Best Ultrabooks 2012 - A Review Note: This article was republished from http://www.squidoo.com/best-ultrabooks-review We recommend viewing the article from there for better image resolution and formatting
There are plenty of notebooks out in the market today, however, the buzz is all about ultrabooks recently. If you are looking to buy one, you are in luck as I will explain what they are and what to consider when getting one. Further below, you'll find the top rated ultrabooks this year 2012, along with a brief review of each model.
Standard Features Ultrathin An ultrabook has got to have a thin body. As per Intel's specifications, it has to be under 20 mm thick (0.8 inch). It also has to weigh below 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds), which is a physical aspect that comes with its thinness.
Long battery life Ultrabooks are engineered to have very long battery life, coupled with reasonable performance. In order to achieve that, it has to consume less power, hence the low power mobile processor on them. This low power consumption results in significant power savings, but the trade-off will be lower clock speeds. These differences, however, won't be noticeable to the average consumer when handling day-to-day tasks like surfing the web or watching videos.
SSD Storage Drive Flash-based solid state drives are important because they not only give a performance boost when doing daily tasks, but they also enable your computer to instantly resume from sleep mode, so you don't have to shut the machine down when traveling around.
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It also boosts start up time so that if you do shut down your machine, it only takes about 20 seconds or less to turn it on again.
Click here for Amazon's best sellers list on ultrabooks Design Considerations Keyboard and trackpad
Tracking is made easier and having a clickable trackpad makes it more convenient for navigation. The keyboard is a component that interacts the most with the user, and a subpar keyboard would often flex under pressure. The material of the keyboard housing is also very important. Some are made of plastic, while others are metal. The plastic ones usually introduce more flex while the metal alloy ones are sturdier.
Ports When it comes to ports, you will need to find an ultrabook that fits your requirements. A USB 3.0 port that allows you to attach the latest USB 3.0 devices is a good feature. Most ultrabooks will come with an HDMI out option but look out for a VGA port if you need to do presentations often and need to connect to projectors and monitors.
Security There are security features which are essential if you are using the ultrabook in the enterprise environment. The most obvious one is the fingerprint reader, while the not so obvious security feature is the Trusted Platform Module chip that allows you to protect your information.
Top Ultrabooks 2012 - Based on Amazon Ratings ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A-DB51 Has the latest Intel Ivy Bridge processor for faster and smoother computing. The screen is low-glare with a full HD resolution at 1080p. The keyboard is also backlit so you can use it on a low-light environment.
HP ENVY 14-3010NR A premium quality ultrabook that has all the good bells and whistles in it. It's got a shiny gorilla glass cover, sharp and vivid display, backlit keyboard, good battery life, fast processor for average computing tasks, HD webcam, and Beats audio speaker. However, it also comes at quite a hefty price tag.
Toshiba Portege Z835-P360 This ultrabook's biggest selling point is its thinness at just 0.63 inch, and lightness. It also has a high quality screen, decent keyboard, facial recognition feature, fast processing speed for average users, quick boot up and wake up time, good battery life, and has all the common connectivity options and ports. It is also reasonably priced.
Sony VAIO T Series SVT13112FXS Great design, solid construction, has a clickable trackpad, quality display, has all the needed ports, great speakers, decent performance with its latest Ivy Bridge processor. It is also reasonably priced (under 1000). A few cons include the lack of backlit keyboard and it is slightly heavy than other machines in this category.
Samsung Series 5 NP530U4C-A01US One of the good options if you are looking for a cheap ultrabook under $1000. It doesn't have a backlit keyboard and its storage is a SATA drive (but the storage size is very large compared to SSD ultrabooks). It also has an optical drive, which is usually not present in most ultrabooks to keep it thin. However, Samsung still calls it an ultrabook due to its thinness.