High end ultraportable

Amp34

Amp34

Amp34

Caporegime
Joined
25 Jul 2005
Posts
28,857
Location
Canada
I'm going through all my options at the moment, I was tempted to upgrade my desktop but am just not using it much at the moment in comparison to my laptop (bed is comfier than a hard chair)... That is making me think I should move forward a new laptop purchase...

So I'm looking for a ~13" laptop (nothing bigger chassis wise) which is slim, stylish and can hold its own against the big boys. It needs to have around 7 hours battery (what my old one had before battery wear got it) and a good screen as aside from the usual browsing etc I will be using it for photo processing.

Looking round there are a multitude of options in the £1kish range but they all seem to have a multitude of problems... Although I am super tempted by the VAIO Z series (as some of you may have read in the past...), it's just so expensive.

Things like the Dell 14z seem ok but the screen isn't brilliant apparently and the battery life is poor, I also think if I want something that looks like a macbook I may as well get a... macbook... The new ultrabooks are tempting but the Acer seems quite poor and the Asus style just doesn't do it (but it may look better in the flesh), I also think the power will be lacking (and IIRC the battery life is a bit iffy, same with the MB Air). On the Apple note the MBP is ok... something I've always looked at but it just looks a little.. plain and I'm not a fan of OSX, definitely worth considering though.

Back to the Sonys, the SA may be of interest but I can't find a proper review of it, most seem to review the SB and AFAIK they are pretty different in build and internals?

So any other things I should be looking at? I'm going to have a wonder round the shops tomorrow but I doubt much will come of it as they are highstreet shops...
 
Usage? If games/ graphics are a consideration then really there's only one option in the alienware m11x.

I have a 13.3" sony sz650n atm and its done sterling service for the last four or five years. I'm unsure as to the current equivalent in the sony range but if its at all similiar then i would recommend it for general usage. 13.3" is the sweet spot imo for usability vs. Portability. Pricey though and full of bloatware!
 
Usage as in the OP, general everyday and photo editing. Gaming is low on the list, however if I did end up replacing the desktop with the laptop a reasonable gaming ability would be useful but certainly not essential, especially if it came in a garish alienware case... (sorry if I offend those that like that style!):p

To give an indication of the sort of thing I'm looking for (ish) it will be replacing my 13" XPS M1330.:)

EDIT: Oh and if I do decide to use it as my main machine a design that comes with a dock would be a bonus!
 
Last edited:
If you could live with a 14inch screen I could recommend the Samsung 600B4B. i5-2520m and 300nit brightness screen, superb build quality and 6 hours of battery life all under £700 quid. I actually managed to get mine for £597 but I see the prices are now up again.
 
Andrei23 said:
If you could live with a 14inch screen I could recommend the Samsung 600B4B. i5-2520m and 300nit brightness screen, superb build quality and 6 hours of battery life all under £700 quid. I actually managed to get mine for £597 but I see the prices are now up again.
Click to expand...

That is one hefty beast. It's not something I'd just slip into my bag and carry round if I want unfortunately.

JimboJet said:
Theres always the asus u36 which would seem to be an option, or the lenovo x220 to consider as well.
Click to expand...

The U36 looks interesting, I'll have a look into that.

Scrutinize said:
ThinkPad X1
Click to expand...

Terrible battery life unfortunately.

EDIT: Also unfortunately they all seem to have low 720p screens rather than 1600x900. Not a showstopper but considering both sonys have them it is a little issue.

EDIT 2: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/07/lgs-thin-and-mighty-p330-laptop-surfaces-at-korean-retailer/ Looks interesting...
 
Last edited:
Well I managed to have a little play with a few laptops earlier. The Sony Z and S series, Samsung series 9 and the MB Air and Pro.

It's definitely made me want a 1440x900 screen or higher tbh and that does cut a few options off the list if I want that such as the series 9, although that had a low power processor so although it is a very nice machine I'm not sure it's one for me. The MB Air and Pro are well, MBs... Plain, boring but well built, but suprisingly heavy (see later), maybe if I did a bit of colourware on them then they would be better, but rather expensive after that (and the Air only has that low power processor and not brilliant battery life.

That left me with the two Sonys... The S series is a nice machine although doesn't feel as premium as the MBs or Series 9 because of the plastics but the design is nice and the screen too. The standout though, as expected TBH was the Z series. Simply stunning in almost every way... Made the MB Pro feel like a ton of bricks and the Air feel like it was made of Lead... It's almost as thin as the air but has more power than the Pro... The negatives however are the £2k asking price for a good spec (8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) and the fact it almost felt too light...

The Z series is really out of my budget tbh as much as I'd love one... The S is nice and definitely as contender (anyone have one of the current SA's, what are they like?) as is the Pro, although I'll have to wait for a refresh in the hope of a higher resolution screen. The negatives for the latter are the slightly poor windows support and the plainness, alongside the fact I'd have to strip the notebook pretty soon after I got it to stick an SSD and a few more GB of RAM in (not paying the upgrade price!)..

So anyway, all still to play for, I'm still going to see if I can find the X1 just to be thorough, the U36 and one of the new Asus low power things.

So any opinions or experience on those or any other laptops? Let me know! :p
 
Amp34 said:
That is one hefty beast. It's not something I'd just slip into my bag and carry round if I want unfortunately.
Click to expand...

Ha, I didn't notice that, to me it feels quite small and light. I guess it helps that I am not quite a weakling.

I see that ocuk are now stocking the Asus Zenbook, you might want to give that a look.
 
Last edited:
How often do you take it out the house and does it have a separate bag when you do?

I like mine to be like a pad of paper that can be carried around in a normal bag and forgotten about so as light as possible... Nothing to do with being a weakling... :p
 
I am starting to get tempted by the low power options, i7 low power versions (not in the air that I can see, although advertised?!) seem reasonably powerful, just how compared to full fat processors in stuff like photo editing I don't know... The lack of 8GB of RAM is a pain as well whereas the Z... Damn it's price!
 
Amp34 said:
How often do you take it out the house and does it have a separate bag when you do?

I like mine to be like a pad of paper that can be carried around in a normal bag and forgotten about so as light as possible... Nothing to do with being a weakling... :p
Click to expand...

I take it out at least twice a week and I carry it in a messenger bag.
 
I've been in the market myself for a new 13" laptop some time. I've actually gone from a Macbook Air 11" (2010) to a Macbook Air 13" (2011). The 11" was too small, but the 13" is almost perfect.

The Air is fantastic, don't get me wrong. It's thin, light and feels tough. It's quick and resonsive. I've just found myself using Windows all the time on it now due to the software I need to use and want a little more power (more RAM, more screen real estate).

I needed a replacement for the Air that was just as thin and just as light, so I placed an order for a custom built Sony Z on Monday! I can't comment on the Sony Z yet as I won't have it for another week or so (custom configs are built to order in Asia, and mine only went into production a few days ago), but I managed to get a few free upgrades:

CPU: Intel i5-2540M, 2.60GHz
RAM: 8GB
HDD: 128GB SATA Gen3 SSD (64GB x 2 in RAID)
Display: 1920x1080
Graphics: Intel HD 3000
Battery: ~7 hours

Managed to order it with a free upgrade to the RAM and Display, so hit my requirements perfectly! May be worth noting that I believe the RAM and HDDs are soldered straight onto the motherboard, so you can't upgrade it (from what I've read online).

One thing that put the Sony Z infront of everyone else for me is its Light Peak (Thunderbolt, sort of) port. The Sony Z has an accessory called the Power Media Dock which has a DVD or Blu Ray drive in, dedicated graphics cart and extra ports. This really turns this laptop into something else should you need/want that extra power.

I also noticed Gibbo posted up the Asus ZenBook UX21E-KX004V today which looks very good both aesthetically and technically, but it's only 11". Asus do a 13" version though with slightly better specs in some areas, may be worth a look too: http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/ASUS_ZENBOOK_UX31E

Hope that helps a little. You seem to want the Z but put off by its price, so my post may not be what you want to hear :p:D
 
Yup, you're not helping... :p

I have been interested in the UX31 but I'm just not surre about the lid... Aside from that the 256GB version is little different in price to the base model Z series, which at the moment has a free upgrade to the i7 processor. The fact it has the power Media Dock is of great interest as it really could replace my desktop kit with that as I wouldn't have to unplug everything each time, it is another £300 though, however I would save about £700 by not upgrading my desktop...

I await your review of the z series! :D
 
The HP Elitebook's would fit the bill of what you seem to be looking for in all but the 7 hour battery life, however you can always get an extended battery ...which will stick out a bit.

The build quality on the Elitebook's is also great, no cheap plastic there, just magnesium alloy and aluminium and what plastic there is, is tough and durable with a quality finish not cheap and flimsy. They also come with 3 year HP business class warranties.

This may be a shameless plug for myself, in some ways since I am actually selling mine the on the members market still, I highly recommend these laptops for what you are looking for ..., they are expensive to buy (new at least) but when you get your hands on one you can see why ...the Sony Vaio Z series is a laptop I also considered buying when I bought the HP, but also could not justify the price.

The Vaio S series is as you noted yourself another good option, although I doubt you will see quite as much battery life as you would like. Incidentally HP said of the 8440P that it could get 6 hours, well yes if you turn everything off and run the screen at minimum brightness and don't ask it to do anything that will cause the cpu or gpu to do anything but idle, the reality is 4 hours of actual proper use, I suspect much the same is true with a lot of other manufacturer quotes on battery life.
 
Last edited:
The Elitebooks are excellent business laptops, my work laptop is actually a 2540p... :o (forgot I had one when I wrote the OP as it's relatively new). Especially with 8GB RAM, an i7 and an SSD... It's not quite what I would want from a personal laptop though (although the internal specs are similar, and why I don't think I'll be able to do with less than 8GB in any personal laptop I buy :()
 
I wrote this up last night but waited until tonight to post it incase my opinion change for anything. I've spent a good 6 hours straight using the Sony Z tonight so some proper usage of it now :)

-------

Specs
CPU: Intel i5-2540M 2.60GHz
RAM: 8GB
HDD: 128GB Gen3 SSD
Display: 1920x1080
Graphics: Intel HD3000
Design: Premium Carbon

Wireless LAN, Bluetooth, Backlight Keyboard.

Ports:
1x VGA
1x 3.5m Headphones
1x Ethernet
1x HDMI
1x USB 2
1x Light Peak (Thunderbolt)

Power Media Dock Ports: (connects to the Light Peak + Power port)
1x VGA
1x HDMI
1x Ethernet
1x USB 2
1x Light Peak

-------

Delivery
I feel it's worth putting this in :p This has been the worst 2 weeks ever. I'm very impatient and because of the custom spec I ordered, it had to be custom built over in Japan.

7th November - Ordered
11th November - Production begins
16th November - Despatched from production factory to European hub
17th November - Despatched from European hub to me
18th November - Arrived!

So just a forewarning to anyone as impatient as me!

-------

Weight
I needed a new laptop that was as thin and light as the Macbook Air, and this is bang on. Compared to the Air, it weighs less on paper, and the box it arrived in almost felt like it was empty. It's very very light!

-------

Strength
First thing I noticed when I opened the lid was the difference in build quality vs the Macbook Air. The Airs are built using a metal material (aluminum?) and the lid of the Sony Z is Carbon Fibre, so I noticed the difference right away.

You can slightly bend the lid/screen, but I can't say I tried too much! It has been put through numerous physical stress tests so I believe it is quite strong despite its flimsy touch.

-------

Keyboard + Touchpad
The Sony Z gives you a full size keyboard so that's not a problem. My only dislike is the right Shift key, it's rather small compared to what I'm used to! I've spent 6 hours writing on it tonight and typing is wonderful on it, but I do keep hitting the wrong key when I go around the right-shift area, but I'll no doubt get used to it.

The Sony Z has a pretty small touchpad compared to the Air. I measure the touchpads to be:

Sony Z: 2.9 inches (w) x 2.2 inches (h)
Air: 4.1 inches (w) x 3 inches (h)

Not a major problem for me as I use a Logitech Anywhere MX (fantastic mouse, by the way!) rather than touchpad.

The Sony Z also has its built in gestures. I'm not sure how many, but the two I've noticed (I found out by accident as I'm so used to doing them on the Air) are pinch-and-zoom and 2-finger scroll. The manual problem tells you them all but I haven't read it.

One thing I will comment on is that the Sony Z touchpad is slightly textured. For example, doing a 2-finger scroll on the Air is flawless, but because of the texture on the Sony Zs touchpad, it can sometimes be a little "jerky".

It's also got a fingerprint reader at the bottom of the touchpad. I haven't used it but may be useful for some.

-------

Screen
I needed more screen real estate, so I went straight for the 1920x1080 upgrade... and it's gorgeous. It's really really gorgeous! Viewing angles are fantastic and it seems to have a lot more 'colour' compared to the Airs.

1920x1080 may be too much for some users. Reading at this resolution on such a small screen may be a burden for some people so I may suggest the 1600x900 instead, but for me it's fine!

screenfo.png

sceenv.png


-------

CPU + RAM
I went for the i5-2540M upgrade, managed to get it for free so why not! Decided against the i7 upgrade as I doubt I'd need the extra power, and I couldn't see the point in justifying the extra power/heat it'd give out (let alone the extra £180 or so).

I'm not sure how to test this for you, but I went for a quick spin with Cinebench.

Macbook Air 11" 2010: 0.70pts
Macbook Air 13" 2011: 2.11pts
Sony Z: 2.97pts

That's on the first test so it may have been better to do 3 tests and average it out but too late now (formatting my two Airs for resale now).

I've timed it booting into Windows in 18 seconds (from pressing the power button to opening Firefox). This thing is lightening fast, but more on that in the Harddrive past!

-------

Graphics
The Sony Z has an Intel HD3000 so will probably be fine for your average game. One thing to consider here is the display. The Z comes with the 1600x900 or 1920x1080 options so the resolution in a game you play may need to be reduced a little.

It does have a little secret weapon, though. The Sony Z has the option of a Power Media Dock in a DVD or Blu-Ray variation. Hook it up to your Sony Z and it gives you a dedicated graphics card (ATI 6550M 1GB) and a few extra ports. This runs through the Light Peak port on the side of the Sony Z.

The Power Media Dock is pretty much as thin and light as the Sony Z itself so wouldn't be a hassle to carry around if you wanted to game on the move or needed the extra graphics power.

Power Media Dock vs Macbook Air 13":
pmd1.png


I don't have the means to test it myself as I won't be gaming on it, but these guys summed it up:

Without the Power Media Dock's extra oomph at its disposal, the VAIO Z's Intel HD Graphics 3000 gets the job done. On 3DMark 06, the laptop scored 4,068. That's comparable to other 13-inch ultraportables with integrated graphics, but the VAIO S' AMD graphics card scored a much higher 7,353. http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/sony-vaio-z-2011.aspx
Click to expand...

Random sview of the Power Media Dock:
pmd2.png


-------

Sound
It's a shame that Sony coupled the Sony Z with poor speakers. This is a point that all the reviews picked up on so it was to be expected. The speakers are fine for general use, but listen to some music with a bit of a beat and you'll start hearing the Sony Zs let-down. Doesn't bother me too much as I'll be using headphones most of the time.

The built-in speakers in the Air are definitely better in my opinion.

-------

Harddrive
I went for the 128GB SSD Gen3 drive, which is 2 x 64GB drives in RAID 0. I've got a single SSD on my main PC, and both of my Airs had SSDs also, but the Sony Z set up is amazingly fast in comparison!

I ran three benchmarks (not at the same time!):
hddtest.png


I'm not too clued up on how it compares to others, but in my eyes, that's damn fast! As I pointed out above, I timed my Sony Z booting into Windows in 18 seconds.

-------

Pre-Bundled Rubbish
This is perhaps my major fault the Sony Z: the amount of rubbish Sony have pre-bundled with it, and I'm afraid there is no escaping from it!

Boot it up for the first time and you'll be presented with all kinds of DVD Makers, Media Players, Photo Galleries and other garbage. Restore it to its original factory settings and they'll come right back!

I tried installing a clean Windows 7 but it fails on "no DVD/CD device found" or something similar. I think this is because of the Sony Z's harddrive set up (64GB x 2 in RAID) and perhaps its missing the RAID/controller drivers, but I couldn't find much on Google (perhaps my Google skills failed me or I was being too specific ('Sony Z ...').

I did find a 'hidden' folder with all the setups for the drivers though (C:\WINDOWS\Drivers\EXE)! May be useful info. for someone else at least :)

Uninstalling all the useless crap took 30 minutes or so but after that it seems fine. The Sony Care software will keep all of your Sony software up to date (there were 6 updates for me to download).

-------

Random Pictures:

Macbook Air 13" keyboard vs Sony Z: http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/4419/keyboardc.png

Size Comparison: http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/4710/sizeso.png
(Top: Macbook Air 11" 2010, Middle: Sony Z, Bottom: Macbook Air 13" 2011)

Macbook Air 13" vs Sony Z: http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/8493/bothd.png

-------

That's my 24 hour review of it anyway! It's a fantastic piece of kit. It is expensive so whether you can justify it or not is totally up to you. When I was originally looking around for a replacement for my 13" Air, I somehow missed overlooked the ASUS Zenbook UX31E, and should I have seen it, I would've been very torn between the two.

Sony Z: starts at £1434
ASUS Zenbook UX31E: £1000 (?)

On a random note, I did actually manage to bag the Power Media Dock for a bargain price of £150 brand new. I was looking it up on Google a few days ago and noticed a guy in London had put one up for sale 9 hours prior to my search, so I got very very lucky and saved £200-250, so not bad. Coupled with my free CPU and RAM upgrade, I saved around £400.

Just need to find a new bag/case for it now :)

Any questions or anything then feel free to ask!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom