Ultrabook/Custom laptop sought:recomendations please

[s1nykuL]

I am looking for an new laptop for business/work use.

The closest that comes to my needs and desires is the Asus 32A Ultrabook, but I would need to swap out the HD for an SSD and upping the memory to 8Gb results in single channel operation.

I will be running a vm webserver, a couple of graphics programs on the laptop so need both the memory and bandwidth. Gaming performance is not important, but dedicated video memory is. Nvidia or AMD I have no preference.


If anyone is aware of a laptop similar to the Asus 32A but with SDD and 8Gb Ram can you please point me in the right direction.

The laptop must have a @720p or 1080p matte screen or at least a screen good enough for working outside in indirect sunlight (for the rare occasion we get some sun here in blighty) 12-13" wide or there about and as light as possible, i5 preferably but i7 is OK.

Alternatively, are there any trusted custom laptop builders in the UK? I have found a couple but there is always some compromise to be made. If a am going to spend up to £1500 on a laptop, I don't want to compromise. To be able to support a small UK business instead of one of the corporates would also be great.

No Apples please, nothing wrong with their kit except that even after they have sold it they still think it is their kit, besides they're rich enough already.

Thanks for your time

[antiacid]

I'd like to point out that the zen ultrabooks come in different flavors. There's http://www.directcanada.com/products...nufacture=ASUS that seems to be pretty much what you want

[s1nykuL]

I'd like to point out that the zen ultrabooks come in different flavors. There's http://www.directcanada.com/products...nufacture=ASUS that seems to be pretty much what you want

As you say this has pretty much what I want, thanks.

However I am pretty sure the ram on this is soldered like the 32A but unlike the 32A this does not have an expansion slot.
I found conflicting information though and will research more thoroughly later.

I pretty much need 8Gb of ram in order to run a LAMP stack and Eclipse IDE in a VM ontop of Windows 7.

[s1nykuL]

I went for Samsung NP900XC... i5+HD4000, 8Gb, 128Gb ssd.

Very nice. A pleasure to use, I very much like the keyboard. Good screen, good looking notebook, nice and light for a 15" screen.

Windows experience index:

processor:6.9
memory:7.4
graphics:6.4
gaming:6.4
disk:7.4

It's pretty quick

[L'enFer]

Talking about battery life, are any of those ultrabooks close to Macbook (Air)? Because up to nowadays Macbook was the only powerful laptop with IPS screen and long battery life.

[s1nykuL]

Talking about battery life, are any of those ultrabooks close to Macbook (Air)? Because up to nowadays Macbook was the only powerful laptop with IPS screen and long battery life.

I can only tell you about the battery life of the NP900XC, I have no practical experience with any other notebook/ultrabook.
There are a fair few reviews and comparisons between Samsung and Apple laptops out there though.

I used my Samsung off the mains for the first time yesterday.

I got this laptop for work purposes and I do web development so I used the laptop as I would in a normal working day.

I run a LAMP stack in a Virtualbox guest and use Eclipse IDE from within Windows to edit files on that VM.
I had a couple of instances of Firefox open in Windows, hitting refresh after an editing session happens often.

I used Gimp once to resize a couple of small images in the VM and I used another vector graphics program in Windows for about 30 minutes. I did around a total of 40 minutes Internet browsing and a file transfer of around 20Mb over the LAN.
Other than the activities above all the time was spent editing text files on the VM web server and hitting refresh in Firefox
For the whole time it was connected to my LAN via WiFi.

I stopped on a few occasions for 15 or so minutes at a time putting the laptop into sleep. (I have not added these minutes to the battery life time) It would be unrealistic to include them as the laptop was just sleeping.

I got 7 hours and 30 minutes before I put in the power back with the battery at 8%. I reckon I could of got no more than 30-40 minutes out of the remaining 8% even though the battery indicator reckoned there was over an hour of usage left.
It took just over three hours for a full recharge.

Not once whilst I was using it did it make a sound. Totally silent. Obviously what I was doing with the laptop was not taxing it enough to ramp up the cooling and explains the 7+ hours of use. Even so, after all this the laptop was barely warm. Playing games and hi def video content or crunching huge spreadsheets might make it a different story. For my usage patterns it is fine.

I am happy with that. Samsung reckon 10 hours, perhaps if using it as an e-reader and nothing else 10 hours is possible.

Having played with this for a few days now, I can say I am very happy with it. It feels good, looks good and performs well.
The smart pad with gesture recognition and a superb keyboard make it a pleasure to use. Although the 1600x900 display isn't HD nor IPS, the image quality is excellent and what's more it's matte, which is far more important to me than resolution when it comes to working on a sunny day in my local's beer garden.

[L'enFer]

7.5 hours isn't bad at all.

Thanks for for such a detailed information.