It’s one of the most Ultraboooky Ultrabooks out there. The Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro sits with the Sony Vaio Pro 13 and the Samsung ATIV Book 9 as showcase devices that are fast, light, stylish and very very usable. The Yoga 2 Pro, however, differs in that it’s a convertible. You wouldn’t know it at first glance though because it’s under 16mm thick and weighs just 1400 grams / 3 pounds. You can’t tell an Ultrabook from it’s thickness and weight though so let’s get into the full review of the Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro
The Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 11S in review here is a current Ultrabook, in previous generation form. The new Haswell versions are feeding-in but this Ivy Bridge version is on offer at $699 so it makes an attractive hybrid of great quality and mobility even more interesting. Ben reviewed the Core i7 version in July but we have the Core i3 version with 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD, 11.6-inch version here now. It’s mostly a great experience but there are, as always, considerations. Read on to see if the Lenovo Yoga 11S fits your requirements and check out the Core i7 vs Core i3 Yoga 11S comparison.
Some Ultrabooks focus on getting things done and although the end result is often a little on the dull side you can sense that you’re moving faster than with some other laptops and Ultrabooks. The Dell Latitude 6430U is one of those Ultrabooks and we’ve just had the pleasure of a few weeks testing it. Full review below.; Overview review video at the bottom of this post.
After spending time with the NEC Lavie Z, we’re ready to give you the full report. What’s obvious is the incredibly light weight of this device; it is hands-down the lightest Ultrabook we’ve seen — lighter even than many 11.6-inch Ultrabooks despite the Lavie Z being in the 13.3-inch class. Beyond the weight is the fastest CPU Ultrabook we’ve tested and a speedy SSD. In this review we’ll give you the lowdown on the build quality, aesthetics, performance, and more.
Our pal Avram Piltch of LaptopMag got his hands on Acer’s new Aspire S5 Ultrabook and has an in-depth review available for your perusal. Does the S5 stand up to the competition? LaptopMag rated it 3 stars out of 5, but certainly not because of its record breaking SSD array.
I really like user reviews. You get a longer-term view on the device and the owner has enough time to find those smaller issues that can sometimes grow into annoying ones. There’s one such issue here in the Lenovo U300s review below that Daniel Rourke [Twitter] sent in but in general he’s a very happy U300s customer.
If you’d also like to contribute to Ultrabooknews, drop me a line via our contact page. If you’re in the industry, an expert analyst, an owner/user or just have something serious to put forward, I’ll consider it for publication.
Before we get into the detail on the Samsung NP350 I need to make it clear that I bought the Core i3 (2.2Ghz) version in the UK for a pre-tax price of about £370 (pre-tax business purchase price that equates to under $600 in the USA) In the UK, Ultrabooks start at around £680. The price differential isn’t so pronounced in other countries. E.g. In the USA, the Core i5 version of the NP350 is around $700 (where Ultrabooks start at $800) Having said that, the NP350 offers features that match, and in some cases beat Ultrabooks. I’ve bought the NP350 for use over the next months while i wait for the next wave of Ultrabooks and will be using it for blogging, video production, image editing, storage and as my day-to-day desktop.
Update: The original article had a battery capacity calculation error. Please see the correct figures in the battery testing section below.
Note: In the UK, the Amazon price is up by £100 now. Keep an eye out for offers.
If you’ve been looking at getting the best specifications into your Ultrabook choice you are likely to have the Toshiba Z830 at the top of your list. With a backlit keyboard, SSD, Intel WiFi module with Wi-Di and My-Wifi support, full size set of ports including VGA, HDMI and SDXC, all in the lightest weight possible, the Toshiba Z830 with Core i5 promises a lot. But that’s just specifications and real-world is sometimes very different. Fortunately the Z830 delivers, although it has one possible showstopper hidden away beyond the specs and a few little niggles that might put you off. You can read about them in the full Toshiba Z830 review below. Thanks to Toshiba Europe for sending the Z830-10J over for review.
