Notebooks

HP Envy TouchSmart 4 Review

Katherine Stevenson — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 21:40:39 +0000

The most enviable part is the price

This we know: Windows 8 is more usable with a touchscreen, plain and simple. Whether that’s a practical scenario for tower-and-monitor setups is arguable, but it turns out that using touch on a laptop comes pretty naturally—even more so than we expected. So it’s good news for consumers that touchscreen laptops are now legion, and that they run the gamut in features and price.

Optional keyboard backlighting spruces up the Envy 4’s black and brushed-metal interior.

Representing the midrange is the HP Envy TouchSmart 4 Ultrabook. What you see is what you get with this 14-inch clamshell—it doesn’t assume the persona of a tablet with the twist of a hinge, like some of its higher-profile touch brethren. That keeps the price in check—the Envy TS 4 starts at $800—but there’s more to a laptop than a modest price.

Since the touchscreen is such a key feature of the Envy 4, let’s start there. It’s 14 inches on the diagonal, has a native resolution of 1366x768, and consists of a TN panel with a glossy finish. If that sounds thoroughly ho-hum, you’ve got the picture. It looks pretty down-market—not very crisp, not very bright, with an annoyingly narrow vertical viewing angle. It’s redeemed to some extent by the highly responsive capacitive-touch overlay, which registered our every tap, swipe, and poke at the screen accurately. Be warned, however: All that touching on the glossy surface makes for some spectacular fingerprintage.

Thank goodness for the touchscreen, though, because the touchpad had some issues—the usual sort of inconsistent performance found in many clickpads. Sometimes Win8 gestures registered, sometimes they didn’t; other times programs seemed to launch just because the pointer drew near—that kind of thing. You can do some tweaking of the pad in the control panel, but we found ourselves just using the touchscreen for many chores.

The chiclet keyboard is nicely sized and spaced, and the keys have a slightly rubberized surface. All-in-all, typing on the Envy 4 was fairly comfortable and error-free. Our model featured the optional keyboard backlighting, which can be switched on and off with a top-row key, but not otherwise adjusted.

Our model also featured another upgrade option: the 1.7GHz Core i5-377U (versus a Core-i3). This makes its configuration very similar to the Lenovo Yoga Ultrabook. As with that device, the Envy 4 fell behind our 1.8GHz zero-point in every benchmark test—not surprising, given the ZP’s slightly higher base and Turbo clocks. More interestingly, the Envy 4 performed about 10-15 percent faster than the Yoga in our computing tests. That’s the result of thermal management. While the Yoga’s CPU had a tendency to throttle down at regular intervals of testing, the Envy 4 held its high clock speed consistently. Of course, the Yoga is also a bit smaller at 13 inches, and a bit thinner (not to mention more than a pound lighter), so it makes sense the thermals would be adjusted accordingly.

Despite the Envy 4’s slight speed advantage and its lower price, we’d be inclined to plunk down the additional $100 for the Yoga. That laptop has a far superior screen, a better keyboard and touchpad, a sturdier build quality, and the ability to fold into a tablet for times when that makes sense. And did we mention that it weighs more than a pound less? But, if you really need to count your sheckles, the Envy 4 is a serviceable touchscreen option at an affordable price.

$905, www.hp.com

Windows 8 Hardware Reviews

Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 22:15:03 +0000

Microsoft’s re-imagined OS is only half the equation

As has been reported exhaustively by now, Windows 8 can be a very unsettling experience for longtime Windows users. It’s like going to visit your parents and finding dad decked out in drag. The person you’ve known for so long is still there, but a new, unexpected element to his persona has you flummoxed and fumbling for how to behave.

The big, blocky, colorful, touch-centric Modern UI seems about as natural to a desktop jockey as seeing pops in a bouffant blonde wig and a body-hugging velour pantsuit. But while adjusting to dad’s new way of life could take considerable time, and possibly therapy, adapting to Windows 8 might simply be a matter of having the right hardware.

Windows 8 is a new OS for a new way of computing. Obviously, mobile is a big part of that. Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet as well as a host of portables combining tablet and notebook qualities in one have been built expressly with Windows 8 in mind. But there’s also hardware that makes Windows 8 more agreeable for tower users—touchscreen monitors, touchpads, Win8-optimized mice and keyboards. On the following pages we take a look at several of these products to determine which ones succeed in making sense of Windows 8.

To read our indepth review of the Windows 8 os, click here.

Microsoft Surface RT

Software giant takes on tablets

Microsoft is thought of only as a software company by most, but people often forget the company’s long string of hardware victories over the years, such as the Xbox 360, as well a line of award-winning and coveted mice, game controllers, and keyboards.

Two keyboard options are available: a "real" keyboard (seen here) and a membrane keyboard that actuallyl isn't Atari 400-bad.

Frankly, we think you can add the Surface RT to that list of impressive hardware pieces. The Surface RT exudes luxury with its stylized and solid metal case, clever kickstand, magnetic power connector (a first on a tablet that we know of), and innovative keyboard cover.

Windows RT—the pared-down Windows 8 OS in the Surface RT—and its Modern UI (née Metro), makes for a truly unique (god help us) “reboot” on how you interface with a touch-enabled computer. Yes, by bucking the rows of icons we’ve used for years now to interface with touch, the learning curve is steeper, but there’s something enjoyable and refreshing about Windows’ new tiled interface.

For hardware, the Surface RT packs an Nvidia Tegra 3 part clocked at 1.4GHz, 2GB of LP-DDR3, 32GB (or 64GB) of storage, front and rear cameras, and a 10.6-inch 1366x768 screen. Given the RT’s premium price, Microsoft has taken dings for the screen’s resolution. With the fourth-gen iPad’s resolution at 2048x1536 and the Nexus 10’s at 2560x1600, it’s no surprise that people see the relatively low resolution of Surface RT as a minus. In practical use, it won’t kill you, but there will be times when you wished the Surface RT had a few more pixels to smooth things out.

Performance of the Surface RT is difficult to gauge, as there are no standardized benchmarks that can’t be run outside of the browser on the iPad, Nexus, and RT. We did run several browser-based benchmarks, but obviously, you’re not getting that close to the metal and each platform’s browser has a significant impact on performance. If pushed to make call, we’d say it’s a split in the numbers game, as each device won at least one benchmark. Using our Mk. 1 eyeball as a benchmark, the Surface RT didn’t feel slow in the apps we tried and the scrolling seemed creamy-smooth—certainly better than the severe stutter we experienced on pre-Jelly Bean Androids tabs. One thing that’s apparent, though, are slow application launches. It takes from five to six seconds to launch the most basic apps, which is unacceptable on a premium tablet. Once cached, it’s fine but the initial launch is s-l-o-w.

A clever kickstand lets you stand up the Surface RT for movie viewing or typing on the optional keyboard.

While we’re harping on hardware, we’ll also ding the camera used in the Surface RT. Both front and rear are 720p, which is pretty sad in this day and age, but maybe that will dissuade people from embarrassing themselves by using the tablet as a camera. Another hardware issue worth mentioning: The 32GB version we reviewed is about half spent on OS storage. That’s fortunately mitigated by the inclusion of a MicroSD slot, so an additional 64GB is just one Amazon click away.

The Surface is sexy-thin and its hard angles are refreshing in a world of soft-round-cornered gadgets.

The most impressive feature of the tablet is the integrated keyboard cover. Two versions are available: a 5.75mm thick Type Cover that uses mechanical keys and a 3mm Touch Cover that uses membrane “keys” that don’t move at all. We purchased the Touch Cover with our Surface RT and initially worried that it would remind us of the Atari 400 keyboard. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad and we could comfortably type on it once we became accustomed to it. We will say that the track pad for the cursor is too small. Both covers attach via a clever magnetic connector that’s strong enough to hold the weight of the Surface RT when picked up by the cover.

Some people have criticized the inclusion of a keyboard as a sign of weakness in the Windows RT OS. We strongly disagree. First, you don’t get the keyboard for free—you have to pony up $120 for the Touch Cover and $130 for the Type Cover. Ouch. There’s also no strong emphasis on the keyboard in the OS. You can navigate perfectly fine using just touch.

What we do have problems with is the OS. We, again, think Modern, or whatever you want to call it, is a refreshing and futuristic take on a touch interface but Windows RT is marred by minor irritations such as non-uniform controls in the applications (some apps feature back buttons, and some don’t) and difficultly controlling some aspects of it. Our biggest complaint, though, is that portions of the OS aren’t finished. For the most part, 90 percent of the OS is in the fat-finger-friendly Modern UI. But doing something as common as changing the screen time drops you into the desktop mode. And while still surprisingly easy to manipulate with your finger, the desktop mode is jarring—why in a touch-centric device, would you force someone to use a non-touch UI? It’s just surprising to us that Microsoft relegates so much of the control in Surface RT to the desktop mode. Want to use basic calculator functionality? Do it desktop mode.

From what we can see, Windows RT is just a recompile of Windows 8 for ARM. Want a DOS box? Got it. Manually make regedit changes? That’s there, too. It’s simply mind blowing for anyone coming from the four rubber walls of iOS, or the slightly less confining environs of Android. Don’t get us wrong, we like command lines and tweaking the guts of an OS and we know it’s there in iOS and Android, too—it’s just a little disconcerting in Windows RT.

We suppose there’s some strength here. If a large company could port its custom Win32 app to Windows RT, the desktop mode would be a seamless way to transition to a tablet. Unfortunately, apparently only Microsoft has permission to install applications for the desktop mode, so what’s the point of even having it? To us, this makes the real competition for Surface RT its x86-based brothers. With the barren shelves of the Metro app store, x86-based Windows 8 tablets at least give you the fallback of millions of Win32 apps already out. With Surface RT and a keyboard at $600 versus a full-on x86-based tablet such as Acer’s Iconia W510 hybrid at $750 with a keyboard dock, it ain’t pretty.

Ultimately, we’re impressed by the Surface RT. Yes, it has some rough spots, and yes, the app store looks like a grocery store after the zombie apocalypse has hit, but this is a very good first effort with a lot of potential.

Microsoft Surface RT

Supports most USB mass storage devices and printers directly over USB

Slow app startup and some too much reliance on desktop mode

$600, www.microsoft.com

Benchmarks

	Surface RT	Nexus 7	iPad 3rd-Gen
CPU	Quad-core 1.4GHz Nvidia Tegra 3	Quad-core 1.2GHz Nvidia Tegra 3 T30L	Dual-core 1GHz Apple A5X
GPU	520GHz Nvidia ULP GeForce	416GHz Nvidia ULP GeForce	PowerVR SGX543MP4
RAM	2GB	1GB	1GB
Screen size / Resolution / PPI	10.6-inches / 1366x768 / 148	7-inches / 1280x800 / 216	9.7-inches / 2048x1536 / 264
Dimensions / Weight	10.81x6.77x0.37 / 1.5 lbs	7.7x4.7x10.4x.4 / .74 lbs	9.5x7.3x.37 / 1.44 lbs
SunSpider JavaScript 0.9.1 (ms)	982	1,702	1,519
Google Octane V1	700	1,307	881
FutureMark Peacekeeper	366	461	465
BrowserMark	80,558	126,618	117,980
Microsoft Fishbowl HTML5 10 fish (fps)	23	21	60

Best scores are bolded

Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13

Bend it to your will

Lenovo got a head start generating interest in the IdeaPad Yoga 13 when it demo’d the device at last year’s CES. At that time, its unique ability to be both an Ultrabook and a tablet seemed like a far-out concept, today its “convertible” design is the perfect justification for Windows 8—and just one example of a whole new category of portable devices. As the name implies, the Yoga 13 is unusually flexible, able to assume four different positions of functionality, thanks to its special patented double-hinge. In notebook mode it’s your standard clamshell; in stand mode the keyboard is rotated back and out of the way, forming a base for the screen; in tent mode the hinge is at the apex, with the screen in front and the keyboard serving as a kickstand; and in tablet mode the screen is rotated all the way so it’s flattened against the back of the keyboard. In all instances where the physical keyboard isn’t intended for use, it’s automatically disabled, with an onscreen keyboard taking its place.

Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 13

The Yoga’s screen is a 13.3-inch 10-point multitouch panel with 1600x900 resolution and the slimmest of bezels, so there’s nothing getting in the way of your “swiping” in from the edges in Windows 8 fashion. Regardless of your opinion on touchscreens, you gotta love the fact that IPS panels seem to be the norm here, as opposed to the inferior TN panels that have been typical of standard, non-touch Ultrabooks. It makes sense—a device that’s meant to be flipped and turned and viewed from a variety of orientations needs the better image fidelity of IPS. Yay for that.

The screen not only looks good but is very responsive. Even in Desktop mode, our touches to the relatively small file/folder names, menu items, and commands were registered with pretty consistent accuracy.

Still, we were more inclined to perform desktop chores the old-fashioned way, and fortunately, the Yoga accommodates with a nice, comfortable keyboard and buttery-smooth touchpad that itself supports Windows 8 gestures. Indeed, as an Ultrabook, the Yoga 13 is pretty nice for the price. We might have been even more impressed if we hadn’t just reviewed CyberPower’s $850 Zeus M2 last month, which had nearly the same specs but performed 10-20 percent faster than the Yoga in all tests, except Quake III, where the Zeus M2 was 75 percent faster (the Yoga can thank its single-channel RAM for that defeat). Why such disparity between two Core i5-3317Us? The Yoga has a tendency to throttle down under load, presumably to maintain thermal levels.

Be that as it may, you’re buying the Yoga 13 for more than just an Ultrabook experience. While a 13.3-inch, three-and-a-half-pound notebook folded back upon itself is pushing the limits of a tablet (as is the sensation of a keyboard beneath your fingers on the back), the flexibility offered by the Yoga 13’s form factor and touch capabilities has definite uses, not the least of which is giving Windows 8’s split personality meaning.

Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 13

Nicely built; useful flexibility; IPS screen

CPU throttles down somewhat; 128GB SSD

$1000, www.lenovo.com

Benchmarks

	Zero-Point
Premiere Pro CS3 (sec)	840	1,140 (-26.3%)
Photoshop CS3 (sec)	100	116.3 (-14%)
ProShow Producer (sec)	1,122	1,409 (-20.4%)
MainConcept (sec)	1,901	2,419 (-21.4%)
Quake III (fps)	358.2	250.1 (-30.2%)
Quake 4 (fps)	76.1	59.2 (-22.2%)
Battery Life (min)	250	282

Our zero-point ultraportable is an Intel reference Ultrabook with a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5-3427U, 4GB of DDR3/1600 RAM, integrated graphics, a 240GB SSD, and Windows 8 64-bit.

Specifications

CPU	1.7GHz Core i5-3317U
RAM	4GB DDR3/1600 single-channel RAM
Display	13-inch 1600x900 IPS LCD
Storage	Samsung 128GB SSD
Connectivity	HDMI, USB 3.0, USB 2.0, 2-in-1 card reader, 802.11n, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, headphone/mic, 720p webcam, USB-to-Ethernet dongle
Lap / Carry	3 lbs, 6.5 oz / 4 lbs, 0.6 oz

Dell XPS 12

A premium Ultrabook with a twist

Like the Yoga 13, Dell’s XPS 12 is an Ultrabook convertible, but it moves from clamshell device to tablet in an entirely different way. Push in on the lower back of the screen with both hands and it rotates in its frame to face backward—then just close the lid and you have a tablet. We like how this design hides the keyboard from sight, and feel, but we can’t help but wonder how the rotating screen and thin metal frame will fare over time and with regular use. Dell says it’s been tested to 20,000 cycles.

With its 12.5-inch screen, the XPS 12 is a bit smaller than Lenovo’s Yoga 13, but it weighs the same three pounds, 6.5 ounces (without its power brick) as its peer, which again, makes it a more sedentary type of tablet. We’re not saying you can’t benefit from being able to fold up this Ultrabook, rest it atop your lap, and surf the web from your couch while you watch TV, tablet-style. We’re just pointing out that it’s larger and more unwieldy than even a 10-inch iPad.

Size issues aside, the XPS 12’s 1920x1080 IPS screen is crisp and bright and its edge-to-edge Gorilla Glass coating should make it plenty durable. Capacitive sensors enable prompt response to all the various touches and swipes in Windows 8, even in Desktop mode. Dell was kind enough to include a “Getting Started with Windows 8” app in the Modern UI, which explains how to navigate the OS—a feature that’s sorely lacking from Windows 8 itself. Like the Yoga 13, the XPS 12’s touchpad also supports Win8 gestures, so you can, say, swipe in from the right of the pad to expose the Charms bar, or swipe in from the left of the pad to switch programs. This worked most of the time, although not quite as reliably as with the Yoga. The physical keyboard is suitable for productivity, with nicely sized and spaced keys and a pleasant rubberized palm rest. It’s also backlit with blue LEDs.

The XPS 12 came loaded with top-notch hardware, but no Ethernet port or media reader.

The XPS 12 starts at $1,200 for a config similar to the Yoga 13. But Dell sent us its most fully loaded model, which costs quite a bit more at $1,700. It consists of a 1.9GHz Core i7-3517U, 8GB of DDR3/1600 RAM, and a 256GB SSD. It’s a pretty similar build to our zero-point Ultrabook and the two machines traded modest wins in all of our benchmarks.

While the XPS12 is handsome and has admirable parts, it strikes us as falling shy of the mark.

Dell XPS 12

Innovative concept; nice large SSD; IPS panel.

Expensive; rotating screen and frame seem vulnerable; touchpad gestures were hit or miss.

$1700, www.dell.com

Benchmarks

	Zero-Point
Premiere Pro CS3 (sec)	840	900 (-6.7%)
Photoshop CS3 (sec)	100
ProShow Producer (sec)	1,122	1,064
MainConcept (sec)	1,901	1,902 (-0.1%)
Quake III (fps)	358.2	345.3 (-3.6%)
Quake 4 (fps)	76.1	72.3 (-5.0%)
Battery Life (min)	250	207 (-17.2%)

Our zero-point ultraportable is an Intel reference Ultrabook with a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5-3427U, 4GB of DDR3/1600 RAM, integrated graphics, a 240GB SSD, and Windows 8 64-bit.

Specifications

CPU

1.9GHz Core i7-3517U

GPU

Intel HD4000 integrated graphics

RAM

8GB dual-channel DDR3/1600

Display

12.5-inch 1920x1080 IPS LCD

Storage

Micron 256GB SSD

Connectivity

2x USB 3.0, Mini DisplayPort, 802.11n, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, headphone/mic, 1.3MP webcam

Lap / Carry

3 lbs, 6.5 oz / 4 lbs, 0.6 oz

CPU	1.9GHz Core i7-3517U
GPU	Intel HD4000 integrated graphics
RAM	8GB dual-channel DDR3/1600
Display	12.5-inch 1920x1080 IPS LCD
Storage	Micron 256GB SSD
Connectivity	2x USB 3.0, Mini DisplayPort, 802.11n, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, headphone/mic, 1.3MP webcam
Lap / Carry	3 lbs, 6.5 oz / 4 lbs, 0.6 oz

Acer Iconia W510

A two-fer, hybrid-style

Acer’s Iconia W510 also aims to give users a notebook and tablet in one, but it’s what’s called a hybrid device, as opposed to a convertible. This means there’s a discrete tablet that contains all the brains of the operation, which can slot into a sturdy keyboard base as needed.

The Iconia W510 differs from the two convertible reviewed here in another significant way. It’s running an Atom processor, specifically Intel’s Z2760 system-on-chip (code-named Clover Trail). That combined with its smaller size—10.1 inches—also makes the W510 a lot less expensive. It can be purchased as a stand-alone tablet for $500, or complete with its keyboard and auxiliary battery base, like the model featured here, for $750.

Of course, what you’re no doubt wondering is whether Atom sucks. Intel’s ultra-low-power Atom chips got a reputation of being subpar during the rise of netbooks, which, while low-priced, were known for weak performance. The Z2760 is a 1.8GHz dual-core chip with Hyper-Threading and non-Intel PowerVR graphics. While the base clock speed is a little bit higher than previous Atom chips, the biggest change is reported to be in power consumption. It also has the benefit of running Windows 8, which was developed with mobile applications in mind, unlike the decidedly desktop-centric Windows 7.

Unfortunately, the unit Acer sent us is pre-production, so we can’t test Atom’s performance with benchmarks yet. What we can tell you is that the W510 booted to the Modern UI in about 16 seconds. Once there, horizontal scrolling through the interface was surprisingly smooth, but vertical scrolling, as on web pages, was inconsistent, with periodic lags. Still, we have to say we were surprised that the sucktastic qualities of old Atom were not apparent. We did experience a few quirks that we’re attributing to its pre-production state, but we’re going to give Acer the benefit of the doubt and assume these issues will be fixed in the final product. It’s an intriguing concept, so we’d like to see it polished.

Batteries in both the keyboard base and the screen/tablet keep the W510 supplied with plenty of juice.

As a tablet, the Iconia W510 is far more convincing than either the Yoga 13 or the XPS 12. Freed from its keyboard, the W510 weighs just one pound, four ounces. The 10.1-inch screen is easy to hold in one or both hands, and while its 1366x768 resolution isn’t going to win any contests, it’s got the nice image quality of an IPS panel, under a protective layer of Gorilla Glass.

As a notebook, the experience is more compromised. For starters, the device is top-heavy, what with all the computing components stuffed into the screen, so it has a tendency to topple backward when it’s sitting in your lap. Then there’s the somewhat cramped keyboard, which isn’t great for long bouts of typing. And its 64GB of storage is all too tablet-like for our tastes (a media reader and USB port make expansion possible). Also, its touchpad isn’t great. Not only does it not support Win8 gestures, but it was noticeably less responsive than either Lenovo’s or Dell’s.

Still, we think this device has potential if the quirks we experienced are worked out in the final product. It’s a believable tablet with far more productivity chops than other tablets offer at down-to-earth pricing.

Acer Iconia W510

$750, www.acer.com

Specifications

CPU	1.5GHz Intel Atom Z2760 SoC
GPU	PowerVR SGX540
RAM	2GB DDR2/800
Display	10.1-inch1366x768 IPS LCD
Storage	64GB SSD
Connectivity	Micro HDMI (with dongle for VGA), Micro USB 2.0 (with dongle for full-size USB 2.0), Micro SD card reader, 802.11n, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, headphone, mic, keyboard dock with USB 2.0
Lap / Carry (with dock)	With dock: 2 lbs, 12.4 oz / 3 lbs, 0.2 oz with dock); tablet only: 1 lb, 4 oz

Acer T232HL

Doesn’t come with a bottle of Windex

What makes a monitor “good” for Windows 8? First, you need a touch panel with a flush bezel that lets you summon the various Windows 8 command ghosts. That pretty much eliminates optical-based monitors, which have the camera lenses hidden in the corners. Microsoft also recommends no less than five-finger multitouch for the OS, but 10-finger is advisable.

That’s all good news for Acer’s new 23-inch T232HL touch panel. This 10-point-touch projected-capacitive panel lets you do all the Windows 8 swiping and flicking your heart desires. As you can imagine, projected capacitive carries a price premium and the Acer streets at $500—compared to, say, the $280 that a 23-inch optical touch panel might cost you. That’s a big price increase, but certainly not as pricey as the InnovaTouch (reviewed next).

Step-back Modern UI, haters, this multitouch panel won’t break the bank.

Running the panel through the Lagom LCD monitor obstacle course (www.lagom.nl), the Acer was good in most of the tests but we did see banding in the gradient tests. That issue wasn’t in just synthetic tests, either—using a real-world product shot of a system, we could see the banding in one particular fade in the background. It’s not terrible, and some might accuse us of pixel-peeping but the issue was noticeable compared with the InnovaTouch monitor. A series of digital images also looked less impressive on the Acer than the InnovaTouch—not to a great degree, but again, worth noting. The InnovaTouch also wins in responsiveness over the Acer, exhibiting less lag in response to touch commands.

Where the Acer wins is in ports—you get DVI, VGA, HDMI, and three USB 3.0 ports vs. the VGA and DVI on the InnovaTouch. The Acer also is also far sexier, though we’re not totally sold on the design. Neither panel is height adjustable.

Despite all this, we think the Acer is a pretty decent panel for the price. It’s IPS and, more importantly, it’s a flush-bezel multitouch, which will make even the Win8 Modern UI haters reconsider their position.

Acer T232H

$500, www.acer.com

InnovaTouch IW2235P-U

Looks aren’t everything

When we first began our hunt for flush-bezel touch panels to review, one of the few we could find initially was InnovaTouch’s IW2235P-U. This IPS, 10-point projective-capacitive panel isn’t the typical consumer-grade monitor, and in fact, is marketed for commercial applications; its price of $754 reflects that. The fact that the panel is slightly smaller than the Acer, at just under 22-inches viewable, would immediately make you recoil and assume there’s no real difference between this panel and consumer panels that cost about two-thirds the price.

After using the InnovaTouch side-by-side with the Acer, we can say that’s not true. Using Lagom’s LCD test images on the pair of 1080p panels, we found the InnovaTouch slightly better than the Acer in image quality, particularly in areas of gradation. The Acer isn’t horrible, but the InnovaTouch was far smoother. Grading the panel for digital photo work, we found the InnovaTouch slightly warmer and with a bit more contrast, too. Off axis, however, the InnovaTouch had a ghastly yellowish tinge to it.

One key advantage to the panel has is in touch response. We used a painting app and drew our finger across the screen. When drawing at anything faster than slow speeds, the Acer’s digitizer lagged far behind the InnovaTouch’s.

So what’s not to like? The stand, which is designed to stabilize the panel when tilted flat, is insanely overbuilt—as well as downright ugly. There’s also a pretty limited input selection—no media reader, camera, or USB ports; just DVI and VGA. So we suppose your choice really depends on what you value. The edge in image quality and touch performance goes to the InnovaTouch, but the Acer aces in price, ports, and style.

InnovaTouch IW2235P-U

$754, www.touchsystems.com

LOGITECH WIRELESS RECHARGEABLE TOUCHPAD T650

Touch Windows 8 without a new monitor

WE WON’T LIE—Win8 isn’t an optimal experience for traditional mouse and keyboard users. But what if you can’t afford a touchscreen? Consider a giant touchpad. That’s the idea behind Logitech’s Wireless Rechargeable Touchpad T650. It’s a giant (5-inch) touchpad that greatly aids the use of a touch-oriented operating system in the absence of a touchscreen.

The T650 supports up to four-finger gestures to help you navigate Metro, err, Modern. Various moves perform different commands in Win8, such as swiping four fingers to the left or right to “snap” a Window on the desktop. Four fingers up or down on the pad will minimize or maximize a window, while swiping three fingers up pulls up the Start screen. We’re honestly not fans of any of the multitouch touchpad controls, as they’re not uniform across devices and all the swiping and gesturing makes us feel like we’re casting a magic missile more than controlling a cursor. Plus there’s the tendency to inadvertently open a program.

The Touchpad’s surface itself is glass and, frankly, smoother than the two touch panels we reviewed here. It recharges via Micro USB and works with Logitech’s wonderful Unify system so you can run six Logitech Unify devices from a single 2.4GHz RF dongle. Using the Touchpad feels luxurious if you’re coming off a cramped notebook touchpad but it can use some improvements. The Touchpad has a hard edge that we wished was beveled, as we kept catching our finger when we swiped in from the right to pull up the Charms bar.

The T650 offers a luxuriously smooth, 5-inch touch surface to navigate Windows 8.

While it’s great for moving through the Modern interface quickly, we had problems with the Touchpad in precision work, such as selecting a word or one or two letters of a document for deletion or editing. With a mouse, it’s second-nature to make such precision moves—not so with the Touchpad, which takes too much concentration. Another issue we had was selecting things to drag around the desktop with the Touchpad—it takes a wee bit too much finger pressure to accomplish.

Logitech Wireless Rechargeable Touchpad T650

$80, www.logitech.com

LOGITECH T620

Years later, we still have issues with touch mice

Logitech's T620 reminds us of other touch-enabled mice and— unfortunately—those aren’t mice we were very fond of. Most of the surface of the T620 is touch-enabled. To left-click you can either push the whole body down or tap the left side of it. That’s not it, though— no fewer than 10 different Windows 8 functions can be accessed by touching or stroking different parts of the mouse body. To pull up the Charms bar, for example, you can stroke your finger in from the right side. In theory, it sounds neat to be able to command the OS from the mouse but we found the surface much too cramped. If we had to have “touch,” we’d rather pair Logitech’s Touchpad T650 with a traditional mouse rather than just try to tough it out with the T620 alone.

The Touch mouse T620 tries to jam too many features into its small touch surface.

Logitech T620

$70, www.logitech.com

LOGITECH T400

It’s like the Start Menu never left

You don't know how much something means to you until it’s gone, and with Windows 8, we’re really pining for the Start menu. Sniff. Logitech’s T400 helps us get over that loss. With one touch on the glass touch area, the Modern UI Start screen is available. Like the T620 and T650, it uses Logitech’s rather nifty Unify dongle that can drive up to six devices at once. Beside the easy access to the Start screen, you can also smoothly scroll on two different axes with the T400. We appreciate the limited command set rather than the surfeit of gestures on the T620. The only other thing we’d want is an option to directly access the Charms bar. Our one real complaint about the T400 is that it’s way too small, which made driving the mouse uncomfortable rather quickly.

We liked the welldefined touch area of the T400 but it’s built for smaller hands.

Logitech T400

$50, www.logitech.com

MICROSOFT SCULPT COMFORT KEYBOARD

Curved Microsoft keyboard offers hotkeys for Windows 8

THE NEXT iteration in a long line of curved keyboards from Microsoft, the Sculpt Comfort Keyboard shares familiar lines with its predecessors. As ergonomic keyboards go, this one is rather flat, and the keys are contiguous from side to side. The palm rest is removable and also has feet enabling you to add height to the front of the keyboard.

Designed for use with Windows 8, the Sculpt Comfort Keyboard’s function keys double as hotkeys used to emulate actions and gestures within Microsoft’s new OS. The hotkey configuration is controlled using a switch above the number pad, making it difficult to switch back and forth between the two modes.

Microsoft’s Sculpt Comfort Keyboard uses 2.4GHz wireless connectivity with the included USB dongle and is powered by two AAA batteries.

Microsoft’s latest curved keyboard features a split spacebar and wireless connectivity.

Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Keyboard

$60, www.microsoft.com

MICROSOFT WEDGE MOBILE KEYBOARD

Bluetooth keyboard geared toward mobile PC or tablet users

Microsoft's Wedge Mobile Keyboard provides an alternative input method for PC users on the go. A sturdy design paired with its diminutive size make it easy to carry in a bag or backpack. The included cover and tablet stand add significant weight to the keyboard. Bluetooth connectivity allows the Wedge Mobile Keyboard to be used with tablets or smartphones running a variety of platforms.

Provided along the top row of the keyboard are media playback controls and buttons to activate the Charms buttons found in Windows 8. The Wedge Mobile Keyboard’s physical keys make touch typing much more feasible than screen-based input methods, but the key spacing leaves something to be desired.

The build quality of the Wedge Mobile Keyboard is second to none. We wish the same could be said about the typing experience.

Mobile Keyboard really comes into its own when used with Windows 8.

Microsoft Wedge Mobile Keyboard

$80, www.microsoft.com

GETTING BY WITHOUT TOUCH

HOW TO NAVIGATE WINDOWS 8 WITH KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

So you want to update to Windows 8 but have no intention of buying new touchy-feely hardware. Some common keyboard shortcuts will make getting around Windows 8 much easier than using just your mouse.

Windows key + start typing: Search
Windows key + C: Expose the Charms bar
Windows key + F: Open the Search charm to search files
Windows key + Q: Open the Search charm to search apps
Windows key + H: Open the Share charm
Windows key + I: Open the Settings charm (this is where you’ll fi nd the power button)
Windows key + K: Open the Devices charm
Windows key + Shift + period (.): Snap an app to the left
Windows key + period (.): Snap an app to the right
Windows key + J: Switch the main app and the snapped app
Windows key + Ctrl + Tab: Cycle through open apps (except desktop apps)
Windows key + D: Switch from Modern to Desktop mode
Windows key + X: Access a slew of Windows tools like Power Options, Device Manager, Control Panel, Run, etc.

Note: This feature originally appeared in the January 2013 issue of the magazine.

Razer Edge Pro Review

Jimmy Thang — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 19:00:33 +0000

It sounded good on paper...

The Razer Edge sounds fantastic: a Windows 8 tablet, notebook, and portable gaming system in one. But in actual use, the Edge is a letdown.

The Edge starts at $1,000, with the Pro (reviewed here) climbing up to $1,450. That may be pricey for a "tablet," but it comes with an Intel Core i7-3517U, Nvidia GT 640M LE, 8GB of DDR3/1600, and a 256GB SSD. While it’s supposed to be the happy love-child of a portable tablet and a powerful PC, the end result is a compromised monstrosity.

The Razer Edge is quite thick and heavy

The first thing you’ll notice about the Edge is its bulk. Measuring 10.9x7x.8 inches and weighing two pounds, 2.1 ounces, it’s big, thick, and heavy for a tablet, basically requiring you to rest it on your body for support. This in turn muffles the otherwise excellent speakers due to their placement on the bottom edge. And flipping the Edge upside down isn’t a great solution, as you might accidentally trigger the power button on the opposite edge.

Other external controls and ports include a volume rocker, auto-rotate lock, a virtual keyboard button, in addition to a USB 3.0 port and headphone jack. The intake and exhaust vents are quite large and often noisy, as you’ll hear the fans revving even when just web browsing.

The controller peripheral is too heavy and expensive to make this gaming tablet a game changer.

The Edge’s IPS panel screen offers fantastic viewing angles. While the glossy five-point touch display features just a 1366x768 resolution, its 10.1-inch screen still offers a decent 155.1-pixel-per-inch (PPI) density. Our MSI GT60’s 15.6-inch screen has a 141.2 PPI, for example. We weren’t fans of the thick one-inch bezel however, as it made us wish we had Stretch Armstrong’s thumbs.

Our biggest issue with the Edge, however, is that it lacks a physical keyboard. While Windows 8 might be better with touch, it sucks with only touch. Navigating through desktop mode was a headache because a lot of the tiny icons were clearly designed for the precision of a mouse/trackpad. Even if you were to hook up a Bluetooth keyboard/mouse, you still can’t effectively use the Edge as a proper desktop PC because it doesn’t have a stand. (An optional dock with additional ports could serve as a stand, at the added cost of $100.)

The $100 console dock is a necessity with its stand and additional USB ports

The Edge also had connectivity issues with our Linksys E1200 router, often disconnecting or running terribly slow, and Razer acknowledged problems with Linksys routers in general. Belkin and D-Link routers fared better, but the download speeds were often a quarter of our zero-point’s sitting a foot away.

The Edge didn’t fare any better in our standard performance benchmarks. The closest it got to our zero-point in CPU-intensive tests was in ProShow, where the Edge’s 1.9GHz-clocked CPU lagged just 22 percent. In our multithread-hungry x264 benchmark, it got crushed by 54 percent. In our GPU tests, it fell 14 percent behind in STALKER, and got severely beaten down in 3DMark 11. The Edge couldn't even keep up in the battery department!

At the end of the day, you shouldn’t expect a tablet to perform on par with a beefy gaming notebook. The Edge was designed to run games on medium settings, and for the most part, it succeeds. We played Borderlands 2, an Unreal Engine game, and got a consistent 40fps. The Edge was actually able to max out Portal 2, a Source Engine game, with frame rates in the high 80s. On the more graphically demanding Far Cry 3, however, we saw a 31fps average, which suggests settings should be lowered.

The Edges is begging for a keyboard, but the official one won't be out until Q3 2013.

If you’re looking to play these games with the Edge’s optional controller peripheral, you shouldn’t, as the Edge ends up weighing four pounds, which is much too heavy. It’s also overpriced at $250. The much-needed keyboard add-on also isn’t available yet, nor is its price known. The dock mentioned above, meanwhile, is a necessity. For its $100 you’ll get three USB ports, an HDMI-out, and a much-needed stand, but it lacks an Ethernet port.

While the Edge is much more usable if you purchase the right accessories, that drives up the price and limits the portability. You're better off purchasing a laptop to satiate your gaming needs and a Nexus 7 to get your portability fix—which you can do for about the same price of the Edge with all the peripherals it needs to be useful.

We really wanted to like the Edge, but the design limitations currently make this a better idea on paper. At present, this is one dull Edge.

Benchmarks

Our zero-point notebook is an MSI GT60 with a 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM, 12GB DDR3/1600, two 500GB Seagate 7,200rpm hard drives, a GeForce GTX 670M, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. STALKER CoP tested at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, Tessellation, and contact hardening.

Specs

Maingear Nomad 15 Review

Jimmy Thang — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 22:51:30 +0000

Don't judge a gaming laptop by its cover

After reviewing the iBuyPower CZ-17 last month and seeing it look nearly identical to our zero-point MSI GT60, we were hoping our next gaming laptop would be a fresh, new design. Unfortunately Maingear's Nomad 15 apparently uses the same original design manufacturer (ODM) construction as those other two.

The Nomad 15's glossy surface actually does a good job of preventing fingerprint smudges.

This isn't to say the 15.6-inch laptop is ugly. It's just that when you're paying $2,600 for a device, you’d like to get something that looks cool (see the Razer Blade laptop). The 14.9x10.2x1.7-inch chassis and nearly 10-pound body is roughly the same size/weight as the MSI GT60 and features the same geometric contours and cut-off corners. Its keyboard features the exact same faint, blue backlit-LED keyboard as the CZ-17.

To be fair, Maingear does add some small tweaks to the ODM design: The laptop cover comes in a wide variety of colors (we got ours in blue), the palm rest-area is textured with a pattern of small hexagons, and the body has a distinctly glossy coat which does a surprisingly good job of keeping finger prints at bay. Another nice aspect of the laptop is its screen. The matte 1920x1080-resolution monitor does a great job of minimizing the annoying TN-shimmer commonplace on cheaper screens and off-axis viewing is surprisingly good.

While the monitor is nice, it's what's under the hood that really shines. Our Nomad 15 came loaded with impressive specs: a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-3840QM processor, 16GB of DDR3/1600, and a GeForce GTX 680M. It clearly beat the GT60 zero-point in nearly every one of our performance benchmarks. The closest our zero-point got to the Nomad 15 was in the CPU intensive tests (Stich, ProShow, and x264 5.0 HD), but even here the GT60 was still behind by at least 10 percent in all tests. In the GPU-intensive applications, Maingear's laptop really blew our zero-point out of the water. The Nomad 15's GeForce GTX 680M annihilated the GT60's GTX 670M by 210 percent in our STALKER benchmark. The gap only widened when we ran 3DMark 11, where Maingear's laptop slaughtered the GT60 by 242 percent. These tests only confirm that a 680M with its new 28nm Kepler architecture is that much more efficient than a 670M with its older Fermi design.

In our experiential gameplay tests, the Nomad 15 didn't break a sweat running Source-engine games like Dota 2 maxed-out, where it had no problems staying above 70fps. We pressed on and installed Far Cry 3, a shooter that's known to make even the fastest desktop GPUs cry (pun intended). While the Nomad 15 didn't come close to maxing out the graphically intensive game, it was able to stay consistently above 40fps on "high" settings at 1080p. Conversely, on the same settings, our zero-point couldn't even break 30fps.

Boot times on the Nomad 15 were also good. Armed with a pair of Crucial M4 128GB SSDs, the Nomad 15 booted to Windows in 24 seconds. Our SSD-less zero-point took more than twice as long. The only area where Maingear's offering fell behind the zero-point was in battery life but by just 10 percent in video play back. It appears that all that power has to take a toll somewhere.

When you're spending a premium for a gaming laptop, you might expect a unique, beautifully designed chassis. You're not getting that here. What you're paying for is brute-force performance, and what a beast of a performer this Nomad 15 is.

Price $2,600, www.maingear.com

Note: This review was taken from the February 2013 issue of the magazine.

Acer S7 Review

Katherine Stevenson — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 21:47:52 +0000

As capable as it is captivating

As if the Acer S7’s seductively slim figure and supremely good looks weren’t enough, this skinny vixen of a portable also boasts an impressive performance acumen. It must drive the competition crazy.

The spare elegance of the S7’s aluminum interior is complimented by its stylish white Gorilla Glass display frame and lid.

Setting a new standard in svelte, the 13-inch S7 measures less than a half-inch at its thickest and its carry weight comes in under three pounds. As a result, it’s nearly effortless to tote around. And tote it around you will, if you’re a sucker for admiring glances. Besides attracting attention with its pancake-flat form factor, the S7 sports a striking glossy-white lid made of Gorilla Glass, for the dual purpose of durability and style. A simple Acer logo glows blue when the S7 is powered on.

When open, the S7’s elegant anodized aluminum interior, backlit keyboard, and glass touchpad steal the show. As does its IPS screen, which features a precedent-setting 1920x1080 res—at least, it’s a first among the Ultrabooks we’ve tested. Images look sharp and vibrant from any angle, although the screen’s glossy surface inevitably picks up the glare of ambient lighting.

In use, the chiclet keyboard is extremely shallow, with minimal travel, but that’s an inevitable consequence of the notebook’s ultra-low profile. It took us just a little bit of time to get used to the feel, and the size and spacing of the keys are suitable for serious typing. The touchpad, while extremely smooth, is made by Elan Microelectronics and felt slightly laggy compared to Synaptics-powered pads. Anyway, you’ll likely be performing many of these functions via the highly responsive 10-point touchscreen.

Lest you think the S7’s beauty is all on the surface, gander the benchmarks. Yes, this is the first Ultrabook we’ve tested to top the scores of our Intel reference zero-point. Intel’s UB has had a distinct advantage in not being a shipping product and thus clocked more aggressively than the production Ultrabooks we’ve seen. But the S7’s 1.9GHz Core i7-3517U, dual-channel RAM, and pair of 128GB SSDs in RAID 0 gave it a clear, albeit modest, performance advantage in all of our benchmarks. Under heavy load, the two small 10,000rpm fans inside the S7—one to pull in cool air, the other to push it out—become quite audible, but the machine stays comfortably cool, with most heat concentrated at the back.

The only thing tempering our extreme infatuation with the S7 is its relatively weak battery life. Granted, this month we switched our rundown test from a looped standard-def video to a ripped Blu-ray file using VLC, but even so, the S7 only lasted two hours, 40 minutes, compared to the zero-point’s three hours, 40 minutes under the same conditions. For a device that’s so clearly made for mobility, this is a disappointment. To be fair, the S7 is about a third thinner the reference Ultrabook.

Still, we can acknowledge that this thin a device with this much power is bound to make allowances somewhere. When you toss in the included carrying case, matching white wireless mouse, and expansion dongles, the fetching S7 makes a pretty compelling case for its premium price tag.

Price $1,650; www.acer.com

Note: This review was taken from the March 2013 issue of the magazine.

CyberPower Zeus M2 Review

Katherine Stevenson — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 22:50:38 +0000

The more-affordable ultraportable

If it’s true that Ultrabooks aren’t meeting sales expectations because of high prices, CyberPower is making moves in the right direction by offering a trio of 14.1-inch models that break the $1,000 barrier. One of those is the Zeus M2, which rings in at $850. That’s nearly half the cost of the Lenovo X1 Carbon. So what, if any, features and performance are sacrificed in the service of money savings?

There’s nothing flashy about the Zeus M2’s design, unless you count its glossy screen and brushed-metal lid.

It’s pretty clear that CyberPower cut some of its costs on materials and construction. The CyberPower Zeus M2 is nearly all plastic except for its brushed-metal lid. The body is not super rigid, exhibiting flex in the base when the notebook is held by one corner, and some mushiness under the keyboard. But the build doesn’t seem flimsy and the hinge feels solid. The keyboard and touchpad are in keeping with the budget motif—strictly serviceable, but thankfully free of any major nuisances in our testing. Similarly, the screen is an unremarkable TN panel with a 1366x768 resolution and a glossy finish. All in all, the overall quality is what you’d expect from the price tag.

But by keeping design flourishes to a minimum, CyberPower is able to outfit the Zeus M2 with a respectable loadout of internal components that doesn’t stray far from many pricier configs. For instance, at 1.7GHz, its i5-3317U CPU is clocked just 100MHz lower than the X1 Carbon’s proc (the same proc found in our zero-point, incidentally). The M2’s 120GB Intel SSD is just 8GB shy of the X1’s—what’s more, the M2’s drive achieved sequential reads that were 21 percent better than the X1’s drive and sequential writes that were 10 percent better in CrystalDisk Mark. On top of that, the M2 offers 16GB of RAM to the X1’s 4GB. The M2 also boasts a competitive array of ports, including full-size Ethernet and HDMI ports, two USB 3.0 ports (along with one USB 2.0), and a media card reader.

In our benchmark tests, the Zeus M2 held its own, performing even better against our zero-point rig than Lenovo's Carbon X1. Our battery rundown test was another story. Here, the M2 conked out in less than four hours. Since long battery life is one of the tenets of the Ultrabook mandate, this is a notable failing.

Still, we have to give CyberPower credit where credit is due. The M2 might fall short in the style and battery-life categories, but it succeeds in key ways that are crucial to the Ultrabook brand, by offering a thin and light portable with flexible features and competitive performance at a very competitive price. Budget buyers will be well-served by this device.

Price $850, www.cyberpower.com

Note: This review appeared in the Holiday 2012 issue of the magazine.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review

Katherine Stevenson — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:38:19 +0000

An Ultrabook that makes no Mac pretenses

Unlike many an Ultrabook, there’s no mistaking this one for a MacBook Air, or even an Air wannabe. Staying true to the venerable ThinkPad brand, the X1 Carbon is matte-black through and through, and clad in that distinct rubberized coating that feels nice to the touch, won’t easily slip from your grip, and remains blessedly free of fingerprints. It looks every bit the business companion it’s intended to be. In fact, the X1 Carbon looks a lot like the ThinkPad X1 we reviewed last year. But it’s grown from 13 inches to 14 inches, and its body has been flattened to Ultrabook standards, measuring just .71 inches at its thickest. Its lap weight, by the way, comes in just under three pounds.

Can a ThinkPad be sexy? When you’re talking about the slender and sleek X1 Carbon, it sure can.

Another notable difference from last year’s X1 is the Carbon’s carbon-fiber construction (see what they did there?). The material is used in the notebook’s shell and its internal “roll cage,” making it both lightweight and rugged enough to withstand eight Mil-Spec tests for toughness.

The X1 Carbon does feel sturdy. Despite its thin profile, there’s little flex to the keyboard deck when the notebook is held by one corner. The hinges seem solid, and as an added bonus allow the notebook to open a full 180 degrees. We also have to give props to the keyboard. It’s one of the most satisfying we’ve used on an Ultrabook, with nice large keys and satisfying travel. If you like backlighting, the Carbon’s got it. The touchpad is also quite nice—smooth and predictable—and TrackPoint is there for folks who like to control the cursor with ThinkPad’s signature red nubbin.

The screen is a full 1600x900 pixels, and a matte coating keeps glare and reflections to a minimum. But the vertical viewing angle is fairly narrow, leading to contrast and color degradation off axis.

Compared to our previous Ultrabook zero-point rig—the first-gen Asus Zenbook UX31E—the Ivy Bridge–sporting X1 Carbon scored decisive wins in all the benchmarks, with margins of 15 to 60 percent. But this month we’re debuting a new Ultrabook zero-point, an Intel reference design featuring a 1.8GHz i5-3427U. This is the same CPU found in the Carbon X1, but as you can see from the chart, performance wasn’t identical. We attribute the Intel rig’s wins to a combination of additional memory bandwidth (DDR3/1600 vs. DDR3/1333), which impacts game performance in particular, and a speedier SSD. Both drives have a SATA 6Gb/s controller, but CrystalDiskMark revealed a significant disparity, with Lenovo’s SSD achieving read/writes of 372.3- and 173.5Mb/s, respectively, to the Intel’s 479.5- and 303.5Mb/s.

Battery life on the X1 Carbon wasn’t stellar at a little more than four hours in our video rundown test, but Lenovo’s RapidCharge makes rejuicing speedy. We were back at 75 percent battery capacity in 30 minutes and 100 percent in an hour.

The X1 Carbon isn’t perfect, and that can make its relatively high price less palatable, but it does offer features you can’t get anywhere else, namely ThinkPad quality and a look that’s cool in that not-even-trying kind of way.

MSI GT60 Review

Katherine Stevenson — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 21:40:51 +0000

Won’t break your back or your bank account

We’ve been so inundated with Ultrabooks these days that we almost forgot how powerful, and hulking, a full-on gaming notebook can be. The MSI GT60 arrived in our Lab to remind us. At 15.6 inches, the GT60 is not the biggest of the big, but it’s a beast nonetheless with a 15.5x10.5x2-inch body and a 10-pound carry weight.

The keyboard’s multicolored backlighting is customizable via a software control panel.

Aesthetically, the GT60 is almost entirely black plastic, with some gloss here and there for accent and a black brushed-aluminum panel on its lid. A slightly wedged profile and a multicolored backlit keyboard are probably its most distinguishing features. It’s not a stunner, but it’s not offensive, either.

Under the hood, the GT60 is rocking an Ivy Bridge 2.3GHz Core i7-3610QM, with a Turbo ceiling of 3.3GHz. It’s joined by a GeForce GTX 670M, which is based on Nvidia’s 40nm Fermi GPU as opposed to the newer 28nm Kepler. Regardless, the combo decimated our zero-point in the benchmarks by embarrassing margins. It told us what we already knew: that our current notebook benchmarks and zero-point are woefully inadequate for measuring today’s performance portables. So we tossed a few of our desktop benchmark’s the GT60’s way.

In the Stitch.Efx and ProShow tests, the GT60 was only about 20 percent behind our desktop zero-point, which has a Core i7-3930K hexa-core proc. That’s because the two apps aren’t optimized for more than four cores. In the x264 HD encoding test, the GT60 was at more of a disadvantage to the hexa-core desktop part. In 3DMark 11, the GT60’s 670M couldn’t hold a candle to the zero-point’s GTX 690 dual-GPU desktop part, not surprisingly, turning out a score of X927 vs. the ZP’s X5,847. Again, we’re not suggesting that a gaming notebook should be compared to a big fat desktop, but we wanted you to have some point of reference, as our zero-point notebook is in the weeds here.

We also ran the STALKER: CoP benchmark on the GT60 and it turned out a respectable 32.8fps using the Ultra setting at 1920x1080, the notebook’s native res. Indeed, the GT60 seems up to the rigors of most modern games at the highest settings.

Gamers will appreciate how a touch-sensitive “Turbo” button above the keyboard throttles up the GPU and boosts performance by approximately 4 percent. A touch-sensitive fan button in the same vicinity increases cooling—as well as noise. And Nvidia’s Optimus technology automatically switches between GPU and integrated graphics where appropriate.

As is fitting for a gaming notebook, the GT60’s Dynaudio Premium speakers and subwoofer, along with a THX software control panel, produce good sound and achieve a satisfyingly loud volume. Less typical of gaming notebooks is the screen’s matte finish, but we don’t mind, as it eliminates distracting reflections. We also don’t mind the better-than-average battery life. Often these desktop replacements top out at around two hours in our video rundown test; the GT60 exceeded three hours.

One thing we aren’t crazy about is the keyboard. Despite this being a large notebook, the keys seem small and the overall layout cramped. The shortened right-shift key, in particular, caused us many a typing error. We’re also dismayed by the absence of any SSD storage. Given the caliber of the other parts, a fast boot drive, at the very least, seems warranted. Of course, that would add to the GT60’s price tag.

At $1,500, the GT60 remains affordable and offers a sound gaming system/desktop replacement, if not an outstanding one.

Asus Zenbook UX32Vd Review

Katherine Stevenson — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:02:49 +0000

Now with discrete graphics!

When Asus’s Zenbook UX31E debuted last year, it seemed to almost single-handedly put Ultrabooks on the map. Its intriguing mix of good looks, performance, and price convinced many a skeptic, us included, that PCs could compete with the likes of Apple’s vaunted MacBook Air—at a price that catered to common folk.

Now Asus is back with its second-generation Zenbooks, and the company hasn’t been slacking. Some of the specs have received a serious goosing, without a big hike in price. Indeed, the follow-up to the UX31E—the UX31A—is just $50 more than the original, at $1,100, despite boasting a new Ivy Bridge processor, which clock-for-clock offers approximately 10 percent more performance on the CPU side while improving graphics performance two-fold, as well as a superior IPS panel with an increased resolution of 1920x1080, and a backlit keyboard.

But we’re not actually here to talk about the UX31A. Rather, we turn our attention to the brand-new Zenbook UX32Vd—which boasts the same sleek form factor, same improvements to screen and keyboard, an even faster Ivy Bridge processor in the form of a 1.9GHz Intel Core i7-3517U, and discrete graphics. Yes, Asus has squeezed an Nvidia GeForce GT 620M GPU into this 13.3-inch slender wedge of brushed metal measuring just .70 inches at its thickest.

The UX32Vd comes with a protective sleeve, as well as a small pouch for carrying two connector dongles: one USB-to-Ethernet, one Mini-VGA-to-VGA.

In other words, the UX32Vd manages to still look and feel like an Ultrabook should, in our minds, as opposed to pushing the boundaries with a larger, thicker chassis, à la Acer’s 15.6-inch Timeline M3 gaming Ultrabook (reviewed July 2012). The question is whether you can have your sliver of portable-gaming cake and eat it too. Or, in less labored terms, does a discrete GPU make sense in such a svelte device?

The UX32Vd’s GT 620M has the same GPU clock, memory clock, and boost as the Acer M3’s GT 640M (625-, 900-, and 700MHz, respectively,) but just one-third the CUDA cores, or shaders (96 vs. 384). That made a big difference in our gaming benchmarks—by nearly 50 percent. In fact, under our standard testing conditions of 1680x1050 res, with 4x AA and 4x anisotropic filtering, Call of Duty 4 was just playable at 30.7fps—and that’s an old game! We wouldn’t even bother playing a modern title on the UX32Vd’s native 1920x1080 res.

The thing is, you can get all these neat features, as well as an SSD, in the new Zenbook UX31A, for $200 less, just by forgoing the discrete graphics. And frankly, we think that if portable gaming is what you’re after, you’re better served by a small powerhouse like Origin’s Eon11-S (reviewed last month), as opposed to a rig that tries to be both an Ultrabook and a gaming machine, where one or both facets are bound to be compromised.

Origin Eon11-S Review

Katherine Stevenson — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 17:14:49 +0000

The little gaming notebook that could

Origin PC’s Eon11-S isn’t the first 11.6-inch gaming notebook to come knocking—Alienware kicked off the category in 2010 with its small-but-mighty M11x. But times have changed since the M11x’s debut, hardware and thermals have advanced, and thus Origin’s Eon11-S is no less impressive an accomplishment. Packed into the 11.2x8.1x1.4‑inch chassis are an Ivy Bridge Core i7-3720QM quad-core processor and a GeForce GT 650M GPU. They’re joined by a 256GB SSD in the standard 2.5-inch trim and 8GB of DDR3/1333 RAM across two slot‑driven SO-DIMMs. Incidentally, all the innards are accessible via a bottom panel that pops off with ease, making future upgrades possible.

The Eon11-S comes in either a “Traditional” design, with a simple matte-black textured lid, or this “A-Panel” design, in either matte red or black, for the same price.

At present, upgrades are hardly called for. The Eon11-S ran circles around our 16.6-inch zero-point gaming notebook in the content creation benchmarks, with gains of more than 60 percent. In gaming, the two were a little more closely matched, with the zero-point’s GTX 460M having a slight, but measurable advantage. Nevertheless, the Eon11-S proved its gaming mettle, with scores of 43.6fps and 66fps in Far Cry 2 and Call of Duty 4, respectively. That was with a resolution of 1680x1050 on an external display (native is 1366x768). When we ran the more modern and graphically challenging STALKER: CoP at 16x10 res and the Ultra setting, the Eon11-S achieved a decent 22.9fps.

A more apt competitor for the Eon11-S might be Acer’s Timeline M3 (reviewed July 2012)—a 15.6-inch gaming Ultrabook. The Eon11-S weighs less by almost a pound—that is until you account for the power bricks; then the two weigh nearly the same, so honking is the Eon11-S’s PSU. In performance the distinctions are more clear-cut. From Premiere to ProShow to Photoshop and MainConcept, the Eon11-S’s 2.6GHz quad-core CPU was like a schoolyard bully wailing on the Timeline M3’s growth-stunted 1.7GHz dual-core. We’re talking beatings of 100–156 percent. In games, where the M3’s GT 640M takes over, the Eon11-S showed a more modest 15 percent advantage. Still, it’s the obvious choice if a super-portable gaming notebook is what you’re after.

The Eon11-S lacks the flashy keyboard backlighting and other LED accents that characterized Alienware’s M11x, but it comes through where it counts: in performance.

Capable as it is, the wee Eon11-S is not without tradeoffs. While it has the same 1366x768 screen res as the Timeline M3, the Eon11-S’s keyboard suffers some from the smaller footprint. The compressed layout can feel a little cramped, particularly for larger-handed folk. At least it doesn’t have the shallow keypress and maddening touchpad of an Ultrabook. The Eon11-S can also get pretty hot when running full tilt. A sizable vent on the left side of the machine expels a rush of hot air that could rival a space heater. Finally, battery life isn’t incredible. Three hours–plus is pretty decent for a standard-size gaming notebook, but it doesn’t come close to the five hours achieved by the Timeline M3. But all of these issues are just what come with the territory when you cram serious hardware into a small form factor. What you get in return is powerful rig that’s also amazingly portable, and we applaud OriginPC for filling that niche.

Samsung Series 9 Review

Katherine Stevenson — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:58:11 +0000

15 inches of Ultrabook goodness

As we learned with the Acer Timeline M3 we reviewed last month, Ultrabooks are not only growing in number, but in size. That’s the case with the Samsung Series 9, which comes in both 13.3- and 15-inch flavors. We took the latter for a spin to see how a larger footprint impacts the overall experience.

Whereas the Timeline M3’s 15-inch chassis pushed the boundaries of ultraportability with the inclusion of an optical drive and discrete graphics, the 15-inch Samsung Series 9 offers neither amenity and thus remains exceedingly thin, with a profile that’s just .58 at its thickest. It’s almost a pound lighter than the M3, too, at 3 pounds, 11 ounces.

So what does the larger size get you, if not added features? A larger screen, of course, along with a higher resolution. Folks who object to the 1366x768 res of nearly all of today’s 13-inch Ultrabooks will appreciate that the 15-inch Series 9 ups the ante to 1600x900 (as does the 13-inch Series 9, for that matter), matching just Asus’s UX31E in pixel count. Unlike the UX31E, and all other Ultrabooks we’ve seen so far, the Series 9’s screen has a matte surface, for a pleasantly reflection-free experience. It also gets quite bright, making it usable outdoors. Still, it remains a TN panel like the others, complete with the narrow viewing angles.

The Series 9’s keyboard also benefits from the wider footprint. The keys are nicely sized and spaced apart for comfortable typing, provided you don’t mind the shallow key press of the island keyboard. Backlighting is enabled when ambient lighting is sufficiently dim. The touchpad with integrated right and left buttons is large, smooth, and generally free of glitchiness, although multitouch gestures can be hit or miss.

The Series 9 comes with support for Intel’s Wireless Display, so you can wirelessly stream 1080p content to a larger HDTV or monitor, provided you pony up $100 or so for the necessary adapter.

The Series 9’s extreme thinness takes a slight toll on the ports department. The Ethernet port, for instance, is miniature, requiring use of an included dongle. For external display purposes, you get Micro HDMI and a shrunken VGA port, the dongle for which is sold separately. But those ports along with two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, and a media reader, meet the most common connection needs.

The Series 9 is a decent performer for this class, although we’re curious as to why Samsung went with the Core i5-2467M proc when the Core i5-2557M costs the same but has a 100MHz higher base clock and 300MHz more Turbo headroom. It amounts to the difference in scores between the Series 9 and our Asus UX31E zero-point (save for the latter’s anomalous Photoshop score). The Series 9’s 6Gb/s SSD makes for speedy sequential reads and writes (429- and 262MB/s, respectively), but offers a paltry 128GB of capacity. The notebook boots and resumes from sleep in short order, and the battery lasted a generous five hours and 29 minutes in our video rundown test.

Like many other Ultrabooks, the Series 9 has a unibody aluminum construction, but it eschews the brushed-metal aesthetic in favor of matte black surfaces accented by a polished aluminum edge. It’s a subtly handsome chassis with a strong hinge and sturdy feel. Is it worth its $1,500 asking price, which is on the high-end of the Ultrabook market? It is if you like the idea of a 15-inch ultraportable.

Acer Timeline M3 Review

Gordon Mah Ung — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 20:23:31 +0000

Putting the ultra in ultrabook

WHEN LOOKING FOR a tagline that will easily sell a boatload of Acer Timeline M3 notebooks, it doesn’t take much more than: “an ultrabook that will play Battlefield 3 on Ultra setting.” And it’s true, too.

The Timeline M3 will indeed play BF3 on Ultra, provided you’re comfortable with 30 frames per second. That dips a bit below our thresholds for a shooter. We preferred playing Battlefield 3 on High, which gave us 50–60fps in online play. Granted, we were only playing at the 1366x768 native resolution of the machine’s 15.6-inch panel, but that’s pretty good for a so-called ultrabook.

We say so-called ultrabook because even though it’s within the very loose parameters set by Intel, a lot of people who encounter the Timeline M3 aren’t going to think this widescreen notebook is an ultrabook. Most people equate ultrabooks with PC clones of a MacBook Air. But the definition is broader. Ultrabooks must be within a certain height, run a certain proc, reach a certain battery life rating, and come out of hibernation in a certain amount of time. The Timeline is wide—just shy of 15 inches across—so wide that it has enough space for an optical drive. There’s even room in the Timeline to sport a 7mm, 2.5‑inch drive bay. Acer doesn’t use the bay, though, instead opting for a teeny-but-fast SATA 6Gb/s Lite-On SSD in mSATA trim. Storage hogs hoping to use both bays will be heartbroken—installing a drive in the 2.5-inch bay turned off the mSATA drive.

The Timeline M3 sports a Kepler-based GeForce GT 640, making it the first ultrabook we know of that’s capable of running modern games.

App performance was spot on for the dual-core 1.7GHz Core i7-2637M part. The chip will Turbo up to 2.8GHz under lighter loads and, for the most part, it’s slightly faster than the 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-2557M in our zero-point, the Asus Zenbook. Frankly, Acer could save its customers a bit of cash by opting for the nearly identical Core i5 chip instead.

Gaming performance, obviously, is outstanding for this class. You’re looking at at least three times the graphics performance of the Sandy Bridge-based graphics in the Asus Zenbook UX31E in very old games. In titles that integrated graphics can’t even run, the new 28nm Nvida Kepler-based GeForce GT 640M does not disappoint. And for the record, it’ll hit P1798 in 3DMark 11.

Let’s say it again: We’re floored to see modern games run on a notebook that’s less than an inch thick. It’s truly a testament to Kepler’s graphics power and power savings. The Timeline is by no means a replacement for a multi-GPU, 12-pound gaming desknote, but it’s probably the best portable version of it. The Timeline M3 also sports Nvidia’s Optimus technology, so when discrete graphics aren’t needed, you can cruise along using the Sandy Bridge graphics.

Not all is perfect with the Timeline M3. A sore point is the trackpad which is twitchy and takes a lot of tuning to get right. The screen is simply blah. Off-axis visibility is TN-poor and when we ran the Lagom panels tests (www.lagom.nl), we found the screen to be slightly inferior to those of the other ultrabooks we’ve tested. What bugged us most was the picture's milky sheen and the anti-Retina display resolution of 1366x768 on a 15.6-inch panel.

All that aside, however, we’re still awed by the gaming performance of the Timeline M3 and its portability—provided you have a wide enough bag. With a proper screen and better touchpad, you’d have a seriously kick-ass machine.

Dell XPS 13 Review

Katherine Stevenson — Wed, 30 May 2012 07:31:17 +0000

Dell’s XPS 13 certainly isn’t wanting for style. Sporting a slick wedge profile that measures .24–.71 inches front to back, the XPS 13 is all matte-silver, machined aluminum up top, with a carbon fiber base. A soft-touch surface on the bottom makes the device easy to grip and two rubber “feet” that run horizontally along the underside will surely hold it in place on any surface and promote airflow. Dell even took care to construct a thin metal door on the XPS 13’s underside to hide the Windows certificate of authenticity sticker and sundry other unsightly logos.

An embedded magnet keeps the lid securely attached to the base when the laptop is closed, but opening it can be a challenge—it’s a two-handed affair. Inside, the XPS 13 continues its logo-free theme (save for the “XPS” on the screen bezel). The black, soft-touch palm rest is void of third-party branding. It’s kept company by a black magnesium clickpad and a shiny black island keyboard, which is backlit. The screen consists of edge-to-edge Gorilla glass. As with the HP Folio 13, it’s 13.3 inches with a 1366x768 resolution. The TN panel displays all the typical weakness—move your head or the screen beyond the narrow sweet spot and see contrast and colors diminished.

Edge-to-edge Gorilla glass adds to the XPS 13’s sharp aesthetic and makes the screen less vulnerable to the rigors of regular use and travel.

Dell offers the XPS 13 at a starting price of $1,000, configured similarly to HP’s Folio 13, but the company sent us its beefiest configuration, sporting a 1.7GHz Intel Core i7-2637M and a 256GB SSD on a SATA 6Gb/s bus. The difference is apparent in our benchmark results. The XPS 13 performed pretty closely with our zero point, save for the Photoshop test, where the Zenbook displayed anomalous results. The XPS 13’s slight leads are likely due to the 2637M’s 100MHz Turbo frequency advantage. Aggressive cooling could also be a factor—the XPS 13’s fan was noticeably, even distractingly, loud under load (even after a BIOS update meant to address thermals). Because it’s priced nearly 50 percent more than the Zenbook, we’d have hoped for a larger performance delta. Sure, twice the storage capacity counts for something, but $400-plus? And for that you get no media reader or Ethernet port.

On the other hand, the XPS 13 is enterprise-friendly, offering TPM along with other IT-centric options. It also features Intel’s Smart Connect technology, which updates your email and select apps while your system is asleep, so the most current info is there for you instantly. Rapid Start, a requisite of ultrabooks, is present, too, making the XPS 13 capable of booting in 19 seconds and coming out of sleep near-instantaneously.

Is it a solid package? You betcha—particularly for business-folk who aren’t budget-conscious.

HP Folio 13 Review

Katherine Stevenson — Wed, 30 May 2012 06:35:59 +0000

While HP’s Folio 13 is sized similarly to the other ultrabooks we’ve tested, sporting a 13.3‑inch screen and measuring 12.54x8.67x.7 inches, it’s a bit heavier than the others, but not by much. With a lap weight of 3 pounds, 4.8 ounces, it’s 3.7 ounces heavier than the Asus Zenbook, although its battery is nearly twice the size and weight of the latter’s.

Aesthetically, the Folio 13 is pleasing. The lid, keyboard deck, and palm rest are all brushed aluminum. Screen bezel, trackpad, and keyboard are black, as is the Folio’s underside, which sports a rubberized finish that makes the laptop nicely grippable. In all, it’s a handsome and well-contructed device.

The Folio 13’s port selection is comparatively generous for this class. Ethernet, full-size HDMI, and a media reader are all welcome inclusions, and one of the two USB ports is a 3.0 variety, although the driver for the Fresco Logic USB 3.0 controller wasn’t installed in our model (d’oh!). When it was, performance for the port was in line with expectations, giving us reads and writes to an external USB 3.0 drive of 217.7MB/s and 184.4MB/s, respectively.

If you opt for the commercial build of the Folio 13, you get a TPM chip for disk encryption, Windows 7 Professional, and a cleaner software package, starting at $1,000.

The guts of the Folio 13 consist of a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-2467M, 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. The specs aren’t dissimilar to what we found in the Asus Zenbook, and the two fall within the same price range, but the Zenbook performed considerably better in our tests. (Check out the benchmark chart, where the Zenbook now represents our new ultraportable zero-point.) The Zenbook clearly enjoys the advantages of a 20 percent faster CPU (when you combine base clock and Turbo frequency), a superior SSD (which runs on a 6Gb/s bus), and a dual-channel RAM configuration.

In use, the Folio 13 is accommodating. The keys on the island keyboard are a good size, and their slightly rubberized texture feels nice to the touch and keeps your fingers from slipping; the keyboard is backlit. The trackpad is responsive and does a respectable job with scrolling and multitouch gestures, but the integrated right and left buttons require a little more pressure than we prefer. The screen offers the same resolution as most other ultrabooks, 1366x768 (the exception being the Zenbook’s 1600x900), and like the others, it’s a TN panel, which means a narrow optimum viewing angle and comparatively poor contrast. And the Folio’s screen doesn’t get particularly bright. Its speakers, on the other hand, pump out surprisingly full sound for a laptop of this size. Our model—the consumer build vs. commercial—included the Windows 7 Professional upgrade (Windows Home Premium comes standard at the base price of $900), along with a host of third-party apps (of varying usefulness), as well as HP’s own suite of management software.

There’s a lot here for the price, alright, in an attractive, well-made body, but the fact is, Asus’s Zenbook UX31E offers more performance and more cutting-edge style for nearly the same price.

Samsung Series 7 Chronos Review

Katherine Stevenson — Mon, 28 May 2012 11:33:32 +0000

Because ultrabooks aren’t for everyone

IT MIGHT SEEM like ultrabooks have overtaken the laptop landscape, what with all the attention they’ve received lately in the press and at CES, but there are still plenty of folks who prefer a more substantial laptop for general-purpose computing. These are the folks Samsung’s Series 7 Chronos is aimed at.

Like its ultrabook brethren, which inevitably draw comparisons to the MacBook Air, the Chronos bears a strong resemblance to an Apple product: the MacBook Pro. The 15.6-inch laptop is just shy of an inch thick; its lid, display bezel, and palm rest are all made of silver brushed aluminum; the island keyboard is backlit; and it features a large, 4.2x3-inch glass touchpad with integrated right and left buttons. The Chronos is not the paragon of industrial engineering that Apple is known for (the edges and bottom of the rig, for example, are made of plastic), but it has an attractive, refined aesthetic and its build quality feels solid.

The Chronos also costs a lot less than a comparably equipped MacBook Pro. The model we reviewed, sporting a 2.2GHz Core i7-2675QM processor, 8GB of DDR3/1333, an AMD Radeon 6750M GPU, and a 750GB 7,200rpm hard drive (plus an 8GB iSSD for fast boot and app loading), is fully $500 cheaper than the closest 15-inch MacBook Pro—and that model is limited to 4GB of RAM, a 500GB 5,400rpm drive, and a 1440x900 display (vs. the Chronos’s 1600x900). It’s a no-brainer if you’re into value.

Samsung packs a quad-core proc, a 7,200rpm HDD, discrete graphics, and an optical drive into the Chronos, which measures less than an inch thick and weighs little more than five pounds.

Clearly, the Chronos has the chops for productivity apps, as evidenced by its parts loadout and benchmark performance. It ran circles around our admittedly aged zero-point gaming laptop in all the content-creation tests. The Chronos is less of a master at games, however, although gaming is not out of the question with the mid-level Radeon 6750M GPU. We achieved 42fps in Call of Duty 4 playing on a 1650x1050 external display with 4x AA. With AMD’s Switchable Graphics, the GPU is enabled only when needed, thus preserving battery life. Indeed, the Chronos lasted almost five hours in our battery rundown test—that’s within the range of the ultrabooks we’ve reviewed. Pretty impressive.

If you have a large DVD collection, you’ll appreciate the Chronos’s slot-load DVD drive. Image quality on the 1600x900 matte screen is generally good, although adjusting the screen forward or back much beyond 45 degrees results in considerable color distortion. The speakers are serviceable, but certainly not a selling point.

Our biggest gripe with the Chronos regards its trackpad. While the surface of it feels very nice to the touch, we found its behavior maddening at times—just moving the cursor would sometimes register as a click, causing windows to open or move, or text to be highlighted. And while typing, the cursor would occasionally find its way to some random point in the document. Sadly, these issues are not uncommon to trackpads, but they have the ability to tarnish the user’s experience. A function key on the Chronos lets you disable the trackpad in favor of a mouse.

All in all, the Series 7 Chronos offers a well-rounded package for mainstream use at a reasonable price.

Notebooks

HP Envy TouchSmart 4 Review

The most enviable part is the price

Windows 8 Hardware Reviews

Microsoft’s re-imagined OS is only half the equation

Microsoft Surface RT

Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13

Dell XPS 12

CPU 1.9GHz Core i7-3517U GPU Intel HD4000 integrated graphics RAM 8GB dual-channel DDR3/1600 Display 12.5-inch 1920x1080 IPS LCD Storage Micron 256GB SSD Connectivity 2x USB 3.0, Mini DisplayPort, 802.11n, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, headphone/mic, 1.3MP webcam Lap / Carry 3 lbs, 6.5 oz / 4 lbs, 0.6 oz

Acer Iconia W510

Acer T232HL

InnovaTouch IW2235P-U

LOGITECH WIRELESS RECHARGEABLE TOUCHPAD T650

LOGITECH T620

LOGITECH T400

MICROSOFT SCULPT COMFORT KEYBOARD

MICROSOFT WEDGE MOBILE KEYBOARD

GETTING BY WITHOUT TOUCH

Razer Edge Pro Review

It sounded good on paper...

Benchmarks

Specs

Maingear Nomad 15 Review

Don't judge a gaming laptop by its cover

Acer S7 Review

As capable as it is captivating

CyberPower Zeus M2 Review

The more-affordable ultraportable

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review

An Ultrabook that makes no Mac pretenses

MSI GT60 Review

Won’t break your back or your bank account

Asus Zenbook UX32Vd Review

Now with discrete graphics!

Origin Eon11-S Review

The little gaming notebook that could

Samsung Series 9 Review

15 inches of Ultrabook goodness

Acer Timeline M3 Review

Putting the ultra in ultrabook

Dell XPS 13 Review

HP Folio 13 Review

Samsung Series 7 Chronos Review

Because ultrabooks aren’t for everyone