmosphere dims.

If you have trouble with “setting up” your computer, you can refer to the included “Setup Poster” included in the box, or you can use your Wireless Setup Card too – Acer has made the process simpler than ever before here – strange since the process includes no more than a few button taps and maybe even a connection with password to your wireless network. Important point here is that it’s simple enough for your parents to do themselves – really!

Have a peek at our standard benchmarking results here with Geekbench and feel the power – it’s a top of the line experience whether you’re cruising through your newest massively power-hungry game or viewing your favorite HD feature film.

Sound

The speakers on this machine are good enough for a personal computing experience and accurate even up to their loudest positions. Acer isn’t messing around with the external speaker sound quality here, with two Acer 3DSonic stereo speakers backed up with sound enhancements by Dolby. The fans on this machine, working with Acer TwinAir cooling technology, can get a bit louder than we’d like to hear on a regular basis. It’s not an issue unless you’re working with high-powered gaming or hours and hours of streaming video, and the trade-off is a rather pleasant lap experience – we’ve not felt anything hot going on yet.

Unique Touchscreen Experience

This machine has a hinge that allows it to fold back to 180 degrees – that means you’ll be able to go flat against a table, keyboard and touchscreen included. If you’ve used a machine that folds back further than this, you’ll find yourself feeling a bit limited by the flat-stop. If you’ve only ever used a notebook that folds back to 45 degrees, on the other hand, you’ll be surprised by how often you’ll want to push that screen back further, and further, and further. The viewing angles on the display are also near-perfect, making any angle look as great as the next (unless you count the high-gloss reflection-intense glass, of course).

This will also be a new experience for those of you used to using a tablet computer exclusively, as it really does combine the notebook and tablet experiences into one. If you’ve ever found yourself tapping your notebook screen after extensive tablet use, you’ll fall right in line with the S7′s experience. Windows 8 and the developers optimizing their applications for touchscreen action here in the first Windows 8 wave of app upgrades make this touch-and-tap combination one we’re really, truly enjoying. Working with the Aspire S7 will make you want to convert to this new universe – it’ll make you want to change and be assimilated.

Wrap-Up

This machine is Acer’s best effort yet. It’s an Ultrabook that makes the Windows 8 experience an enjoyable one – and on a personal note, it’s the first in many moons that’s made certain Apple-exclusive family members of mine think about trying a switch (having seen it at Thanksgiving, of course). You’ll certainly have to weigh the benefits of having this top-class machine in your position against the amount of cash you’re going to have to dish out since it’s certainly not the most budget-minded beast on the market, but after that, it’s all smooth sailing.

As with all of our reviews of products large and small, this is not the end of the review – let us know if there’s anything else you’d like to know about the machine and we’ll do our best to let you know what we know! We’ll continue to test this machine into the future and will let you know if anything ground-shattering changes our experience in any grand way – meanwhile feel free ask any and all questions you may have and make requests to your heart’s content!

Hardware

Like each of the three hero Chromebooks being shown by Google right this minute, you get 100GB of Google Drive storage for free for 2 years – once it runs out, you simply cannot add any more files to that extra space, but if you want, you can certainly keep your files up there forever (so they say.) Other than this, it’s a whole different ballgame. This machine has an 11.6-inch display that has generally OK viewing angles, but don’t expect to sit anywhere other than directly in front of or to the left or right of it, or you’ll start to see the light.

You’ve got a boot time that’s “under 20 seconds”, so Google says and quotes correctly, leading us to note that yes, indeed, it is a fast machine. It’s quickness should be assumed, of course, due to the very lightweight nature of Chrome OS. It’s essentially a small storage space on your device tied with the Google Chrome web browser – that’s what Chrome OS is, and that’s what it remains here with the Acer solution.

The 4 hours of battery life you’re quoted exists when you’re actively using the device for 4 hours straight, on the web. If you leave the device open and asleep, you’ll easily get several days of uptime. The processor inside this beast is extremely good at battery conservation, that’s for certain. We’ve literally had the device on for three days at a time with no more than 20 percent battery drain – fully asleep, mind you, with no power cord, either.

You can connect this device to a larger monitor via VGA or HDMI if you like, with the second monitor offering you a mirror of what your Chromebook is showing off. This is good for showing webpages to your colleagues as well as YouTube videos – or your Google Play movie collection. You can also connect to other devices with the three USB ports on this device quite easily, and the whole machine works with a dual wi-fi chip that’s able to connect anywhere in your house – with plastic being the main material used here, this machine has no trouble sending or receiving signals of any kind.

You can connect with the Ethernet port on the left side of this device as well if you’re going for ultra-quick web connectivity. This works great to upload or download media to and from your 320 GB of build-in hard drive disk space as well as your full-sized SD/MMC card port that sits just under your keyboard down and to the left. The camera that sits above the monitor on this device is called “HD” but delivers just a generally acceptable web chat experience for Google+ Hangouts – and/or wherever else you plan on chatting via video.

User Experience

This device, much like the Samsung Series 3 solution, is made for web browsing and web browsing alone. If you want the most full-featured computing experience you’ve ever laid your hands on, look elsewhere. What we’ve got here is $199 worth of hardware from top to bottom. It’s not aiming to be the most fantastically simple notebook on the planet, and as its made of primarily plastic, you wont be winning any “wow this notebook feels amazing” awards.

What you will get is a perfectly legitimate web browsing device – and if your primary reasoning behind purchasing a notebook is to browse the web, you’ve got yourself a winner right here. Google has successfully created a user experience here with Chrome OS in its current state that cuts down on everything not necessary to browse the web and have a good time doing it.

The only deterrent you should have here as far as usability goes is the touchpad. It’s not a MacBook, that’s for certain, but it’s just as high quality as the Samsung model. If you’re used to a standard netbook or a low-end notebook running Windows or Linux (with some exceptions), you’ll be perfectly satisfied with this experience tapping and scrolling.

Wrap-up

Acer has succeeded in boiling out all the high-end features that make a notebook cost more than $400 and took Google’s Chrome OS to just about as standard and basically acceptable place as they possibly could, tagging it with a very suitable $199 pricetag. If you only want to browse the web with your notebook, and that’s it, this machine will serve you well.

Be sure to head to your local large-arena showroom store to check how this machine feels in your hands before you pick it up, then be glad you kept the other $300 you’d have otherwise spent on a notebook full of features you might never have used. Use it to buy a Google Nexus 7 and take your best pal out for a nice supper on top.

Design

If we were basing this on looks alone, the Yoga 13 wouldn’t do very well. That’s not because the Yoga 13 is a bad looking computer, it’s just that the silver ultrabook look is getting a little old these days. With the Yoga 13, you’ve got a silver chassis on the top on bottom, which is accompanied by black trim along the sides. It looks good, but it’s been done plenty of times before. I would have liked to have seen Lenovo take a chance with some color, but then again I can see why it didn’t – after all, silver is a pretty good neutral color, and the last thing a manufacturer wants is for consumers to be hung up on colors, of all things. If you’re shooting for as many people as possible, neutral colors are better.

On the left side of the device is where you’ll find a full-size HDMI port, a USB 3.0 port, a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, and the volume buttons for when you’re using the machine in tablet mode. On the front, we’ve got the One Key Recovery button, which is standard on most Lenovo laptops these days, as well as the power button and a battery indicator. Finishing off with the right side, we have the power jack – which for some reason is yellow – a USB 2.0 port, a 2-in-1 card slot (SD and MMC) and the screen lock button. The screen lock button prevents the screen from changing orientation, which I think is definitely a handy thing to have around. One thing that’s worth noting is that there isn’t an Ethernet port present on the Yoga 13. That means it’ll be Wi-Fi or bust if you decide to pick one up, so keep that in mind.

Opening the computer up, we’ve got a really nice looking 13.3-inch display, which features a Windows 8 button that you can pretty to quickly get back to the Start screen, and the keyboard. Here’s where the Yoga 13 deviates from the boring old silver notebook scheme, as the keyboard and trackpad are entirely black. It actually looks sharp and goes well with the screen, but there’s one small problem: by making the entire keyboard black, it can be kind of hard to see in low light settings. That’s especially true since there isn’t any backlighting to speak of on the Yoga 13. You’ll want to use this is a well-lit area if you know you’ll need to be looking at the keyboard, though this won’t be much of an issue for folks who know a keyboard as well as I know the lyrics to Will Smith’s Wild Wild West (trust me, I know them).

The design aspects covered above are all secondary, however, to the 360-degree hinge. Using this, you can fold the Yoga 13 into a number of different positions, and there are four positions in particular that Lenovo has been advertising with the machine. First off we have the traditional laptop mode – this is the only position the keyboard and trackpad will function in, which is important to remember as we go through the remaining three modes.

Next up is stand mode, which has the user folding the screen back and flipping the machine over so that it rests on its keyboard. This mode seems best-suited for getting the keyboard out of the way to watch movies. I’m tempted to argue that it isn’t the best choice for playing games and instances when you’ll be using the touch screen a lot, as it doesn’t take much pressure to get the screen to fold back even further.

Then we have tent mode, which is my personal favorite. In tent mode, you’ll fold the screen over even further and then flip the computer on its ends so that it forms something resembling a tent when it’s resting on a surface. This would be another good choice for watching movies, but it’s also a better choice for gaming than stand mode is due to the fact that the screen will be much more stable in tent mode. Lenovo has also specifically suggested that it would be good for using in the kitchen – perhaps reading a recipe on your Yoga 13 as you cook, and while I think that’s an excellent idea, I have to be honest and say that I didn’t test this sort of application (I’m not much of a chef, to tell the truth).

Finally we have tablet mode, which will have you folding the screen all the way around to the back to form your slate. I have to say that the Yoga 13 makes one surprisingly excellent tablet, but the fact that the keyboard is exposed on the backside feels a little strange at first. You get used to it after a while, and thankfully the keyboard and trackpad are deactivated in any configuration other than laptop mode, but I do wonder if putting that kind of pressure on the keys while you’re holding the Yoga 13 in tablet mode would result in a shorter lifespan. For what it’s worth, I didn’t have any problems, but I can’t help but feel that having the keyboard exposed on the backside might have an adverse effect on the keys in the long run.

There’s also another cause for concern when using the Yoga 13 in tablet mode: the exhaust vents run along the back edge of the system. When you’ve got the Yoga 13 folded up in tablet mode, the bottom edge of the screen is pressed up against the exhaust vents. It isn’t normally a problem as there’s still plenty of room for air to come in and escape, but if you’re doing something that’s making the computer’s fans work hard, you’ll definitely feel some heat at the bottom of the screen. That’s a bit worrying, though again, I didn’t run into any problems in testing – the computer ran cool enough, and it never got to the point where the warm air caused any issues with the screen.

Don’t let those few concerns dissuade you though, as the Yoga 13 is really a pleasure to use in tablet mode. The machine is lighter than I was expecting at 3.3 pounds, but that gives it plenty of extra heft over traditional tablets and even a few ultrabooks. There are far too many tablets out there that feel incredibly fragile, but that isn’t the case with the Yoga 13 – it feels nice and sturdy in tablet mode, and its 13.3-inch screen gives it another advantage over traditional tablets. Yes, it feels a little on the big side at first, but after using the Yoga 13 in tablet mode for a couple of days, I don’t really want to go back to 10.1-inch tablets.

So there you have it – the four faces of the IdeaPad Yoga 13. Some of them seem more useful than the others, but each have their advantages and each bring something unique to the tablet. The Yoga 13 earns points for that alone, but as I said above, the cool factor is only one part of the equation; the Yoga 13 is going to have to impress in other areas to be truly worthy of a place in your tech collection.

Hardware

As far as hardware goes, the Yoga13 doesn’t offer much that you can’t already find in tons of other ultrabooks. 4GB of RAM? Check. Third-gen Intel Core i5-3317U clocked at 1.7GHz? Yes sir. 128GB SSD? Present and accounted for. Those are three components that are included in almost every ultrabook, but then again, there’s a good reason for that. More than anything else, an ultrabook should be fast, and that combination of components makes for one speedy machine. I doubt that the Yoga 13 will disappoint when it comes to speed, even if it does have some predictable innards.

What is surprising about the Yoga 13 is its screen. When I mentioned that the Yoga 13 has a 13.3-screen earlier, I have a feeling that more than a few of you immediately thought 1366×768 resolution. I can’t really blame you, seeing as how 1366×768 is still for some reason the most popular resolution when it comes to laptops and ultrabooks, but I’m happy to report that your assumptions were wrong. The Yoga 13 actually displays at 1600×900 resolution, which is a little strange to see these days, but certainly not unwelcome. The 16:9 aspect ratio means that the Yoga 13 is great for watching movies, and that bump is resolution also means that visuals are much sharper than on laptops with 1366×768 displays.

The IPS display features 10-point multi-touch, which is certainly nice, though I have to say that the screen seems a little too eager to switch sometimes. One wrong move and you’ll have the screen switching orientation on you, but that’s one of the pitfalls of having so many different modes for the Yoga 13. Luckily, Lenovo thought ahead and included that screen lock button I mentioned above – use it. It will become your best friend before long.

The IdeaPad Yoga 13 comes equipped with Intel 4000 integrated graphics, so you’re not going to have much a powerhouse when it comes to graphics ability. Still, the Yoga 13 performed well enough running Civilization V with most of the settings on medium (though a few settings had to be turned down to low), so you should be able to do some light gaming on this thing without any problems.

One interesting thing I noticed when booting up Civilization V was that it has been updated with touch controls for Windows 8. Though you wouldn’t think that Civ V would be an ideal game to play with a touch screen, it actually worked out quite well, and that’s a testament to how accurate the touch screen is. The new controls obviously take some getting used to, but outside of that, I didn’t have any issues playing Civilization V with the Yoga 13’s touch screen – something to consider if you take the quality of a touch screen seriously.

The speakers on the Yoga 13 are decent, but like the speakers on most ultrabook and laptops, they aren’t anything to get excited about. Bass doesn’t sound as hefty as it should out of the box, and though you can certainly crank up the volume on the Yoga 13’s speakers, you might not want to. Music can sound pretty tinny if you turn the volume up too high, so while the speakers will suffice if you use them sparingly, you might want to invest in a good pair of headphones if you’ll be playing a lot of music or watching a lot of video on the machine.

I touched on the trackpad and the keyboard a bit earlier in the review, but now let’s talk about them in a little more depth. As I said, it’s black-on-black with the keyboard and trackpad, which can make it a little difficult to see if you don’t have a lot of light. Aside from that issue though, the keyboard and trackpad are both solid. Scrolling works really well on the trackpad, though swipe controls have been inverted, meaning that you’ll swipe down to scroll up and swipe to the left to scroll right. Using four fingers and swiping downward, you can freeze the screen, which will bring down an overlay with the time and date. Swiping upward removes the overlay, letting you resume whatever it is you were doing.

The keyboard is one that helps you type as quickly as possible with few errors, though be warned that the enter, right shift, and backspace keys are smaller than on full-size keyboard. This is because the home, print screen, insert, and delete keys have all taken up residence on the right side of the keyboard, putting space at a premium. There are also a set of hotkeys above the row of number keys that allow you do things like change the volume and brightness, put the machine in airplane mode, and close the window you’re currently looking at. Standard fare for a laptop keyboard, but that isn’t a knock against it – the keyboard is a good piece of equipment, and I liked using it a lot.

Software

The Yoga 13 comes running Windows 8, which gives it an edge over the other Windows RT devices that are currently on the market or will be shortly. Windows 8 is clearly geared toward touch, so I think if you want the best Windows 8 experience, the Yoga 13 might not be a bad idea. Of course, there are some issues with Windows 8 on touch screens, namely the desktop. While the Start screen is perfect for touch screens, the desktop can prove to be quite frustrating if you’re using the Yoga 13 in any configuration other than laptop mode.

Double clicking on desktop icons isn’t a problem, but clicking those tiny little icons in the system tray can be a headache, especially when you’re like me and have hands that can’t exactly be called “dainty.” Likewise, clicking buttons in programs or in browsers that were made to be navigated with a mouse and keyboard can be difficult, so if you’re going to use touch, it’s recommended that you use Windows 8 apps when you can.

Touch screen controls in Windows 8 are solid, but if you’re new to the operating system, it’ll be a while before you’re navigating like a pro. This is the same regardless of if you’re using the trackpad or the touchscreen, and it’s worth pointing out that you can still use the touch screen when the Yoga 13 is in laptop mode. I found myself doing that quite a bit, thanks to Windows 8’s touch-friendly interface and inviting tiles. I image you’ll end up doing that quite a bit yourself, but I don’t really think that’s a bad thing.

Other than Windows 8, the Yoga 13 comes with a healthy amount of pre-installed software. If you’ve purchased a Lenovo computer before, you likely won’t be surprised by what comes packaged with the Yoga 13. We’ve got programs Lenovo YouCam, One Key Recovery, a trial to Absolute Data Protect, 30 days of Norton Antivirus, and SugarSync. Most of that you’ll be able to live without, though it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get One Key Recovery set up, just in case you make a mistake and need to restore your computer.

Of course, there’s also the software that comes bundled with Windows 8, like apps for Internet Explorer and SkyDrive. Lenovo has pre-loaded its own selection of Windows 8 apps on there too, including rara.com, Evernote, eBay, and Kindle. It isn’t a bad selection, but you might want to do some house cleaning once you get your Yoga 13 out of the box.

Battery

The Yoga 13 comes packing a 3860mAh Lithium-Polymer 4 cell battery that’s quoted for up to 8 hours of use. Naturally, you’ll probably never get as much use out of a full charge as manufacturers say you will, but I was actually surprised with how long the battery lasted in my tests.

After browsing the web and streaming a couple hours of video on YouTube, I was able to get right around 5 hours and 15 minutes of battery life out of a full charge. This was with Wi-Fi on the entire time and the screen brightness turned down to 50%, so the battery on this bad boy isn’t half bad. How long you get out of a charge will obviously vary depending on what you’re doing, but if you’re not on your computer all the time, I wouldn’t be surprised if you managed to get a full day of use out of a single charge.

It should also be noted that 50% brightness is still plenty bright to see what’s happening on screen, so you could bring it down even further to make the battery go the extra mile. Bring it down to around 25% and the screen is a little too dark for my tastes, but that still gives you plenty of space to work with if you’re trying to conserve battery life.

Benchmark

The Geekbench results tell us what everyone who is familiar with ultrabooks already knew. The Yoga 13 is not the most powerful computer on the market, but it doesn’t need to be. Using less powerful hardware keeps the price down, and the hardware that’s running under the hood in the Yoga 13 is still enough to keep things running fast.

So no, you’re not going to be blown away by the power you hold in your hands, but the hardware in the Yoga 13 is still enough to get the job done. That’s all anyone really wants when it comes to an ultrabook (or a tablet for that matter), and in that respect, the Yoga 13 is a solid little device.

Wrap-Up

At the end of everything, I have to say that I’m impressed. The folding design of the Yoga 13 definitely takes some getting used to, and it will like elicit a few strange looks from people you see on the street, but no matter – the Yoga 13 is one solid device, and I would even say that it’s one of the best Windows 8 machines on the market at the moment.

That’s because it’s so versatile. That 360-hinge is just plain cool, and it opens up a lot of possibilities when it comes to actually using the Yoga 13. Yes, the hardware in the Yoga isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, but that’s not where Lenovo needed to wow us. It needed to make a machine that not only stood out from the crowd, but also had some useful applications. Lenovo succeeded in doing both.

There are also a range of options depending on what you want. If you don’t mind sacrificing power to save a bit of money, you can swap out the Core i5 for a Core i3, bringing the price down to $1099.99 – at the moment, however, the Core i3 configuration has a promotional price of $999.99 on Lenovo’s website. The configuration we were given to review normally comes with a price tag of $1199.99, though with the promotions Lenovo has been running, it shouldn’t be hard to find it for $1099.99. Finally, you can bump up the power with a Core i7, though that will bring the price up to as high as $1399.99.

Those prices may be a little difficult to swallow, but I think if you have a bit of extra cash you’re willing to part with, you probably won’t be disappointed with the Yoga 13. I liked the time I spent with it a lot, and if you want a good Windows 8 machine that is fast, versatile, and above all else, fun to use, then I have no problem recommending the Yoga 13.

Hardware and Design

Side by side, the two Retina-class notebooks are almost identical in their thickness. The 13-inch model is actually slightly thicker – we’re talking a millimeter’s difference, mind – but the disparity in weight (3.57 pounds versus 4.46 pounds), width (12.35 inches versus 14.14 inches), and depth (8.62 inches versus 9.73 inches) are the most noticeable changes. If the original Retina MacBook Pro is a long, thin slice of computer, then the smaller model is a tiny powerhouse that can easily be dropped into a bag without demanding the sort of performance compromise of, say, a MacBook Air. Next to the old-style 13-inch, meanwhile, the differences are considerably more obvious. The new Retina model is thinner, lighter, narrower, and even less deep.

Still, there are some compromises to be made for reducing bulk (and for starting $500 less) from the 15-inch Retina Pro. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina loses the discrete graphics option of its 15-inch sibling, making do with Intel HD Graphics 4000, though you can still power two external displays – via a combination of the two Thunderbolt ports and the single HDMI – and run the notebook’s own display simultaneously.

Storage starts off at 128GB of flash, with 256GB, 512GB, and 768GB options; the default processor is a 2.5GHz Core i5 dualcore, whereas the 15-inch model heads straight to Core i7 quadcores. You can pay extra for a Core i7 chip on the 13-inch, but it’s the dualcore, not the quad. Memory is a fixed 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L, with no option to change that.

13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina: Hands-on and comparisons:

All the ports, wireless connectivity, and 720p webcam are the same as we saw on the 15-inch, as is the backlit keyboard and sizable trackpad. That means you get a pair of Thunderbolt connectors (which can double as Mini DisplayPort), two USB 3.0, a headphone jack, SDXC memory card slot, and an HDMI output. Inside there’s WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0, and a pair of microphones are on the left edge.

Apple’s industrial design continues its gradual evolution toward thinner, pared-back computing, and the new MacBook Pro is no different. From the side, it’s like the old model but flatter; you can also glimpse the new “side gill” vents which are part of the reworked cooling system. In use, it’s quiet, with the fans only rising to a concentrated hum during the heavier moments of our benchmarking. The compromise to be made is one of repairability and room for improvement: the memory is soldered to the logic board, so as to shave away bulk, as is the processor, and the flash storage uses a proprietary connector so it’s sensible to buy the biggest drive you can afford initially.

Display

The 13-inch MacBook Pro Retina display is, at 2560 x 1600, slightly lower than the 2880 x 1800 of the 15-inch, but because of the smaller size its pixel density is even higher: 227 ppi compared to 220 ppi. With both in front of you, though, you don’t see any difference – the whole point, after all, is that the pixels aren’t supposed to be individually identifiable – only the mesmerizing detail and smoothness of the graphics that leave other notebook displays, no matter how bright or colorful, looking crunchy and jagged. Viewing angles are broad enough that you might have to worry about those next to you on the plane glancing over and seeing what you’re working on.

As before true Retina mode on the MacBook Pro doesn’t actually give you 2560 x 1600 resolution. Instead, you get a simulated lower resolution which is smoother all round, since each pixel is in fact a cluster of smaller pixels.Yyou can optionally switch out of Retina mode and pick a higher effective resolution, though the 13-inch misses out on the 1920 x 1200 of the larger machine; instead, the maximum is 1680 x 1050, still impressive (and impressively detailed) for a relatively small notebook. Third party applications are available which will force the display resolution even higher, though are not officially supported by Apple.

Apple is quoting a 75-percent reduction in glare from its new Retina display, versus the previous MacBook Pro 13. In practice, there’s certainly fewer reflections, which adds up to more flexibility in where you can use the notebook. It’s not a true matte finish, mind, though by ramping up the brightness you can use it outdoors and still see what’s going on.

Performance

We actually have two new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina models on our test bench: the 2.5GHz Core i5-3210M dualcore (3MB L3 cache) and the 2.9GHz Core i7-3520M dualcore (4MB L3 cache). Each has 8GB of memory and supports Intel Turbo Boost, up to 3.1GHz and 3.6GHz respectively, and is running Mac OS 10.8.2.

We started with Geekbench, a synthetic test of processor and memory performance. The Core i5 machine scored 6507 overall, while the Core i7 pushed that to 8238. It’s worth noting that the increases weren’t solely in the processor categories: the Core i7 model also recorded better memory scores, suggesting that it makes better use of the 8GB it has. Still, each is a fair step behind the 15-inch Retina model, which scored 12,970 with its 2.6GHz quadcore Core i7-3720QM and 8GB of memory. Performance was roughly on a par with the mid-2012 13-inch MacBook Air.

MacBook Pro 13 with Retina – Core i5 – Geekbench:

MacBook Pro 13 with Retina – Core i7 – Geekbench:

We then turned to Cinebench, which benchmarks processor and graphics performance with a mixture of 3D rendering and OpenGL testing. It’s a good way of examining how a system will handle intensive tasks such as video processing, or gaming.

The Core i5 model scored 2.12 CPU points, while the Core i7 scored 2.81 CPU points, or roughly half the result you’d expect from a quadcore processor. Unsurprisingly, with no discrete GPU, graphics performance showed the biggest hit, with the Core i5 managing 14.81fps and the Core i7 squeezing out 19.69fps.

By way of comparison, the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina’s NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M GPU saw it record a score of 34.30fps in the same category. The MacBook Air managed 16.41fps.

If you’re planning use your new Mac for serious graphics or video editing, our suggestion would be to stick to the larger Pro, as the standalone GPU pays dividends. Of course, it also requires more power, though it includes the same Intel HD Graphics 4000 chip for more everyday use.

Battery

While the battery in the MacBook Pro 13 Retina may be smaller than before – 74-watt-hour, or versus the 95-watt-hour of the 15-inch – the fact it’s driving a smaller screen and less extreme components means Apple rates it for the same runtime: up to seven hours of wireless web browsing, or 30 days standby. However, the 60-watt MagSafe 2 power adapter is slightly smaller and thus continues the theme of the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina being easier to transport.

In practice, with a mixture of web browsing over WiFi, some music playback, a couple of YouTube videos and some emailing, and the display set to a usable half brightness, the Pro lasted just over six hours. Scaling that back to solely browsing and we broke past Apple’s seven hour estimate by a couple of minutes. In contrast, a more ambitious use of the notebook for video playback and some brief video processing in iMovie saw the battery expire in around four hours.

Wrap-Up

The $2,000 mark is an important mental barrier, and the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina’s $2,199 starting price put it out of consideration for many. In contrast, the 13-inch version starts at $1,699 with the 128GB flash drive, rising to $1,999 for the 256GB model.

Increasing storage isn’t cheap – you can boost the entry-level model to 768GB, yes, but it’ll cost you more than a MacBook Air to do so – but the $200 extra for the Core i7 dualcore strikes us as a worthy upgrade given the impact it has on performance overall. Apple still offers the non-Retina 13-inch MacBook Pro, which starts at $1,199 with the same 2.5GHz Core i5 dualcore, though to specify the same memory and a 128GB SSD you’re looking at $1,499. You also get a gigabit ethernet port, FireWire, and an optical drive, though you miss out on the lighter chassis and far improved Retina display.

While the Air might be the smallest of Apple’s notebook line-up, the 13-inch Pro hits a more palatable sweet-spot for balancing power, performance, and functionality. At $1,699 and up, the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display sits at the premium end of the notebook market ($500 less than the entry-level 15-inch model, mind, although you do get extra performance for that) but it does offer features that, right now, you can’t get elsewhere. Those for whom sheer power – particularly multimedia editing – is essential should probably opt for the bigger model, but those road warriors looking to pare back weight and bulk without unduly sacrificing usability will find a lot to love in the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display.

Hardware

This piece of Samsung hardware is the most basic Chromebook you can buy right this minute, but it’s not the low-quality piece of hardware the price suggests. Instead you’ve got a machine that Samsung and Google very obviously went through a lot of work to perfect, and they’ve taken all the bits from the machines that have been successful in this arena and stuffed them into a quality package here without a doubt. This rings true especially in the keyboard and the trackpad.

The real test a person such as myself must go through to decide if a notebook is going to work long-term is if the keyboard is able to take my non-stop usage and real need to be able to type relatively quickly. With this keyboard I certainly can do both of those things. One of the main reasons for this is that the keyboard is so extremely close in shape, size, setup, and spring to the MacBook series from Apple. It’s absolutely uncanny, in fact, with the main differences being in the special buttons that Chrome uses to execute commands like Full Screen, Back, Forward, and Reload (all of which work directly with the Chrome web browser which is, of course, at the center of your Chome OS experience.)

The trackpad is also extremely nice – the only more perfected trackpad I’ve ever used has been on the MacBook (Pro and Air, the same in the end). You can do the soft-tap we’ve seen running rampant over every Windows-toting notebook here as well, but unlike many notebooks, it’s not something you’ll do on accident. You’ve also got keyboard and touchpad settings in the Chromebook just incase you do want to increase or decrease speeds and such – but you’ll likely be fine right out of the box.

This Chromebook weighs in at 2.5 pounds and is 0.8 inches thin, working with what Google and Samsung say is 6.5 hours of battery life. It would appear very likely that Google has been modest in its estimation of how long this machine will stay active, even while movies are playing and oddities are rendering. Even with the 46% battery left I’m looking at right now, the machine has nearly 6 hours quoted as being left – and the machine has been out and on for at least 12 hours without need for a charge. This machine has some undeniable standby power abilities, that’s for certain.

The display is 11.6-inches large with 1366 x 768 pixel resolution across it, this making for a display that’s certainly OK, but not the best in the industry by a long shot. What you’ve got here is Samsung providing you with the amount of pixels you’ll need to watch relatively high definition videos without making a case for having a display that’s mind-blowing. The viewing angles on this device are also far from perfect, but certainly usable in most single-user situations. You won’t want to use this for a YouTube party, if you know what I mean.

You’ve got a VGA camera built-in for average video chat on the web (on Google+ Hangouts, of course) as well as a full-sized HDMI port for video output. You can connect to this device with 1 USB 3.0 port, 1 USB 2.0 port, and Bluetooth 3.0. Inside is a Samsung Exynos 5 dual-core processor – this is the next generation of processors working for mobile devices Samsung introduced last year and made available here in 2012, only available on this Chromebook thus far. The next-newest after this is a Samsung Exynos 4 quad-core which you’ll find on the Galaxy Note II.

Software and Performance

The newest version of Chrome OS provides you with the ability to download and upload files to storage on your Chromebook – this is one of the biggest stumbling points for people who only know the operating system to be an “internet only” sort of situation. Now that I can download an image from one webpage and upload it to another, I can write articles in a blog – I now have a machine with the most basic set of requirements I need.

Its worth noting that it appears the quality of this machine is above that of every tablet we’ve had our hands on thus far – if only because the operating system is made to handle notebook operations. One should not expect that since this device uses a processor from the Exynos lineup with two CPU cores (two less that the Galaxy Note II) that it wont work as hard on everyday tasks as a smartphone or tablet would. On the contrary – this is a minimally powered notebook with all the non-web elements stripped away – that’s all.

You’ve got 2GB of RAM that will not let you down unless you absolutely push the limits of the device on purpose. If you’ve got 20 or more tabs open, each of them playing videos or keeping up with Twitter feeds, for example, you’re not going to see as fast a performance speed as if you’re being a reasonable person working with just a few tasks at a time. This machine is not made to be a workhorse – it’s made to take care of basic tasks, management of your daily duties, and web browsing.

Access to the entire range of Google services here means you’ll be working in the Chrome web browser – the only offline items here are changing your wallpaper, storing files in your local downloads folder, and working on a calculator. You can also use a Beta product on the machine if you want to go bigger: Chrome Remote Desktop. With this environment you’re able to access your larger machine virtually, seeing it through your browser window and controlling it as if you were there at that other machine in-person – though it’s significantly more laggy than real life, when it comes down to it.

What you’re seeing above is a connection between the Chromebook and a MacBook Pro, both of them connected to the same wireless network. It’s not a perfect system, by any means, and it’s a bit difficult working with a display that’s mean to be much larger inside a browser window that shrinks it, but it’s interesting to say the least. This system is not limited to your local network, mind you, you can do tasks remotely, just so long as both devices are connected to the web.

This is all topped off by the fact that current purchases of the Samsung Chromebook come with 100GB of Google Drive storage for two years. That would cost you $100 if you bought it outright.

Wrap-up

This Chromebook from Samsung is a value offer you might just need to think about, if only because the quality matches the price so very closely. Considering the alternatives start at several hundreds of dollars higher, you risk being called “silly” for not considering the Chromebook in your decision making process in purchasing a new notebook. Where this device leaves off at a price of $249, the MacBook Air picks up – starting at $999.

Google and Samsung have created a machine with a price point that’s impossible to ignore. We’ll be using this device for an extended period to see how “game changing” it really is. Meanwhile, please feel free to let us know if you’ve got any questions about this device and we’ll certainly do our best to answer to the best of our ability. Have a peek at the Chromebook tag portal as well to keep up with all things Chromebook through the future!

Hardware

Inside you’ll find several possibilities for what you’ll be able to work with, with a 3rd Generation Intel Core i5 processor to start things off right with current-generation processing power – backed up by Intel Turbo Boost technology, of course. You’ll also be working with 4GB of DDR3 memory (that you can upgrade easily under the hood to 8GB if you wish. You’ve got a SATA hard drive 500GB large as well as a collection of connection ports for several different purposes.

This device is made for business, and that’s definitely what you should be using it for. It’s tough – though not necessarily tough enough to bring along with you camping. It’s powerful – though not really for video processing, when it comes down to it. It’s got security – Acer’s own ProShield pre-boot authentication makes for that added bit of calm in your mind when you’re thinking about your data being destroyed – not here it wont!

Of course before we launch into the software side of things, we’ve got to have a peek at all those ports. You’ve got one USB 3.0 port and a couple of USB 2.0 ports, HDMI and display port in addition to Wireless Display technology (WiDi) if you’re into the wireless HD display era. Built-in ethernet port keeps you wired if you’re not all about wi-fi data, and your wi-fi connection can be turned on and off with a physical button up in the left next to the power button right above your keyboard.

The keyboard itself is rather nice, certainly generous for the intent of the notebook and more than ready for a business environment. Several lights sit in the lower left below the area where your wrists will be sitting with notifications for your power, wi-fi connection, and more. Next to this is an SD card reader that you’ll be able to use for your camera and – if you’ve got a converter – your micro-SD card-holding smartphone as well.

Notice that the display does not have perfect viewing angles as its given the hands-on treatment in the video above. It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly bright and sharp enough for your everyday web browsing, email reading, and document typing needs. The build of the notebook is also, again, solid and ready to work for you for many years to come.

Software

Inside you’ve got a lovely Windows 7 build that you can read just a bit more about in the readout we’ve got below this paragraph. It’s a relatively standard build and won’t bring on a whole lot of surprises, but you will get items such as the ability to run Acer Video Conference with your video camera (above the display) and Acer Backup – more than helpful for those of you that accidentally download your fair share of adware. Back it all up on the regular!

You’ve got Acer Office Manager as well, this made for the small business to be able to easily deploy security policies and monitor IT assets. You’ll be able to schedule maintenance tasks and roll out with a full set of solutions for basically anything you’ll want to do with your employees working with the TravelMate. Connect and make it work!

Benchmark

Have a peek at our standard benchmark readout here with Geekbench and take note that this should be more than enough of a processing beast to get you going throughout the day. Compared to gaming rigs and high-powered notebooks with no need to be transportable, this isn’t the biggest and the most beastly – but it’s certainly fine for your business needs.

Wrap-up

Acer TravelMate P243 is available in many Acer reseller stores across the USA right this minute in a couple different iterations. The one we’re using here will cost you right around $999 USD, while a much more conservatively powered iteration with a 2nd Gen i3 processor from Intel will run you around $599.99 USD. That’s the one you want if you only want the basics – don’t expect to do the big tasks there, but traveling around with it will be a perfectly good experience.

Design

It has to be said right off the bat: the HP ENVY Spectre XT is a sexy machine, and a far cry from HP laptops of the past. Whereas old HP laptops had a tendency to look cheaply made, the Spectre XP looks like a higher-end piece of equipment. The brushed metal chassis looks great, as do the ports on the side and the speaker grill that has taken up residence above the keyboard. This ultrabook will definitely turn some heads, so if you’re in the market for a machine that will get some attention, you need look no further than the Spectre XT.

On the outside, we have a pretty minimalistic look. On the right side of the device, the power jack, a USB 3.0 port, an SD card slot, and a headphone jack have taken up residence, while the Ethernet port, full-sized HDMI port, and another USB 3.0 port are found on the left side. The Ethernet port features a hinge that keeps the port flush with the rest of the machine when there isn’t a cable attached, which is a really nice touch – too often, we have the look of these sleek ultrabooks ruined by an ugly square Ethernet port that doesn’t really fit with the overall design. There isn’t anything really noteworthy on the bottom of the machine aside from a pair of speakers (more on those later) and grills for air intake and cooling.

For as good as it looks, there is one aspect of its design that leaves me feeling a little bit nervous. The screen is attached to the rest of the unit through two hinges, which gives me the feeling that it wouldn’t take much to snap the Spectre XT in half. I’m not willing to test that feeling, of course, but its lightweight and thin design adds to the idea that this is a delicate machine. If you pick one up, be prepared to treat it gently – this definitely is not an ultrabook that you can be rough with. Then again, most ultrabooks these days have a tendency to be a little on the delicate side, so I’m not sure that the Spectre XT’s fragile design should be a hit against it.

In short, the Spectre XT probably isn’t the best machine for those who are clumsy or don’t think much about the abuse they put their devices through. Though it’s one awesome looking machine, you’ll have to take care to treat it well, because after all, sexy looks won’t mean much if you destroy your Spectre XT, whether that’s an accident or a case of negligence.

Hardware

The Spectre XT looks excellent – there’s no question about that, but depending on how much you crave power, its internals may disappoint some. That isn’t much of surprise, considering that most ultrabooks try to strike a balance between speedy internals and reasonable prices, and the Spectre XT is no different. Let’s start things off with the processor. The Spectre XT has an Intel Core i5 processor with Ivy Bridge microarchitecture, which is about as middle-of-the-road as you can get when it comes to Intel hardware. That’s not to say that the processor is terrible, as its 1.7GHz clock speed should keep things moving pretty quickly.

The Spectre XT also comes equipped with Intel’s rapid start technology, which means that both boot and resume-from-sleep times will be pretty short. The fact that the Spectre XT uses a 128GB SSD for storage helps with that too, as does the 4GB of DDR3 RAM. 128GB is a little on the light side, especially when around 30GB will be used for system recovery. That leaves you with just under 100GB of available storage space to use, but to take full advantage of that, you’re going to need to delete the software that comes pre-installed on the Spectre XT.

Luckily, you can choose to upgrade to a 256GB SSD when you purchase the Spectre XT, but at the end of the day, that still isn’t much. Everything is moving toward digital these days, and even though you’ll probably want to play your movies and games on another machine, it might not be long before you find yourself making room on your SSD, especially if you go with the 128GB XT variant. The speedier SSD is definitely nice, but the lack of significant internal storage space makes someone like me, who embraces the digital age with open arms, cringe.

The screen is nice, but it isn’t anything we haven’t seen before on other ultrabooks. You’ve got 13.3-inches of real estate to work with, running at a maximum of 1366×768 resolution. That means no 1080p HD, but we can’t really expect that from an ultrabook that is supposed to be lightweight and easy to transport. Still, even though there isn’t any 1080p HD, it would have been nice to see the Spectre XT running at a resolution other than 1366×768, especially since the look of this ultrabook screams “high-end.” The screen has a glossy finish, which means that glare will inevitably be a problem at least once in a while. Viewing angles are also quite touchy – for the most vibrant visuals, you’ll likely have to do some adjusting, otherwise you might be dealing with washed out images on-screen. Despite this, the screen does manage to look really good when you get the perfect viewing angle down, and I’m pleased to report that the screen is plenty bright to boot.

The Spectre XT makes use of Intel 4000 integrated graphics, which is disappointing by not unexpected. Integrated graphics will be enough for the mainstream consumer, but don’t expect to do much gaming on this guy. Indie games and other programs that aren’t too graphics-intensive will run just fine, but if you have need of a computer that provides solid graphics power, you’ll probably want to look elsewhere.

If there’s one thing I have the overwhelming urge to rave about, it’s the keyboard. You’ve got the same chiclet style keys that are found on most notebooks these days, but they offer a satisfying sound when you’re typing up a storm. If I had an HP representative next to me right now, I’d kiss them for not skimping on the size of the keys either. One thing that drives me nuts with a lot of ultrabook keyboards is that the enter, shift, and backspace keys are usually reduced in size. Not this time around – you’ve got a full-sized enter key, so you don’t have to look at the keyboard every time you want to hit it. It may seem like a small feature, but to those who use a computer all day, it will be a big plus.

The keyboard also looks great in the dark. The backlighting is vibrant, due to the fact that each key is individually lit. This means that you won’t have to worry about areas that are more illuminated than others, and every key is very easy to see in the dark. Workaholics, take note – you’ll be able to use this ultrabook anywhere, at any time of day, thanks to the perfectly backlit keyboard.

The trackpad is quite good too, offering the perfect amount of resistance in my opinion. Two-finger scrolling is spot on, and double tapping the icon in the upper left hand corner will turn off the trackpad’s functionality, meaning that a quick double tap is all you need to make sure that you don’t actually brush the keypad and screw up everything in the blink of an eye (trust me, it happens all the time, especially with overly sensitive trackpads).

Press anywhere on the trackpad and it will respond with a very satisfying click, leaving no question as to whether or not your click actually registered. The trackpad is nearly perfect, but there is one problem I have with it: the whole thing is one unit. The lack of actual, separate left and right mouse buttons means that sometimes you’ll left click when you mean to right click and vice versa. The trackpad is a little on the tiny side too, which compounds this problem. It isn’t the biggest issue, but I’m sucker for real buttons, or at least some indication of where I’m pressing.

Positioned above the keyboard is a grill for the speakers. There are four internal speakers in all, complete with Beats Audio branding. Sadly, the speakers were a little on the disappointing side. They’re certainly better than the speakers on most laptops and ultrabooks, but even Beats Audio couldn’t stop these from sounding tinny when the volume is cranked up. Bass also isn’t what it should be, so if you value bumping lows when you listen to songs, you should probably consider something different. Keep in mind that they’re not terrible; they’re just not excellent. They can definitely get loud though, but I’m not sure that should be big plus. After all, what good are loud speakers if the sound quality is off?

The speakers will serve their purpose though, and they manage to do their job decently. However, if you take your music quality seriously, you probably already have a pair of really good headphones that you can use instead, so it’s best to go with those.

Software

The model we were given to review came running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, but users can upgrade that to either Professional 64-bit or Ultimate 64-bit. For most, Home Premium will be sufficient, but it is nice to have the option to upgrade if you choose.

Some of what’s installed on the Spectre XT is stuff you might actually use, including a free two-year subscription to Norton AntiVirus. The only downside to having Norton along for the ride is that it will annoy you with pop-ups every time you turn the computer on or wake it up from sleep, so activate it as soon as you get your Spectre XT out of the box to save yourself some headaches.

The Spectre XT also comes equipped with full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 and Adobe Premiere Elements 10, which are very nice to see. HP gets big kudos for including those. The free subscription to Norton and Adobe Elements are the most notable pre-installed programs, but other than those, there’s still a fair amount of unnecessary software you’ll have to wade through. CyberLink YouCam is there if you want to use it with the HP TrueVision HD webcam, but it certainly isn’t needed, making it a good candidate for deletion. You’ve also got Internet Explorer on board, which is expected but still as lame as ever – ditch it and go for a different browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Opera instead.

Of course, Microsoft programs are there in full force, including Microsoft Office Starter 2010, which you’ll probably want to keep around. Others, like Windows Live Movie Maker and and Windows Live Messenger will likely be left untouched by the majority of consumers, so don’t feel too bad if you want to lose those when you get your Spectre XT booted up and ready to go – remember, storage space is at a premium, so if you see programs that you aren’t going to use, it’s a better idea to delete them instead of letting them hang around.

Benchmarks

It’s time to turn to our old friend Geekbench, which tells us what we already knew: with the Spectre XT, you’re not getting a powerhouse. The computer’s specs are merely average, but it’s important to keep in mind that this is aimed at the mainstream crowd, which isn’t exactly power hungry. People who take tech very seriously will want to skip the Spectre XT, but rest assured, this is one speedy computer.

In that respect, the Geekbench results can be a little deceiving. For things like browsing, the Spectre XT will be plenty fast. As stated above, integrated graphics and a middle-of-the-line processor mean that there isn’t much in the way of sheer power to work with, but the RAM, SSD, and CPU ensure that you’ll be able to do basic tasks quickly. If that’s what you’re looking for in an ultrabook (as you should be) then the Spectre XT is worthy of your attention.

Battery

Sadly, the 4-cell lithium-ion battery on the Spectre XT isn’t all it should be. HP says that we can expect 8 hours of power, but in my own tests, I didn’t get nearly that much life out of the XT.

To test the Spectre XT, I started at 100% (obviously), turned the screen brightness down to 50%, kept WiFi on, and proceeded to play games (Plants vs. Zombies and Wizorb, if you’re wondering), browse the web, and watch some videos. The computer powered down to prevent any data loss right around the 4 hour and 30 minute mark, so that was the end of the test.

Of course, battery life is going to vary depending on what you’re doing, but for those who travel and need to work on battery frequently, there are other ultrabook choices that come with a longer lasting battery. For everyone else, the battery will probably still be sufficient provided you don’t spend too terribly long away from the charger, but there are still better choices out there when it comes to battery life.

Wrap-Up

I know that some of things in this review sound pretty negative, but the HP ENVY Spectre XT is actually a pretty solid ultrabook. The battery is disappointing and the speakers, despite sporting Beats Audio branding, aren’t anything to write home about, but other than that, the Spectre XT is capable of running with the best of them (ultrabooks, that is).

Of course, when it comes to ultrabooks, all of them strive for the same thing: portability and speed. The Spectre XT is lightweight and small enough that I can’t imagine portability ever being an issue. Likewise, it’s a fast little machine, and if that’s your primary concern when it comes to picking out a new computer, then you won’t be disappointed with the Spectre XT.

It’s one sexy ultrabook too. There are others that look similar to the Spectre XT, but the brushed metal gets me every time. The keyboard is really something great, and the trackpad is just a couple missing features away from perfection. Since you’ll get to know the keyboard and trackpad quite well over the course of your time with the Spectre XT, that is only a good thing.

However, all of that sexiness comes with a price, both figuratively and literally. The Spectre XT definitely feels a bit fragile, and I still can’t get over the idea that it would be ridiculously easy to accidentally snap this thing in half. The literal price for this good looking machine is $1,000, and that certainly isn’t cheap. I feel like that’s going to prove to be a pretty big barrier for the Spectre XT’s target audience, especially when the mainstream cares less about good specs and more about getting a reliable computer that’s at least relatively inexpensive.

Don’t get me wrong here – I wasn’t expecting the Spectre XT to be a $400 piece of equipment, but I feel that $800 or $850 would have been a better asking price for this ultrabook. Still, if you need a good ultrabook and don’t care much about the $1,000 price tag, go for it. The Spectre XT really is a good computer, and I think if you can get past the price (and have a good pair of headphones lying around), you’ll have no problem loving the Spectre XT.

Chassis

To be specific today we’re taking a look at the Acer Aspire V5 171-6867 with an 11.6-inch display. This well rounded little ultra-portable might look like the average netbook, but they’ve managed to pack in a pretty decent punch with the Ivy Bridge Core-i5 under the hood. As far as the chassis you’ll be greeted with a lightweight and rather cheap feeling plastic but the clear coat keeps it feeling smooth, and scratch resistant. That plastic pays off however as the laptop comes in at just 3.09 lbs. Making it rather fun to hold and wander to your nearest Starbucks with. It is 0.8″ thick at the thinnest point, and stretches to barely over 1-inch at the widest thanks to the 4-cell battery.

There certainly isn’t anything new in terms of specs or styling here, but for just over $500 we can’t be expecting anything revolutionary. The price however brings a pretty great laptop considering many in the price range feel flimsy and rather cheap. The Aspire V5 does have a lightweight plastic I’m not too fond of, but it doesn’t ooze of cheapness like some in the past. It looks fancy, but you’ll quickly recognize it’s plastic once you open her up. The rounded edges are nice and smooth, and the slightly textured feeling once opened is rather comfortable during daily use.

Ports

As you wrap around the curved plastic edges you’ll come to the left side full of useful ports. First you’ll notice the large venting system to cool that Core i5 dual-core processor. On the left we also have Ethernet, VGA out, HDMI, and a USB 3.0 port for added speed. Around front you’ll be greeted with the 2-in-1 SD card reader, and some LED notification lights for activity. Then to the right side is the rather bland female charging port, the other two USB 2.0 ports, followed by the micrphone/headphone jack.

Keyboard & Trackpad

Here with the Acer V5 we’ve been quite impressed by both the trackpad, as well as the keyboard. For being a compact 11.6-inch device the keyboard is one of the most impressive ones we’ve used as of late. The island style chicklet keys are comfortable, have a good texture, and the response is decent although a bit mushy. I instantly felt comfortable and was able to type with ease here when other 14-15 laptops have given me trouble. It’s safe to say this is one of the better 11-inch keyboards available to date.

The trackpad along with multiple newer laptops has a texture that I’d absolutely be fine without. It makes sliding your finger around for navigation irritating and doesn’t give you that smooth easy-going feeling. Considering the size of the laptop you get a decently sized trackpad, and usage was fairly acceptable. If you tried to click too high it wouldn’t register, as the lower end had the best response.

Overall the keyboard and trackpad can’t be considered great since we only have 11.6-inches to work with, but considering the circumstances this will do just fine and is certainly among the better options available. My only other main area of concern is the tiny arrow keys that double as volume controls or brightness, and wish they’d be larger. In all other regards this was smooth sailing.

Display & Sound

Here Acer has outfitted the V5 with their 11.6-inch 1,366 x 768 display surrounded by an extremely glossy and fingerprint prone bezel — but what’s new. You do get a 1.3 megapixel webcam, but it wasn’t too great. The Acer CineCrystal LED display was decently crisp although we’ve certainly seen much better in this size range. Again considering the price, the screen is crisp and decent although a bit lacking in the brightness department. We’d love to have a bit more brightness as well as better colors as they felt a bit dull and lifeless at times.

The same could also be said about the sound — dull and lifeless. A good way to explain it would be that usual tin can sound we get in basically every laptop available, but with a bit of a distance and fade to it. Sadly even at max volume the sound was nothing special, although it did get plenty loud for those wanting to blast away. Aiming down the sound was also muffled when using anywhere aside from a computer desk.

Performance and Benchmark

This laptop is running on Windows 7 x64 and as we mentioned above is rather sneaky in the fact that this small size still rocks a 1.7 GHz dual-core Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor. To be specific we have the Core i5 3317U on board. Along with 6GB of slow DDR3 RAM and a 500GB hard drive. I’m used to SSD’s and always enjoy the good ol sound of spinning hard drives these days. Obviously the Intel HD Graphics 4000 won’t be getting you any extreme game performance but as I mentioned in my video above it was enough for some quality video output through HDMI for some Pre-season NFL gametime.

As usual it all comes down to the benchmark performance and we’ve ran a quick Geekbench to take it through the paces, as well as posted up the Windows scores too. While it didn’t perform as good as the recent Aspire S5 we reviewed, it handles its own extremely well. Especially when considering the $500 price segment.

Wrap-Up

All things aside if you are in the market for a quality 11-inch notebook this is certainly one of the better options available. Given the impressive price/performance ratio and specs you’d expect to see in a larger notebook you’ll love the Aspire V5. Of course all that in a tiny package gets quite hot, and if you’re going for an Ivy Bridge and 500GB hard drive you might as well pick up something with a 14 or 15-inch display.

For those that want some top of the line performance while not suffering in the portability and ease of use department — you could certainly do worse. The battery life barely managing 5 hours no matter the task was a problem with the small battery however. For a few more dollars you could get a bigger screen and better battery life with similar performance. Do you need the lightweight and small size? If so this is the notebook for you.

Hardware

We simply have to begin with the Valkyrie’s screen. You’ve got 17.3-inches to work with on this bad boy, it’s LED backlit, and it’s capable of resolutions up to 1920×1080, which obviously means that we have 1080p resolution at our disposal. The screen is nice and bright (though as with most laptops you can adjust the brightness), but even better is that it sports a matte finish instead of a glossy one. Glossy finishes look nice, that’s true, but for gaming they can cause some headaches. Reflection and glare were never fun to begin with, but when you lose a game because of them, things get frustrating really fast. Thankfully, the Valkyrie doesn’t suffer from this problem, which makes this screen a winner in my book.

The build I received comes with an Intel Core i7-3610QM quad-core, eight thread processor. Clocked at 2.3GHz, it provides some significant processing power. Yes, there are other, better processors out there, and indeed if the 3610QM doesn’t meet your needs, iBUYPOWER will let you switch it out for a different processor when you go to purchase the Valkyrie. Still, the 3610QM gets the job done, and it delivers good results when gaming (or doing anything else on the computer, for that matter), so going with it over some more expensive processors might not be a bad idea.

As far as graphics go, iBUYPOWER has included a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M with 4GB of GDDR5 video RAM. Though this card isn’t the absolute best graphics card NVIDIA makes for laptops, it is one of their best (and one of the best period), and as a result makes the Valkyrie a delight for gaming. Make no mistake, you’re working with some serious graphics power, especially for a laptop, and that can’t be understated given the fact that many of us are used to seeing underpowered “gaming laptops.” It should also be noted that iBUYPOWER offers a Valkyrie model with a GeForce GTX 680M, so just in case you want to squeeze a little more power out of your graphics card, you have that option available. Like the processor though, the 675M will meet the needs of most who want to use the Valkyrie specifically for gaming, so jumping up to the 680M is not required by any means.

With RAM you’ll have a full 8GB of G.Skill DDR3-1333 at your disposal, so you’ll be set for the time being. Though some may prefer a little bit more RAM, 8GB is sufficient for any game around these days, and probably will be for a while yet. When you aren’t gaming, the 8GB of RAM keeps the Valkyrie CZ-17 moving along at a nice, quick pace, and when coupled with the processor, you’ve got a laptop that’s plenty fast for pretty much anything you need to do.

The speakers on this beast are actually quite good, though they would have to be considering how disappointing it would be to have a laptop packed with excellent hardware and then some crappy speakers. Using a good pair of headphones will still probably be preferred by most, but if you decide to let the speakers get a little work out, you won’t be disappointed with the sound they put out. Included on the hard drive is THX TruStudio Pro, which will allow you to tinker around with your speaker settings and get them to precisely the levels you want them at.

The keyboard the Valkyrie CZ-17 comes equipped is nice, and due to the laptop’s size, it’s comfortable to use. You’ve got a full keyboard, numerical pad and all to work with, and above the keyboard we have a row of special buttons. Surrounding the power button, these buttons let you do things like change the power profile, put the screen to sleep (instead of the entire unit), and turn Wi-Fi on or off. The keyboard comes with an adjustable backlight, and though it looks nice, it’s rather unnecessary. The screen is bright enough to light up the keyboard when you’re playing in the dark, meaning that the backlit keyboard will just end up draining battery life. Luckily, you can turn the backlight off completely, so if it isn’t your cup of tea, you don’t have to deal with it.

There aren’t any gripes with the touch pad either. It isn’t as sensitive as most, which is definitely a big plus, and it’s stationed off-center of the unit so it’s in the perfect place for your thumbs while you’re typing. The touch pad lights up when you power on the unit as well, but unlike the keyboard light, this one actually comes in handy, as with it you can see the left and right mouse buttons easily.

On the outside, there are a total of three USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and jacks for line-in, line-out, headphones and microphone. The Valkyrie CZ-17 comes with a 6x Blu-ray, 8x DVD+/-RW optical drive, which increasingly seem to be disappearing from laptops these days. There are full HDMI and VGA ports available if you want to use the laptop with a bigger display, but with as nice as the screen is, you don’t really need to. There is an also an eSATA port and a Gigabit Ethernet jack to take advantage of. This particular model came with a 750GB HDD, which will be large enough for most, but there are of course additional options, meaning you can choose the hard drive (or SSD) that suits your needs.

As you can probably see from the pictures and hands-on video, this isn’t necessarily a small unit. The Valkyrie weighs in at 6.9 pounds, measuring 16.9-inches wide and 2.2-inches thick. It has a considerable size to it, but thankfully it’s still easily portable. It’s also worth noting that an increase in size is inevitable when it comes to gaming laptops, and with all of that hardware under the hood, the Valkyrie was doomed to be a little on the bulky side from the start.

A few times in this review, I’ve mentioned that you can swap out components and hardware when you purchase the Valkyrie CZ-17 from iBUYPOWER. That’s true for pretty much everything – you can change the processor, upgrade or downgrade the graphics card, increase the amount of RAM, switch out the optical drive the Valkyrie comes equipped with, and choose different storage devices as well. For instance, if the 750GB HDD this model comes with doesn’t float your boat, you swap it out for a larger one, add a second one for more storage, or add a SSD to make things even faster. If you wanted, you’d be able to ditch the HDD entirely and go for a dual SSD setup. The point is the Valkyrie can be whatever kind of laptop you want it to be, so if for some reason talk of this model leaves you unimpressed, that can be changed.

Battery and Eco Environment

Next we come to the battery, which as you may have guessed by reading through the hardware section, leaves something to be desired. The removable lithium-ion 9-cell battery is quoted for 3 hours of continuous use, but when gaming, don’t expect it to last nearly that long. Playing Civilization V with medium settings and the Valkyrie’s Eco Environment turned on (more on that later), I was only able to get about 1 hour and 30 minutes of use before the battery quit. It’s a shame, but it isn’t all that surprising – with all of this high-end hardware and that beautiful screen, it’s inevitable that battery life is going to take quite a hit.

We get some help with battery life from the aforementioned Eco Environment. With Eco Environment, we have a number of different power profiles we can pick from, like gaming mode, office mode, movie mode, and presentation mode. When unplugged from a power source, Eco Environment automatically kicks in, attempting to extend all-too-precious battery life. Game performance takes a significant hit with this power-saving mode on, so you’ll probably have to lower your settings quite a bit. You can turn the power-saving mode off entirely by just switching to gaming mode, but that isn’t recommended, as doing so will probably make the already short battery life even shorter and the end to your session even more abrupt.

The good news is that this battery is removable, meaning you can buy one or two extras to have on hand at all times. It isn’t the most desirable situation, but it’s a hell of a lot better than having a battery that you can’t remove and being tethered to a wall plug all the time. Another perk is that the battery charges very quickly. Obviously, this won’t be the case if you plug in the computer and begin gaming with screen brightness at max and your game settings ramped up, but if you leave the computer alone for a bit, you can expect a recharge time in the area of 45 minutes to an hour.

Benchmarks

Unsurprisingly, the Valkyrie CZ-17 posted some strong Geekbench numbers. These numbers would be good enough for most desktops, but they’re excellent by laptop standards. Essentially, the Geekbench results confirm what the high-end hardware promises – that this is very powerful as far as laptops go, and a considerable gaming laptop to boot. Testing in Cinebench 11.5 gives a similar result – with a CPU score that sits at 6.22 and an OpenGL frame rate of 41.39 fps, the results may not be the best we’ve ever seen, but they are still pretty impressive.

Gaming

Now it’s time to talk gaming, because after all, the benchmarks can say all they want, but if the Valkyrie can’t handle gaming, then those results don’t matter very much. Luckily, that isn’t the case, as the Valkyrie is capable of delivering some impressive gaming performance – at 1920×1080 resolution no less, which is a huge plus (all games tested were tested with 1080p).

Playing Batman: Arkham City with Extreme settings (High FXAA, MVSS and HBAO, High DirectX 11 Tessellation), I was able to get a frame rate that ranged between 25 fps and 35 fps. The high end on that was around 43, while the low end was around 22. If you don’t mind playing a game around 30 fps, then you can play Batman: Arkham City with nearly all of the settings maxed. Playing at 30 fps shouldn’t be a problem for most gamers – even though 60 fps does look noticeably smoother, 30 fps is usually what console games are locked at, and those are typically smooth enough. When playing Batman: Arkham City on the Valkyrie, you’re essentially getting a console-quality frame rate, but you also get to enjoy much better graphics. That isn’t a bad trade-off by any means, especially when Batman: Arkham City looks so good with the graphics settings cranked up.

With Battlefield 3, the results were much the same. Putting all of the settings on Ultra, which includes 4x MSAA, high antialiasing post, motion blur on, 16x anisotropic filtering and HBAO on, I got a frame rate of 30 to 40 fps, with the frame rate staying around or above 30 fps more consistently than Batman: Arkham City. Once again, you’re sacrificing a full 60 fps for all the bells and whistles, but I don’t really see a reason why that would be a major issue.

I was able to squeeze a little bit more out of Skyrim than I was with Arkham City and Battlefield 3. Playing with the settings on Ultra – including 8x antialiasing, 16x anisotropic filtering, and Bethesda’s HD texture pack – produced a frame rate between 40 and 50 fps, only rarely dropping down below 40 fps. That definitely isn’t bad, and there really isn’t much to complain about when you get play with maxed settings and still have a frame rate between 40 and 50 fps.

Wrap-Up

So no, you’re not going to be able to get a full 60 fps with the graphics cranked up at the same time by using the Valkyrie CZ-17. Unless you take frame rate extremely seriously, that probably won’t be a problem. After all, enjoying games with max settings at 30 fps is just as easy as enjoying them at 60 fps. If frame rate is important to you, just bring the graphics settings down a notch, and then you can still enjoy excellent visuals while getting a frame rate that sits right around 60 fps.

It’s also important to keep in mind that this is a laptop, and even though the results when gaming aren’t perfect, they’re excellent by laptop standards. This is one of the best gaming laptops on the market right now, and the $1459 price tag bit easier to swallow than some pre-built desktops that will only deliver a marginal improvement when it comes to gaming.

Really, the only big drawbacks are the battery life and the size of the unit. As stated above though, those are to be expected in a gaming laptop, and concerning the size specifically, it isn’t as if the Valkyrie isn’t portable. It’s slightly more bulky than other laptops that are on the market, but that 7 pound weight isn’t terribly huge. All in all, if you’re looking for a laptop that hold its own when it comes to gaming, you won’t be disappointed by picking up a Valkyrie CZ-17.

The brand new ThinkPad X1 Carbon might not be 20 years in the making, but it almost feels that way. Cramming all the top end specs possibly available into a super lightweight laptop that fits the “Ultrabook” standard, while still being similar to last years original X1. This is certainly an evolution of last years model only better in every way. It’s thinner, lighter, and faster yet still comes with a bigger display and more options. Take a peek at our unboxing video to get yourself started and acquainted, then we’ll dig in.

Hardware and Chassis

At first glance there will be no doubt in your mind this is a ThinkPad. With the original simplistic and minimal design, squared off edges, and flat matte black color scheme. Other than a few needed vents for breathing and speakers this is as simple as it gets, in its most elegant form. The ThinkPad line has always been catered for professionals that don’t want a loud and cluttered laptop, and this is no different. We don’t have crazy lights, bright colors, or odd speakers. Everything is clean — ThinkPad clean.

As far as hardware specs there’s multiple versions available. Today we’ll be looking at one of Lenovo’s highest options. We’ll go over the different models below but what we have here is their high-end Intel Ivy Bridge 3rd Gen Core-i7 dual-core version. All X1 Carbon’s come complete with a 14-inch LED display, with a matte finish to reduce glare, 2 USB ports (right side is 3.0), display port, 3.5 mm headphone jack that doubles for the microphone, and a 3G sim slot around back for 3G connectivity. Starting at $1,249 our model will run you $1,579 — and under the hood however is what’s important.

Our X1 Carbon comes complete with the Intel Core i7-3667U 1.8 GHz dual-core Ivy Bridge processor, 4GB of DDR3 666 MHz RAM, and a 128GB SSD. Other options include a 1.7 GHz Ivy Bridge, and even a lower i5. They’ve even got a 256GB SSD selection for those with extra cash and need the storage. As well as 8GB RAM models for the editing heavy user. Packing all of this into something only 2.99 lbs makes this the lightest ThinkPad ever.

As far as hardware the latch-free lid is easy to close, but wasn’t quite as easy to open for us. This you’ll simply just get use to so we can’t really complain. We also found the square charging port to be odd since most have adopted the easy to use round male pin. I actually tried inserting my USB drive into it once, but that’s another story. As usual with Lenovo the ThinkPad has a very durable construction. It feels great in the hand with the soft-touch matte finish, and being lightweight also makes it a breeze to carry.

The screen is 14-inches as mentioned above, but only offers 300 nits of brightness. Using this outdoors wasn’t the most ideal situation, but we’ve certainly seen and used worse. Overall the screen is rather impressive being 1600 x 900, although outdoors the grainy effect was more present.

Keyboard and Trackpad

Just like the X1, the Carbon has replaced the wide keys for Lenovo’s version of the chicklet style, and it works wonderfully. The keys are evenly spaced, comfortable, and have good feedback and response. The slight curve makes them instantly comfortable to use, you’ll just have to get used to the spacing if you’ve owned previous ThinkPads.

As mentioned in the video, the keys are backlit only the button the side toggles radios, not the keyboard lights. Simply press Fn and tap spacebar to scroll through the 3 brightness options. While we’d love additional brightness options 3 is better than most. So we’ll take it. Then in the usual ThinkPad fashion you can use the trackpad, or enjoy the pointing stick mouse dressed up in the familiar red. I personally only use this, but the trackpad is also exceptional for those times you need it. While we’d still like the smooth surface that MacBook’s offer, Lenovo did a great job with their smooth, resistance free trackpad.

Ports

As mentioned above Lenovo outfitted this Ultrabook with only two USB ports, one of which is USB 3.0, or as they call it — Superspeed. You’d never know it but a small barely visible SS logo is near the right side USB port (see above image). The right side also contains the Kensington lock, display port, 3.5mm headphone/microphone, and the full size SD. Around to the left is the charging port, vents, and the regular USB location followed by a Bluetooth and WiFi radio toggle switch.

Performance and Sound

Now Lenovo offers multiple versions of the X1 Carbon, ours however has the Intel Core i7-3667U Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.20 GHz) running at 1.7 GHz. There is two additional i5 options for a lower price as well. Using Intel’s Ivy Bridge and the integrated HD-4000 this isn’t quite up to 3D and gaming performance par, but everything else was exceptional.

Running on Windows 7 64 bit Professional performance was butter smooth as always, and we ran a few Geekbench tests as we always do. After the third run there was a decent amount of heat coming out of the small vents, but the X1 Carbon stayed relatively quiet. Here’s the results:

Obviously the SSD was extremely fast, blowing away any regular HD option available, but sadly this price range only offers the 128GB choice. Overall the results weren’t chart topping but for the price, size, and specs this is a beast of a business-class machine.

Next up we wanted to talk about the speakers and sound quality. There’s no fancy Beats Audio here, but that’s a good thing. Whatever Lenovo did they did well. The speaker ports are located on the bottom sides near the front, and bounce off the desk giving users excellent sound quality. This machine was much louder than the recently reviewed HP ENVY 4, and sounded better in all categories too. While using this on my lap the sound gets aimed the wrong direction and wasn’t as loud or crisp, but desktop usage was perfect.

Battery Life

Now the battery life can be a bit personal, based on user needs and usage, but we found decent results. With continuous usage throughout an entire evening it lasted almost 6 hours straight — and that’s with multiple video clips and web browsing. Using the rapid charge technology detailed in our video we didn’t get 5 hours on a short charge, but was enough to get a job done in a bind. We’ve seen many Ultrabook’s last well past the 7 hour mark, so we’ll chalk this one up for average at best.

Wrap-Up

As far as business-class Ultrabooks the X1 Carbon doesn’t have too much competition. This thing is almost as good as it gets — if an Ultrabook is what you want. If you don’t need the Ultrabook lightweight design for roughly the same price the HP Spectre 14 [see our review] is another solid option. All in all the X1 Carbon is a massive step up over the original, and beats out anything from Lenovo’s past in this size range. Yes the display, battery life, and RAM options could all be better or higher, but in general this machine will be king of the office.

Add in the fact that it manages to be extremely thin, weigh less than 3 lbs, and still manages to have a 720p front camera (image sample below), and integrated HSPA+ 3G connectivity it sure is a great overall package. It might not be the cheapest around but this user friendly machine will be excellent for average users, and the business man. This portable Ultrabook should make you plenty happy, and keep you busy. Have a peek at previous reviews and all our images below, then decide if this is the Ultrabook for your business bag.

This may not be HP’s ultra high end, but the ENVY series has always been one of their better offerings. Back in May we got our first glace at this Ultrabook, and then late last month we were able to unbox it and dig in a bit deeper. To get you started off with full specs, details, and the unboxing you’ll want to start here.

Chassis

This aluminum wrapped machine hit the shelves last month for about $800 and today we’re going to give you a better look, as well as our review and impressions on the laptop. It certainly isn’t HP’s nicest wrapped device but the aluminum has a great feel. For some reason the tip on top has been replaced with plastic, and the aluminum doesn’t extend to the entire edge of the casing. This gives opening and closing it a rather cheap feel, because the plastic is indeed very cheap. Otherwise the entire body is well built, and feels like it too.

The top has that midnight black brushed aluminum look and the only change is the neat and small HP logo on the bottom corner. As you curve around the sides to the ports however, you’ll quickly notice the aluminum design ends for a soft-touch red matte texture instead. This makes it easy to hold, but causes an area that may separate in the future if it takes too much abuse. The entire sides and bottom are bright “Beats Audio red” and is soft to the touch. This makes it easy to hold, and comfortable to carry.

All in all the ENVY 4-1030us (that we have here) comes in under 4 lbs (3.86 to be exact) and only 0.78″ thick. We’ve seen thicker, but for $800 the package is quite sleek and decent. We’ll talk about ports more below so for now the star of the show is the TrueVision HD front camera for Skype and video chat, and of course Beats Audio.

HP’s integrated dual-stereo surround sound Beats Audio speakers, and they are actually quite decent. Obviously you won’t be getting the bass you’d like, but for music, videos, and even gaming I found them sufficient. Even near full volume the distortion levels are minimal, and I’d give them a solid thumbs up for the price, even if they still have that tin-can sound. Ultrabooks and laptops the speakers can always improve, but these didn’t leave me wanting too much more.

Specs

As far as the hardware specs of the device, if you didn’t catch the full breakdown in my video above here they are again. You’ll get a clear and vivid 14-inch Brightview LED 1366 x 768 display, 1.7 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (3317U), 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 500GB HD (no SSD here) 3 USB ports, Ethernet, HDMI, SD slot for storage, then integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000. There’s no dedicated GPU here, but Intel’s HD graphics were enough for the casual game here. You won’t be playing Battlefield 3, but then you shouldn’t expect to.

The 14-inch 1366 x 768 resolution display is rather decent, but obviously we’d always like a higher resolution. Like the Retina Display Macbook Pro for example — but then again this is only $800. The screen is still HD and playing YouTube videos was a breeze. I even used the HDMI-out on the side to stream some Olympics to my HDTV since NBC failed us on their coverage, and it worked wonderfully.

Keyboard and Trackpad

Now here’s one area that I wasn’t to pleased with the ENVY 4. The keys, while backlit, and chicklet style had a rather cheap feel to them. Being a 14 inch device I wasn’t expecting it to feel very compact and low on space, but I found myself struggling to get comfortable — but that will come in due time. The keys while still feeling cheap have a good firm click during use, but certain areas on the keyboard felt weaker than others. The back-light option has a simple on/off setting, but that was all. Being able to manually control this would be nice but for $800 we’ll gladly just accept the fact we have it.

My biggest concern however was the trackpad. I know HP’s been doing this circular diamond-cut like design for ages, but I find it extremely frustrating. You can see the lines all aim for the center from the image above, but I find this type of feedback to be rather difficult. It makes operation feel rather choppy and the “smooth” feel I wanted was certainly missing. The sensitivity was another minor issue. Nothing you can’t get used to, but even after changing it in settings I still found myself having to repeat my taps. Overall I’d take a few points off here, but nothing major as this is all subjective and depends on user preference.

Ports

As mentioned above, the ENVY 4 Ultrabook has 3 USB ports (two left, one right), Ethernet, HDMI, and full size SD slot for storage. Then off to the right side is your power port, 3rd USB, headphone and microphone ports. They all felt great and weren’t too tight, as I’ve had that issue with newer laptops in the past. Here’s a look at the ports:

Performance

This device runs an Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, which we should all know plenty about by now so I’ll stick to the results. Performance was rather decent, although I quickly replaced IE but that’s just me. Working with a 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge Core i5 dual-core processor and 4GB of DDR3 RAM performance was great, but I’d love to see 6GB for the price point. We have no SSD so hard drive results weren’t impressive, but that was expected.

All this equals a rather powerful mid-range Ultrabook all for a great price. It has a few compromises here and there, but this could still be the device for you. As usual here at SlashGear we’ve ran some Geekbench benchmark tests. You can see those results below and compare with previous Laptop Reviews.

Wrap-Up

All in all this is a rather great machine. It’s lightweight, portable, thin, powerful, sounds great, and has a bright and vivid screen. Oh and did we mention affordable. For everything you get this is certainly an affordable Ultrabook, I just wish it had USB 3.0 and possible slightly better build quality. If you’ve ever used a Macbook for an extended period of time you’ll surely notice the build quality differences. Compared to most others in the price range however, this ENVY 4 Ultrabook is impressive, and will leave many in the dust. Using the ENVY 4 for browsing and a few videos on NFL.com I barely managed 5 hours of battery life, so that is one other thing worth mentioning.

This isn’t quite as impressive as the Acer Aspire S5 we recently reviewed, but then it’s also much cheaper too. For the mid-range price and great “Ultrabook” specs this will surely make anyone happy for under $800. Overall the The Envy 4 is fairly named, and some others in this range will “envy” it. Featuring a premium design and attractive use of the color red certainly makes it an Ultrabook worth checking out. Enjoy the pictures and some of our other HP reviews below.

Hardware

Lenovo’s new IdeaPad line comes with a variety of hardware that’s meant to appeal with a broad range of consumers. The model we received is equipped with an Intel Core i5-3317U clocked at 1.7 Ghz, but other models that make use of a Core i3 or a Core i7 are available as well. Complete with Intel’s freshly-launched Ivy Bridge microarchitecture, the Core i5 will be able to handle most anything the mainstream consumer will need to do with the U410, and when coupled with the 8 gigs of RAM that comes installed, you have a laptop that’s capable of running surprisingly fast.

The HDD/SSD hybrid setup does its part to keep things moving along at a fast pace, allowing for shorter boot and wake up times than you’re probably used to with other laptops. The model we received came with a 500GB HDD, but the U410 has options up to 1TB. It also comes with a 32GB SSD, which is definitely appreciated, but a setup like this really shines when more software has been installed. It’s pretty fast out of the box, but the key is that it will be faster than most other laptops after being weighed down by additional installs.

The glossy 14.1-inch LCD screen nice, but it can be rather reflective. It’s capable of resolutions up to the laptop-friendly 1366×768 and features and adjustable brightness setting, so as long as you’re fine with no support for 1080p, you’ll probably find the screen to be satisfactory. Here’s something that came as a bit of a surprise: the 2.0 stereo speakers on this bad boy (complete with Dolby certification) actually give pretty good sound quality. Obviously, they may not be as good as the speakers you use on your desktop or that expensive pair of headphones you have lying around, but they’re not too bad when compared to other laptop speakers.

In many ways, the U410 is nearly identical to the IdeaPad U400, which we saw earlier this year [see our full review of the IdeaPad U400 here]. For instance, there aren’t any noticeable differences between the keyboards found on both. The chiclet-style keys of the U400 return with the U410, and overall there aren’t any complaints about the keyboard – the layout and the feel of the keys makes for a pleasant typing experience. There aren’t any major complaints about the track pad either, though there are times where it proves to be a bit too sensitive. Usually this isn’t a problem, but occasionally you’ll end up clicking something you didn’t mean to click. It’s a rare event, but it can be pretty frustrating when it happens.

Sadly, the U410’s 59Wh battery doesn’t quite meet expectations. Lenovo says that it provides up to 9 hours of productive use, but in reality, you can expect around 6 hours of battery life. When using programs that are more labor-intensive or running the screen at max brightness, that 6-hour time frame will likely decrease even more. Thankfully, the battery doesn’t take too terribly long to fully charge, as you can expect a charging time that’s in the area of an hour-and-a-half.

The IdeaPad comes equipped with Intel GMA HD 4000 graphics, but there’s also a NVIDIA GeFore 610M 1GB card there to pick up the slack. This setup takes advantage of NVIDIA’s Optimus technology, which switches between the two when you need a boost in graphics power. You’re not working with the best around, but mainstream consumers don’t need the best; they need functional. This setup is definitely functional, as it will undoubtedly be able to meet the needs of most, and it also works to keep prices competitive.

On the outside, we’ve got a full HDMI port, an Ethernet port, two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 jacks, a headphone jack, a 2-in-1 card slot that supports SD and MMC, and a microphone. The whole unit is about 0.8” thick and weighs in just south of 4.2 pounds, so while this isn’t the lightest laptop we’ve seen, it’s still very portable. More importantly, it feels quite sturdy, so with the IdeaPad U410, you’re getting a laptop that doesn’t feel like it will shatter if you look at it the wrong way.

Software

Surprisingly enough, the IdeaPad U410 doesn’t come with a ton of software pre-installed, and you might actually end up using what it does come installed with. Google Chrome is installed right from the get go, so you won’t ever need to touch Internet Explorer if you don’t want to. Like every other PC running Windows 7 (Home Premium 64-bit in this case ) out of the box, Microsoft Office Starter 2010 comes standard, but you’ll need to shell out additional cash if you want access to the full Office 2010 suite.

Lenovo YouCam lets you put 1-megapixel integrated camera to work, allowing you to capture and edit pictures and video, along with granting the ability to record what’s happening on your desktop. The app is easy to use and easy to learn, so it shouldn’t be too hard for most consumers to just pick it up and go. The camera isn’t just meant for recording, however, as the U410 also comes with VeriFace 4.0 installed. Using VeriFace and the VeriFace password manager, users can set up facial recognition for all of their various Internet logins, which helps to add an extra layer of security in the event that your IdeaPad gets stolen by one of the more unfavorable people walking this planet.

Dolby Home Theater v4 is onboard with the IdeaPad U410, giving users full control over the computer’s audio settings. Remember how we told you earlier that the IdeaPad’s speakers aren’t too bad as far as laptop speakers go? Dolby Home Theater lets you do more with them, allowing you to set up different profiles for audio, video, and games, along with more specific profiles should the need arise. It’s a handy little program, and those who take their audio quality seriously will probably appreciate the fact that it’s around.

Other than those programs, the IdeaPad U410 comes with a trial version of Absolute Data Protect, the standard McAfee security center (in this case we’re working with McAfee Emerald 11.0), Adobe Reader X, and OneKey Recovery, which will help you backup your data and restore the system if anything ever goes awry. The fact that the IdeaPad U410 doesn’t come bogged down with a lot of pre-installed software is a big plus, and Lenovo earns extra points for including some programs that are actually worthwhile.

Wrap-Up

Okay, so the technophiles of the world probably won’t find much to get excited about with the IdeaPad U410, but this laptop will prove to be a good value for those who are more concerned with functionality than amazing specs. There are a few flaws, such as the shorter-than-expected battery life, but for the most part, average consumers who want a quality laptop will find a lot to love about the IdeaPad U410. The laptop’s Geekbench results reflect this – it definitely isn’t anywhere near the best, but it’s a solid computer that will meet the needs of most mainstream computers.

Additionally, you’re paying a fair price for what you’re getting. Prices range depending on what you want under the hood, but the model we received – which is by no means a slouch – has a price tag of $799. That’ll prove to be a pretty attractive price for most consumers, and with the IdeaPad U410, Lenovo has a laptop that will have no problem gaining the mainstream crowd’s attention.

Chassis

This device has Acer’s nicest casing for a notebook they’ve ever released, with a lovely off-black for the entirety of its body, the Acer logo up top, bumpers on the bottom, and a smooth shell all around, you’ve got a real looker on your hands. The display is a 13.3 HD Widescreen CineCrystal LCD and is perfectly bright and ready for whatever kind of HD action you’ve got in store at 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, while the whole unit weighs in at a measly 2.65 pounds total.

The speakers on this unit are reasonable, but certainly aren’t good enough for hardcore gaming or listening to an opera – you’ve got a headphone jack for that.

So it’s light, the speakers are OK, the display is lovely, and the whole unit looks nice – does this mean it’s a winner?

It doesn’t mean that we’ve got a winner entirely. The Acer Aspire S5 is a device that must be aimed at those on the go with the desire to work on tasks that are mostly based in the keyboard area. There’s a bit of an issue with the arrow keys, and the trackpad is far from perfect – head down to the Keyboard and Trackpad section of this review for more on those bits. Meanwhile we’ve got a bit of a bone to pick with the top of the notebook.

If you press down on the top of this notebook, the center bends down a concerning amount. There’s a considerable amount of give here, and though I don’t imagine that a notebook with the high quality construction this one has is going to break any time soon, it gives the impression that it’s just a bit flimsy. On the other hand, the heavy-duty metal construction all around the device makes for a nice feel as well as a really nice look from any distance.

MagicPort

The MagicPort is activated with a large button in the upper right of the keyboard area, and it can be activated whether or not the device is powered on itself. Though we’re not sure why you’d want to open this tray up while you’re powered down, it is something to think about. This tray also comes open automatically to reveal extra air holes if the ultrabook gets too hot while you’re playing some hardcore games or processing large bits of video.

And the sound this MagicPort makes when it opens – it’s crazy. It’s like a buzz-creaking sort of situation that does not sound nearly as healthy as it really should. Of course that has no baring on the fact that the tray does, in fact, work perfectly well, and is pretty darn cool looking when it comes down to it. Inside the tray you’ve got a full-size HDMI port, two USB 3.0 ports, and a Thunderbolt port.

This last port isn’t going to do you a lot of good in the short run as there certainly isn’t a massive Thunderbolt port industry for PCs at the moment, but you can bank on it being useful in the next year or so – that’s future-proofing if we’ve ever seen it.

Keyboard and Trackpad

The keyboard here is rather nice to tap on, the keys are well space, they hammer down nicely, and the whole unit seems to be ready for the long haul. The only problem here seems to be the arrow buttons in the lower right. Acer assumes that you will not be using these buttons very often. This is a major problem for me, as I use the arrow buttons all the time in corrections of text and navigating through application icons, and selections in lists throughout a normal working day.

Though the keyboard is great, the arrow buttons are going to be a bit of a problem unless you’ve got tiny mouse fingers. If you’re coming from a MacBook, you’re going to have a giant problem getting used to these arrow keys as yours have been large and separated enough for constant use via Apple for years. Expect to use the wireless mouse that Acer has included in the package instead of your arrow keys, and watch out for the trackpad, too.

This mouse is rather run of the mill, but does connect via Bluetooth perfectly well and will be an OK companion for your A5 through the future. Of course it is a bit concerning that the trackpad on this device is less than perfect. It’s pretty close to being a suitable companion to the cost of this notebook, but it’s not quite perfect enough to give a two-thumbs-up. If you’re used to the trackpads that have come on Acer notebooks for the past year or so, you’ll be fine.

Benchmarks

This device runs an Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, works with a 3rd Generation Intel Core i7-3517U Processor with 4MB L3 cache, up to 3.0GHz with Turbo Boost technology. You’ve also got 4GB Dual-Channel SDRAM and a 256GB solid state drive under the hood. For visuals you’ve got Intel HD Graphics 4000 and Mobile Intel HM77 Express is running smooth as well. All of this equals a generally impressive ultrabook ready for games and processing normally reserved for devices that are twice its size.

It all comes down to the benchmark, on the other hand – have a peek at our Geekbench results here and feel free to compare to the rest of our Laptop Reviews as you see fit.

Have a glance at some of the system specifications on this model too, while you’re at it.

Wrap-Up

In short, this ultrabook is one of if not THE thinnest notebook you’re ever going to want to own, and with a look and feel like this, you’ll have a great time picking one up. The pricing is a bit concerning when compared to other ultrabooks on the market right now that can do essentially all of the same things this one can at just a bit larger a cost in the actual physical size department. But consider this: you get what you pay for, and if your aim is to grab a thinnest-in-class yet high-quality notebook with power enough to play top-quality games and work all day long on web and local-based type-heavy tasks on Windows, you’ve got the best there is right here.

You can pick up the model we’ve got here, the Acer Aspire S5 S5-391-9880, at Acer’s online store for a cool $1399.99 USD, and it’s in stock right this minute. Also check our our Acer Aspire S3 with Core i7 Review for an ultrabook that’s just a bit larger.

The last time we had our hands on a model like this, it was essentially the same model on the outside, but inside it was just a little weaker. Have a peek at our Batman Arkham City review to see what was going on back then. Now we’ve got the same model on the whole, with a case that’s 1.75 inches thick, it weighs in at 10.6 pounds, and the whole thing is covered with soft plastic that’s almost rubbery.

On the sides you’ve got a massive amount of ports, with a VGA port, HDMI-out, HDMI-in, two USB 3.0 ports, headphone, headset, and microphone jacks, eSATA/USB port, Mini DisplayPort, and Gigabit ethernet port. That big slot on the right is ready to roll with Blu-ray, you’ve got a multi-format card reader, and on the back you’ve got a power port that’s certainly not made to be used on the go. The power cord falls out all the time with just a tug. The plus side of this is that it’s just fine if you’d rather have a tiny cord fall down on your child’s head than the whole massive hunk that would otherwise come with it.

While the popular thing to do today in the computing market is to present a small computer, a tiny laptop with power, yes, but appearing to replicate what the MacBook Air has done for style, this Alienware machine is in a class all its own. It makes no qualms with being massive, and certainly has an aesthetic that screams “gamer”.

What’s changed in this model specifically over the last is the innards: you’ve got support for a 2.6GHz Core i7-3720QM processor, you’ve got a brand new 28nm NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M GPU, and you’ve got a 500GB hard drive working with your 32GB mSATA solid state cache. Have a peek at some benchmark numbers to understand what kind of power you’ve got running under this massive hood:

What you’ve got here is a true gaming laptop, if there is such a thing. Dell’s Alienware family is certainly one of the best if not the absolute best in class option for rocking and rolling with not only gaming power, but a gaming look as well. This is easily one of the most powerful notebooks on the market today, and it is as high quality as it gets for a does-everything piece of hardware made for media.

This computer is made to be kept plugged in, but even unplugged it’ll last you up to four hours easily. Play Diablo III all night long – or until a new patch from Blizzard kicks you offline as they have been all too often recently – then head on over to Batman again to keep up the unbelievably smooth graphics action until the morning light.

When you’re not playing games, you’ll have no trouble using this Alienware notebook as a workhorse, and a completely customizable one (as far as looks go) at that. This as well as the rest of the Alienware notebooks come with a customization suite which allows all of the segments of color throughout the machine to be changed according to your specific desires. Back up your machine with AlienRespawn, get all of your system diagnostics in style with AlienAutopsy, and run your whole machine’s heart from Alienware Command.

This machine is just as up-to-date as it was when it was first released, and with the upgrades we’ve got here under the hood, you’ll be good to go for all games at any level to be played without a hitch for years to come. Pick this machine up at Alienware’s online shop right now with a variety of customizability options right off the bat. Grab it!

BONUS: Here’s our results with the build we had previously before the 3rd Generation Intel Core processor lineup was integrated. The power!

Hardware

The X230 is part of a dying breed of full-power, small-sized machines. Its diminutive dimensions hide an upgraded Intel Ivy Bridge processor, in the case our review unit, a Core i5 3320m. It’s also got 4GB of RAM (with one DIMM slot free for easily adding more) and a 320GB traditional hard drive, with an integrated Intel HD 4000 GPU to match the third-generation processor. Like previous members of the X200 family, there’s no disc drive to help cut down on volume and weight. Refreshingly unlike some of the more slinky laptops out there, the hard drive and memory are user-accessible, as is the 6-cell standard battery.

Externally the biggest change for the updated model is the keyboard, which switches to the chicklet style seen on the majority of new laptops. Those who are worried about the legendary ThinkPad keyboard losing its muster needn’t bother: the keys are just as springy as other ThinkPads with plenty of travel and zero flex. In addition to the ThinkLight next to the 720p webcam, there’s an optional backlight for the keyboard, though it isn’t particularly bright.

The touchpad uses the newer style as well, and this is a shame. There’s very few PC laptops that have mastered the integrated mouse buttons (with the HP Envy 14 Spectre being the best that I’ve seen) and the X230 is not among them. Performing gestures and multi-finger clicks is a chore that isn’t aided by the trackpad’s small dimensions. Thankfully, the trademark TrackPoint “nub” and extra buttons remain, for those who’ve grown used to a stick-style pointer. An optional biometric scanner sits next to the trackpad on our review unit.

The 12.5-inch screen has its ups and downs. It’s an IPS panel that’s impressively bright, and the matte finish (an option that’s all too rare) helps keep away glare. That said, 1366×768 is a relatively low resolution that’s finally beginning to lose its hold on this form factor, and it’s too bad to see Lenovo stick to the more typical density. A higher-res screen would be a much-appreciated option, especially since Windows 7 always seems to over-use vertical space.

The hinge deserves some attention. Because it’s considerably stiff and the laptop is surprisingly light, it’s nearly impossible to open the laptop with a single hand without the base rising up. The screen stays where it’s put, but I’d much prefer a slightly looser hinge and an old-school latch mechanism, instead of the small lip that’s provided. The front of the laptop is bare, while the rear holds just the battery and power plug.

Moving to the left side, we’re greeted with two USB 3.0 ports (black instead of the usual blue), a Mini DisplayPort and VGA port for video-out, a WiFi switch and an ExpressCard slot – an addition that marks this as a business notebook first and foremost. On the right side you get a more media-friendly SD card slot, a combined headphone/microphone jack with Dolby certification, an Ethernet jack, a Kensington lock port and a USB 2.0 port. That yellow color isn’t just for show: it indicates that the port will continuously supply a charge even when the laptop is sleeping, a very useful feature in the age of smartphones.

Stylistically… well, it’s a ThinkPad. The same utilitarian design that the line has used for nearly two decades is just as functional as it was back in the 90s. While it won’t turn heads like a MacBook Air or innumerable Ultrabooks, it’s got a charm all its own for the right kind of buyer. It isn’t especially thin, but it is light, and just about as small as it could be while remaining comfortable to use for extended periods of time. It’s compact and light enough to slip into a backpack or briefcase and barely be noticeable.

Software

Lenovo keeps its business machines pretty clean when it comes to Windows – well, that’s traditionally the case, anyway. There’s a few programs here that I’d have installed anyway (Flash player, Google Chrome) and a lot that I wouldn’t (Adobe Air, Evernote, SugarSync, Google Toolbar and the obligatory Microsoft Office trial). Lenovo seems to have added quite a few pieces of software that aren’t necessary because they’re built into Windows – things like a second battery meter.

Lenovo’s ThinkVantage is appreciated, if only for its ability to extend the battery by turning off some of the more unnecessary features. But the App Shop, a full-screen interface for things like “Google Search” and “Twitter”, is not. There’s more commercial software as well, but nothing you couldn’t download through a standard browser. All of this wouldn’t be nearly as annoying if the installation media was included, but alas, I haven’t seen that in years. My standard tactic for a new machine is to download a Windows ISO and install it fresh with the license included on the machine, and for those with the know-how, I’d recommend the same here.

With all that said, Windows 7 and modern hardware are getting some impressive performance even with loads of extra software. The new Intel architecture shines, and through standard operations (in my case, dozens and dozens of Chrome tabs with various sync, graphics and chat programs running in the background) the X230 didn’t bat a metaphorical eye. Those who regularly run intensive programs for graphic design or the like will probably want more RAM, but as a small work machine, this little guy handles very well indeed.

Performance and Battery

The Ivy Bridge standard has been long-awaited, and it appears to have been worth it. In our standard Geekbench test we got a solid 20% higher score than similarly equipped laptops from the last generation. It’s not about to grind through video transcoding like a champ, but for pretty much everything a business user will need it’s more than capable. The expanded HD 4000 integrated GPU should be good enough for decent graphics on less intense 3D games, like Team Fortress 2 and World of Warcraft.

Even better, the efficiency of this improved hardware seems to have been noticeably boosted. Through regular browsing I got 6:43, 6:56 and 7:09 in three separate tests. For a laptop of this size that’s very respectable, and Lenovo has extended 9-cell batteries and a massive slice battery available for those who need to make it across an ocean on a single charge.

Value

It’s hard to deny that there are more stylish laptops in this category – ASUS’ Zenbook series, with its high-resolution screens and svelte profiles, comes to mind. And many of them will come in at considerably less than the X230’s starting price of $1249. For those two reasons alone, many will overlook Lenovo’s ultraportable, non-ultra-notebook.

It would be unwise to do so. Even without the bells and whistles (other optional upgrades include Bluetooth, 3G and SSD drives), the ThinkPad is a reliable machine that’s comfortable to operate for a long time – and capable of doing so, thanks to its battery life. It’s also tough as nails, at least if my personal experience with last year’s machines is anything to go by. For these reasons, the premium will be worth it for the business or professional user who isn’t overly concerned with looks.

Wrap-up

If you’re already a fan of the ThinkPad line, there’s nothing here to dissuade you, with the possible exception of the hinge and trackpad. And if you’re looking for a ton lot of processing power in a small and comfortable package with great battery life, the ThinkPad X230 should be on your shortlist, and will continue to be so as more Ivy bridge Machines hit the market.

If you’re looking for something to turn heads at the local coffee shop, keep looking (perhaps to the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, due later this summer). And if you want a high-resolution screen and enough graphical power to run Call of Duty 5, then this isn’t the machine for you. But if longevity, reliability and portability are high on your list of must-haves, the ThinkPad X230 deserves some serious consideration.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X230 will go on sale in early June, in both pre-built and configurable versions. You can check out our hands-on video below.

Daily Use

This notebook is just 3.65 pounds, is relatively thin, and is set to be your own personal workhorse with not just a 4400mAh battery inside, but an additional 4400mAh Sheet Battery you can also purchase separately that effectively doubles your work time. This beast has two USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.0 port, VGA out, HDMI, SD card and Sony HG Duo MagicGate card readers, ethernet port, and headphone jack. This laptop features a CD tray which you’re able to use as a CD/DVD burner or you can upgrade to a Blu-ray Disk player for an additional $100.

This device has a lovely 13.3-inch LED backlit display with 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, this backed up with AMD Radeon HD 6470M hybrid graphics and Intel Wireless Display technology under the hood. On screen you’re working with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit unless you’d like to upgrade to Professional or Ultimate, the former costing $50 and the latter costing you $150 extra. You’ve got a bit of a customized interface as well with a pull – down menu appearing at the top of your display containing a few excellent applications such as Sony’s own Music Unlimited. This app in particular adds some value to your experience as it works across quite a few Sony devices such as the PlayStation 3 and PS Vita as well.

This laptop is the kind that’s unassumingly powerful. I’ve been using it for quite a while now as a daily driver and the only thing that’s been bothering me is the placement of the touchpad. It’s sitting right at the edge of the notebook, right on the lip, this not exactly a natural place for me to be tapping it regularly. If I’d always been using a Vaio I suppose it would be perfectly fine, especially since the buttons and the pad itself are extremely responsive and amongst the nicest added to a Windows-toting machine in this modern market of ours

This device is ready for Windows 8, but does not have a touchscreen as you may want to consider for the oncoming storm of touch-sensitive applications. It’s a certainty that Windows will always be able to work without you needing to touch your screen, on the other hand, and if you are using this computer for work exclusively, you’ll be just fine without a touchscreen display. The notebook is black, has the word Vaio on the back, and isn’t so thin you’re going to cut your finger on it – what I’m saying is that it looks average despite the advanced set of functions within.

The performance of this machine has been good. I’m used to working with i7 processors at this point having been reviewing them on machines for the past few months and working with a MacBook Pro on the regular, but as it happens, the major bulk of the work I do on a regular basis works perfectly fine and quick with the i5 this device has. Have a peek at the performance of this machine here and marvel at its beauty:

Battery and Power

The battery has been pretty excellent, especially with the Sheet Battery add-on of course. I was surprised by the 4400mAh classification of the battery since even tablet computers are coming out with more than that on the regular – the new iPad has more than twice that power! But what do you know – this machine was able to work a day with low usage, no problem. Streaming video from the web out to an HDTV via HDMI without being plugged in resulted in a couple of 2 hour movies being played without needing to grab more power – twice as much with the battery add-on.

The ability to switch back and forth between setups for functionality or speed has been amazing – if this machine was meant for the greater consumer market, I’d suggest perhaps taking the gigantic physical switch and integrating it into the software, but because this machine is aimed at a specific market – those looking to switch rather often, the switch is excellent. It’s not especially beautiful, but it certainly does work.

Wrap-up

This ultraportable notebook is ready to be your general work machine all day long. Once again I must mention that it’s unassumingly styled, certainly not made to make anybody turn their heads in massive appreciation for the aesthetics of the casing itself, but it is ready to get the job done. There are so many lights flashing and notifying you of the functions of the beast within that you’ll know instantaniously that Sony didn’t waste any time trying to buff any shortcomings of the hardware out – it is what it is, and what it is is worth the cash you’re going to pay for it.

This machine is ready to be your 2012 summer season school driver, everyday Windows-based work driver, and web browser for any and all occasions. Grab the unit with any and all modifications you like from Sony’s online store for $779.99 at its least expensive. Shipping now!

Hardware

The first thing you’ll notice upon taking the Spectre out of its premium packaging (after sliding off the complimentary neoprene case) is a lid that isn’t so much glossy as glassy. Gorilla Glass, to be specific: not only does it cover the screen, you’ll also find it on the touchpad, palmrest and the jet-black lid of the laptop itself. While this is certainly a unique approach (and much appreciated on the screen and touchpad) it makes the lid a rather predictable magnet for fingerprints and smudges. If the Spectre catches your eye for its looks, be prepared to lug around a microfiber cloth to keep it attractive.

The rest of the body is either hard or soft-touch plastic, which helps keep the weight at least comparable to 13-inch ultrabooks. Like Dell’s XPS 13, the HP claims to cram a screen into a body one size smaller than otherwise possible. Observing the tiny bezel on either side of the Spectre(but not the top and bottom) it’s easy to believe them. Indeed, the screen is one of the laptop’smost impressive features: a full 1600×900 LCD  panel with downright dazzling brightness, I can say without hesitation that it’s one of the best laptop screens I’ve ever used.

Surprisingly, the keyboard and touchpad measure up to this high standard. While the keyboard isn’t the best (that honor still goes to Lenovo) it’s plenty comfortable for extended typing, and the backlight and full function row are welcome additions. The all-glass trackpad seems to have finally caught up with Apple’s lofty Macbooks: tracking, gestures and recessed clicks are as good as any Windows laptop I’ve ever used, and better than the vast majority.

Even with all this style and usability, HP manages to cram more ports into the Spectre 14 than any other ultrabook on the market. Along the left side you get an SD card slot (a feature all too often ignored in the form factor), a combined microphone/headphone port, one each of USB 2.0and 3.0 ports, an Ethernet jack, and both HDMI and DisplayPort video-out options. As a major advocate of multiple monitors, I appreciate the flexibility. On the right you get an analog rocker dial (a miniature version of the one found on the ENVY 15) with a glowing Beats logo, and a mute and Beats equalizer button on either side. A pair of indicator lights and the power jack round out the hardware.

The Envy 14 Spectre isn’t the slinkiest ultrabook around, or the lightest, or even the prettiest. But for a combination of great screen and trackpad, solid keyboard, and all the inputs and outputs you’re likely to need, it’s an excellently compact design. It’s the first ultrabook I’ve seen that could viably replace a full-sized laptop for all the functions one might need it, save heavy gaming or popping in a DVD.

Software

HP’s usual mess of packed-in software accompanies the Spectre, along with Norton, Microsoft’s Office, Silverlight and Bing Bar, and the HP MovieStore. But like the HP Envy 15, they’ve included both Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements free of charge (or more accurately, included in the price tag). As a regular user of both programs in their CS4 flavors, that’s a big plus, seeing as the bundle costs $150 at most retailers.

Otherwise Windows 7 Home Premium is the same as it ever was – if you’ve used any variant of Windows 7, you’ll be right at home. It is the 64 bit version, so if HP ever offers more than 4GB at the time of purchase you’ll be able to make use of it right out of the box. Aftermarket upgrades are neither supported nor recommended. As with just about any machine with a current-gen processor and plenty of RAM, the software is responsive and fast, at least on the “clean” installation.

Performance

The base Envy 14 Spectre that we tested comes with a 1.6Ghz Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of DDR3 memory and a 128GB SSD drive. This should be more than enough for everything but the most intensive of media tasks. No one’s been able to cram discrete graphics into an ultrabook form factor yet, so current high-end gaming is out, but the Intel HD 3000 series should handle older or simpler games well enough.

I did notice that the boot up time for the Spectre is downright amazing, even when compared with the rest of the ultrabook crop. From a cold boot (not sleep or hibernation) the machine gets to the Windows login screen in just over 25 seconds. Restores from sleep were basically instantaneous. For the road warrior who often needs quick access to the full power of a PC, that’s a godsend, and almost certainly thanks to a high-quality SSD, in this case made by Samsung.

If you want a more powerful option, the higher configuration currently offered by HP uses a Core i7 processor and a 256GB SSD, but the same 4GB of memory. If you want the faster processor and more space, you’d better be willing to pay for it: the higher tier is a $500 premium over the base model.

Media & Battery

The small form factor of the Envy obviously limits your options when it comes to disc-based media, but beyond that small limitation it’s an entertainment powerhouse. The combination of that fabulous screen, Beats audio, and powerful if not fantastic speakers make for an enjoyable experiences for streaming video and music. And for the constant traveler, having both DisplayPort and a full-sized HDMI-out really broadens your options for presentations of movies.

With that large, high-res screen and a relatively powerful processor, I was afraid that the Spectre would be yet another poor entry in the ultrabook battery department. Not so: across three separate tests with the screen at half brightness and doing my regular regimen of heavy browsing and emailing, I managed battery times of 6:23, 6:37 and 6:39. While not the best battery life out there by a long shot (that goes to HP’s own Folio 13) it’s plenty for a cross-continental plane trip or an extended session of work in a coffee shop devoid of outlets. On that note, HP continues to offer three-prong plugs in its adapters – a shame. But on the plus side, the adapter has a built-in USB charging port for giving your phone a jump without turning on the computer.

Wrap Up

Without a doubt, the HP Envy 14 Spectre is one of the best ultrabooks we’ve ever tested. Solid performance, unique style, plenty of inputs and a gorgeous high-resolution screen make it a joy to use. This is the first ultrabook that’s seriously tempted me to give up my hulking full-sized daily driver laptop, because there really are no compromises, so long as you can live without a disc drive and down’t mind giving the glass lid a wipe down every once in a while.

However, all this luxury and utility comes at a price – literally. At $1399, the Envy 14 Spectre is also the most expensive ultrabook we’ve tested, coming in far above the commonly expected $1,000 entry. It’s worth every penny, mind you – but you’ve got to have the pennies on hand, and be willing to put them towards a machine that you hope will last several years. With the current pace of advancement in the ultrabook form factor that may be  a hard pill to swallow. The Spectre is also considerably larger and thicker than its 13-inch contemporaries, though not to a degree that’ll make a huge difference in a carry-on bag.

The bottom line is this: there are thinner, lighter and perhaps more stylish options out there, and ultrabooks that can last longer without needing a charge. But if you like the looks of the Envy 14 Spectre, want a laptop that’s compact, flexible and has one of the best screens out there, and you’re willing to put down at least $1400 to get it, there’s nothing in my experience that should dissuade you. Spend your money, and you shall not be disappointed.

Check out the video hands-on below:

Hardware

For those of you wondering, this device goes by the code S3-951-6432. You’ll find that the display has a perfectly bright and sharp widescreen view for your gaming, processing, and video viewing needs, but beware the glossiness of the display if you’re planning on using this laptop outdoors. Of course you’re not the type of person to go galavanting around the park with a laptop, so you’ll only be worried about your ability to have a great experience on the run. This notebook is made for your ability to both carry it around all day and provide you the power you need to use it for all of your daily activities be you a student, a journalist, or a graphic designer, all the same.

The keyboard is one made for typing rather than gaming, and you’ll find that using the return key and the arrow keys will be a bit of a learning activity at first as they’re connected in space and not separated by the surrounding base of the notebook. On the back of the device you’ll find two USB 2.0 ports, a full-sized HDMI port, and your power port. On the right you’ll find a full-sized SD card port (that also has the ability to read MultiMediaCard (MMC) units) and on the left you’ll find a headphone jack. On the bottom left and right near the front of the laptop are speakers, each of them part of the Dolby-optimized speaker system which together create a surprisingly nice sounding experience for movie-watching especially.

On the other hand, don’t expect to watch a movie with a group of too many folks to you left or two your right as the viewing angles aren’t too fantastically great here. Watch the hands-on video to see a basic view of how far you’ll be able to see, but note that it’s certainly not more than 60 degrees in any direction from straight on. Straight on though, and inside everywhere 60 degrees looks just as bright and sharp as a Core i7 processor under the hood would suggest. I’ve heard reviewers speaking on how the color accuracy isn’t perfect, and I agree, but the difference between this display and a perfectly tuned display for graphic designers and photography majors is so small that I doubt anyone in the field will have a big issue. Those of you in the photography business should take note though – perfection is needed!

Inside you’ve got Bluetooth 4.0, the multi-gesture touchpad is precise and makes for an easy to control experience all around, and the webcam is alright – good enough for video chat certainly. You’ve got 3.86 GB DDR3 SDRAM at 666MHz controlled by your HD 3000 graphics control unit, and a partridge in a pear tree. And that’s just the hardware. The whole thing looks rather nice too, if you don’t mind the similarities to the rest of the ultra-thin super-powered notebook competition out there. Take a peek at this tower of laptops to see the difference between the units your humble narrator has been using lately – up top you’ve got an 11-inch MacBook Air, next the Acer Aspire S3, a MacBook Pro 15-inch, and a gigantic mother of an Alienware gaming notebook M17xR3 complete with lots o’ lights – each of these units has a different purpose, and the size shows their power here, as it were – note that the MacBook air is from a few years ago so isn’t as pumped up as the line is today, and you can check the Alienware machine in action back at Arkham City.

Software

You’ve got Windows 7 Home Premium right out of the box and Clear.fi for all your personal cloud needs. This machine is set to bring you a personal experience for, again, the student or the everyday average user – with the i7 under the hood you’ve got the ability to play some higher powered software if you wish, but for what the machine comes with – not one whole heck of a lot – you’ll be more than prepared to run the heck out of all of it. Take a peek at this hands-on with the machine and get a glimpse of how quick the machine starts up from being off completely, how the display looks, and the basic software set you’ll get with Windows 7 Home Premium.

Performance

You’re certainly going to see the S3 knocking out the benchmarks as any i7-toting machine should, and as far as the instant-on feature goes: it really truly does make the machine seem much higher class than previous models with a much slower wake-up time. This machine is speedy, hasn’t had a real rough time working with any of the built-in apps or functions it’s got out of the box, and is OK for some random gaming here and there. Again, this machine is by no means built for hardcore gamers, but if you’re just looking to play a racing game here and there, you’ll be set.

Battery

One of the most awesome bits in this machine’s bag of tricks is the Instant-On technology Acer is employing, this allowing you to pop your machine open and have it up and running in 2 seconds. The real magic here is when you close the notebook though, as once you’ve closed the machine it goes to one level of sleep, then after 8 hours it goes into a much deeper sleep which will preserve the battery for a total of 50 days — we’ve not had the machine for quite that long, so I’ll report in on that once the battery dies. Thus far we’ve seen this machine play video for 4 hours straight before dying, and with basic functions like typing and web browsing we’re seeing closer to 6.

Wrap-up

This machine is a great example of what the Ultrabook line is meant to be: relatively light, thin, and powerful enough to knock the netbook name out of the realm of reality. With the price on this particular setup being a bit more than the standard build, you’ll need to think about what you’re planning on using the machine for – if it’s home use for the internet and simple games exclusively, you’ll want the more basic Core i5 build. If you’re attempting to run some more impressive games and maybe a bit of the ol’ video processing, this i7 build is the one you want. Toss it in your backpack and be surprised at how little it ads to your daily weight, break it out at the coffee shop and impress the denizens of the generally Apple-heavy world of public browsing. Acer has come through with a winner here, folks, make no mistake about it.

Hardware

Not so long ago, HP was synonymous with cheap, bulky and entirely plastic machines that would crack and warp at the drop of the hat. But with the ENVY, EliteBook and now the Folio lines, they’re bucking the trend and bringing a little pride back to the old Hewlett Packard name. The Folio is neither the thinnest nor the lightest Ultrabook around, but when the difference is measured in millimeters and ounces, that doesn’t necessarily bother me. The screen lid and palmrest use a stylish brushed aluminum that looks good while keeping fingerprints mostly invisible, but the bezel and underside are soft-touch plastic, probably chosen to keep the weight down.

The Folio has a few touches that are nice to see on a notebook starting at just $900, particularly the backlit keyboard – a rare sight even in supposedly upmarket Ultrabooks. Since HP fancies this a business-class machine, that means comparing the keyboard to the best: Lenovo’s ThinkPads. While the short travel and slight flex of the keys don’t quite measure up to those lofty goals, it’s plenty comfortable even for extended typing, and the chicklet style makes it easy to care for. For those who place high importance on such a small detail (like yours truly) the Function key is to the right of the Control key, so you won’t have any trouble with the key combos stored in your muscle memory. The right shift key is also full-sized, unlike some Asus models.

The touchpad on the Folio deserves particular attention, because it’s the first all-in-one design I’ve seen that can hold a candle to the MacBook. While it’s not quite as easy to glide the cursor around due to a plastic construction, it’s still accurate and responsive. And, miracle of miracles, it’s the first PC touchpad with an integrated click that I’ve been able to reliably perform a triple-tap on, which defaults to the extremely useful middle-click command.

Ports on the Folio are a little lacking, but no more so than they are on competing models. On the left you get Ethernet, HDMI, USB 3.0 and an SD card slot, while on the right you get a spare USB 2.0 and a combined headphone/microphone port. Aside from that, the 13-inch 1366×768 screen and commendable Dolby speakers are the extent of the input/output options. Inside the base model features a Core i5 ULV processor, 4GB of DDR3 memory, Intel HD3000 integrated graphics and a 128GB solid state drive.

All of these are perfectly functional, and even pretty good values given the price – except for the screen. Ignoring for a moment that the only resolution option is the rather pedestrian 1366×768, the screen’s contrast is awful. Reading anything but black-on-white text it a chore, and I had to change the default Windows color scheme to something darker just to avoid straining my eyes. Considering the excellent LED screen on the ENVY 15, this is a major dissapointment. If the rest of the Folio’s charms lead you to consider a purchase, make sure and find one in a retail environment before laying down you cash, just to make sure you’re alright with the sub-par screen.

Software

The Folio 13 comes with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, in line with the “business Ultrabook” moniker. The laptop is surprisingly free of bloatware, choosing instead to display a few easily-deleted links on the desktop. You still get HP’s suite of built-in detritus, including a movie and game store, plus Microsoft’s ubiquitous Bing bar and Office trial. Norton anti-virus and Evernote are some you might actually want to hold on to, but for those who prefer a stock experience, it shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes or so to remove all the unwanted software. This is a much better state of affairs than you’ll find on many equivalent laptops, even in the “premium” space.

Performance

After loading up some of my proffered programs like Chrome, getting around the familiar Windows interface was easy and without issue. Though the screen was a problem, it’s more than mitigated by the Folio’s excellent battery life – more on that later. The little Folio’s specifications are more than enough to handle basic browsing, office and media tasks, and should do just fine with more advanced fare like Photoshop editing in a pinch – just don’t expect it to get 30 frames per second in Skyrim. But then, you’d never play on company time, would you?

Media & Battery

While the Folio lacks the Beats audio found on the ENVY line, the Dolby speakers that run between the hinges are more than loud enough to enjoy a movie comfortably between three or four people. Hi-fi they’re not (even if the rather fetching grille implies as such) but for a laptop, and especially one so small, they’re more than serviceable. With relatively little storage space and no DVD drive, you’ll have to rely on web video for most of your visual entertainment, and I’m sorry to say that the combination of low-bitrate video and a low-contrast screen is not a pleasant one. The reflective plastic finish doesn’t help, but it’s far from the worst that I’ve seen.

And now we come to the area where the Folio 13 absolutely shines: the battery. HP has made a point of extolling its 9-hour life in advertising, so I made sure to put the little laptop through its paces. I’m pleased to report that it broke the 8-hour mark in two tests and made it all the way to 9:15 on a third before dying. That’s almost exactly as much as my ThinkPad T420 with an extended 9-cell battery – that’s it dwarfing the Folio in the photo above. While there’s no replaceable battery option, this should be more than enough for anything short of a cross-continental flight. I performed my tests with 60% brightness and medium-to-heavy web browsing, with some Flash video thrown in – if you spend all your time on Netflix or YouTube, expect that figure to dip a bit.

Wrap-up

The Folio 13 is a good showing for HP, combining solid value, admirable build quality and excellent longevity into a package that’s only slightly bigger than other Ultrabooks. If you’re looking for an ultrabook that won’t have you scrambling for a power outlet, this is pretty much your only option at the moment – for an afternoon outing you can even leave the AC power adapter behind. The screen is an unfortunate fly in the ointment, but it’s counter-balanced by the best all-in-one touchpad I’ve ever used on the PC side of things. If you’ve got a budget that won’t stretch beyond a thousand dollars and a desire for all-day computing in a light package, the Folio might be the best in a field of one. That said, with all the Ultrabooks shown at CES 2012 (including HP’s own stunning ENVY 14 Spectre) you might wait a couple of months before making your final decision.

For a look at all the nooks and crannies, have a gander at our hands-on video below:

Hardware

The ENVY 15 shares a lot of design DNA with the rest of the line, and that means lots of metal and secondary utility as a blunt weapon. The typical high-class build quality is present in full force, with a new black-on-grey color scheme that’s accented with some red Beats trim. It would be almost impossible to forget the inspirations from Apple’s Macbook Pro line that defined the early ENVY models, but the latest seems to be finding a bit of its own identity. A depressed keyboard section and an analog audio dial inset into the body make for some unique and functional touches.

The laptop oozes quality and thoughtful touches almost everywhere. Beats-branded speakers above the keyboard and on the front edge are well-placed for music playback with the lid open or closed, and the backlit chicklet keyboard is large and solid enough to replicate desktop typing without any real difficulty. 3 USB ports and an SD card slot should be enough for most, but video out options are limited to HDMI and Display Port. That’s good for hooking up to a TV or brand-new monitors, but if you’ve got an older display you’re out of luck, since there’s no adapters included.

At 1.11 inches all the way through its metal frame, the laptop isn’t the smallest around, but it isn’t really trying to be. That large frame gets you a 2.4Ghz Core i5 processor, 6GB of RAM, a 1GB AMD Radeon 7690m graphics card and a 500GB traditional hard drive. That should be enough computing power to handle just about anything you can throw at it short of marathon HD encoding sessions. You’ll also get a slot-loading DVD drive, an increasingly rare commodity even in medium-sized laptops, and a user-accessible battery bay.

But the real showpiece for the ENVY 15 is the screen, an LED-backlit beauty at 1920×1080, showing a resolution usually reserved for 17-inch laptops into an economic glossy frame. That’s an extra $150 upgrade over the standard 1366×768 panel, and well worth it for anyone who wants a little breathing room fir Windows 7. Using the screen is an excellent experience even at low brightness, and makes text entry, games and video that much better. Colors pop and contrast is great, though those who tire of tiny text may need to fiddle with some settings to make reading more comfortable. The touchpad is decent, though HP still hasn’t got the hang of multi-touch gestures – it’s much easier to use a click-tap and manually drag a scroll bar than its two-finger equivalent.

Software

Our review unit came pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, the better to take advantage of the 6GB of RAM. If you’re considering the ENVY 15, odds are pretty good that you’re familiar with Windows 7, or at least competent enough in Windows Vista, so I won’t bore you with any rehashing. Bloatware is an unfortunate reality on the PC side of the computer divide, but with the ENVY line at least, HP has exercised some restraint. You get the standard trial edition of Office, a handful of hardware managers that basically just skin Windows’ default controls, Microsoft’s Games For Windows Marketplace, HP MovieStore, Norton Internet Security and a Bing plugin for your browser. All in all it could be worse – I’m in the habit of installing Windows fresh with any new machine, and I heartily recommend it to others. But if you’re disinclined to do so (it isn’t easy, since no one includes OS discs these days) it’s easy enough to get the ENVY 15 close to stock.

One thing you won’t want to remove is the Beats audio manager software, accessible by depressing the button built in to the analog dial. It instantly brings up an equalizer and other various settings, making a customized audio experience fast and easy, not to mention enjoyable with the supplied hardware. More on that later. Our review unit came with full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements. At the moment both of these programs are also free with the base model. That’s a great deal if you don’t already have an image and/or photo editor, and even if you don’t want them it’s hard to complain.

In general use, the additional software doesn’t interfere with my daily routine nearly as much as other laptops. The Norton Internet Security is enabled by default, but aside from the on-screen volume and brightness displays, it’s the only thing that’s visibly added to the system. All in all a commendable effort on HP’s part, though I add that any Windows computer should always come with a backup disc, which seems to be omitted here. I had a small issue with a lack of sound playback, which was solved quickly enough by installing the latest driver.

Performance

It’s a good time to be a hardware junkie. Even the cheapest Intel Core machine is leaps and bounds ahead of comparably priced equivalents from two or three years ago, and unless you’re doing massive amounts of compiling or rendering, you’ll never want for horepower on any new laptop. That said, here’s the scores for the ENVY 15.

Regular use, incluing some heavy Flash and Photoshop editing, showed no noticeable slowdown or degradation in performance. I popped in a copy of Batman: Arkham City just to try out the combination of the processor and AMD Radeon GPU. It’s a pretty game that takes advantage of all the latest graphical bells and whistles. When pumped up to full 1080p with all the settings maxed out, the in-game benchmark got around 12-14 frames per second. Dial it batch to 1600×900 with a few of the flashier settings disables, and you can get about 30 FPS. Drop the resolution to 1366×768 (which is all you’d get in similarly priced laptops) and you can get as much as 50 frames per second.

Based on this I’d say you can play just about any recent game comfortably without a problem, so long as you take it easy on the graphical flair. Older favorites like Team Fortress 2 or World of Warcraft should absolutely fly, and look great doing so.

Media & Battery

The ENVY 15 is built for media consumption. Those Beats logos aren’t just for show: the speakers are louder and clearer than any I’ve ever used, including the Macbooks that the ENVY wants to be so much when it grows up. The quick access to a physical volume dial and virtual equalizer combined with an extra headphone-out port make this a perfect laptop for listening to and sharing music. And with that lovely screen and DVD drive (sadly no Blu-ray option is offered) it’s a great movie machine as well.

Just don’t plan on watching the extended version of Lord of the Rings. Though HP claims up to a 9 hour battery life, I was never able to get more than 3 hours and 45 minutes while doing basic WiFi Internet browsing with the screen at about half brightness. The “power saver” mode seems to do a little better, and I dare say with conservative use and a few tricks (like disabling the petty Aero effects in Windows) you might stretch it as high as five. It’s a disappointing statistic in a laptop of this size and weight, and you’ll probably feel the need to stash the large AC adapter in your bag for anything more than coffee shop surfing session.

Wrap Up

Is the ENVY 15 as good as the 15-inch MacBook Pro? No. But considering that for the hardware that we tested you’d have to spend nearly $2000 on an Apple machine, it doesn’t have to be. If you find yourself spending most of your computer time within the reach of an AC outlet, it’s tough to beat for power and media capabilities. I wish it was a little lighter and lasted a little longer, but as a desktop replacement and media consumption/creation specialist, you’d be hard-pressed to find anything with these kinds of specs, fit and finish in this price range.

If you’re looking to replace an older mid-sized laptop with a solid machine that’ll fly through basic tasks and give some great music and video playback, it would be hard to find a better choice at $1250. Just don’t buy the ENVY 15 expecting a featherweight road warrior.

UPDATE: At the behest of some of the commenters, I investigated the switchable graphics with respect to battery life. This necessitated going into the BIOS and setting the graphics to a manual switch, since the option doesn’t appear in any of the ENVY’s standard settings menus. (it might be possible to set this with a newer version of Catalyst Control Center, but it wasn’t accessible from the stock software.) Under the default Dynamic setting, it’s supposed to automatically switch to the Intel integrated graphics when the high-powered Radeon isn’t necessary - apparently the software wasn’t activating correctly. When the Intel integrated graphics were activated manually, I got 5 hours and 14 minutes out of the ENVY 15 running the same test. That’s not a marathon machine by any means, but it opens up a lot more options for extended portable use.

For a better look at the HP ENVY 15′s hardware, check out our unboxing video below:

Hardware

This machine is nowhere near as light as the MacBook Air, and is not nearly as unique looking as the Alienware M17x (or the smaller 15), but you’re not in this for Apple or for light-up keys and gaming prowess, are you? You want a Lenovo laptop, and because you’ve been more than satisfied with the U260 IdeaPad you purchased at the start of 2011, you assume that this new much more powerful device will bump you up in every way. What you might want to consider though, in that case, is that the casing on this device isn’t the same super soft rubbery-like plastic you got with the U260 series, instead its a cold, smooth, silvery aluminum that’ll stick to your tongue if you’ve just gotten it in from the UPS truck – that’s a true story right there – believe it!

You will notice though that the same styling is essentially here, what with the slightly extended top and bottom around the sides toting a couple of USB 2.0 ports, one 3.0 port, DVD drive, HDMI, headphone jack, OneKey Recovery button, ethernet port, and power port. In this way, the whole notebook looks like a real paper and pages notebook, if you’ve never seen a modern Lenovo laptop before, and the feel of holding said computer is ever-so-slightly unique. As for the rest of the specifications, have a look at this readout and know the truth:

The full metal jacket on the outside and the in is a welcome change from the plastic interiors of past Lenovo notebooks, feeling much more like a high-end notebook than ever before. The “Intelligent” glass touchpad is both responsive and easy to use, and the keyboard is spaced in a way that allows typing at high speeds, especially if you’re used to using either an Apple notebook or another Lenovo. Like all keyboards both attached and detached from their computers, I suggest heading to your local Best Buy (or other store that might have this device out for demo use) to see how the unit feels as your fingers fly across it with the greatest of ease.

Software

You’re using Windows 7 Home Premium here out of the box, but with the Intel Core i5 chipset sitting on the inside of this beast, you’ll be fine running whatever system you like as well as whatever set of games you like, no troubles. Of course this isn’t the absolute top of the line machine when it comes to godly gaming (again, that’s the Alienware machine seen above), but it’ll have no qualms with running each of the big-name games announced throughout this holiday season we’re in here at the end of 2011. There’s a row of shortcut buttons that work with Windows 7 to do things like turn your microphone off and on and grab instant access to display options, each of these working just as well as the rest of the hardware, without a hitch.

Have a peek at this Geekbench benchmark and note how it racks up against the rest of the laptops we’ve reviewed recently – for example the Acer Timeline X AS5830TG-640 which has a Core i5 processor, a 15.6-inch display, and a $799.99 price tag. There’s also the Toshiba Satellite P745-S4250 14-inch display having Core i5 toting notebook for $779.99, complete with a big ‘ol TOSHIBA brand across the back. Don’t forget the 13-inch MacBook Air with a Core i5 processor and the thinnest profile on the market for a cool $999. And if you’re in the market for one Lenovo or the other, there’s also the IdeaPad Z370, a Core i5 processor toting 13.3-inch notebook for $622. Again remember the price on the 14-inch display toting Intel Core i5 chip equipped IdeaPad we’re looking at right this second runs in at $1,299.00 USD. Have a look at the Geekbench results from this big shooter:

Usability

After a full charge and some streaming video playing a bit before some everyday average gaming, this computer lasted somewhere around 4 hours without needing a boost, just like Lenovo quotes in their promotional material for this device. While this would seem a bit disappointing to those of you out there in super battery land on your MacBooks, it should be noted that the time is far expanded should you choose to do normal “student” activities such as word processing and web browsing – more than enough to get you through a class or two.

Because the build, look, and feel of this and a wide variety of notebook computers on the market right this moment largely run right alongside one another, it’ll really come down to your preference in details such as key shape, materials in the case, and weight in this unit. While you won’t find just one whole heck of a lot of difference between this and the rest of the so-called “ultraportable” classification of computers on the market today, I will let you know that this isn’t the least likely notebook I’d think about bringing with me to a coffee shop, classroom, or a press event where I’d have to rely on it to move quickly and act no less than perfectly responsibly.

Wrap-Up

For those of you with a specific use-case in mind, be sure to comment below and I’ll let you know if I think this computer is the one for you or not. For me, it’s simply not the perfect combination of thin, light, and powerful. While it does have the awesome power of the Intel Core i5 chipset, it’s not going to beat an Alienware notebook at home for gaming for a rather comparable price. For heading out of the house to publish some stories or work with video, I can’t imagine replacing me MacBook Pro with this – even though the 15-inch Pro I’m working with weighs more and has more bulk in it in the end.

If you’re looking to upgrade from another Lenovo notebook, this is your winner. Like I said earlier in this review, if you’re coming off of one of Lenovo’s rubbery-topped models like the U260, you might find yourself wishing you still had that grip on the outside – but inside you’ll be glad you’ve now got the class that comes with metal. This computer is by no means less than classy when it comes to the whole package, exterior aesthetics and all, and with results in benchmarks that top the whole first half of 2011′s collection of notebooks made by all manner of manufacturers, this notebook certainly isn’t a bad buy. For the $1k+ cash I’d drop on this machine though, I’d rather just have another Apple.

Hardware

Though I’ve got a couple of compatible Motorola devices to test with the Lapdock, unless otherwise noted I’ll be working with the ATRIX 2, a device that either also is or will be soon posted on SlashGear in a full review as well. One of the most instantly apparent differences between this Lapdock and the one that came out earlier this year with the original ATRIX is the amount of devices that are compatible. This new round of Webtop Laptops has a cord that plugs into the microHDMI/microUSB port combo that the newest round of Motorola smartphones have, and contrary to what we saw at the DROID RAZR release, the device doesn’t then just have to sit on the table. Instead, as you can see, there’s a rubbery-material-coated opening behind the display, right above the cord, that allows you to pocket whichever smartphone you’ve got plugged in.

Thusly this Lapdock can hold and work with the ATRIX 2, DROID BIONIC, DROID RAZR*, Photon, ELECTRIFY, and future Webtop devices as well, though Motorola is only really promoting the Lapdock 100 as working with the Photon and RAZR for now. Make sure to bring your device in to wherever the Lapdock 100 is up and functioning in the store to check it out OR ask about your device specifically wherever you plan on purchasing it. Make sure!

UPDATE: The DROID RAZR certainly works with this Lapdock, but because it is such a thin device, it doesn’t sit properly in the rubber pocket in back. You’ll just have to have it rest on the table politely.

The Lapdock 100 is not a replacement for the laptop or desktop computer you already own. Instead, if I may be so bold, it’s an introduction of a new device that will have you considering how, when, and why you might want to use it for an amount of time before it’s able to be worked into your daily workflow (or playflow, if you prefer.) The closest device category to this, in my opinion, is the keyboard dock for attaching to a tablet. While Webtop is an interesting take on how Android can be utilized in the desktop space, it appears at the moment just to be a slight extension of what Android looks like on a Motorola smartphone. We’ll talk about that in a moment in the software section.

The laptop itself has the look of a device conceived of by designers who wanted to create something new rather than creating another flat plain slab as many laptop-making manufacturers have been prone to do as of late. It’s dark gray hard plastic and has a lovely incline which allows for the speakers to sit under the tent that is the near-back-end of the device. There’s two full-sized USB ports in the back for things like mice and USB storage sticks. There’s also a power port back there that’ll work with the cord you’ve been given in the package, and there’s a simple lock-hole on the left of the device so you can secure it at an event (or in your dorm room, if that’s your deal.)

The keyboard has your regular full QWERTY set of keys plus volume keys, light and dark buttons for the display, play, next, back, and the Android home row of buttons that you’ve been seeing on your smartphones since the beginning: Home, Search, Menu, and Back. The keyboard itself has no space between any of the keys, making for a compact situation when typing. Because I’m used to a full-sized keyboard with a significant amount of space between each key, typing on this Lapdock doesn’t feel as natural as it should – but it’s not impossible.

Similarly the touchpad below the keyboard works alright, but isn’t up to par with that of your fully-functional laptop. It works, but it can get a bit clumsy if you’re attempting to do something like play Angry Birds. That said, this Lapdock certainly isn’t made to make your gaming experience any easier unless you’re looking to play Zynga games and games from Kongregate, both environments available and fully functional via the full Firefox web browser.

The speakers on this device, though they sit below the back and outward in a unique fashion, do not add up to full-fledged laptop speakers. The MacBook Air (which you see toting a SPECK cover in the photo above,) has speakers that blow the Lapdock 100 away. Similarly, though Motorola isn’t quite being specific with consumers about the display, I can say very unscientifically that it’s OK but by no means great. Viewing angles are at 90 degrees before getting a bit washed out, and again this is simply no match for any of the current MacBook range.

Software

Firefox comes pre-installed and works just as well as you’d expect your Firefox browser to work in any environment, and therein lies one of the true strengths of this device. Like what you’d do with something like a Chromebook, you’ll more than likely gravitate toward the browser for most of your work and play here with the Lapdock as not just one whole heck of a lot of other apps work in the Webtop world. You can, however, also open your Android phone window up to full screen and essentially turn your smartphone into a non-touch tablet with a keyboard.

Webtop on the Lapdock will be used by those looking to see what’s possible with their Motorola phone, but unless they’re looking to make an extra effort to convert themselves to a whole new slightly slower functioning landscape here with this new piece of hardware, I can’t see anyone but Motorola super-fans being absolutely satisfied with this device. Webtop works to make Android appear to be much closer to a desktop operating system like Mac OS X, but because it’s so similar, it feels like its lacking.

The best use of Webtop here on the Lapdock 100 is to make a phone call while browsing the web. You can also do some quick texting with your keyboard while listening to music, and you can watch a movie on the 10.1-inch “high resolution” screen. The thing with this device is that it’s limited only by the device that you plug into it. It doesn’t work with just any ol’ device, you’ll have to have a Motorola Webtop-enabled device to use it, but it is truly the smartphone you’re working with here simply transformed by the bigger bit of hardware.

Wrap-Up

Do yourself a favor and try the Lapdock 100 out before purchasing it. It’s certainly not for everyone, but if you are planning on picking up one of Motorola’s many new Webtop-enabled smartphones in the near future, it is a neat option to have. Note that because you can also access Webtop from any display so long as you’ve got the right Motorola dock, this Lapdock offers just the ability to work in a mobile way where a dock would require you to use a separate stationary display.

This Lapdock works with most Webtop-enabled Motorola devices and is set to “likely” be working with future Motorola Webtop devices as well. Have a look above and below at the hands-on video and photos and feel free to ask any questions you might still have about the Lapdock below.

Hardware and Design

Chromebooks are built to a budget – Samsung is offering the Series 5 in the US at $429.99 for the WiFi-only and $499.99 for the 3G version, while in the UK it’s £349.99 for the WiFi-only model and £399.99 for the 3G – and so you get a mixture of laptop and notebook functionality and style. Our white review unit is eye-catching, certainly, with a glossy lid and gently rounded black plastic elsewhere. Stylistically it reminds us of the N310 netbook, though we wish the rubberized chassis had been carried over too.

Open the thin lid up, and there’s a reasonably sized bezel around the 12.1-inch 16:10 display. Samsung has used one of its so-called SuperBright LED panels, running at 1280 x 800, and we can’t fault the quality or colors; it’s also non-gloss, which makes it easy to use without reflections. Above is a 1-megapixel webcam. The whole thing weighs in at 3.26-pounds, which makes it heavier than a netbook but reasonable for a notebook.

The keyboard and oversized touchpad look somewhat cheap but are decent to type on, the keys themselves being large and nicely spaced. Cost constraints mean you don’t get backlighting. Because of the new Chrome OS the layout is somewhat different to what you might be used to on a Windows or OS X notebook: “ctrl” and “alt” in the lower left are broader than normal, the caps-lock has been swapped for a dedicated Google search key, and the function key row has been replaced by feature buttons. As well as dedicated back/forward keys, there’s a refresh button, full-screen button, window-switching, brightness and volume control.

We may be expected to start our new lives scurrying around the internet pipes, but Samsung and Google do at least realize that we still have peripherals we might want to plug in. Ports on the Series 5 include a proprietary VGA out (with a bundled adapter cable in the box) and two full-sized USB 2.0, along with a mic/headphones combo, a SIM slot (with a Three SIM preloaded) and a full-sized SD card reader. No ethernet port, however, with WiFi b/g/n or, on certain models, 3G to get you connected.

Inside is where things get shaky. The Chromebook Series 5 may be larger than a netbook, but it uses the same Intel Atom processor as you might find in one: a 1.66GHz N570, to be precise, paired with integrated graphics and 2GB of RAM. Samsung’s speakers are weedy and underwhelming too, lacking bass and grating at the top end of the volume range. 16GB of flash storage underlines the web-centric focus.

Overall, then, it all works, but it doesn’t exactly feel premium. That’s okay when you’re spending a couple of hundred on a netbook, but the Chromebook Series 5 occupies the blurred middle-ground between netbook and notebook. It’s a space where strong competition has driven regular Windows laptop prices down to tempting levels.

Software

The browser is undoubtedly the most commonly-used app on most people’s computers these days, so Google’s argument makes quite a bit of sense: why not junk the rest and just live online? Chromebooks promise resilience from viruses and malware – because just about everything is held at bay in the cloud – and utter simplicity, too. If something stops working then you close the browser tab and start again.

For those suffering the blue screen of death or Word disappearing and taking their carefully-crafted thesis with them, that all sounds tempting. Even if you’re an adept computer user yourself, you probably have friends and family who aren’t so skilled, and who likely turn to you for their unofficial tech support. Wouldn’t it be better to point them to a Chromebook and let them scamper freely across the web?

In some ways, yes. Chrome is familiar from the regular browser already available for Windows and Mac, only now you can’t escape it: Chrome OS has no Start menu or dock bar, no way to minimize the app and see the desktop. In fact, Chrome is the desktop. Where a Windows user might expect to find minimize/maximize and close controls in the top right corner, there’s a clock, wireless indicator and battery gage. The settings icon to the right of the address bar now not only controls browser configuration but the few options Chrome OS allows you: user accounts, touchpad sensitivity, wireless networks and the like.

Go to Gmail, or YouTube, or Google Docs and it’s just as you’d expect from your regular computer. Your bookmarks – if you’re a regular Chrome user – are pulled across too. In fact, if you’ve already committed your online life to Google’s various services, getting up to speed is a simple matter of mashing in your password. Various optional apps bring things like IM+ (for instant messaging), TweetDeck (for Twitter) and Angry Birds (for, well, hurling birds) into your life.

Unfortunately, around about here is where things start to go rough at the edges. Angry Birds may be a suggested game in the Chrome App Store, but it doesn’t play nicely with the Atom CPU. Glitchy graphics are something we didn’t expect to see on a title that plays problem-free on our phone. Full HD YouTube videos were also more than the Series 5 could cope with, though 720p was manageable. Other cloud services – like Spotify, for instance – fall foul of the missing local app support; their music catalogs may be online, but they require a local client in order to access them.

Then come the headaches of trying to step outside Google’s garden. Plugging in a mouse or a USB keyboard is fine, but try to access files on a USB stick or SD card and there are headaches galore. Some of those are merely UI head-scratchers – dragging & dropping may be a common practice on regular notebooks, but try to drag a file from your Chromebook to the little file explorer window that pops up when you plug external storage in and you’ll have no luck; instead, you have to save the file through the browser’s dialog – but others are more frustrating. The range of supported local file types is limited – JPG and PNG for images, MP3 and M4A for audio, MP4 and MOV for video – whereas Google’s online services like Gmail can handle a broader range. Ironically we often resorted to emailing a file back to ourselves so that Google’s online file viewer could display it.

Connectivity

If you want the cloud then you need a connection. Google was much maligned when Chrome OS first launched – on the Cr-48 developer machine – for the absence of offline support. Gmail, Google Calendar, your Google Contacts, everything demanded access to the internet in order to work. If you didn’t have a WiFi network handy or a 3G mobile connection, then your Chromebook was pretty much useless.

Google’s recent update to Gmail, Calendar and Docs, adding offline support, has partially addressed that. Just as in the regular Chrome browser, it’s now possible to cache certain aspects of each service locally, so that even without a connection you can continue to work. In the case of Gmail, that means you can browse through anything up to a week’s worth of messages in your inbox, assign labels and stars, create new emails and reply to existing ones. They’re saved until you next get online, when Gmail can sync again.

Calendar support is less flexible, allowing you to view your appointments and send schedule acceptances, but not actually create a new appointment. Similarly, Google Docs will let you read text and spreadsheets when offline, but you can’t create new ones or edit any existing ones. Presentations are completely inaccessible: forget running your next meeting from your Chromebook if you can’t get online while you’re there.

Altogether, it means the 3G-enabled version of the Samsung Series 5 makes a whole lot more sense than the WiFi-only model, unless you know for certain you’ll only be using it amid blanked WiFi coverage. Whereas integrated 3G is generally a luxury in a notebook, for a Chromebook it can be the difference between being able to work or being sat in front of a “can’t connect” message. In our test unit, Three UK charges £15.99 per month for 15GB of data, a healthy amount; in the US, Verizon offers 100MB per month free (for two years) or various prepay plans ranging from daily to monthly. Bear in mind you’re browsing the full internet, however, not some cut-down mobile version on your phone, and as such general use will consume more MB than you might expect.

Battery

Google and Samsung’s decision to use Intel’s Atom processor is, in part, because of the promise of longer battery life. The spec sheet promises up to 8.5hrs from the non-user-accessible 8,280 mAh pack; in practice, with a WiFi connection, we managed over seven hours of use before we needed to recharge. Of particular note are the standby times, with very little power used up between us closing the lid and opening it later.

Wrap-Up

In many ways the Samsung Chromebook Series 5 – and indeed Chromebooks in general – makes perfect sense. Being able to throw open the lid of your notebook and get online in seconds, with little in the way of config or battery concerns, is a liberating experience. The Samsung design isn’t going to give Apple any sleepless nights, but it delivers in most of the places it matters: the keyboard, the display, the battery.

Unfortunately it also drops the ball when it comes to power, and the Atom processor proves incapable of handling even Chrome OS’ constrained list of applications. Google’s offline support, though recently improved, still makes connectivity assumptions that our daily use couldn’t live up to. With no WiFi or mobile signal the Series 5 was of less use than our smartphone.

Chrome OS has promise, certainly. A simple platform for everyday users remains a tempting prospect; unfortunately, those we gave the Chromebook to in order to test the theory generally came back with questions about file support and other issues. In short, the problems had migrated from over-complexity in a regular notebook to under-complexity in the Samsung. We spend a lot of our time in the browser, yes, but not all of it, and ironically Chrome OS does a very good job of reminding us of that fact. If it was priced to suit its part-time companion functionality – perhaps a hundred or so less off the MRSP – then it would make far more sense. As it stands, though, we’d still opt for a regular notebook over Chrome OS.

Hardware

The Aspire Ethos 5951G sports a black metal lid with subtle striations for a finish that’s sleek and sophisticated. Opening it up, you’ll find the same material used as the bed for the chiclet style keyboard. The black isolated keys are backlit and have a very reassuring resistance about them that provides a solid and comfortable typing experience.

The palm rest area is all black as well but is a matted surface that seems fingerprint-proof, which will keep it looking nice and grease-free. There’s a fingerprint reader located at the right side of this area, but what really stands out is the removable trackpad.

The trackpad has a nice smooth finish with a satin sheen that helps prevent fingerprint smudges. It can be removed with the push of a latch and used as a remote control. It’s completely black, save for a small blue LED indicator light and a slightly indented button area, but once the button is pressed, backlit media control touch icons appear, including play/pause, forward, backward, volume, as well as Video and Music launchers. It’s really convenient, but also seems easy to lose.

Above the keyboard, the Dolby Home Theater enhanced speaker spans across the entire width with the power button just above it to the right and three shortcut keys to the left. And looking up from there is the 15.6-inch HD 16:9 widescreen LCD display with WXGA (1280 x 768) resolution. There’s also a standard embedded webcam and mic.

Inside, it’s powered by the latest Intel Core i7-2630QM quad-core processor, clocking in at 2.0GHz and up to 2.9GHz with Intel’s Turbo Boost technology, along with an NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M graphics. It has 6GB of DDR3 SDRAM, supporting up to 16GB with 4 memory slots, and also has 2GB of dedicated DDR3 SDRAM for the GPU. It packs a 750GB (5400RPM) HDD, plenty of storage for all your multimedia files and also offers a Blu-ray disc drive.

Connectivity options include WiFi and Bluetooth 3.0 along with ports for RJ-45 Ethernet, HDMI, three USB 2.0 ports with one being an eSATA combo port, one USB 3.0, VGA, and a built-in memory card reader.

Software & Performance

The Acer Aspire Ethos 5951G comes running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and includes Microsoft Office Starter 2010, Silverlight, Skype, Windows Live Essentials 2011, Bing Bar, Adobe Flash Player 10, Adobe Reader 91 and several Acer-specific apps and utilities such as Backup Manager, ePower Management, eRecovery Management, Crystal Eye, and Video Conference Manager. But none of this seems to bog down the system, which has some rather impressive benchmark scores.

Using the GeekBench 2011 synthetic benchmarking tool, we found that the Aspire Ethos 5951G scored a blazing fast 11,010. That sets the 5951G with its 2.0GHz Intel Core i7-2630QM slightly ahead of the latest Intel Core i7-2720QM-toting MacBook Pro, which scored an already impressive 10,932. It also put’s it way ahead of its 18.4-inch brother, the 8951G, which also sports a Core i7-2630QM, but scored only 7,301.

The display quality was excellent although viewing angles could be improved. Colors get a bit muted once you move from being in a direct line of sight. However, the audio quality was superb with a wide soundstage, good bass response, and crisp dialogue.

Battery

Battery life for the Aspire Ethos 5951G is rated for up to 7 hours, running on an 8-cell 6000mAh Lithium-Ion battery. Our testing of it, which involved playing a DVD at 100 percent brightness and audio, after one hour showed 78 percent battery remaining. That translates to roughly 4.5 hours of total battery life under this type of usage. Regular email and web browsing should yield much better results.

Wrap-Up

The Acer Aspire Ethos 5951G is a premium entertainment, multimedia, and gaming notebook that offers sophisticated styling, a solid build, and superb performance. It sports a Blu-ray drive, excellent sound quality, and boasts a unique removable multi-touch trackpad that doubles as a remote control, adding convenience as well as a “cool” factor. There’s not too much we can pick on about the laptop, except that perhaps it’s still not quite as portable as its 15.6-inch size might suggest. While it’s definitely more portable than the 18.4-inch 8951G, it still weighs a hefty 7.28 lbs—not something you’d want to be lugging around town. But as a home or dorm entertainment, internet, work, and play hub it’ll shine. Priced at $1,399.99.

Hardware

The Charcoal Brown Z370 model we have sports a dark glossy top lid with a subtle holographic pattern and a silver Lenovo logo. The act of lifting open the lid is surprisingly pleasant. Perhaps it’s the combination of good hinges and a very thin lid in contrast to a hefty bottom. Whatever it is, it opens smoothly and closes just as nicely, snapping down by itself towards the end.

The keyboard and palm rest areas are a continuous surface with a brushed gunmetal material with a slight purple hue. The surface sinks down slightly for the chiclet style keyboard, but these aren’t your typical isolated keys. They have a unique shape with a slightly contoured bottom edge. They are not backlit though, but the physical power button and five capacitive touch controller buttons above the keyboard are.

The five controls include mute, volume up, volume down, display setting, and thermal control setting. The display control allows you to choose between three settings of Normal, Movie, and Intelligent, while the thermal control lets you choose between four settings of Standard, Super Silent, Efficient Thermal Dissipation, and Dedusting. Other items along this area above the keyboard include two speakers, a physical reset button, and three LED status indicators.

The trackpad has a rough texture almost like sandpaper that takes getting used to. This is supposedly for more accurate tracking, but is not as comfortable to use. The multitouch pad supports two-finger scrolling and pinch-to-zoom, while a smooth horizontal button below supports right- and left-clicking.

The 13.3-inch backlit LED display with a 1366 x 768 resolution has a glossy black bezel with an embedded 2-megapixel webcam. In daylight conditions, the camera takes nice crisp images, but in lower light conditions, the camera is pretty useless.

When it comes to connectivity, the Z370 offers two USB 2.0 ports, one USB/eSATA port, HDMI, Ethernet, VGA, Bluetooth 2.1, and Wi-Fi. For multimedia, there is a DVD optical drive as well as an SD card slot. Other ports include your standard slot for use with a security cable lock and your microphone and headphone jacks.

Software & Performance

The Lenovo Z370 laptop comes running Windows 7 Home Premium along with Microsoft Office Starter and a 60-day free trial of McAfee VirusScan Plus. It’s also preloaded with various utilities, including Lenovo’s Veriface face-recognition software, Direct Share, and OneKey Rescue & Recovery.

The Z370 configuration we have sports a 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-2410M processor with 4GB of RAM and boasts some decent performance numbers. Using the synthetic benchmarking tool from Geekbench, the Z370 scored a 6441, which is slightly above average for a laptop of this category and shows that it will support most all your multimedia, multitasking, and gaming needs.

The two large stereo speakers with Dolby Advanced Audio that are built-in at the top corners of the keyboard produce decent quality sound for a laptop at this budget. The sound is loud, clear, and full enough to enjoy your multimedia needs such as streaming music, watching online videos, or playing DVDs. Lenovo’s Upgraded OneKey Theater II button also makes it easy to adjust the display and audio for an optimized movie viewing experience.

Battery

Sporting a 6-cell replaceable Lithium-Ion battery, the Z370 has a battery life rated for up to 5 hours. In our testing, which involved playing a DVD on the “Movie” display setting with 100 percent volume, there was still about 72 percent battery remaining after an hour in. That translates to about 3.5 hours, which is enough to get you through two movies while on the go and away from an outlet. Regular email and web browsing usage should yield better results.

Wrap-Up

The Lenovo Z370 packs great performance in a small package with the latest Intel Core i5-2410M CPU with integrated Intel HD 3000 GPU. It’s not targeting business use, especially with its flashy design option in blue, but that doesn’t mean it can’t handle all your work and multitasking needs. It’s 13.3-inch size makes it nice and portable but it is a bit thick and hefty. Also, the battery life is a bit lacking compared to other laptops in this category. Overall build quality and finish looks solid and for a price at around $629, it’s definitely worth considering.

Hardware

The specific configuration we have with model number L755D-S5204 comes with an AMD Fusion (aka Llano) quad-core A6-3400M processor. Various Intel processors are available in other configurations of the series. The A6-3400M clocks in at 2.3GHz and is paired with AMD’s Radeon HD 6520G Graphics. The laptop also has 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz RAM, a 640GB HDD with 5400 RPM, and a DVD SuperMulti optical disk drive.

As for the exterior, our model has a brushed aluminum blue that looks very stylish and sleek. It has a slight sheen and is smooth and cool to the touch, while the underside of the laptop is a textured black plastic material. The laptop is also available in four other colors with a Fusion Matrix pattern, including brown, silver, white, graphite, and red.

The same blue-colored brushed aluminum found on the lid continues onto the palm rest area where there is a multitouch trackpad that supports pinch, swipe, rotate, and scroll gestures and includes physical left- and right-click buttons as well. The black keyboard is not chiclet-style, but it does sport a full 10-key numeric keypad to the right. Above the keyboard are two standard stereo speakers with Dolby Advanced Audio.

The 15.6-inch TruBrite LED backlit display supports 720p HD and has a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio with a 1366 x 768 resolution. Embedded in the bezel is a standard webcam and mic for video chatting.

As for connectivity and ports, the L755D-S5204 features WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0, an RJ45 Ethernet port, two regular USB 2.0 ports, and one special USB 2.0 port that supports Toshiba’s Sleep-and-Charge feature. This functionality lets users charge other devices via USB through the laptop without needing to power on the laptop. Additionally, it has a slot for a security lock cable, microphone and headphone jacks, and a built-in SD memory card reader.

Unboxing & Hands-on Video

Software & Performance

As for software, the L755D-S5204 runs Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) and comes with the Microsoft Office Starter 2010 bundle as well as the Microsoft Windows Live essentials like Photo Gallery, Messenger, Mail, Writers, and Movie Maker. It also has a slew of preloaded applications that add a bit more bloat, including Toshiba Face Recognition, Toshiba Upconvert, Toshiba App Place, Toshiba Bulletin Board, and Toshiba Service Station, to name a few.

Using the synthetic benchmarking tool Geekbench to measure the laptop’s performance, we found that the L755D-S5204 scored only 3826. This is a bit disappointing and somewhat noticeable. Booting up took quite some time, while playing a DVD showed some initial lag and jitters.

Video quality was decent and the large 15.6-inch screen provides a comfortable viewing experience but viewing angles are not so good. Slightly tilting the display up and down or sitting off-center shows some color distortion. Audio quality is average and leans towards the quiet side.

Battery

The L755D-S5204 has a surprisingly short battery life with its 48Wh 6-Cell Lithium-Ion battery. Sporting an AMD A6 accelerated processor that’s supposedly superior in energy efficiency, the laptop somehow ended up with a battery rating of only up to 3 hours and 56 minutes. Other models in the series with Intel processors are interestingly rated at up to 5.7 hours. We got similar numbers with our own casual battery test, which involved playing a DVD at 100% brightness and 100% volume on the higher consumption power management mode called “Balance” —as opposed to the energy saving mode called “Eco.” About an hour into the movie, the laptop was down to 61% remaining battery life.

Wrap-Up

The Toshiba Satellite L755D-S5204 looks sophisticated in its brushed aluminum skin, but underneath it’s not nearly as refined. After all it is a budget-friendly 15.6-inch laptop priced at $548. Its AMD A6-3400M processing performance is a bit disappointing and so is its weak battery life. Capable of only under 4 hours of unplugged operation, it’s not an ideal on-the-go laptop, but it could find a place as a desktop replacement.

However, if a desktop replacement is what you’re really looking for, another Toshiba Satellite L series configuration such as the L775D-S7206 may be a better option. For roughly $150 more, you get a larger 17.3-inch screen, the same AMD quad-core processor, a Blu-ray drive, and slightly improved battery life. There are also other Intel Core processor configurations in the L750 lineup that could be better alternatives.

Hardware

The series comes in configurations with either the latest Intel Core processors or with an AMD A6-3400M processor. Our P745-S4250 model is configured with an Intel Core i5-2410M with Mobile Intel HD Graphics. The processor clocks in at 2.3GHz and can go up to 2.9GHz with Intel’s Turbo Boost technology. The laptop also boasts 6GB of DDR3 1333MHz RAM, a 750GB HDD with 5400 RPM, and a DVD SuperMulti optical disk drive.

The P745-S4250 comes in what’s branded by Toshiba as a Fusion X2 Finish in Platinum, and it is essentially gray with three-dimensional striations. The surface texture is stylish but also allows for a better non-slip grip on the laptop. However, the majority of the laptop is plastic, allowing for a lot of flex in the display, making it feel flimsy and a tad on the cheap end.

The same finish on the lid can be found on the palm rest where there is a multitouch trackpad that supports pinch, swipe, rotate, and scroll gestures and includes two physical buttons as well. The finish also continues through the keyboard area where there are black chiclet-style isolated keys that look slick and the typing experience feels solid. However, the two physical trackpad buttons could use less resistance, as they are quite straining to press and the rough texture of the trackpad may provide more accurate tracking but is also less comfortable to use.

There is an extra row of touch-sensitive buttons above the keyboard for shortcut keys and multimedia controls. Flanking both sides of this top row are Harmon/Kardon stereo speakers, which utilize both Dolby Advanced Audio as well as Waves MaxxAudio 3 audio enhancement technologies.

The 14-inch TruBrite LED backlit display has a 16:9 aspect ratio and supports 720p HD with its 1366 x 768 resolution. A standard webcam and mic for video chatting are embedded in the bezel of the display.

As for connectivity and ports, the P745-S4250 features WiFi, but surprisingly no Bluetooth. Other ports include an RJ45 Ethernet port, two regular USB 2.0 ports, and one special USB 3.0 port with Toshiba’s Sleep-and-Charge feature that lets users charge other devices via USB through the laptop without needing to power on the laptop.

Additionally, it has a slot for a security cable lock, SD card reader, headphone jack, and microphone jack. But something unique about the microphone jack is that it supports Toshiba’s Sleep-and-Music feature that lets users plug in media players to use the laptop’s Karmon/Hardon speakers without needing to power on the laptop.

Unboxing & Hands-on Video

Software & Performance

The P745-S4250 runs Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) and comes with the Microsoft Office Starter 2010 bundle as well as the Microsoft Windows Live essentials like Photo Gallery, Messenger, Mail, Writers, and Movie Maker. It also has a slew of preloaded applications that add a bit more bloat, including Toshiba Face Recognition, Toshiba Upconvert, Toshiba App Place, Toshiba Bulletin Board, and Toshiba Service Station, to name a few.

Using the synthetic benchmarking tool Geekbench to measure the laptop’s performance, we found that the P745-S4250 achieved a score of 6434, which is higher than the Acer Aspire 5830TG that’s also a recent laptop we reviewed sporting an Intel Core i5-2410M processor. But, the Acer laptop does have a slightly larger 15.6-inch screen.

The display quality on the P745-S4250 is decent but viewing angles are not so good. Colors get distorted rather quickly when tilting the screen or moving to either side. Audio, however, is full, deep and quite loud without getting tinny. Toshiba’s Sleep-and-Music jack that lets you plug in your mp3 player to use the laptop’s speakers without powering on the laptop is also a neat feature for power-saving on-the-go entertainment use.

Battery

The P745-S4250 utilizes a 48Wh 6-Cell Lithium-Ion battery with an overall battery life rated for up to almost 6 hours. This aligns with our own battery test, which involved playing a DVD at 100% brightness and 100% volume. Power management comes in two options of “Balance” and “Eco,” with our battery test using the higher consumption “Balance” mode. About an hour after the start of the movie shortly following boot-up at 100% battery charge, there was still 75% battery life remaining.

Wrap-Up

The Toshiba Satellite P745-S4250 has plenty of processing power with its Intel Core i5-2410M processor for all your work, multimedia and entertainment needs and comes in a nice portable size of 14-inches. With a large 750GB hard drive and about 6-hours worth of battery life, this laptop should make a decent travel companion. It also boasts great audio sound with its Harmon/Kardon stereo speakers with Dolby and Wave audio enhancements. But priced at $779.99, the build doesn’t feel as solid, the trackpad design could be improved for better comfort, and Bluetooth support is oddly missing.

Hardware

Outwardly, there’s little to differentiate this year’s MacBook Air from its predecessor. Apple still offers two sizes – an 11.6-inch with a 1366 x 768 display and a 13.3-inch with a 1440 x 900 display – starting from $999, but the entry-level processor is now Intel’s 1.6 GHz dual-core Core i5 rather than the older Core 2 Duo. The lowest price Air has 64GB of flash storage and 2GB of 1333MHz DDR3 RAM, while the $1,199 higher-spec version keeps the 11.6-inch display but increases storage to 128GB of flash. It can also be upgraded to 256GB as well as boosting the processor to a dual-core 1.8GHz Core i7 and the RAM up to 4GB.

The 13.3-inch MacBook Air, meanwhile, starts at $1,299 with a 1.7GHz dual-core Core i5, 128GB of flash storage and 4GB of RAM. The $1,599 version has 256GB of storage, and can be upgraded to the same dual-core 1.8GHz Core i7 of the smaller Air. Both sizes come with Intel HD Graphics 3000, sharing either 256MB or 384MB (model depending) of the main RAM.

Standard connectivity consists of two USB 2.0 ports – one on each side – along with a MagSafe charging port, headphone socket and Thunderbolt (more on which later). The 13.3-inch MacBook Air has an SD card reader as well. Both versions have WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0, along with stereo speakers, an omnidirectional microphone and a FaceTime webcam. Unlike on the MacBook Pro and iMac, however, this isn’t a 720p-capable FaceTime HD camera, so you’re limited to VGA-resolution video chat (just like the iPhone 4 and iPad 2); still, it was capable of decent video and still images, even in relatively low-light conditions.

Display and Keyboard

Apple’s 11.6-inch MacBook Air split opinion, with some finding its compact display to be simply too small for everyday use, while others marveling at its portability. The 1440 x 900 resolution on the 13.3-inch model may demand a subsequently larger chassis – an inch wider, at 12.8-inches, and 1.38-inches deeper, at 8.94-inches – but the extra pixels are very welcome whether you’re browsing, working on a Word document or watching video.

The panel itself is bright and crisp, and lacks the glossy glass panel laid over the top of MacBook Pro displays. That makes it trickier to wipe away fingerprints, but less frustrating in direct sunlight. Viewing angles are very broad.

Back when Apple redesigned the MacBook Air last year, one of the glaring omissions was the backlit keyboard. Happily that has been rectified in the 2011 range, with the keys automatically lighting up and adjusting their illumination according to ambient levels. There are dedicated keys to manually adjust it if you prefer.

Although it may seem a gimmick initially, the backlit ‘board can make a big difference when you’re working in low-light environments. If you’ve ever angled your laptop screen so as to see which key is which, then the MacBook Air’s keyboard will appeal. The keys themselves have slightly shallower travel in comparison to those on the MacBook Pro, but are pleasantly clicky in use. Underneath is still the same large multitouch trackpad.

Thunderbolt

Like the MacBook Pro and iMac (and the new Mac mini announced alongside this latest refresh) the MacBook Air gains Thunderbolt connectivity in 2011. Using Intel’s “Light Peak” technology, the connection supports up to 10Gbps bi-directional data, and can be used not only as a Mini DisplayPort (with the same socket, meaning you won’t have any issues with your old LED Cinema Display) but as a high-speed way to attach external drives, RAID arrays and other peripherals. With the right adapter cable, you can use it as an ethernet port or FireWire 800.

Thunderbolt accessories are in short supply today, though that situation should improve as the year progresses. Thanks to the port and Apple’s new Thunderbolt Display, though, the MacBook Air should come into its own as a mobile/desktop hybrid. When the new screen goes on sale, Air owners will be able to hook up with a single cable and get three more USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 800, gigabit ethernet and another Thunderbolt for daisy-chaining, as well as 27-inches of monitor real-estate.

Software and Performance

The new MacBook Air comes preloaded with OS X Lion (SlashGear review), Apple’s latest version of its Mac platform. Borrowing some of the concepts from iOS on the iPad, and introducing new multitouch gestures, Lion also builds on the previous Air’s fast-standby abilities with Resume that reopens your apps exactly as they were when you closed them last.

Full-screen apps can now be switched between with three-finger swipes, and Apple has flipped the default “Natural” scrolling system so that, like dragging a page around on the iPad, it’s inverted to OS X Snow Leopard’s default. That takes a little getting used to, but can be turned off in the settings. There’s also tap- and pinch-to zoom support.

The previously separate Dashboard, Exposé and Spaces have now been pulled together into Mission Control, and we found ourselves more likely to use the multiple desktop spaces now that they were easier to keep track of. That will particularly help on the smaller 11.6-inch Air. Similar to iOS is Launchpad, a grid arrangement of all of your apps that can be organized into pop-up folders. We particularly liked AirDrop, a simple file-sharing system that automatically discovers physically nearby OS X Lion users and offers a straightforward way to drag & drop files between them.

In addition to the more fundamental changes to the OS, there are some alterations to the pre-loaded software. Mail has borrowed heavily from the email client on the iPad, with a cleaner UI and new “widescreen” view that works very well with the (optional) conversational message layout. The iLife suite – iPhoto, iMovie and Garageband – has been updated to support full-screen use, while Safari 5.1, iChat, iCal, Photo Booth and FaceTime are all preloaded. Finally, the Mac App Store offers access to a growing catalog of Apple and third-party software.

Our review unit is the 13.3-inch model with the standard Core i5 1.7GHz processor and 4GB of RAM. We ran Geekbench, a synthetic test of processor and memory performance, and the MacBook Air scored an impressive 5,705, considerably higher than the 2,178 scored by the 11.6-inch Core 2 Duo model we reviewed in October last year. In fact, it comes surprisingly close to the 6,309 scored by 2010′s Core i7 MacBook Pro (though obviously lags well behind the current-gen MacBook Pro).

In practice, that makes for a slimline ultraportable capable of the sort of tasks you’d have turned to a regular notebook for last year. Apps open and switch swiftly, multitasking is handled without complaint, and things you might have shied away from on the last-gen model – processing audio or video clips, for instance – are far more realistic on this new machine. Even more impressive is that this is from a chip only halfway through the range: there’s the dual-core Core i7 on offer for those wanting even more power.

Battery

Apple suggests Air users should see up to five hours runtime from the 11.6-inch model and up to seven hours from the 13.3-inch. That’s based on the company’s own internal testing, wirelessly surfing between 25 sites with brightness at 50-percent.

In practice, we managed around six hours of mixed browsing, some audio playback and a few YouTube videos, with brightness set at 50-percent. Obviously if you spend more time working on documents rather than online, you could probably stretch the MacBook Air out beyond the seven hour point.

Wrap-Up

It’s difficult to argue with the 2011 MacBook Air. Apple has taken our main criticisms of the previous model – backlit keyboard, faster processors – and addressed them neatly, without detracting from battery life, portability or style. The addition of the Thunderbolt port and the upcoming Apple Thunderbolt Display should turn the ultraportable into a legitimate desktop alternative, too.

An integrated 3G/4G WWAN option is one of the lingering absences, indeed across all of Apple’s notebook range, and we’d love to be able to get online with the Air no matter what the WiFi hotspot situation. Meanwhile, the top-capacity flash drivers are expensive, though such is the price you pay for supporting instant-on and month-long standby times.

In short, that difficult decision between prioritizing portability and performance has pretty much been made for you: the MacBook Air grants you both. Build-quality is reassuringly strong, speed and performance are sufficient for most users, and the ability to drop the Air into a bag and hardly notice it’s in there is a huge advantage. In 13.3-inch form it’s a little more expensive than the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro (and you get a slower processor, less storage and no optical drive), but we’d wager the Air could still hold its own. Altogether, the MacBook Air remains our ultraportable of choice.

The massive 18.4-inch size makes the 8951G a hybrid of a notebook and an all-in-one PC that you certainly won’t be carrying around town. It’s still less hassle than a desktop PC if you ever did need to take it somewhere and it’s easier to stow away when not in use. But, most likely you’ll have it sitting pretty in your home as a media center.

Hardware

The Acer Aspire Ethos 8951G features a sleek and sophisticated design that boasts several improvements over its predecessor, the 8943G. The overall appearance is more classy and serious with dark hues and less fussy details. The lid and keyboard areas are black with a slight sheen and a brushed texture while the palm rest and keys are a more fingerprint-proof matte black.

The backlit chiclet style keyboard not only looks attractive, but also includes a full number pad. Its isolated keys have a good weighted feel to them when pressed. Just above the keyboard are the speakers that are now a simple horizontal band and entirely black except for a silver accent strip where it reads Dolby Home Theater. To the right side of the strip is the power button and to the left is the Launch Manager, Clear.fi, and keyboard backlight on/off buttons.

The glossy 18.4-inch TFT LCD LED backlit display features 16:9 widescreen full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution. Right above the monitor sits the 1280 x 1024 resolution webcam that’s capable of 720p HD video capture.

The detachable touchpad is probably the most notable difference in addition to the improvements in appearance and internal hardware for the 8951G. Sliding a latch pops up the touchpad so that it can be removed and used as a remote control. The touchpad has an on/off button that when pressed turns on the backlit graphical touch controls. The underside of the touchpad has a nice grippy texture for holding as a remote, but the glossy top surface gets oily finger smudges rather quickly.

The touchpad makes a handy remote control for playing movies and music, which you will be doing a lot of with the 8951G as it comes with a Blu-Ray Disc player and excellent Dolby Home Theater audio enhanced 5.1 surround sound with a visible subwoofer on the underside.

Inside, the Acer Aspire Ethos 8951G features Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge Core i7-2630QM 2Ghz quad-core processor that can be overclocked with Turbo Boost to 2.9GHz. It uses the NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M and comes standard with 8GB of DDR3 SDRAM that is expandable up to 16GB with a total of four memory slots. It has 5400RPM Seagate Momentus 750GB hard drive along with a built-in Multi-in-1 card reader that supports SD, SDXC, MMC and more.

As for connector ports, the 8951G provides many options. It offers up to five USB ports, three of which are USB 2.0, one is USB 3.0, and another doubles as both eSATA and USB 2.0. There are also ports for VGA, HDMI, Ethernet, and FireWire along with jacks for headphone, speaker, and microphone. Wireless connectivity options include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0. For security, there’s a slot for a Kensington Lock and also a fingerprint reader.

The overall chassis measures 11.61″ x 17.32″ x 1.55″ and weighs 8.38lbs.

Software & Performance

The Acer Aspire Ethos 8951G comes pre-loaded with Microsoft 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium, Microsoft Office Starter 2010, Silverlight, Skype, Windows Live Essentials 2011, Bing Bar, Adobe Flash Player 10, Adobe Reader 9.1, and several additional items including, unfortunately, plenty of bloat ware. Those include Acer Backup Manager, ePower Management, eRecovery Management, Crystal Eye, and Video Conference Manager. All this of course made the initial boot up a bit sluggish, but the performance of the system is otherwise snappy.

We benchmarked the 8951G using Geekbench, a synthetic test of its processor and memory performance. The 8951G scored 7301, which is a good step up from its predecessor’s score of 5850. But much like its predecessor, the strength of the 8951G lies in its multitasking abilities, video processing, and gaming.

The main multimedia software is Clear.fi, which is Acer’s central digital home entertainment solution. It automatically connects to all the devices on your home network to gather media files and then categorizes them into Videos, Photos, or Music. It can also connect to your Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube accounts to easily share your media files to those sites.

We played the Blu-Ray Disc version of the movie Avatar and found both video and audio quality on the 8951G to be excellent. The video is sharp and the movements are smooth without any juddering. The TFT LCD display has decent viewing angles from the top and sides, but sacrifices viewing quality from below.

As expected for an entertainment packed desktop replacement, the audio system is well tuned for popcorn-hour. At full volume, the sound stage is wide with great bass response and the dialogue is clear and not overwhelmed by the music and sound effects. During quiet scenes though, the noise of the air venting could be a bit annoying if you are seated very close. But the strong ventilation helped keep the notebook cool after running at full throttle for a couple of hours straight. The system remained relatively cool to the touch while warm air can be felt venting out from the side.

The touchpad is fairly responsive and has typical two-finger scrolling. For left and right clicking there is a separate physical button below. As a remote, it was able to control the notebook from as far as 20 feet away. However, 10 feet is about a good distance because any farther you’d have a hard time seeing what’s on screen. There’s a dedicated power on/off button for the touchpad that has a slight ridge around it to help you locate its position. This is because when the touchpad is turned off, the surface is completely black. Once you press the power button to turn on the remote function a backlit icon appears along with a small blue LED power indicator.

Pressing the power button again will reveal backlit icons for Clear.fi Photos, Clear.fi media mode changer, and two large icons for launching the Clear.fi Video and Music interfaces. Pressing the power button once more reveals additional backlit icons for video control buttons: rewind, play, fast-forward, stop, and volume. Holding down the power button turns it off.

The touchpad does require charging, and we can only imagine the frustration if it ever gets lost, which could very easily happen.

Battery

The 8951G is rated for up to 5.5 hours on its 8-cell 6000 mAh battery. But playing the movie Avatar at 100 percent brightness and volume at full blast after completely juicing up the battery and leaving the notebook unplugged, we were able to watch for only 2 hours and 8 minutes at which point the notebook automatically shut off with 9 percent battery life remaining. Not being able to finish watching the movie was a bit disappointing, but this shouldn’t be a huge issue since this behemoth of a notebook won’t be traveling much off the plug.

Wrap-Up

The Acer Aspire Ethos 8951G notebook is a worthy contender for your dollars if you’re looking to replace your desktop PC with something slightly more compact and portable than an all-in-one PC and also capable of delivering a high-end multimedia experience. Retail pricing for the 18.4-inch 8951G is $1599 while the smaller 15.6-inch 5951G model comes in at $1499.

At those prices, you are getting a lot of notebook for your money. The solid build, sophisticated styling, and powerful performance leave little to complain about. The detachable touchpad that does double duty as a remote control is also a nice touch, although keeping it from getting lost is a concern.

Hardware

Your $800 gets you Intel’s Core i5-2410M processor, normally running at 2.3GHz but capable of up to 2.9GHz with Intel’s Turbo Boost, and paired with 6GB of DDR3 1066MHz memory, NVIDIA GeForce GT520M graphics with 1GB of dedicated video memory, and a 640GB 5,400rpm hard-drive. There’s also WiFi b/g/n, an 8x DVD burner and Bluetooth 3.0+HS.

The display is a 15.6-inch panel running at 1366 x 768 and, like most notebooks around today with a decidedly glossy finish. Still, colors are impressive and the LED backlighting is even and bright. Above is a 1.3-megapixel webcam. Ports include three USB 2.0 and a separate USB 3.0 port, VGA, HDMI, audio in/out (supporting S/PDIF digital) and gigabit ethernet. There’s also a multi-format memory card slot.

It’s all wrapped up in an eye-catching metallic blue chassis, and while Acer has opted for somewhat blunt edges with its industrial design, it’s still reasonably compact for a 15-inch notebook. At 14.88 x 9.8 x 1.0/1.23 inches it’s not the slimmest notebook we’ve used, but given its class and price it’s still slim. The width allows Acer to fit in not only a full-sized keyboard but a separate numeric keypad, as well as give the arrow keys plenty of space rather than crowding them with function buttons. The touchpad, meanwhile, is reasonably large and recognizes multitouch gestures, though the buttons beneath were on the clicky side.

Software and Performance

Acer preloads Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, and then goes crazy with apps and bloatware. First there are the in-house titles: Acer’s Backup tool, ePower and eRecovery Managers, Clear.fi music streaming, Crystal Eye webcam tool and Video Conference manager. Then come the third-party apps, and there are plenty of them: Office Starter 2010 and a preinstalled version of Office 2010 waiting for your product key, Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1 and Reader 9.1, eSobi, the Bing search bar, New York Times Reader, B&N’s Nook for PC ereading app, AUPEO, Norton’s Online Backup and a trial of McAfee’s Internet Security Suite, NTI’s Media Maker, WildTangent, Microsoft Silverlight, Skype and Windows Live Essentials 2011.

In all, there are more than 20 apps already waiting for you on the TimelineX, each with various levels of installation. We can appreciate Acer gets some kick-back – and probable helps subsidize the price of the notebook itself – thanks to those software deals, but as always it’s a poor first-impression of a new Windows PC. A cluster of “suggested apps” with shortcuts would be far preferable, and reduce the first-boot sluggishness which sours the initial experience of the Acer.

It’s a shame, because otherwise performance is strong. NVIDIA’s Optimus technology is used to intelligently and automatically switch between the integrated Sandy Bridge graphics and the dedicated GeForce GPU. We measured performance using Geekbench, a synthetic test of processor and memory, and the TimelineX AS5830TG-6402 scored 5251. Compared to a Core i5 Acer notebook using Intel’s 2010 CPUs, which managed 4814, that’s a fair jump, though the extra 2GB of memory in our newer review unit accounts for the bulk of the change.

Day to day tasks like playing Full HD video, doing graphics processing with Photoshop and browsing online across multiple tabs were a walk in the park for the TimelineX. The GeForce GT520M is also capable of some gaming, and we found the well-spaced keyboard lent itself to button-bashing during FPS gameplay.

Battery

Acer quotes up to 9hrs runtime from the standard 6-cell 6,000 mAh battery, though you’ll need to be doing practically nothing to actually eke that out. In reality, with heavy use kicking the GeForce GPU into action, we managed 2-3 hours, whereas more casual browsing over WiFi (for which the integrated graphics were sufficient) 6hrs was around the maximum.

Wrap-Up

Acer has made a few odd decisions and omissions in specifying the TimelineX AS5830TG-640. There’s no Blu-ray for a start, not even playback, which seems strange for a media notebook, and the 5,400rpm hard-drive is slower than we’d like to see. Still, on the flipside you get a discrete GPU and Bluetooth 3.0 as standard.

The TimelineX AS5830TG-640 may not be the fastest desktop replacement around, but as a combination of usable size – both of the decent display and well-proportioned keyboard – and portability it’s keenly priced. Acer’s motherlode of bloatware is an early blip, but get past that (with some judicious use of Windows 7′s Remove Programs dialog) and you’ve a solid notebook at an affordable price.

Unboxing Video

Gallery

Hardware

The X1 has a wedge design theme to it that gives it a cutting edge look. Matte black all over, inside and out, the only thing glossy is the Corning Gorilla Glass 13.3 inch HD display (1366 x 766). The design accents on the X1 are minimal. There are chrome Lenovo logos located in the lower left corner when the lid is closed, and in the lower left corner of the screen inside the bezel. The ThinkPad logo is in the lower right corner when the lid is shut, and also on the lower right of the main body below the fingerprint reader. And of course, the usual stickers for Intel Inside, Windows 7, and Energy Star are on there as well. The overall design has a no-nonsense feel. Almost like it should say “Designed exclusively for Darth Vader.”

Weighing only 3.73 lbs it is pretty light. The only thing we didn’t like about the appearance was the finish on the top of the lid. It can only be seen when the light hits it the right way, but there is a slight shimmer built into the finish on the lid only. It looks like micro-fine red, green, and blue glitter were embedded in the plastic. It is a little bit like black granite counter tops or maybe stone. It doesn’t look bad, it just seems like it doesn’t quite fit. Probably more personal taste issue than a major drawback.

The Gorilla Glass LCD display was a winner. Great colors and crisp text. Even outside it was still useable. The X1 has real bad glare outside, but not as bad as a tablet or other device with the same glass, and the screen didn’t get as washed out either. The only drawback to the screen isn’t actually the screen at all, It was the integrated low-light sensitive HD webcam. Overall the camera was disappointing. Snapshots were grainy and adjusting the user settings didn’t improve image quality that much. A decent webcam, but did not meet the SlashGear standard for HD. The best performance from the webcam was in low-light conditions. If there was a bright light or a bright window in the background then the whole image got streaky or very bad glare. The bright green led indicator was one of the good points, so at least you knew when you were on camera.

The metal hinges between the top and the chassis were another plus. Even though we didn’t do a four point drop test, the internal Roll Cage was built to meet Mil Spec 8 and withstand drops from 1.6 meters while maintaining system operation and without loss of data. (That’s 1.1 meters above industry testing standard of 0.5 meters). The dual keyboard drain holes are another design plus. They are located just below the Control key and left arrow key to help save the system from a renegade Frappuccino. (But they will not prevent residual sticky keys).

The X1 in the SlashGear test was running Windows 7 Professional 32-bit, (with 64-bit also available). The processor was a Sandy Bridge Intel dual-core i5 at 2.50 GHz and 1333 MHz FSB. (Available up to 2.70 GHz Intel i7). There was 4 GB of DDR3 1333MHz RAM in one DIMM slot, so not a lot of expansion room, (up to 8 GB RAM from factory). Although Solid State Drives up to 160 GB are available, the SlashGear test model had a 320 GB Hitachi 7200 RPM SATA II drive with 16 MB buffer. The hard drive has built in Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) for customizing who has access to what data. The BDE combined with the fingerprint reader make an extremely secure and relatively pain-free way to encrypt sensitive data in case Big Brother, or The Boss, is watching (The job Boss, not Springsteen).

The ThinkPad X1 also claims its Enhanced Experienced 2.0 will boot on average 20 seconds faster than other Windows 7 PCs. The SlashGear stopwatch recorded the X1 boot time at 37 or 38 seconds. That is fast for most Windows users: 38 seconds from being completely off, to the Windows desktop. Not the Windows login screen, the desktop. Yes that was without a login password, but we just wanted to see how fast the X1 could do it. From being asleep, the X1 almost instantly woke up. Wake up was under 5 seconds every time.

There are plenty of ports on the X1 for most business applications. But when it comes to I/O ports, enough is never enough. Along the back are a Mini DisplayPort, HDMI 1.4a, ethernet, a single USB 3.0, a powered combo eSATA and USB 2.0 port, and the A/C power cord port. On the right side is the multi card reader (SD, MMC, SDHC, and SDXC), and on the left side is the mic/headphone jack and one more USB 2.0. There is only one cooling vent located on the left side at the back, but it seems to cool just fine. The stereo speakers are built in the right and left side and have excellent sound. It’s not going to replace a stereo, but great for filling a room with music or being on a conference call. It comes with Dolby Home Theater v4. There is also built-in Bluetooth 3.0 (optional), WiFi of course, and also a WiMax option. There is also a Trackpoint and touchpad mouse control below the keyboard; both worked very well.

The X1 ships with two batteries from the factory, the internal chassis battery and an external Slice battery that could be described as a long, thin door-stop. The Slice battery snaps on the bottom back edge and actually improves the angle of the keyboard. The batteries will be discussed in more detail under Performance because of some of the integrated Turbo Boost features. The keyboard is backlit with low, med, and off settings. Backlight control is done using Function + Spacebar. The X1 is not going to beat Alienware in a contest for lighting effects, but backlight is a cool feature that would be useful in a car or a dark room, like during a slideshow. The full size keyboard was easy to use with good feel and button resistance without too much noise. The only complaint about the keyboard is the location of the Control and Function keys. The Function key is in the lower most left corner, with the Control key just one to the right, also on the bottom row. We are used to the Control key being in the corner instead. Not a deal breaker, it just took some getting used to.

There are some new function keys to the right of the keyboard just below the power button. There is a small blue ThinkVantage button that brings up shortcuts to a number of things. Some of them are quite useful like Security and Networking and Backup and Diagnostics, while others are just clever Lenovo marketing in disguise. Below that are some VoIP controls, volume control and clearly labeled mute buttons. It is nice to know when someone can hear you talking or not. The interface for VoIP and video calling has some new features built into it. The microphone can be set on My Voice to narrow the angle and reduce background noise, or, it can be set to Multiple Voices to open up the mic to 360-degrees for a conference call.

What is missing from the X1? There’s no optical drive, (no CD, no DVD, no Blu-ray). Probably not a deal breaker for most business laptops. Most files are emailed or put on shared drives. For home use, this would probably be a large negative. Consumers still burn lots of CDs and DVDs. However, much of that is being replaced by MP3 players and the like.

Performance

Does anyone remember the Turbo Boost button on the old Pentium 90 chassis? (Anyone under 30 probably doesn’t). Well, it might be making a comeback, sort of. The battle between battery life and performance has left many casualties along the way. An interesting solution has been designed into the X1. A Power Manager is one of the new icons built into the new Taskbar. The Power Manager has a very intuitive interface that allows the user to quickly see the battery status and how much time remains of battery function. It also lets you shift the power balance between high performance and battery savings using a sliding scale. In the Power Manager a setting called Battery Stretch can also be activated to add another 20 or 30 minutes. At the bottom of the Power Manager window is a Turbo Boost box you can click. When the Turbo Boost is activated, the almost silent cooling fan revs up noticeably and the heat output increases. Based on these system settings the battery life can be decreased or increased dramatically.

Lenovo advertises up to 10 hours of usage with both batteries. However, we found a more realistic estimate was somewhere between 3.5 to 7 hours, varying greatly depending on use. Running a bunch of system intensive benchmarks can knock off 2 or 3 hours of battery life in a few minutes. So, if you are planning on doing lots of intense 3D rendering while riding the bus, better plan on recharging when you get to the office. Lenovo claims 80-percent charge in 30 minutes, but that is only on one battery, and a full charge for both batteries can take an hour or two longer.

The benchmarks tell the real story. On Geekbench 2.1 the ThinkPad X1 scored 5192 for processor and memory performance (higher is better). Not a speed demon, but a solid mid-level score. The X1 should be capable of tackling most applications on the market smoothly. Without the Turbo Boost the score drops to 5153, so only a little more performance is squeezed out with the boost. With the Power Manager set all the way down to the Max power savings for lowest performance the benchmark score drops down to 1524. (At that speed, the system will probably crash running Solitaire; we joke, but not by much). The dual-core, four thread processor naturally performed best in multi-thread scalar benchmarks. Compared to quad-core processors it performed about half as well, also no big surprise.

Now the scores for graphics processing using Cinebench 11.5. Cinebench measures the performance of the GPU using OpenGL and the threading performance of the CPU. The CPU scored 2.57 points; turning off the Turbo Boost made no difference. The Intel HD 3.0.0 GPU scored 8.51 fps in the OpenGL testing. Not the machine of choice for a 3D animation studio, but should be able to handle most current PC games and business applications. All those benchmarks and performance scores should go up with some of the higher end options like quad-core i7 processor and Solid State Drive. But, the price probably will as well. However, add an i7 processor and a SSD and increase the RAM up to 8 GB, and the X1 will be a much faster machine.

Pricing and Value

The ThinkPad X1 was originally announced to start around $1,399 available tomorrow. Price will vary based on the different options purchased, but at first glance seems a little high. Still, it is sometimes hard to compare apples to apples when it comes to laptops. The average non-business consumer would probably get a much prettier Dell or something similar. The small business owner will have to decide if they want a sturdy work horse, or a pretty show pony. The X1 is the work horse. It gets the job done, and doesn’t worry about competing in the pretty show.

Since the X1 is targeted at the Business User, this laptop is probably a pretty good fit. In some ways the X1 has the compact size and portability like a netbook, with the performance of a laptop. No optical drive, but decent performance and built for multitasking and conference calling. (Even if the video call isn’t in broadcast quality HD.) It doesn’t have some of the fluff that a business user won’t need, and is built more sturdy than the average PC. The higher end X1 options like SSD and quad core i7 will increase the price but also greatly increase performance.

Wrap Up

Like many laptops, the X1 is greatly limited in terms of expandability beyond the initial options at the time of purchase. But is seems like Lenovo is attempting to build a laptop that will be useful and sturdy enough to work for years to come. The prime negative is the absence of an optical drive, only of concern for those who burn lots of CDs and DVDs; that may not even be a factor in the new digital world that is rapidly growing around us. Anyone that is looking for the most extreme system on the razors edge of performance, this is not it. If you’re looking for five bright colors to choose from, look elsewhere.

If you want a solid system with high level data security, and a simple user interface, then this might be for you. If you need to easily make conference calls, and need a light, portable device that can take a little abuse, then the X1 may be a good choice. If you are waiting for the true Turbo Boost button from 1995 to make a comeback, keep waiting.

Hardware

At first glance, there’s little to differentiate this new MacBook Pro from the model it replaces. Apple has kept the unibody aluminum chassis, backlit keyboard and broad, glass multitouch trackpad, and the glossy display is the same 1440 x 900 resolution and 15.4-inch size. At first glance, even the ports look the same, thanks to Thunderbolt – more on which later – sharing the same form-factor as Mini DisplayPort.

We can’t complain too much, though. First off, Apple’s MacBook Pro notebooks offer some of the best industrial design around, pairing high-quality materials, high build quality and good looks into something the generally plastic-shelled PC market still can’t better. The 15-inch MacBook Pro tips the scales at the same 5.6 pounds as its predecessor, and measures a reasonably slimline 0.95-inches.

Second, and more important, is the considerable refresh that’s gone on inside the aluminum casing. Sandy Bridge is the order of the day here, with the 13-, 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro models all getting processors from Intel’s 2011 range. The 13-inch starts off with a Core i5 as standard (and Core i7 as an option) but the 15- and 17-inch models both pack Core i7 chips from the off. In our review unit, the higher-specified standard configuration, that means Intel’s 2.2GHz Core i7-2720QM. 4GB of DDR3 1333MHz memory is the minimum, with 8GB a factory-fit option.

Graphics have undergone a significant change as well, with NVIDIA’s discrete GPUs replaced by AMD’s Radeon 6000 Series paired with Intel HD Graphics 3000. Apple has obviously deemed Intel’s integrated GPU sufficient for the 13-inch MacBook Pro, but the 15- and 17-inch models have a choice of the AMD Radeon HD 6490M (with 256GB of GDDR5 memory) on the entry-level MacBook Pro 15 or the Radeon HD 6750M (with 1GB of GDDR5 memory) on the higher-spec 15-inch and as standard on the 17-inch.

As in the 2010 range, OS X automatically switches between integrated and discrete graphics depending on your activity. For basic web browsing and document editing, then, the MacBook Pro will default to the low-power, energy-frugal Intel HD Graphics 3000 chipset; start gaming, or doing video processing in iMovie, and the AMD Radeon GPU will kick in. There’s no need to log out and back in again to switch, as with earlier dual-GPU configurations.

Storage begins with 320/500/750GB hard-drives, depending on size and SKU, all running at a somewhat disappointing 5,400rpm. Faster, 7,200rpm HDDs are optional, as are SSDs up to 512GB. The slot-loading 8x SuperDrive is still present, while ports include gigabit ethernet, FireWire 800, audio in, audio out, an SDXC memory card slot, MagSafe power and, of course, Thunderbolt. Wireless options include WiFi a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR; there’s still no integrated 3G option. A microphone is hidden under the left speaker grille, and there’s a new, 720p FaceTime HD webcam above the screen, more on which later.

Software

Apple may be previewing Mac OS X Lion, but these latest MacBook Pro notebooks still come with Snow Leopard pre-installed. There’s also the usual iLife ’11 suite, consisting of iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb and iDVD. The Mac App Store is pre-loaded, for access to a broad catalog of third-party software, as is the freshly-out-of-beta FaceTime for Mac app for holding video calls with other Mac owners as well as iPhone 4 and iPod touch users.

Performance

All the hardware changes would be for nothing if the new MacBook Pro’s performance didn’t stand up, but that’s most definitely not the case. We started out with Geekbench as usual, a synthetic test of processor and memory, and the difference between the 2011 model and its mid-2010 predecessor was dramatic. The new MacBook Pro scored 10,932, while the Core i7-620M 2010 machine – running at 2.66GHz, and with 4GB of RAM – scored 6,309. That’s a more than 70-percent boost in stepping up to the quadcore model.

We then turned to Cinebench, which benchmarks both CPU and graphics card performance, using a mixture of 3D renderings and OpenGL tests. It gives a good overview of how capable a computer will be at system-intensive tasks like video processing and gaming. Again, we compared the mid-2010 MacBook Pro with the new 2011 model.

Unsurprisingly, the new notebook outclassed its predecessor across the board. The four individual cores of the 2011 model scored higher in CPU testing, and the overall CPU performance was more than twice what the older model could manage. As for graphics, in the OpenGL testing the 2010 MacBook Pro managed 17.27fps, while the new model achieved 35.42fps.

Finally, we looked to xbench, a combination of CPU, GPU, memory and drive testing. Again, the quadcore processor and fast RAM made short work of the 2010 notebook, with xbench’s CPU, thread and memory tests coming out 14-percent, 68-percent and 71-percent higher respectively. Graphics, too, were comprehensively higher, with the 2011 MacBook Pro scoring on average 37-percent higher across xbench’s various GPU tests.

In fact, the only element really holding the new MacBook Pro back was the hard-drive, its 5,400rpm speed proving underwhelming. xbench recorded sequential uncached write speeds of 111.13 MB/sec and read speeds of 28.56 MB/sec with 4K blocks, and write speeds of 83.25 MB/sec and read speeds of 77.54 MB/sec with 256K blocks. Random uncached write speeds reached 1.47 MB/sec and read speeds of 0.42 MB/sec with 4K blocks, and write speeds of 29.06 MB/sec and read speeds of 24.36 MB/sec with 256K blocks.

Contrast that with the speeds recorded from the third-party Samsung 470 Series SSD (review) in our 2010 MacBook Pro test unit, and the limitations of a traditional HDD become clear. In both sequential and random reads and writes, the SSD thoroughly bests the HDD: sequential write rates reach as high as 234.52 MB/sec (with 4K blocks) while read rates manage 210.36 MB/sec (with 256K blocks). The boost to random read/write performance is even more dramatic, the faster and more responsive SSD making a strong argument for bypassing HDDs altogether. Overall, with the standard-fit HDD the 2011 MacBook Pro scored 222.31 in xbench – versus the 312.47 of the SSD-equipped 2010 notebook – but that increased to 413.91 when we installed the SSD into the new model.

High benchmarking figures are one thing, but it’s real world performance that makes the difference – and convinces someone whether or not to upgrade. We tested the 2011 MacBook Pro with high definition video exporting in iMovie, and the improvements are considerable. Exporting a 720p clip lasting 1m 31s on the new notebook took 1m 41s; in contrast, the 2010 notebook (with the SSD) took 3m 03s. When we switched the standard HDD for an SSD in the new MacBook Pro, that slimmed the export down to just 1m 33s.

We then ran the same test, with the SSD still installed, on the same clip but exporting at 1080p, and the 2011 MacBook Pro took 2m 55s. It’s worth remembering that this is merely the final export process; the 2011 model also imported raw footage quicker than its predecessor, and was faster making cuts and edits as we modified clips.

FaceTime HD

Apple introduced FaceTime, its proprietary video calling system, with the launch of the iPhone 4, and since then it has spread to the fourth-gen iPod touch and, most recently, to OS X. With FaceTime HD, Apple marks the transition to a higher-resolution webcam, supporting 1280 x 720 video. It’s certainly far clearer and crisper, a noticeable step up from the previous generation of MacBook Pro.

FaceTime HD makes the most sense between new MacBook Pro owners, given they’re the only ones who will actually see the HD part. Previous-gen notebooks had VGA resolution iSight webcams, so won’t be able to send (but will be able to see) 720p video, and the iPhone 4 and latest iPod touch each have VGA front-facing cameras themselves. We’d expect Apple to remedy the latter in future updates, and the iPad is expected to get a front-facing camera itself in its imminent refresh.

Thunderbolt

Arguably the most interesting feature of the new MacBook Pro is, frustratingly, the one we can’t currently test. Thunderbolt is Intel’s production name for Light Peak, the high-speed connectivity standard that hopes to replace USB, FireWire and various video ports along with way. Promising 10Gbps of bi-directional communication, along with 10W of bus-power and the ability to daisy-chain in strings of up to six peripherals, Thunderbolt makes its debut on the 2011 MacBook Pro line.

For the moment, though, the Thunderbolt port will generally only see Mini DisplayPort connectors plugged in: there simply aren’t any Thunderbolt peripherals out there yet. It’s backward compatible with your existing Mini DisplayPort hardware, so a current Apple LED Cinema Display will hook up without adapters required, but we’ll have to wait until later in 2011 for the first Thunderbolt hardware. That’s going to include external storage – LaCie, Promise and others are talking about RAID arrays, and Apple has shown us a dual-SSD high performance external drive targeted at video professionals – as well as A/V interfaces.

From what we’ve seen in private demonstrations with Apple, however, Thunderbolt has no shortage of promise. A 5GB file moved from the MacBook Pro to a Promise Pegasus RAID in a matter of seconds; meanwhile, the notebook could pull four, uncompressed HD video streams from the RAID, then push that back out down the same Thunderbolt pipe to an LED Cinema Display. In effect, there’s 20 Gbps of bandwidth to play with – 10 Gbps for DisplayPort video and 10 Gbps for PCI Express data – with this particular demo pulling at around 7 Gbps from the RAID and then pushing at around 6 Gbps to the monitor. Apple tells us that, theoretically, a single Thunderbolt connection could drive two 27-inch LED Cinema Displays simultaneously. Since there’s no daisy-chain Thunderbolt connection on the current Cinema Display line, however, they’d either need to be updated or users have a desktop hub.

Battery Life

As with previous iterations, the 2011 MacBook Pro range features integrated, non-user-replaceable batteries. However, it also marks a change in how Apple measures runtime estimates. Traditionally, manufacturers have promised the longest figures possible, leading to usage expectations far beyond what notebooks can actually achieve in everyday use.

Apple’s switch, then, is to a more realistic model of testing, or what the company is calling “wireless web testing.” That involves setting the display brightness to 50-percent and then browsing “25 popular websites” over a WiFi connection until the MacBook Pro expires.

The result is a shorter estimate, on paper, compared to previous generations of notebook, but one, which is more in keeping with what owners can legitimately expect. Apple suggests 7 hours is reasonable, and we’ve found that to be pretty accurate. The previous-generation model was rated at up to 9 hours using Apple’s old-style testing, but we found 7 hours was a likely maximum in regular use.

With an HD video on looped-playback in the background, we exported seven 1m 31 second 1080p HD videos, import and edited numerous images in iPhoto, then browsed and wrote emails over WiFi; brightness was at 3 bars for around 45 minutes and then at 50-percent for the remainder of the time, until the notebook shut down after 3 hours and 15 minutes. It’s still relatively early days for the new MacBook Pro, and so we’ll revisit battery life after some more real-world testing over the next week or so.

Pricing and Value

The new 2011 MacBook Pro line starts at $1,199 for the entry-level 13-inch, though that rises to $1,799 if you want a 15-inch model. Our review unit – with the 2.2GHz CPU, 750GB 5,400rpm HDD and AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1GB graphics – is $2,199. The single 17-inch pre-configuration is $2,499. Making like-for-like comparisons with Windows notebooks is difficult, since availability and pricing for models using the 2011 Core Series processors isn’t expected until mid-March at the earliest. Still, we’d expect Apple’s machines to command a small premium though in return offer currently exclusive features like Thunderbolt connectivity.

As ever, there are a few points to bear in mind. Those replacing a previous-gen MacBook Pro won’t be able to carry across any RAM upgrades, since the new model uses faster chips than the older versions, and Apple charges $200 for an extra 4GB. Still, with the right screwdriver head it’s relatively straightforward to open the base panel and swap out the memory for a third-party 8GB upgrade.

While that bottom panel is open, it’s worth considering an SSD. One of the more common questions we’re asked is whether a solid-state drive makes for a practical and worthwhile upgrade in a notebook, and our answer is generally yes – as long as you can afford it. There’s obviously a penalty involved in terms of both price and capacity; Apple’s official SSD upgrades, for instance, are $200 for 128GB, $600 for 256GB or a whopping $1,200 – the same as a brand new 13-inch MacBook Pro – for 512GB. In comparison, the entry-level 15-inch machine comes with 500GB of regular HDD storage as standard (for a frustrating $100 you can upgrade that to a faster, but identically sized, 7,200rpm version).

Nonetheless, there are cheaper third-party SSDs out there, and they make a significant impact in performance and durability. A set of spinning platters preserving all your vital files is always going to be a potential liability, and while SSDs aren’t immune to data loss, they’re more resilient to the sort of knocks and bumps most laptops suffer in daily use. With some strategic data management and an external drive, road-warriors can generally work around the capacity limitations and benefit considerably from the speed boost.

Wrap-Up

Make no mistake, this is a dramatically faster MacBook Pro than its predecessor, and the bulk of the credit must go to Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors. The combination of the quad-core CPU, fast memory and capable AMD Radeon GPU adds up to a notebook that’s adept at media editing and should turn its hand to gaming as well, if that’s your priority. Apple’s 7 hour battery estimates obviously won’t hold up if you’re doing heavy-duty video processing, but the Intel integrated graphics hold up their end of the bargain and give the new MacBook Pro some legs when it comes to everyday tasks like browsing, email and Office apps.

Thunderbolt makes another speed promise, but it’s too early to tell what impact the new connection will have. Even when peripherals using the port are on the market, they’ll be of primary interest to media editing professionals with high expectations and deep pockets. Most everyday users will probably still be satisfied with the speed USB 2.0 or FireWire 800 offers, and prove unwilling to spend what first-gen Thunderbolt hardware costs. That said, each new port technology has to start somewhere, and Apple has proved at-times ruthless in its adoption of cutting-edge standards. You can bet the company has an eye on ditching FireWire, USB and the others in favor of Thunderbolt, just as it did before with parallel ports, serial ports and floppy drives.

The 2011 MacBook Pro range, then, does a solid job of building on the strengths of its predecessors while also introducing new functionality and speed. The Sandy Bridge processors make a compelling argument, and the dual graphics mean the notebook has a double life as a hardcore media cruncher and an everyday machine capable of lasting most of a workday on a single charge. Factor in OS X’s usability, strong build quality, and the future-proofing Thunderbolt provides, and the 2011 MacBook Pro adds up to a near-perfect speed demon beautifully wrapped up in a timeless chassis. Rating: We’re working out our metrics for rating so please check back for details. [visit Apple MacBook Pro website for more details]

MacBook Pro 15-inch (early 2011)

MacBook Pro 15-inch with ThunderBolt Unboxing video: