Anatomy of Utrabooks (Part
1)
It is easy to accept
the development of the technology, but the existence of UX31 of Asus proves
that, it always requires a significant effort in cramming all necessary parts
into a thin and elegant cover.
1. Battery
The process of
cramming a battery into the millimeter-thick cover is not a piece of cake at
all, unless lithium ion polymer is used. Lighter and more dynamic than hard
lithium ion battery, these thin batteries fit perfectly in the most cramped
space.
2. Wireless chipset
With the fact that
many Ultrabook leave the Ethernet port out, wireless chipset becomes one of the
most important. Several models cut down the cost with one frequent chipset, but
it later became a big mistake – 802.11n two frequencies are necessary
requirement for high-speed wireless network.
3. PCH (platform controller hub)
Intel has eliminated
the bottleneck jams of Northbridge and old Southbridge. Being designed for
faster connection process between CPU and the motherboard, PCH supplies a high
speed connection for either graphics or general data transfer.
4. RAM
If you hold out little
hope of RAM upgrading, please think it over again. With such small space left
for a normal motherboard, or even big-sized hard drive, the manufacturers came
up with a compromise to embed the RAM directly on the motherboard. Please never
ever think of buying any product if it is less than 4GB.
5. CPU
With the fact that
Ultrabooks equipped with Intel low voltage CPU Core i5 or i7, it is no longer
lack of efficiency. Integrated graphics allow the modest game playing and the
battery using time is nearly 9 hours and Ivy Bridge is about to break that
record.
6. SSD
The hard drive
existence means no space for other things; therefore, the manufacturers agreed
in using SSD modules (as picture below) or small SSD mSATA (such as Dell XPS
13). They packed hundreds of high speed storage of gigabyte into small area,
perfectly fitted for Ultrabook.
7. Cooling fan
Meanwhile Intel low
voltage CPU run coolly, inside Ultrabook there is not much space for it to
breathe. Some of the heat emits within the frame, but pipes are necessary in
giving off the heat out of the CPU and PCH, which is supported by a small
cooling fan.
8. Speaker
Laptops are not famous
for its sound quality – after all, this means the great speaker along with
powerful amplifier – but Ultrabooks make miracles by combining the small
drivers with the digital sound processing algorithm to create the various
abundance of sound far beyond your expectation.
Users’ Guildance: How we test
Ultrabook is the Intel
future vision for the mobile computing. Ultra light, thin, sturdy but powerful
and many features, this new laptop line is partly ultraportable, partly the
desktop replacement products and the desire for it is definitely 100%.
Getting a position in
these premium categories is not as common as dirt. The manufactures were
requested to cram the powerful processor (Intel), SSD and long battery life
into the 21-millimeter thick laptops. And that’s not enough, they had to
accomplish this with the cheap prices for the intention of attracting the
attention of the majority customers meant the first Ultrabooks in Austria with the price from $1,055 to $2,799.
But till now, they
have one thing in common: they are gorgeous. The optical drive omission and
frame shaping into the tiny strip do well with the laptop appearance, and even
the laptop in the poorest condition will look slender. However, they are not
the same; therefore, please look it over and over before making decisions to
buy it.
With
the Intel low
voltage Core processor in this new laptop line, you may expect the poor
performance. However, it is absolutely wrong. The standard technical
specifications for Ultrabook are low voltage Core i5 Sandy Bridge
processor, 4GB memory and 128GB SSD drive – a perfect combination for
powerful
performance. Some manufacturers like Acer made some low-price models
with Core
i3 processor and smaller SSD physical drive, and they are worth to be
considered if your budget is exiguous.
But not all SSDs are
made completely the same: some are faster than others. With a faster SSD drive,
it doesn’t allow your applications to run faster, of course it helps them to
load much faster. If you are about to work with video clips or huge music
projects, the fastest SSD can make you feel their valuable presence.
All of them, except
one model here, are based on the 13.3” frame, due to the reason that there are
plenty space for ergonomic keyboard and touchpad: it is unacceptable for any
smaller ones. More upcoming Ultrabook imitates the mirror touchpad of MacBook
Air and absolutely clears out all physical buttons.
Actually, the one and
only criticism of this current product line is trying to stuff one device into
a high resolution display screen. While we can understand the manufacture
combination between an 11.6” screen with the resolution of 1,366x768 pixels
(any higher one all results in annoyingly small text display), and there is no
excuse for the bigger models. Zenbook UX31 of Asus is against the trend by
choosing the 1,600x900 display screen and it is a good choice for it. We hope
that other manufactures will soon follow that.
The last obstacle is
the connecting ability. Most of Ultrabooks are equipped with at lest USB3 – the
most essential one for high speed connection – but rarely have the video output
port and Ethernet port, even some of the models saving the budget by choosing
IEEE 802.11n.
How
we benchmark
All 7 laptops run our
benchmarking application package - Real World Benchmarks, which measured the
overall computer performance of each laptop. We carried on 3 Crysis tests – one
by one with a fiercer setting to have an exactly gaming performance evaluation
for each one.
Battery life
In order to come to a
conclusion about the accurate number about the battery life, 2 tests are taken
place. In the light-duty test, we optimized all system settings to have the
most efficient energy using – energy profile of Windows was set up in Power
Saver mode; besides, the screen brightness was adjusted as close to 75cd/m2 as
possible with an X-Rite i1Display 2 color calibrator. Then, we unplugged the
wire and run a batch file passing by plenty of websites until the system
shutting down.
As for the heavy-duty
test, we switched the energy profile of Windows into High Performance and set
the screen brightness into maximum. Then, again we unplugged the wire, run 3D
rendering of Cinebench continuously repeatedly into running out of battery.
With Cinebench 11.5 – the benchmarking software booting CPU performance into
100%, this test provided the data in the worst circumstance that you could ever
expect in the fiercest condition.
