Ultra book recomendations?

Sharky

Sharky

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My current HP Elitebook has served me well but time for a change and need some recommendations for a new ultra book? Needs to be 13.x" max, slim, high sRGB percentage, ideally i7, 8gb min, SSD, light (1.4kg or less) and W8.1Pro (happy with classicshell on top of that to make it usable ;)). Budget up to £1250 inc vat. Have full blown editing and gaming PCs so this is purely about have something light on the move for travelling (planes, trains and taxis).

I'd pretty much settled on a i7 Dell XPS 13 with the QHD touch display but i believe W7 and W8 are awful at dealing with highres displays on small screens, and the 3200 x 1800 equates to 1600 x 900 in reality in terms of desktop space (less than a native 1080p). W10 is better but still not great and as much as i like W10 too many open questions about privacy, Windows Update etc. at this point.

Any recommendation would be welcome!
 
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I have a Dell 7440, I7, 256GB msata, 14", 16GB, fingerprint reader, now on W10 with the sim card option and I find it's great. There is a newer model now 7540 or 7550?
Nice and light, runs PS etc
 
admirable said:
I have a Dell 7440, I7, 256GB msata, 14", 16GB, fingerprint reader, now on W10 with the sim card option and I find it's great. There is a newer model now 7540 or 7550?
Nice and light, runs PS etc
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Thanks Jim, i've had a look at them and they do look good it'll certainly be short list. Dell certainly seems to have a more complete range than their rivals.
 
I've set-up a few Dell XPS 13s.

My only gripe with them is the keyboard. I think they've gone a bit Apple.
The back slash key is in the wrong place, on the right above the enter key*.
The enter key isn't full height.
There's no break key.

Otherwise, nice compact size. Satisfying build quality.
I had a stint using a circa 2013 Dell Latitude 6 series, and it's fair to say it has the nicest action of any laptop keyboard I've ever used. Sadly it suffers the same affliction with the key arrangement.

*Working with Windows as a sysadmin, this is a bit of a deal breaker for me.
 
Thanks @afasoas , the keyboard is something i could probably get on with as i'm used to using French, Dutch and Italian layouts :). How did you find the desktop coverage? I'm torn as they look lush and have the footprint of an 11" but don't want to compromise on the actual practical use.
 
Windows 8 is fine with a hires screen. The scaling works well. However the pain comes when you connect it to an external monitor as in order to change the scaling you have to logout and back in and both have to have the same setting.

Windows 10 however has fixed that, it works with hi resolution screens perfectly fine. And you can have different scaling for built in and external screens. It's really good.
 
To be honest, I find the resolution a bit high with the default scaling. When adjusting the scaling to make it more usable, it feels like I'm losing useful desktop real estate.

If my goal was portability, I'd go XPS 13.
If I wanted a laptop I would use in lieu of a desktop, I'd go XPS 15.

Your mileage, of course, may vary.
 
Thanks guys, really helpful and more pondering to be done :)
 
I have an XPS 15 on 8.1, and the scaling is fine generally, but of course adjusting scaling to make things bigger will lose desktop space. When it comes to plugging in an external screen then as dejongj says, you need to log out or restart. I normally plug in the monitor, hit the on button and quickly close the lid when using mine as a workstation.
 
ancient_mariner said:
I have an XPS 15 on 8.1, and the scaling is fine generally, but of course adjusting scaling to make things bigger will lose desktop space. When it comes to plugging in an external screen then as dejongj says, you need to log out or restart. I normally plug in the monitor, hit the on button and quickly close the lid when using mine as a workstation.
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Thanks. It's rare i plug in a monitor directly to my laptop as i normally RDP to it from a desktop machine so for the most part i think i'll be ok :)
 
Just to follow up on this, i decided on the XPS13 in the end. Choose against ordering it straight away as i read the rumours Dell would refresh their range with the Skylake processors so wanted to hang on a little longer for their release. The refreshed laptops are now available so ordered an i7 XPS13 and it's due to be shipped to me at the end of this month according to the paperwork (hoping it's quicker though!) :).

Thanks again for everyone's input.
 
Sharky said:
Just to follow up on this, i decided on the XPS13 in the end. Choose against ordering it straight away as i read the rumours Dell would refresh their range with the Skylake processors so wanted to hang on a little longer for their release. The refreshed laptops are now available so ordered an i7 XPS13 and it's due to be shipped to me at the end of this month according to the paperwork (hoping it's quicker though!) :).

Thanks again for everyone's input.
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share your thoughts about it when tested :)
 
This might be of interest, but not intended to fulfill the OP requiment. My girlfriend wanted a cool small thin laptop for browsing and the odd letter. Now being poor / tight fisted / whatever, ultrabooks are great but expensive, so choice was limited. I ended up with a 11.6" transformer type tablet from ODYS. It looks and feels like an ultrabook. But complete with keyboard and office suite just £149 new. Android, so lots of software and works offline. But for the occasional print out, she has to go via our other PC, I'm told.
Odys-Evolution-12_02.jpg
 
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ianp5a said:
This might be of interest, but not intended to fulfill the OP requiment. My girlfriend wanted a cool small thin laptop for browsing and the odd letter. Now being poor / tight fisted / whatever, ultrabooks are great but expensive, so choice was limited. I ended up with a 11.6" transformer type tablet from ODYS. It looks and feels like an ultrabook. But complete with keyboard and office suite just £149 new. Android, so lots of software and works offline. But for the occasional print out, she has to go via our other PC, I'm told.
Odys-Evolution-12_02.jpg
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That looks good.
 
I showed it to a few people on Friday, and by Saturday 2 had bought the same one, with several others intending to get one. It's the £149 price tag that's irresistible.
 
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I've just found out how to print from it now. Being an Android mobile device it doesn't print like a PC. They say get a cloud print compatible printer. But I have an old USB printer.

This is what I did:
I connected the printer to my router USB port that supports a printer. (not all routers have this)
I installed an app called PrintBot on the tablet.
In the app I entered the IP address of the router, selected the printer model from a list and chose raw mode.
I then set PrintBot as the "active printer service" .

And now it prints just as you'd expect a normal PC to.
 
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iirc You can print from android if you have google chrome installed and printers added. It will then print through any printer connected to that PC. It may even do it over the Internet.
 
Thanks. For that you need another computer switched on and with the printer attached. Quite inconvenient in our case, compared to having the printer plugged into the, always on, router. A modern wifi printer would the ideal. But we don't print much. And we don't want to send our documents to Google in order to print them.
 
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Just for fun I plugged in a USB mouse. It worked immediately, wheel and all. I've never used a mouse and cursor on Android before. And this was a cordless mouse with USB dongle too. I'm amazed.
 
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Sharky said:
Just to follow up on this, i decided on the XPS13 in the end. Choose against ordering it straight away as i read the rumours Dell would refresh their range with the Skylake processors so wanted to hang on a little longer for their release. The refreshed laptops are now available so ordered an i7 XPS13 and it's due to be shipped to me at the end of this month according to the paperwork (hoping it's quicker though!) :).

Thanks again for everyone's input.
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Well not very impressed with Dell at all. Ordered on the 8th and they showed an estimated 6-8 days delivery time (even today says 8/10 w.days online), order confirmation came through and it said end of the month. This morning that date has now been pushed back another week so it'll be coming up to a month from placing the order if it arrives in that window.

Called their sales order support number, 50 mins later i spoke with a human who didn't have any answers but promised an update within 48hrs.

Sorry but **** poor.
 
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Sharky said:
Well not very impressed with Dell at all. Ordered on the 8th and they showed an estimated 6-8 days delivery time (even today says 8/10 w.days online), order confirmation came through and it said end of the month. This morning that date has now been pushed back another week so it'll be coming up to a month from placing the order if it arrives in that window.

Called their sales order support number, 50 mins later i spoke with a human who didn't have any answers but promised an update within 48hrs.

Sorry but **** poor.
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Agreed. I like the kit, but not the customer-facing side of Dell sales.
 
Finally shipped after being put on a "priority build" after my moaning. Shipping from China, eta another week according to the tracking info.
 
nigpd said:
What do you think of the XPS 13"?
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It's a compromise more so than i really thought it would be. If you're after the thinnest, lightest, moderately powerful small footprint device that will make 'hip' people green with envy then it's an excellent choice.

The problems i had / have is out of the box incredibly unstable, lots of random reboots and blue screens. They've got better over the past month with newer Dell drivers and several updates to firmware but it was disappointing to use at first. Nothing to cute installed on top of the default installation either, Office 2016, Creative Cloud and the usual array of core utilities. It'd be working fine then just sat idle on the desktop and ping off it went restart blue screen. Now those appear to be largely ironed out and with a few compromises it's very serviceable to use day to day. Wouldn't say the CPU is stunningly fast more efficient and cool. Keyboard is good but the mouse for me is god awful. Hate the thing. Large pad and integrated buttons mean using it quickly even after almost two months trying to adapt is difficult. End up with clicks not registering or dragged to random places as i like to use two hands for speed to move / click as i go rather than one for just pondering along. For design reasons heat is vented out of the bottom so if you put it on your lap or like to check e-mail etc. in bed it gets toasty on any soft surface that vaguely moulds to shape. Had to buy £60 worth of a mini USB fingerprint reader as didn't clock it didn't have an integrated one and that means one USB port gone leaving only one USB3 so have no option but to use a USB-C to USB3 hub + RJ45 which is just another thing to cart around. The nice thin device now has assorted accessories (mouse, usb-c hub / lan stick, finger print reader) that need to travel with it.

The out and out good are the display is faultless (lush colours), QHD+ means so much room and i'm happy at 150% scaling which is practical to use while retaining a vast space. 4k content is glorious but Youtube 4k only works in Chrome as Firefox is bugged (also happens on my 4k desktop via FF). The touch display i actually use which i wasn't expecting but that largely down to the awful mouse pad. It's so light i often have to check i've got in a bag. Sound from it is first rate and surprised me how meaty it sounded. Real depth to the bass considering what it is with a decent soundstage.

Would i buy it again, probably not but that's not to say it's overall awful just for my use too many irritations. I'm in the IT field so it needs to be a workhorse as well as looking good in the boardroom, it only does one of those things very well ;)
 
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Thanks for the really in depth user experience. I've been toying with the idea of getting a Dell XPS 15, but reading the above, I may have to consider the MacBook Pro 15", although this will be a major leap of faith as it would be my first Mac
 
That sounds really disappointing. My XPS15 has 'just worked' after setting up windows as I like it and tweaking around the trackpad settings a little. On W10 it was less good (though still nothing like that bad) so I reverted to 8.1 for now.
 
nigpd said:
Thanks for the really in depth user experience. I've been toying with the idea of getting a Dell XPS 15, but reading the above, I may have to consider the MacBook Pro 15", although this will be a major leap of faith as it would be my first Mac
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I'd say the XPS15 is a very different beast and on reflection would probably suit me better than this.

ancient_mariner said:
That sounds really disappointing. My XPS15 has 'just worked' after setting up windows as I like it and tweaking around the trackpad settings a little. On W10 it was less good (though still nothing like that bad) so I reverted to 8.1 for now.
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As above i think the XPS15 would probably suit me better as it seems more workhorse like than this.

Oh and to add to my previous comments i find the wifi range poor. My previous HP Elitebook had better range around the house than this where it's signal drops off the network.
 
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