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ASUS 15-inch Zenbook U500: Ivy Bridge, optional NVIDIA graphics and a full numpad (update: hands-on)
ASUS is expanding its Zenbook lineup to include a larger 15-inch model. The company just announced the Zenbook U500, an Ultrabook packing some pretty robust internals. There's an Ivy Bridge Core i7 processor under the hood, along with an optional NVIDIA GT650M graphics chip and up to 512GB of storage. No word on weight yet, but the package measures 0.78 inches at its widest. The U500 also keeps in line with other Zenbooks' aluminum design, complete with the famous spun-metal lid. The 15-inch form factor gives the U500 room for a separate numpad on the keyboard (there's backlighting here, too). For storage options, you get either dual SSDs with up to 512GB capacity or the combination of a 128GB solid-state drive and a 500GB hard drive. And, like ASUS' other latest Zenbooks, this machine will sport a full HD, anti-glare display with IPS technology. The company has yet to announce pricing and availability -- that info will come at the company's Windows 8 press event. Brian Heater contributed to this report.
Toshiba Satellite U845 review: an inexpensive Ultrabook worth considering
More Info Toshiba shows off 14-inch Ultrabook, we go hands-on Toshiba intros 14-inch Satellite U845 Ultrabook Toshiba Satellite U845W review Toshiba's most recent Ultrabook offerings have something of a split personality. On the one hand, there's the Satellite U845W, a high-end machine with solid quality and a funky, 21:9 display. Announced alongside it, though, was the Satellite U845, a more modest sort of machine for folks who can't afford to spend $1,000 on their next laptop. Starting at $750, it offers all the specs you'd expect from a mid-range laptop: Ivy Bridge, Intel Wireless Display and a backlit keyboard. And, given that it's a slightly larger Ultrabook, it also makes room for key ports like HDMI and an Ethernet jack. But the U845 is hardly the only 14-inch thin-and-light on the block, and it's definitely not the only sub-$800 system aimed at the back-to-school crowd. Read on to see if there's enough pizazz here to make this a memorable machine.%Gallery-162888%
ASUS Zenbook Prime faces teardown, affords a little expansion in an even smaller space
We often assume that Ultrabooks scarcely have any room to budge on the inside, and that's usually true. An iFixit teardown of ASUS' Zenbook Prime has proven that there's always an exception to the rule. Looking at a UX32VD with the same base layout as the UX31 we reviewed, the repair outlet finds that the upgraded Zenbook has both embedded and removable RAM: provided owners are still willing to perform some surgery, they can upgrade past the 4GB of included memory on their own terms. The repair team is a bit dismayed that there's a 5,400RPM hard drive spinning near the mini SSD -- how very 2011 -- but notes that it's equally swappable by those who want something faster. Whatever you think of the fully pieced-together ASUS PC, it's apparent there's a reward for those willing to take it apart.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon review: the definitive Ultrabook for pros
More Info Lenovo ThinkPad X1 review Lenovo announces the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, a 14-inch Ultrabook with Ivy Bridge, optional 3G and a 1600 x 900 display Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook gets official: on sale August 21st for $1,399 and up The storied ThinkPad line has just turned 20 and, over all those years, the brand has established itself as something that (mostly) successfully straddles the line between boring corporate accessory and classy consumer choice. Stoic is an apt term for the machines and, through those two decades, they've only gotten better and better -- well, most of the time, anyway. Welcome, then, to what is the latest and, therefore, what should be the best: the $1,499 ThinkPad X1 Carbon. It's an evolution of last year's X1, thinner and lighter than that pre-Ultrabook despite having a larger display. The Carbon moniker here not only describes this machine's matte black exterior but also applies to the woven and resin-impregnated composite structure within, delivering a rare mix of light weight, svelte dimensions and durable construction. It's a wonder to behold but can it improve on the previous ThinkPad X1's shortcomings? There's only one way to find out. %Gallery-162336%
ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A Ultrabook review: a high-res display, and a much-improved keyboard
More Info ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A alights its Ivy Bridge at Amazon: $1,149 for Core i5 edition ASUS bringing Zenbook Prime UX21A, UX31A, UX32A and UX32VD to the US, prices start at $799 ASUS Zenbook Primes with 1080p IPS panels and probably Ivy Bridge CPUs are real, coming to Taiwan in June ASUS made a grand entrance into the Ultrabook race with the Zenbook Prime UX31E, which brought a sleek design and lovely, high-res screen. That machine was one of our favorites in what was still a budding category, though we took issue with the shallow keyboard and uncomfortable touchpad. The company recently started shipping its new Zenbook Prime series, including the 11-inch UX21A we checked out a few months ago. But there's also a follow-up to the 13-inch UX31E on the market: the ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A. This laptop offers a retooled keyboard, Ivy Bridge chips and a 1,920 x 1,080 IPS display, starting at $1,069. So how does the new 13-inch Zenbook stack up in a crowded field of high-end ultraportables? Join us past the break for the full report. %Gallery-162178%
Lenovo's ThinkPad T430u Ultrabook finally arriving this month for $779
Remember the Lenovo ThinkPad T430u? The Ultrabook aimed at business users (and one of the first PCs with a Thunderbolt port, we might add)? If it fell off your radar, we wouldn't really fault you: it was announced all the way back at CES (read: seven months ago). At the time, Lenovo warned us it wouldn't ship until Q3, and indeed, it's about to go on sale later this month, starting at $779. In case you need a refresher, this was one of the first ultraportables we saw to really test the meaning of the word Ultrabook: it has a 14-inch (1366 x 768) display and will be offered with Ivy Bridge processors, up to 8GB of RAM, a choice of HDDs or a 128GB solid-state drive and an optional NVIDIA GeForce GT620M CPU with 1GB of video memory. All told, not a bad proposition for road warriors who can't bring themselves to spend $1,400 on an X1 Carbon.%Gallery-162032%
Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon Ultrabook gets official: on sale August 21st for $1,399 and up
Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon has been a known entity since May, when the company gave us a look at the 14-inch, Ivy Bridge-packing Ultrabook. Up until now, though, the successor to the ThinkPad X1 remained somewhat shrouded in mystery, with no pricing or specific availability information to its name. But no more -- Lenovo's just raised the official curtain on the Carbon, announcing a pricing scheme of $1,399 and up and targeting an on-sale date of August 21st at Lenovo.com. The entry-level model will run a 1.7GHz Core i5-3317U CPU with 4GB, and it includes a 128GB SSD and Intel's HD integrated graphics. Like on the ThinkPad X1, 3G connectivity will be an optional feature. Head past the break for more info on the business-centric Ultrabook.%Gallery-161909%
Toshiba Satellite U845W review: an Ultrabook with a screen size all its own
More Info Toshiba outs Satellite U845W Ultrabook with 14.4-inch, 21:9 display (updated: $999 and up in the US) The Ultrabooks of Computex 2012 Toshiba bows out of netbooks in the US, sees Ultrabooks as the wave of the future Ultrabooks now come in countless shapes and sizes, and we've seen display quality vary just as much. Though 1,366 x 768 may still be the norm, 1,600 x 900 panels aren't unheard of in this ultraportable category. But what about a screen that bucks the 16:9 aspect ratio for an extra-wide 21:9? Toshiba is mixing things up with its new premium Satellite U845W Ultrabook ($1,000 and up), the first laptop to feature that odd aspect ratio. Styled in the fashion of movie theater screens, the U845W's 14.4-inch, 1,792 x 768 panel adds more horizontal pixels -- ostensibly to enhance the movie-watching experience. In theory, too, that setup should allow for more room to multitask with windows side by side. So how good of an idea is a 21:9 screen in practice? Join us as we put it to the test. %Gallery-161861%
Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 review: an Ultrabook with discrete graphics (and an optical drive)
More Info Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3 review Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 hands-on Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 Ultrabooks with Kepler graphics coming to the US for $680-plus The PC industry might have 100-some-odd Ultrabooks up its sleeve, but fortunately for restless tech reviewers like yours truly, they're not all cast from the same mold. As the year wears on, we'll see prices dip as low as $700, and a few will be offered with discrete graphics -- a nice respite from games handicapped at 30 fps. And, in some rare cases, you'll find machines that manage to achieve both. Enter the Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 series, a pair of 14- and 15-inch laptops that start at $680, and, for an added premium, can be had with NVIDIA Kepler graphics. What's more, the 14-inch model we tested has a DVD burner, making it as much a full-fledged laptop as an Intel-approved Ultrabook. Accordingly, then, we'll be comparing it not just to other low-priced ultraportables, but to some budget mainstream notebooks on offer this back-to-school season. So how does it stack up? Let's see.%Gallery-161687%
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon pricing spotted in Hong Kong
Lenovo floated the ThinkPad X1 Carbon past us in May without so much as a whisper of what the lightweight Ultrabook's price would be. The company doesn't mind shouting it out in what looks to be a Hong Kong back-to-school promo flyer, though. As long as the Newsmth.net post represents the final pricing, local residents can normally expect to pay about HK$12,880 ($1,660 US) for an X1 Carbon with a 1.7GHz Core i5, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. That's quite the premium if you compare it directly to what we see in the US for a PC like the Samsung Series 9, although it's tricky to tell if prices will be comparable on the other side of the Pacific: there's no sales tax in Hong Kong, among other factors. Even if the price varies by the time of the US launch later this summer, students in the city are already getting a discount to HK$9,180 ($1,184) that suggests at least some wiggle room if competition among Ultrabooks grows especially fierce. [Thanks, Sam]
Acer Aspire S5 review: is this innovative Ultrabook worth $1,400?
With dozens and dozens of Ultrabooks on parade, you'd be forgiven if one skinny laptop with an ultra-low voltage processor started to look like the next. Even so, it's tough to forget the Acer Aspire S5: of all the ultraportables we've seen these last nine months, this is the only one with a motorized port cover. Yeah, that one. It's an intriguing product, to be sure, and the stakes are especially high given that $1,400 price: you'd have to really enjoy that form factor (and everything else) to choose it over some less expensive ultraportable. So is it worth it? Is that drop-down door anything more than a gimmick? Questions for the ages, and ones we'll tackle in our full review after the break.%Gallery-160173%
N-Trig pen tech whittled down to single DuoSense chips and sensors, shrinks scribblings to travel size
As much as N-Trig is an old hand at supporting styluses, it's had to focus on tablets and other larger devices due to technology limits: the HTC Flyer is about as small as the company has gone to date. A new version of N-Trig's DuoSense chipset family could be the ticket to going to much smaller sizes. The new 4000 series condenses both pen input and multi-touch finger gestures into a combination of one chip and one sensor, letting any entrepreneurial device maker stuff the two control methods into a handheld device with as little as a 5-inch display. Naturally, the chip line scales all the way to 15.6-inch panels for creatives poking at the screens of laptops and larger Ultrabooks. We're told that both Android and Windows slates will get N-Trig's tinier touch tricks before the end of the year -- whether or not that includes phablets with the same girth as the Galaxy Note or Optimus Vu, however, is left to our wild imaginings.
Samsung Series 9 13-inch lands 1.9GHz Core i7, 256GB SSD edition for the power user set
When we looked at the 13-inch Samsung Series 9, we lamented that there was only one version on offer: if anyone wanted more than a Core i5 and a 128GB drive, their dreams were crushed. Samsung must feel that there's hope for us yet, as there's now a higher-end spec that slots in a 1.9GHz Core i7 and doubles the storage to 256GB. That's good news to us, even if the 4GB RAM ceiling will still have some avid Ultrabook fans turning elsewhere. Springing for the new flagship will set shoppers back by about $300 more than the previous top of the line, or $1,700 -- still pricey relative to the competition, but much more palatable you're searching for a premium Windows 7 ultraportable and aren't willing to budge on screen size.
Crucial ships mSATA-based m4 SSD upgrade, your Ultrabook never felt better
Crucial has already managed to stuff its m4 SSD into Ultrabook sizes, but the 7mm thick design may still be too portly for the thinner laptops in the pack. With that in mind, the flash memory guru has just started shipping the m4 mSATA, a barebones card that sits cozily next to the motherboard either as a cache for a rotating disk or as a main drive. It's still as speedy as many of its bigger cousins, with read speeds of up to 500MB/s per second. We suspect most buyers will be lured in by the low prices: at just $53 for a cache-friendly 32GB SSD and no more than $226 for a 256GB example, it's entirely feasible to give that spinning-drive Ultrabook a shot in the arm.
Sprint bundles Lenovo IdeaPad U310 and a mobile hotspot: $850 plus a monthly bill (update: $799)
Looking to snag a mobile hotspot with your pending Ultrabook purchase? If so, Sprint is looking to be the first US carrier to oblige with a package deal. The wireless provider will bundle the Lenovo IdeaPad U310 with a 3G / 4G mobile hotspot for $849 $799 -- plus a monthly bill of either $34.99 for 3GB of data or $49.99 for 6GB of the added connectivity. If that wasn't enough to get you to pull the trigger, the outfit has also thrown in three months of service for free once you commit to two years of Sprint's mobile broadband. You'll be strapped with the Core i5 CPU version of the Ultrabook, but you'll be able to decide between either a MiFi or an Overdrive Pro for the hotspot option. Itchin' to take the plunge? Hit that second source link below to sign up and part with your funds. Update: Although the Sprint website reads $849, we've been told by the company that the price will show up as $799 once the bundle has been added to your cart and that the product page should be updated soon.
Lenovo IdeaPad U310 review: a reasonably priced Ultrabook for the masses
More Info Lenovo IdeaPad U300s review Lenovo's IdeaPad U310 and U410 Ultrabooks start at an inexpensive $699, weigh a little more than the competition Lenovo U310 and U410 Ultrabooks now available worldwide starting at $749 For a while there, the march of Ultrabooks was comprised almost entirely of halo products: skinny, relatively expensive things designed to help Intel and its OEM partners make a good impression on the general laptop-buying public. But with 110-plus models in the pipeline, they can't all be expensive, right? By now, you may have noticed that Ultrabooks are starting to look a little less uniform: there have been larger ones, heavier ones, some with optical drives, some with discrete graphics. Next up: cheaper ones. Just in time for back-to-school shopping season, we're seeing a wave of more reasonably priced Ultrabooks, many of them with traditional spinning hard drives and slightly heavier frames. One of these is the Lenovo IdeaPad U310, a machine that brings Core i5, 4GB of RAM and hybrid storage for $799. Oh, and its design is pleasantly reminiscent of the IdeaPad U300s, a higher-end Ultrabook we reviewed late last year. No doubt, then, it'll be a tempting option for people who can't afford to spend $1,000-plus on a laptop. But is it worth it? Let's find out.%Gallery-160172%
IDC and Gartner: PC market flattened out in Q2 while Apple, ASUS and Lenovo remain the stars
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer might be working overtime to keep Apple at bay, but the PC market that his company largely built is hurting, if you ask researchers at Gartner and IDC. Both estimate that shipments of traditional computers dropped by a tenth of a point in the second quarter of 2012 -- not a good sign when Intel's Ivy Bridge processors and a wave of Ultrabooks were supposed to usher in a PC renaissance. While the exact numbers vary, the two paint a partly familiar picture of the world stage: HP and Dell are taking a bruising, while ASUS and Lenovo are making huge leaps forward. Depending on who you ask, though, Acer is either kicking Dell down to fourth place or occupying that all too comfortable spot itself. The economy and tablets are once again blamed for making would-be PC upgraders jittery, although this time it may also be the wait for Windows 8 leading some to hold off. If there's a point of contention, it's the US figures. Gartner and IDC alike agree that Acer, Dell and HP all took a drubbing. The two analyst groups are at odds with each other when it comes to everyone else, though. Apple will have gained market share to as much as 12 percent, but either increased or shrank its shipments; it's Lenovo or Toshiba completing the top five outside of the usual suspects. Accordingly, take results with a grain of salt until all the PC builders have reported in. Nonetheless, if the groups have the same reasonable level of precision as they've had in the past, Microsoft may have to defer its ambitions for a little while longer.
Sony VAIO T13 review: the company's first Ultrabook targets the back-to-school set
More Info Sony announces its first Ultrabooks, the VAIO T13 and T11, for the European market Sony's VAIO T13 Ultrabook coming to the US this month with Ivy Bridge in tow, prices start at $800 Sony VAIO T Series Ultrabook hands-on (video) Until recently, Sony's name has been conspicuously absent on the ever-growing list of Ultrabook makers. Sure, we've known about the VAIO T series since CES, when the company teased an unnamed notebook behind glass, but it didn't get its official reveal until May, when it hit the European market -- with last-generation Sandy Bridge processors. That's no way to make a splash when Ivy Bridge CPUs are now de rigueur for Ultrabooks and mainstream laptops alike. Luckily, Sony got things right on the US side, releasing the 13-inch VAIO T13 with Ivy Bridge processors in tow. Other than those new chips, the Ultrabook features identical specs to the European model, not to mention the same brushed silver aluminum design. And while the brand is in for a serious game of catchup as it enters an already-crowded market, its VAIO T is priced to compete at $770. Let's welcome Sony to the Ultrabook game by giving the T13 the full review treatment.
Samsung Series 9 review (13-inch, mid-2012)
More Info Samsung unveils redesigned Series 9 laptops with 13- and 15-inch displays, starting at $1,399 Samsung Series 9 review (15-inch, mid-2012) Samsung refreshes Series 9, 5 and 3 laptops, unveils two new Series 5 systems Good things come in pairs, right? Earlier this year Samsung revamped its high-end Series 9 line with two new Ultrabooks: an impressively thin 15-inch model, along with a more portable 13-inch machine. So far this year, we've gotten a chance to review the larger version which remains one of our favorite ultraportables ever, thanks to its minimal design, fast performance, lovely display and long battery life. "So what?" you're thinking. "Why bother revisiting the miniature version?" For one, friends, Samsung only recently refreshed the Series 9 with third-generation Intel Core processors, and we were eager to make note of any performance gains. More importantly, though, the 13-inch Series 9 faces stiffer competition than its big brother. There truly isn't another big-screen notebook quite as thin or as light as the 15-inch Series 9; if those are the attributes that matter most, that's the laptop you're best off getting. But the smaller Series 9 finds itself fighting for space on retail shelves amidst high-end ultraportables like the MacBook Air, ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A, the HP Envy Spectre XT and, well, you get the idea. So how does this $1,300 system fare against such worthy opponents? Read on to find out.
Acer says it's 'moving away from the lower end' in Europe, leaving cheaper laptops to Packard Bell
This certainly doesn't come as a huge surprise given where Acer has been focusing its attention as of late, but it looks like the company is truly intent on shedding its image as a low-cost brand -- at least in Europe. Speaking with TechRadar, an Acer spokesperson said that "it can be a slightly conflicting message," referring to it also offering computers under its Packard Bell brand, and that "Acer is moving away from the lower end." In this case, Acer is defining low-end as under £400, or roughly $600, although it says there will be some crossover. The spokesperson further added that "Acer will become more premium," also noting that "we try to separate the two brands as far as possible, so the average consumer has no idea that the two brands are associated." What that means for Acer in North America (where the Packard Bell brand is long gone) remains to be seen, but we've reached out to the company for comment.
