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Asus Zenbook Touch U500VZ
You can’t accuse Asus of not going to to town on the spec of its new top-of-the-line Ultrabook. With Nvidia GeForce GT650M graphics, 2.1-3.1GHz Core i7-3612QM chippery, a 70Wh battery and a 1920 x 1080 touchscreen, it’s loaded for bear and no mistake. And all that is squeezed into a body that tapers from a mere 6mm at the front to an only slightly less mere 20mm at the back. At 2.2kg, it’s a wee bit heavy but then it is a 15.6-inch machine so something had to give somewhere.
Despite the slender profile, the U500VZ packs in three USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet and a full-size HDMI port proving that a you don’t have to start cutting out useful stuff to get the drag factor down. Being a Zenbook there’s plenty of swirly aluminium on show and both screen and keyboard are good examples of How It Should Be Done. Of course, all this loveliness doesn’t come cheap but for your £1500 you are at least getting a machine that both looks and performs the part.
Price £1500
More Info Asus
More Info Asus
Dell XPS 12
For my money, Dell’s spinning screen is close to the ideal way of combining laptop and tablet functionality in one device. Sure, at 1.45kg it’s not the lightest convertible about, but thanks to a display that spins inside its bezel, when in laptop mode it looks and works just like any other laptop, while in tablet mode it looks and works just like any other tablet, albeit a rather thick and heavy one. I like the way the transforming mechanism stays in the design background rather than trying to be too clever by half.
The 1920 x 1080 display measures 12.5 inches corner to corner so the Windows 8 desktop doesn’t look quite as small and fiddly as it does on 11.6-inch panels of the same resolution, but it’s impressively bright. The absence of a memory card slot and Ethernet is a drawback, as is the meagre brace of USB ports, but starting at just under a grand for a machine with a 2.0-2.7GHz Core i5-3337U chip and a 128GB SSD, the XPS 12 is fair value. If I was looking to buy a convertible ultrabook for around a grand this is the one I’d cough up for.
Price £999
More Info Dell
More Info Dell
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COMMENTS
Highly Rated
I wanted to write a review, but I can't - I've strained my right arm trying to use a touchscreen on a non-horizontal surface.
No battery life listed?
I'd say that's a pretty important property of a laptop. I ignored a broad swathe of the last generation of 'ultrabooks', because their batteries were only good for a short commute.
screen makes do with a resolution of only 1366 x 768, though on a panel this size that’s arguably all you need or want
No. No no no no no. You do us a disservice by repeating such things. Have we not expressed our dissatisfaction with the state of laptop screens enough by now?
I'm hoping that Google's new Chromebook Pixel will herald a new batch of small laptops with rather more sensible resolutions and aspect ratios. Now if only they'd give us a non-glossy screen and slice a few hundred quid off the price, none of these other offering would get a look in...
Re: Wrong title...
I think you'd be very hard pressed to describe the hybrids as macbook air copies, since they do stuff that the macbook air doesn't.
If I had the cash handy, I'd jump at a dell xps, and I say that as a macbook pro and ipad owner.
>I wanted to write a review, but I can't - I've strained my right arm trying to use a touchscreen on a non-horizontal surface.
Right arm strain eh? Can happen after hours on the internet.... This occurred before trying to write the review?
Re: Wrong title...
@Eadon:
Xerox STAR -> MAC OS
Diamond RIO -> iPod
MS' tablets -> iPAD
Sony Viao (ultrathin) -> Mac Book air
Don't mistake Apple (or many other IT companies) for originators of ideas, they're much like Edison, existing products polished and tidied up and sold on, not much real innovation.
Anyway, who cares? Competition in a market for similar products is a good thing. I don't want to have only one OS or one laptop of a particular approximate design.
