Responsive Laptop

Glenagoolie

Hi,
I'm looking for a quick responsive laptop for browsing and Word/document/movie viewing and some light photo editing.

Laggy laptops drive me mad so needs to be SSD based.
So I think the following should help address lag

• SSD (Min 128GB)
• i5
• Screen resolution higher than 1366 x 768
• Good keyboard and trackpad
• Doesn't need to be an ultrabook but not too heavy
• Windows 8 and touchscreen if possible

It's mainly for home use so weight isn't a crucial factor but would like it to be fairly portable.

Any suggestions to hit those marks. Ideally in the €700/800 range?

Thanks
Glen

silentbutnice

Glenagoolie wrote: »

Hi,
I'm looking for a quick responsive laptop for browsing and Word/document/movie viewing and some light photo editing.

Laggy laptops drive me mad so needs to be SSD based.
So I think the following should help address lag

• SSD (Min 128GB)
• i5
• Screen resolution higher than 1366 x 768
• Good keyboard and trackpad
• Doesn't need to be an ultrabook but not too heavy
• Windows 8 and touchscreen if possible

It's mainly for home use so weight isn't a crucial factor but would like it to be fairly portable.

Any suggestions to hit those marks. Ideally in the €700/800 range?

Thanks
Glen

Check out the 15" untrabook and the enigma the IV on pc specialist.

Glenagoolie

Any other options outside of PC specialist? Lenova, Samsung, Dell? I've not used them before but I see a lot of mention of them on the boards.

Torqay

Full HD, touchscreen and SSD for 700-800 yoyos? Next to impossible,

The new ASUS VivoBook S400 will be around £600 with a Core i5 and mSATA SSD/HDD hybrid storage but the touch panel only has HD resolution (1366x768).

Glenagoolie

If I had to drop anything it would be the touch screen part... get me any closer?

Polar Ice

I think this just about manages to tick most of boxes.
It's not touchscreen and no copy of office.

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=n00i1503&model_id=inspiron-15z-5523&c=ie&l=en&s=dhs&cs=iedhs1

I don't think it's possbile to get an SSD, i5, a high resolution and touchscreen for under 800, certainly not for 700.

Glenagoolie

I had a look at that Ultranote and all this for £586/€680. Seems like a v. good deal to me. Off to read reviews on the UltraNote. Anyone got any feedback here on it or on the selections below?

• UltraNote: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Backlit Widescreen (1920x1080)
• Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-3340M (2.70GHz) 3MB
• 4GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 4GB)
• Intel® HD Graphics 4000 Video Memory Technology up to 1.7GB
• 120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
• GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N-2230 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
• 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
• Battery: UltraNote Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (62.16WH) (Up to 7 Hours)

Glenagoolie

Found this thread on boards on the Ultranote (for anyone following this thread)
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056763674

Polar Ice

I didn't read the thread you linked to, but that seems like good value for money.

silentbutnice

Glenagoolie wrote: »

I had a look at that Ultranote and all this for £586/€680. Seems like a v. good deal to me. Off to read reviews on the UltraNote. Anyone got any feedback here on it or on the selections below?

• UltraNote: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Backlit Widescreen (1920x1080)
• Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-3340M (2.70GHz) 3MB
• 4GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 4GB)
• Intel® HD Graphics 4000 Video Memory Technology up to 1.7GB
• 120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
• GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N-2230 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
• 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
• Battery: UltraNote Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (62.16WH) (Up to 7 Hours)

Watch "Ultrabook 15.6 review (Clevo W550EU) from pcspecialist" on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7STaxoIvTtE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Torqay

Glenagoolie wrote: »

I had a look at that Ultranote and all this for £586/€680. Seems like a v. good deal to me. Off to read reviews on the UltraNote. Anyone got any feedback here on it or on the selections below?

• UltraNote: 15.6" Matte Full HD IPS LED Backlit Widescreen (1920x1080)
• Intel® Core™i5 Dual Core Mobile Processor i5-3340M (2.70GHz) 3MB
• 4GB SAMSUNG 1600MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (1 x 4GB)
• Intel® HD Graphics 4000 Video Memory Technology up to 1.7GB
• 120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
• GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® N-2230 (300Mbps) + BLUETOOTH
• 2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
• Battery: UltraNote Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (62.16WH) (Up to 7 Hours)

Had one here yesterday, I just posted this in another thread:

Torqay wrote: »

A friend ordered one upon my recommendation. It arrived yesterday, he went with similar specs:

Core i7 3632QM, 8 GB RAM, 120 GB SSD (Kingston)

I'd say there isn't much this laptop cannot handle. Geekbench score 9351, Windows 7 Experience Index 7.8-7.9-6.5-6.5-7.9, boot time 12 sec from cold start.

First impressions: Pretty slim and light. No ******* stickers on the laptop (I hate that stuff). It looks a bit plasticky and yet it is very sturdy. Gorgeous display, very bright with good viewing angles. Full size chiclet style keyboard, keys travel nicely.

If you're looking for a solid and powerful workhorse, it doesn't get much better for 750 yoyos (sans OS). My friend was torn between the i5 and i7 (he'll only need it for music stuff like Reaper) but in the end he went with the i7, overkill maybe but the better long term investment. (His old laptop, one of the first widescreen ASUS laptops with a Centrino/Pentium M, lasted him almost 10 years and his hope is to a knock a similar life time out of this one)

Note: the Geekbench result reflects the power of the i7 quad, but i would expect the i5 to be equally "responsive". You'll get good value for your money.

Glenagoolie

Thanks for all the feedback, going to order the Ultranote. I'll follow up with a review on here for anyone that's interested.

Maybe a silly question but I presume all new laptops have software/circuity to prevent trickle charging and killing the battery?
My work Lenova doesn't charge until it gets below 80% where my old Dell Inspiron trickle charged and killed the battery

Four of a kind

Glenagoolie wrote: »

Thanks for all the feedback, going to order the Ultranote. I'll follow up with a review on here for anyone that's interested.

Maybe a silly question but I presume all new laptops have software/circuity to prevent trickle charging and killing the battery?
My work Lenova doesn't charge until it gets below 80% where my old Dell Inspiron trickle charged and killed the battery

Looking forward to hearing back from you about the ultranote.

Glenagoolie

Bit frustrating this, 12 working days since I've ordered and still in the Pre-Production phase. Hopefully it gets started this week.
I'm sure there's people out there with more patience but I want my new laptop!

If I was ordering again and there was off-the-shelf solution that meet my needs I think I'd go with off-the-shelf.

Glenagoolie

Got the laptop approx a week after the production of it began. Total wait approx 1 month

Ultranote : Initial impressions.

Little bit heavier than I was expecting but manageable.
Startup and resume times are excellent. It's ready to use in approx 2-3 seconds.
Battery life is decent so far. I've it set to battery saving mode and happy with performance. I'd even be happy reducing the performance down further if it saved more battery.

Pro's
Screen is very good, no reflections that I've noticed.
Startup times excellent.
Responsiveness excellent
Mouse pad responsiveness is decent

Con's
Keyboard: This is the biggest letdown so far. I'm constantly missing keys on it.
I seem to be hitting the side of keys which would normally activate the letter but it's not the case. You have to hit the center of the key and so keys hit with my little fingers I'm missing reguraly e.g. 'A' key.
I've come from an old Dell laptop with a full spring keyboard and never had these issues.
It could be me getting used to a chiclet keyboard but I've not noticed this before with other such keyboards in brief 5 minute demos.

I'm struggling to live with the keyboard, I'll give it a bit more time before final judgement.

Let me know if you've particular questions.