Technical > PC Hardware Discussion/Reviews > Ultrabooks?

Ultrabooks?

Of course there is the Apple Macbook Air. the original ultrabook, if you have the money and like dealing with Apple. Ultrabooks must have a SSD(Solid State Drive), same as Macbook Air. The elimination of the spinning hard drive, even an option, is what freed up space to get the current generation MacBook Air so thin. There is no traditional drive bay. This cuts out most fan noise and all drive noise. No spinning hard drive means less electricity use, which usually means longer battery usage time. Dell has a XPS 14z that can be ordered with an SSD or with a regular SATA spinning drive. It is not really an ultrabook. HP HAS A FOLIO 13 which has a SSD(128GB). That seems to be an ultrabook.

Now, how important is it that new laptop be an ultrabook? As I pointed out, you can order laptops with SSDs instead of rotating hard drives from both Dell, Sony, HP or others. This gets you some of the benefits without the cost of buying the latest style fashion.

reply to old_lurker
You can find i5 laptops for $500 and up. At least 4GB ram, however it's easy enough to upgrade memory yourself for cheap, and unless they download tons of crap a 500gb drive is more than they will need. These won't be thin, but don't fool yourself, you're going to pay for thin.
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I distrust those people who know so well what god wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires- Susan B. Anthony
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reply to old_lurker
Not suggesting that you don't get her a new laptop. That's what you do for fiancees, after all.

However, just want to point out that with enough RAM and a fresh Windows install, her existing laptop should be far better than "terribly slow".
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A core 2 machine should be able to handle what they need still. I wouldn't make any guarantee that a clean instal will make it perform any better, but maybe an upgrade of ram might help, however many of these machines had limits of 2GB of ram which should still be enough.
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I distrust those people who know so well what god wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires- Susan B. Anthony
Yesterday we obeyed kings, and bent out necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to the truth- Kahlil G.

reply to old_lurker
I agree with BlitzenZeus that a Core 2 machine might be enough, but disagree with the 2GB recommendation. I would go for 4GB at minimum. I am using 3GB of the 4GB loaded on my machine right now, with antivirus, internet interfaces, WiFi, video, and several office programs in use simultaneously. If there are no weird RAM limits on the machine, and upgrade to a full 4GB can help make thing run a little faster on bootup and during other processes. What do I mean by weird RAM limits? Some 32 bit Windows computers will not deal correctly with 4GB of RAM because of limits put in by the manufacturer or due to strange hardware limits. If you put 4GB in, the computer will not boot up. I have seen 32 bit Windows laptops that would not accept a 2GB upgrade. I had to stop at 1 GB trying to upgrade from the original 0.5 GB.

The other thing to consider is that the new machines typically have better onboard graphics or graphics cards. That can help when doing a lot of graphics tasks at the same time.

I was pointing out some boards had limits of having only 2GB....

reply to old_lurker
old_lurker,

Here is a nice Ultrabook:

»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···34230171

Freddy

Edit: To see other Ultrabooks, just search on ultrabooks at newegg.

I'm interested as well. My wife has a C2D 15.6", and I was hoping to get her a smaller form factor she can take to school--the ultrabook's profile is definitely a winning factor here.

Looking for an i3 to i5 with a 64-128GB SSD. $1100 is a little pricey, but I understand you don't want to skimp with one of these or you'll either get something slower than a snail or else something flakey.
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If we lose this freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment, those who had the most to lose, did the least to prevent its happening.

reply to BlitzenZeus