Lenovo IdeaPad U300s

Lenovo IdeaPad U300s: Light, Luxurious

Lenovo IdeaPad U300s Review

If there's a laptop that deserves the moniker "Ultrabook"--a term that Intel introduced (and trademarked) earlier this year for a class of very slim and light laptops--it's the Lenovo IdeaPad U300s. Not because it's faster or beefier than the competition (it's not), but because it actually looks like a thin coffee-table book when closed. It's also the Ultrabook that many in our labs gravitated toward due to its luxuriously minimalist styling and superior input ergonomics. At least they did until they heard it cost $1595, a price tag that reflects the expense of the U300s's large (256GB) solid-state drive, or SSD.

Despite an Intel Core i7-2677M CPU, 4GB of DDR3 system memory, and that aforementioned 256GB SSD on board, the U300s performance lagged behind the Asus Zenbook UX31e. Still, a WorldBench score of 114 indicates plenty of power for everyday chores. Gaming frame rates delivered by the integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 max out at 31 frames per second at 800 by 600 resolution--with the details turned way down low, which doesn’t cut the mustard for modern games.

On the other hand, battery life is 6 hours and 34 minutes, which compares nicely with the rest of theUltrabook crowd. At 2.9 pounds it’s one of the lighter Ultrabooks, though you won’t notice much difference between the heft of the U300s and the Zenbook or the Acer Aspire S3, all of which weigh close to 3 pounds.

Video playback at any resolution is smooth as can be, though you get the usual down-converting issues with 1080p playback on the 13.3-inch, 1366 by 768 display. The colors rendered by the display are rich, but the shiny surface is prone to glare--one of the few questionable design decisions on the U300s. Audio is stellar through headphones, but sounds slightly muffled through the speakers. Tweaking the included SRS sound enhancement software helps tremendously.

The U300S's keyboard is "breathable" (to use Lenovo’s term), which is a friendly replacement word for "ventilated." This trick is now used on a number of laptops (notably Apple's) so that no ventilation holes are required on the bottom of the unit where they can be blocked while sitting on your lap. It also means that the unit feels quite cool on your thighs. A ventilation port is on the left edge of the laptop, though.

The keyboard itself has a very nice feel for having such a short stroke (a common problem with ultrathin laptops). That's partially a textural impression--the entire unit has a luxurious feel due to the fine grain on the aluminum case’s paint job (available in Clementine Orange and Graphite Gray). The glass, buttonless touchpad is equally satisfying--in lieu of scroll areas, it uses two-finger swiping. So there’s no inadvertent straying into the scroll area--nice.

Depending on your needs, you might find the port selection on the U300s lacking. It has a USB 3.0port for quick data transfers and backup, an HDMI one for video output, plus an additional USB 2.0 port, but that's about it. There's no VGA for older displays, no SD/MMC card slot, no eSATA, and--probably most surprising--no ethernet. The lack of eSATA isn't remediable, but is ameliorated by the presence of USB 3.0. For VGA, SD, and ethernet you'll need USB adapters. Connectivity consists of 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0, as well as WiDi for wireless display.

The U300s is the first laptop I've handled that ships with Microsoft's free Security Essentials in lieu of a trial of pay security software. MSE is just as effective for most users, but stays out of your way unless there's an issue, unlike most pay options. There's no array of junk software either; just Cyberlink's YouCam utility for the 1280 by 720 webcam, a free subscription to Absolute Data Protect for encrypting data and remote disabling of the laptop, Google Chrome, and Cyberlink's OneKey recovery for backing up your system. The latter works in conjunction with a button on the left rear of the U300s that initiates recovery if the bundled Windows 7 Professional operating system stops booting correctly.

No matter which way you cut it, the U300s is a pricey laptop, though only moderately more so than the similarly configured competition. It's available in a slower, less capacious configuration with a Core i5-2457M CPU and a 128GB SSD for $1195, and Lenovo's U260 and its recently releasedU400 are only slightly thicker and heavier, with cheaper configurations. The missing ports are a bit of puzzler, but otherwise the U300s delivers a very satisfying Ultrabook experience.

Samsung Series 9 (2012 model)

Samsung Series 9 Review: Ultra-thin, but Hard to Use

Samsung Series 9 (2012 model) Review

Razor-thin laptops are nothing new, thanks to the influx of Ultrabooks in the market. But Samsung's latest Series 9 laptop isn't quite an Ultrabook--it's better. The 2012 Series 9, which comes in two flavors (13.3 inches and 15 inches) is thinner, more powerful, and simpler than both its predecessor and the average Ultrabook.

This review is for the 15-inch Series 9, which costs $1500. The 15-inch model is a mere 0.6 inches thick, which is thinner than the 0.7-inch thickness standard for 13.3-inch (and smaller) Ultrabooks. The Series 9 weighs in at just 3.7 pounds, minus accessories.

Our review model comes packed with an Intel Core i5-2467M processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. It also features built-in Wi-Fi 802.11n/a/b/g, a built-in webcam and microphone, and a full-size backlit keyboard. It runs a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium, and relies on integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics.

Performance

In our WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, the Series 9 scores an impressive 154. Thanks to this very high score and some very long battery life, it earned a overall performance score of 91 (relative to other ultraportable laptops). The average overall performance score of past three ultraportables we've tested is 76, so the Series 9 scores very well for its category.

Graphics performance on the Series 9 is also good for its category, but not great overall. In our Dirt 3 graphics tests, the Series 9 managed an acceptable frame rate of 43.9 frames per second, but only at low quality settings and resolution. Of course, when we upped the quality settings to high and the resolution to 1366 by 768 pixels, the Series 9 eked out a barely-playable frame rate of 15.6 fps. This laptop is no gaming machine, but it's not meant to be, as it has no discrete graphics card.

The Series 9 also does well when it comes to battery life, which is surprising, considering it's got a 15-inch screen. We managed to get 7 hours, 36 minutes out of the Series 9. The average battery life of the past three ultraportables we've tested--all of which have 14-inch or smaller screens--is 6 hours, 21 minutes.

Design: Chassis, Keyboard, Trackpad

This year's Series 9 is even simpler and more minimalist than last year's design. It's housed in a solid black aluminum chassis, which has none of the plastic accents of last year's model. Its cover is a soft matte-black, with a small silver Samsung logo on the left side. The interior is also simple: a solid aluminum keyboard deck, four pinprick-sized blue LEDs (including one on the Wi-Fi toggle function key and one on the power button), and a small rectangular power button. The keyboard deck has no additional buttons, though it does have several function keys for adjusting screen brightness, volume, keyboard backlight, and so on.

The Series 9 doesn't have a ton of ports, but Samsung gives you a nice selection with what little space it has. The left side of the machine has a Sleep-and-Charge USB 2.0 port, as well as a combination headphone/microphone jack, a mini-HDMI output port, and a small proprietary port for plugging in an included port-to-ethernet dongle. On the right side, you get two USB 3.0 ports, a micro-USB port, and a barely noticeable SD card slot under a little door.

The keyboard and trackpad on the Series 9 are disappointing. The keyboard has island-style keys that are large and widely spaced, but very, very shallow. Thanks to this lack of key travel, the keys offer weak tactile feedback, which makes it difficult to type accurately over long periods of time.

The touchpad is large and soft, and looks and feels like Apple's glass touchpad. It has a thin silver outline and no distinguishable buttons. Unlike the touchpad on last year's model, I didn't find this touchpad to be too sensitive; rather, I found it to be not sensitive enough. Even after installing a driver update, the touchpad didn't always respond when I wanted it to, and multitouch gestures were jerky and inaccurate.

Screen and Speakers

One of the Series 9's most impressive features is its big, bright, matte LED-backlit screen. We were impressed with the previous model's screen, and this model's screen is essentially the same, just with a higher resolution (1600 by 900 pixels instead of 1366 by 768 pixels). It is incredibly bright at the highest brightness setting, which means it's perfect for working on in bright or direct sunlight. It also offers excellent viewing angles, vivid colors, and an antiglare matte finish.

Audio is another story. Though I don't expect studio quality from laptop speakers, especially one as thin as the Series 9, the speakers here are even worse than average. Sound is not just tinny, strung-out, and bass-less, it's also fuzzy at higher levels. For example, I tried watching a Saturday Night Live clip and could barely make out the announcer's words over the audience's applause, because the different sounds kept running into each other.

The Bottom Line

Initially, Samsung's 15-inch Series 9 looks almost perfect. It's thinner, but with a bigger screen, than most Ultrabooks; it's attractive and simple in design; and it performs very well for its category. Unfortunately, it has some drawbacks--namely its shoddy keyboard and touchpad, but also its less-than-impressive speakers. Substandard keyboards and touchpads are more of an issue in ultraportables, since users are unlikely to want to carry around an external keyboard and mouse. The Series 9 also lacks some of the higher-end features we're used to seeing in 15-inch notebooks, such as an optical drive.

The new Series 9 is a tantalizing machine, and it fills the niche of the 15-inch Ultrabook. But I know Samsung can do a better job on the keyboard and touchpad. Until they do, you may want to opt for a cheaper Ultrabook with more accurate input devices, unless you're absolutely set on a 15-inch screen.

Dell Latitude E6220

Dell Latitude E6220 Review: A Solid, Fast Corporate Ultraportable Laptop

Dell Latitude E6220 Review

Though not particularly svelte or eye-catching, the Dell Latitude E6220 fits the bill perfectly for a corporate ultraportable laptop. It's fast, it has state-of-the-art components, and it has the warranty and service options that large businesses expect. It also provides battery options that let you travel light or compute for nearly a day, depending on your need.

A 128GB Samsung solid-state drive combined with an Intel Core i5-2540M CPU and 4GB of system memory powered our test E6220 configuration to an impressive WorldBench 6 score of 132. Graphics work falls to the integrated Intel HD 3000 GPU, but the E6220 still managed smooth 1080p video playback, as well as frame rates between 30 and 40 frames per second in our low detail, low-resolution gaming tests.

The E6220 is also available with a Core i7-2620M and 8GB of memory if for some reason you need even faster performance. At just over $2000 (as of December 20,2011), our test unit is hardly entry-level; with the faster CPU and doubled memory, you'll pay $2300 and change. A 256GB SSD is an option for an additional $350.

This laptop can run for quite a while isolated from wall sockets. In fact, if you add the optional bottom-mounted battery slice, you can increase the E6220's run time from the "mere" 7 hours, 28 minutes that the internal battery provides to somewhere in the region of 20 hours. Of course, that fat bottom battery turns the normally 3.7-pound E6220 into a heavy little 5-pound rascal, but if you need the extra computing time, you need to accept that trade-off. The bottom slice also adds a nice forward rake to the unit, which helps when you're typing.

The E6220 is more accurately described as sedately handsome rather than stunning. Put another way: You won't get your head lopped off for showing up the boss's laptop, but it still looks like you forked over more than just a couple of Benjamins for your machine.

Ergonomics, a far more important quality, are first class. Despite the small footprint of the E6220--with its 12.5-inch, 1366 by 768 display--I'd fully adjusted to the keyboard after only a few seconds. It has a nice little bounce to it that lets you quickly set up a typing rhythm. The touchpad and buttons are, in a word, smooth. The screen has a wide viewing angle and plenty of usable brightness.

We found little in the way of junkware to clutter up the Windows 7 Professional operating system our unit shipped with. The PC comes with a utility for the webcam plus Trend Micro's Client/Server security software, and that's about it. You can opt for lesser versions of Microsoft's OS if you want to cut down on the price of the E6220. Most larger businesses and corporations will have their own productivity software and licenses, but you can add Microsoft Office 2010 Professional if you'd like--for the full price of $349.

Although lacking USB 3.0, the E6220's ports and connections are otherwise state-of-the-art. You'll find a combo eSATA/USB 2.0 port and two USB 2.0 ports, as well as both VGA and HDMI ports to handle any type of external display or projector you encounter. Bluetooth is available ($20 and present on our test unit), and Dell offers options for 802.11a/b/g/n. Ethernet is gigabit, and the laptop includes an ExpressCard slot for legacy devices. A headphone jack and dual-array microphones sit next to the 1280 by 720 Webcam for voice input.

As part of Dell's Latitude line, the E6220 sports a standard three-year warranty, and the model is promised to be available for 18 months, with parts available for quite a bit longer. You'll also get around-the-clock telephone support--and to be honest, you'll be treated better than if you'd purchased a box-store unit.

The Dell Latitude E6220 is a great performer with good battery life and all the support and warranty options necessary for a fleet rollout. It's sturdily constructed, it's up to snuff technology-wise, and overall it's a well designed and well conceived business laptop.

Dell XPS 13

Dell XPS 13: One of the Best Ultrabooks Yet

Dell XPS 13 Review,

Dell has a lot of faith in the XPS 13, its first entry into the emerging Ultrabook class of superthin laptops. Compared to what we're used to seeing from Dell, it's a design marvel: thin, light, sleek, and well built with high-quality materials. It looks good, feels good, and performs well. If not for its disappointing display quality and a few minor trackpad issues, the XPS 13 would qualify as the best Ultrabook yet. Even with those drawbacks, it's one of the best Ultraportables around, but I can't recommend it unreservedly.

The version of the XPS 13 that I tested is the entry-level model. For $999, you get a Core i5-2467M with Intel integrated graphics, 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB solid-state drive. For $300 more, you can upgrade to a 256GB SSD; and another $200 will boost the CPU to a dual-core Core i7. Our baseline configuration proved to be pretty zippy on its own, delivering a strong WorldBench 7 score of 136 (see "How We Test PCs"). Chalk that performance up to the SSD, which helps the system boot up in about 17 seconds and performs basic file operations very speedily. In our battery tests, the system lasted just a hair under 6.5 hours. However, that number drops precipitously if you crank up the screen brightness, which can get quite bright.

The design and build quality are a cut above anything we've seen from Dell in a long time, and among the best we've seen in any thin-and-light laptop on the market. The base, composed of carbon fiber, has a pleasant soft-touch feel, and it hides the obnoxious service tag info under a flip-up metal plate for a cleaner look. The matte-black magnesium-alloy keyboard deck and the aluminum lid add rigidity where it's needed. The whole machine weighs 3 pounds--nearly the same as Apple's 13-inch Macbook Air. Dell's system, despite having a 13.3-inch screen, is actually shorter and narrower than Apple's, thanks to the extremely narrow bezel around the edge. Dell likes to say that it put a 13-inch screen into an 11-inch chassis, which is a bit of a stretch, but the laptop's compactness is impressive. The XPS 13 felt solid and dense in my hands, and it didn't flex at all.

If you're into games, you had best look elsewhere. Lacking a discrete graphics chip, the XPS 13 delivered unsatisfactory performance in modern 3D games. To achieve playable framer rates in games at the display's native resolution of 1366 by 768, you have to dial the details down to their lowest setting. Even then, with some strenuous games, you can't get a good experience. Thus far, ultrabooks simply aren't for gamers.

I was quite impressed by the keyboard. Most ultrathin laptops' keyboards don't support fast, accurate typing, but the one on the XPS 13 permitted me to click away at full speed. It's even backlit. The trackpad was another story. With the initial release driver, it seemed quite finicky. Set the sensitivity so that the cursor responds well, and it will jump around the screen as you type, due to poor palm detection. Lower the sensitivity to remove that problem, and the cursor stops responding to your touch. I got my hands on a new driver and calibration program (which Dell says will be on its site soon), which greatly improved the situation. The trackpad still isn't among the best I've used, but it's no longer a major weakness.

The display, on the other hand, remains a serious shortcoming. How Dell could make such a solid, attractive, well-performing laptop and then hamstring it with a crummy display is beyond me. The resolution is a bit on the low side--we're used to seeing 1440 by 900 or 1600 by 900 on premium 13-inch laptops. Though 1366 by 768 isn't uncommon, it's not the luxurious high-end spec that Dell ought to have aimed for on a laptop like this one. The average resolution is acceptable, but the visual quality is harder to tolerate. When I moved off-axis to the left or right, colors shifted dramatically. When I opened the lid to the wrong angle, the contrast and brightness went haywire. When I looked closely at certain gradients, I could see the spaces in the grid of pixels. Ultimately this is a mediocre LCD panel covered with pretty edge-to-edge glass. It's not a dealbreaker, just a disappointment.

The audio deserves special mention, if only because it may be the best sound I've heard from a 3-pound Ultrabook. It gets quite loud, and sounds fairly good, considering the design constraints on speaker size and placement. You'll never get big bass or room-filling music from a laptop this small, but the loudness and clarity of the XPS 13's speakers belies the tiny package they come in.

From a design perspective, the XPS 13 is a fantastic addition to Dell's lineup, establishing a new bar that Dell should aim to clear with its future products. The laptop is attractive, solid, and fast. Battery life is good if you don't go crazy with the screen brightness. Audio is better than you'd expect, and the keyboard and trackpad (after the driver update) don't disappoint. With better display quality, it would be a slam-dunk. Unfortunately, the middling resolution, iffy color reproduction, and poor off-axis viewing leave a considerable stain on what would otherwise be a five-star product. Let's hope that Dell releases a revised version this summer that carries Intel's Ivy Bridge chips and a better display.