Recommend me a laptop/ultrabook

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Dale_tem

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Dale
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I have had my current laptop for 3 years.

It is a Samsung Series 5 ultrabook. Nothing has gone wrong in 3 years (we have 6 of them in total).

Features....

13" screen
i5 processor
12Gb RAM
500Gb HDD with 24Gb SSD (Hybrid drve)
chic lit keyboard
720p display
touchscreen
3 USB including 1 always on for charging
Light and thin

Bad points....

keyboard not backlit (would love that)
battery life was only around 3 hours and also never warned me when it was out of power. Small connector sometimes fell out, I would swear an hour or 2 later.

It has been the best laptop I have had so far. Lenovo r510 heavy and relatively slow, Dell Inspirion 9300 was heavy!!!, Dell XPS 15R - overated and made of paper mache, screen was great though.

So I am after a similar laptop/ultrabook. The one that ticks all the boxes is the Macbook Air (then install Windows). However I use the Windows button a lot (I think the cmd works the same) and it is only US Keyboard layout which rules it out. It is also a tad expensive, especially as I have to add £100+ for Windows on top.

Requirements - Must have VGA 15 pint output (connect to a lot of customers projectors)

Samsung have stopped making laptops, so can't go back there and now looking at other companies.

Has anyone got experience with Display Port to VGA adapters? A number of companies have display port on them and although we don't have any display port displays, we would need to use a VGA dongle.

Thanks in Advance.
 
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The Macbook air wont have the processing grunt of your present Samsung, never mind anything current, though that may not matter. I have a Dell XPS 15 from last year, and it's not really any more fragile than the Macbook that I had before. You might look at the Lenovo X series for a light and reliable laptop.

I had a mini displayport to VGA adapter with the Macbook. It worked with varying degrees of success (lots of firmware updates and chipset issues in the Macbook) although the day I bought a screen with displayport was a good day.
 
MacBook Air only can't compete on 12GB of RAM, limited to 8GB but can easily compete on raw processing power. Mine is an i7 with 512SSD and 8GB and is happy with anything I throw at it. I've been using display port adapters for years, with Apple the Apple ones work really well.

I also use this one with my Surface Pro 3 -

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00W3GXVY6?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00

It is superb, and several colleagues and suppliers bought one as well. All basis are covered if the built in WiDi doesn't work....

Another nice and lightweight option, besides the Surface Pro 3 is the Lenovo Yoga 3 if you don't like the Dell. Or if you fancy the best of the best, the Lenovo X1 Carbon, great little machine...

Oh and I am not sure why you have to get a US keyboard Mac? Mine are UK keyboards, and VMWare Fusion to run windows and other virtual machines automatically maps the keys....
 
I believe the Surface Pro 4 is about to be announced (today) and we're in the middle of "announcement season" with all the major brands looking to deliver skylake based laptops/hybrids for xmas. This means you could either have a look at the new offerings to see if there's anything to tempt you, or try and pick up last years model at a discount (and these will have been thoroughly reviewed by now as well).
 
you'll struggle for an inbuilt vga without using an adapter of some sort.

the dell M3800 is very nice (only downer is the glossy display).

we've got a macbook air in the office and personally wouldnt like to use one for long periods.
 
dejongj said:
MacBook Air only can't compete on 12GB of RAM, limited to 8GB but can easily compete on raw processing power. Mine is an i7 with 512SSD and 8GB and is happy with anything I throw at it. I've been using display port adapters for years, with Apple the Apple ones work really well.
Click to expand...

The Macbook air uses the dual core mobile processors, though I'd not been aware they'd gone to i5 and i7 (must keep up - thought they were still on slower versions ;p ) so not terribly grunty.
 
Which ultra book uses quad core desktop versions?
 
Thanks for all the input

dejongi - I had read a few places that the keyboards are all US. I suppose that could be from a specific site which is cheaper due to importing US hardware.

I don't need a powerful machine. I used to run a few Microsoft SQL databases on it, but I no longer need to. It's main use will be browser, Outlook word and Excel.

Not interested in the surface as I have an iPad Air 2 which I use for most things, it is only when in need to do large amounts of work do I need a laptop.
 
The advantage of a surface is that it is a full blown laptop, but could turn into a tablet. The form factor is perfect on the train or plain as unlike laptops it fits nicely on the fold down tables.

I run sql server locally as well. And Postgres and neo4j and Maria etc. And easily run two or three virtual machines as well. Plenty of power for that, with enough left for tools and ide or sql management studio or talend and the likes.

I did that on the 8GB Macbook air and on my surface pro.

But yes, U.K. Sourced machines definitely come with uk keyboard :thumbs:
 
dejongj said:
Which ultra book uses quad core desktop versions?
Click to expand...

The Dell XPS series use quad cores - not desktops (which I didn't mention) they are ultrabooks to me.
 
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ancient_mariner said:
The Dell XPS series use quad cores - not desktops (which I didn't mention) they are ultrabooks to me.
Click to expand...
The equivalent I would class the MacBook Pros. No you didn't mention desktop processors, but you did mention mobile processors in a negative connotation :thumbs: I like the dell xps machines, not quite the same build feel but very capable machines never the less for the same kind of money.
 
ancient_mariner said:
The Dell XPS series use quad cores - not desktops (which I didn't mention) they are ultrabooks to me.
Click to expand...
The equivalent I would class the MacBook Pros. No you didn't mention desktop processors, but you did mention mobile processors in a negative connotation :thumbs: I like the dell xps machines, not quite the same build feel but very capable machines never the less for the same kind of money.
 
How important is the ultrabook tag? in other words, is weight the thing you won't compromise on? The Macbook Air is superb, small, powerful, reliable. However the Macbook Pro is much faster, more flexible and not that much bigger. I've got a Macbook Pro 13 and it's only a few hundred grams heavier than the Air.
 
I am after light, performance is the part I will drop, but needs i5 and 8gb. I don't need much more than word, outlook etc. but it has to be a real keyboard
 
I've got a macbook pro 15, and find it excellent for general photography work. I find it very clumsy as a general purpose hardware development (granted thats pretty niche) machine
 
After playing with various laptops in stores and looking online I picked up a 13" Mac book air with 256Gb SSD. I am trying to use OSX for now and see how I get on. I have office 365 so have office installed, will now see how I get on with it.

I still am personally shocked that the 13" MacBook Air works out as the best machine and the best value/cheapest for the spec.
 
I've saying that for years :) it is a really good value package with little true competition.
 
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