The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus is here and I’ve been using it for four days. It’s a fantastic little machine with a few things that you’ll have to watch for; Micro ports being one of them, the screen being another. Yes, that 3200×1800 screen has not one, but two down-sides.
I’ve just sent back the Fujtsu Q702 hybrid. It was a great, productive all-rounder (Review here) and is also available with Core i3 and without VPro for much the same price as the Ultrabook I’ve just started testing. The Sony Vaio Duo 11 also fits many of the same user profiles as the Q702. It’s fitted with a digitizer, converts to a tablet and has a great set of ports. My first impressions are generally positive.
The Samsung Series 7 is, in my eyes, one of the best Ultrabooks out there right now. It combines some of the best elements of Ultrabooks in one tidy package. I had a chance to check it out at CeBIT last week and I’m now sure it will be high on the list of many readers over the next 6 months.
North Cape is the Haswell hybrid Ultrabook reference design that was brought out as the demo at CES in Jan. This evening in Hannover, Intel have allowed us to have a few minutes hands-on with it at CeBIT. Naturally this is a reference design and not a final product but from the few minutes we had we can draw at least a few conclusions. I also had a chance to speak to a senior marketing representative from Intel about Connected Standby.
I’m a little bit behind the curve on reviewing the Lenovo Yoga 13 but given the amount of interest that we’ve had on the Yoga 13 over the last year (yes it was a year ago I had my first hands-on) it’s worth spending some time on a detailed review. Before that though, here’s my first impressions after 4-5 days usage.
Thanks to Lenovo I’ve got the Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon here. It’s a high-end productivity and security-focused Ultrabook and the first Ultrabook I’ve tested with 3G capability. A 256GB SSD and a VPro-capable Core i5-3427U 1.8Ghz CPU along with 8GB of RAM make for an impressive set of specs. The setup being tested here comes with Win 7 Pro a fingerprint reader and has a list price of €2276 although it’s available for around 1800-1900 Euros on the ‘street.’
I had the chance to check out the Toshiba U920T / U925T slider Ultrabook at IDF last week in San Francisco and put a quick video together showing the slider mechanism, ports and screen which, is quite the glossy experience as you’ll see. There’s also an NFC demo – the U920T will be the first Ultrabook with NFC.
The Dell XPS 13 is finally in our hands, just in time for the live webcast this evening. Late yesterday evening I managed to get an overview video made and it’s embedded below. It’s a fantastic looking device which a punchy screen and a great keyboard but there’s also an issue of ports. For photographers and videographers, one of the target ‘creative’ markets for the Ultrabook, you’ll miss any form of SD card slot. For those using VGA and HDMI screens, you’ll be annoyed at having to buy one or two adaptors and even more annoyed when you forget to bring them to that presentation! The XPS 13 is certainly not the cheapest Ultrabook, it’s not the lightest either. Will the style be enough for you?
The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus is here and I’ve been using it for four days. It’s a fantastic little machine with a few things that you’ll have to watch for; Micro ports being one of them, the screen being another. Yes, that 3200×1800 screen has not one, but two down-sides.
