Any UltraBook users?

Number_25 · 22 Mar 2012 at 21:32

Hey guys,

I am seriously considering purchasing an UltraBook and then throwing a Linux distribution on it (Most likely to be Ubuntu).

But from when I've used Ubuntu on laptops and other portable devices before I tend to find that the battery life tends to be nothing in comparison to if Windows was installed. I think this is a driver issue.

So does anyone here use a Linux distribution an a UltraBook, and if so how does the battery life fair?

Disco Boy · 22 Mar 2012 at 23:18

Any particular reason why you want Ubuntu? OSX will do all the things that a windows system won't do in terms of *nix.

Essexraptor · 23 Mar 2012 at 00:06

Would have to agree with Disco Boy

If your main concerns seem to center around battery life v going the "Ultra" route

Surely you would be better off going the whole hog and going for something like the MacBook Air ?

Disco Boy · 23 Mar 2012 at 00:07

Essexraptor said:
Would have to agree with Disco Boy

If your main concerns seem to center around battery life v going the "Ultra" route

Surely you would be better off going the whole hog and going for something like the MacBook Air ?

My thoughts exactly.

FirebarUK · 23 Mar 2012 at 11:26

Lots of activity in this powersaving space atm. I would suggest the Asus Zenbook UX31 though. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1865577

Number_25 · 23 Mar 2012 at 20:43

Essexraptor said:
Would have to agree with Disco Boy

If your main concerns seem to center around battery life v going the "Ultra" route

Surely you would be better off going the whole hog and going for something like the MacBook Air ?

The MacBook air is incredibly expensive.

And plus I've already stated that I'm not going to buy a Mac.

Amp34 · 23 Mar 2012 at 20:51

Number_25 said:
The MacBook air is incredibly expensive.

And plus I've already stated that I'm not going to buy a Mac.

If you find the MBA incredibly expensive then I'd give up on getting an ultrabook. All the good ones are not much difference in price.

If you want an "ultrabook" that is fairly cheap then the Samsung Series 5 is probably the best you will get. Except it doesn't really fit any of the real ultra ultrabook specs - It's 14", twice as thick, has a DVD drive and a mechanical HDD...

There are also the Acer ultrabooks, but you get what you pay for with an Acer... Not very good...

I'd personally look at the UX31 and the Samsung Series 9 (new one) although the latter isn't classed as an ultrabook (even though it's the quintessential untrabook design), however both aren't much different in price to the MBA.

Bigsy · 23 Mar 2012 at 20:55

Plenty of power regressions have knocking about for over a year now in the current distros.

I think most of them have been addressed as of kernel version 3.3 not sure what 12.04 is based on.

Ol!ver · 24 Mar 2012 at 01:58

Number_25 said:
The MacBook air is incredibly expensive.

And plus I've already stated that I'm not going to buy a Mac.

You've clearly not seen the price of the proper Ultrabooks, have you?

They ain't netbooks.

Number_25 · 28 Mar 2012 at 13:52

Ol!ver said:
You've clearly not seen the price of the proper Ultrabooks, have you?

They ain't netbooks.

I wasn't saying that they were in anyway cheap (I'm expecting to spend anywhere in the region of £700 - £1,100 on one of these badboys) and I would have ideally liked to put 12.04 on it.

I guess we'll have to wait for one of the big laptop manufacturers to start offloading laptops with a linux-distr pre-installed before we see any improvements.

Disco Boy · 29 Mar 2012 at 11:36

There is info about the ultra books on the market in this article:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5660/dell-xps-13-a-different-kind-of-ultrabook/6

I still stand by the MacBook air as being competitively priced. Especially if you can get HE discount

crinkleshoes · 29 Mar 2012 at 12:39

Number_25 said:
I wasn't saying that they were in anyway cheap (I'm expecting to spend anywhere in the region of £700 - £1,100 on one of these badboys) and I would have ideally liked to put 12.04 on it.

I guess we'll have to wait for one of the big laptop manufacturers to start offloading laptops with a linux-distr pre-installed before we see any improvements.

The 128GB SSD 13" is well within your price range then... :confused:

And that's before HE discount...