Ultrabook Opinions

In My Humble Opinion
1

I just finished my big UK trip. It was wonderful. The Scottish Highlands were breathtaking, the rolling meadows of the Midlands were covered with sheep and blooming oilseed rape fields, and the West Country was windy.

My netbook wasn’t wonderful. Its portability and battery life are great but its speed and screen size aren’t. I’m looking for a new travel laptop. I’ve heard about Ultrabooks. Reading the specs, they look like they’d fit my needs. As this is IMHO, I’m asking for opinions from Dopers who own them. The reviews online don’t always pick up those annoying things you find out about until after you’ve used the machine for a while. What do you like about yours, what’s not so good?

Your opinions are important especially now that the USPS won’t ship laptops overseas. I’ll have to buy it here. Return policies aren’t as generous as in America so I have to do it right the first time.

2

I recently bought a Dell XPS13 and an ASUS Zenbook 13" for different people at work. Their both pretty nice, but for costing almost the same (I think the Zenbook was $50 more) the screen on the Zenbook is much better than the XPS 13. On other specs, I think they’re identical. The Zenbook also comes with USB to Ethernet and VGA out dongles, while the Dell does not. Those aren’t exactly expensive items, but it’s nice they’re included. So between those two I have experience with, I’d recommend the Zenbook over the XPS 13, unless you find a great deal on the XPS 13 and don’t care about the lower resolution screen.

Apparently there are trackpad issues with the Zenbook. The one I setup was just fine, but supposedly I was just “lucky.” From what I’ve heard it comes with trackpads from different manufacturers, and some of them are unusable. The same also applies to the SSD. It’s a gamble as to which manufacturer will have supplied the SSD, and some are fast, and others are not so fast. This is all stuff I’ve heard, but not experienced, so I can’t confirm it.

I can confirm that the trackpad drivers for the XPS 13 that Dell puts up on the XPS 13 download page do not work right. Hopefully that is just a mistake on Dell’s part, but I’ve not been back to look as I managed to get the trackpad working properly with some old drivers suggested by a forum. BTW, the trackpad on the Dell did work properly with the preloaded Windows Home version, but I have no idea which drivers those were. I upgraded the computer to Windows Enterprise, so had to reinstall the drivers.

The MacBook Air is also an option. If you want to run OSX get a MacBook Air. If you don’t want to run OSX, then don’t get a MacBook Air. (Yes, the Air will run Windows and Linux, but there are cheaper options if that’s all you want to do.)

If you need to buy now, then you need to buy now, but if you can manage to wait a month or two, then Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors should be available, along with the new ultrabooks carrying them. With computers it’s (almost) always better to wait to buy, but when you know it is only a month before the new products hit, it might be worth delaying, even if you’re ready to buy.

3

A second reply, but with a slightly different slant. If you want an Ultrabook because you want a travel notebook that is full featured and will let you do all of your work on the road, then you really can only consider an Ultrabook. If you want something that will let you watch videos, browse the web, play a game or two, and check Facebook, then you might consider non-traditional options. Things like the ASUS Transformer, which is an Android tablet that can be attached to a keyboard, might be able to do everything you want at half the price of the Ultrabook. That could also be an iPad with a keyboard.

There are also Chromebooks, which run Google’s ChromeOS. For the moment they appear to be slick netbook class machines with a custom OS. I have no idea if they’d meet your needs, because I don’t really know what they can do, but they’re cheap.

Sometimes what somebody needs on the road is the ability to do everything the same as back at the office, and I totally get that. Other times though, all that’s needed is something a bit more capable and ergonomic than a smartphone, but not nearly as powerful as full PC. If that’s the case, the lack of versatility can buy a smaller form factor, improved battery life, and save money.

4

Thanks for the tips, echoreply. I can wait for the Ivy Bridge processors and will wait for them on your advice. I never would have guessed about problems with the trackpad drivers. Something to look for before I buy. The Asus is on the list; Dell is permanently off any purchasing list for me.