Find
out the winners of our coveted awards
The winner: Asus Zenbook UX31E
‘Ultrabooks
are the new apex of laptop design. The Asus Zenbook is so far the best of the
new breed.’
‘The
Asus Zenbook is so far the best of the new breed’
If the purpose of a laptop is to be a
portable PC that you can take out and about with you to work on, then the new
generation of ultrabooks are the new apex of laptop design.
The Asus Zenbook is so far the best of
the new breed. It’s not perfect though – the screen isn’t as good as we’d hope
and you won’t be playing many games on it – but for elegance of design,
practically of purpose and for setting a new value-for-money bar, it’s our
clear winner.
The only caveat that we’d attach is
that this is a first-generation ultrabook, and things are always better second
time round. Next year, Intel’s Ivy Bridge chips will offer much better games
performance, and Sony has been doing very interesting things with external
graphics cards, which can increase game frame rates by several factors.
But that’s the future. In the here and
now, the Zenbook is right at the cutting edge. It’s a laptop that proves you
can have it all – performance and portability without paying an extortionate
price.
You may want to get an external hard
drive to go with it. A good part of its excellent stand up times are down to
the solid state drive inside, but at just 128GB it could well fill up fast.
Runner up
Packard
Bell EasyNote TS13
The
Packard Bell TS13 is a fantastic example of how to cut costs without cutting
corners
Few things are as disappointing as
buying an inexpensive laptop and slowly discovering all of its annoying flaws
over a long period of time. Often it’s worth shelling out an extra couple of
hundred pounds to avoid future frustrations with rubbish screens, poor
keyboards or slow performance. But not in this case, however…
The Packard Bell TS13 is a fantastic
example of how to cut costs without cutting corners. Granted, it’s never going
to have a mantelpiece cluttered with design awards or be seen in the homes of
the rich and famous, but as a family all-rounder to replace that ageing and
messy PC tower, you could hardly want for better at this price. It looks like
entry level laptops have themselves a new poster boy.
At a glance
See
how the machines on test performed
|
Product name
|
Battery life (minutes)
|
Performance
|
Gaming
|
|
Acer Aspire Ethos 8591G
|
188
|
|
|
|
Asus Zenbook UX31
|
237
|
|
|
|
Dell XPS 14ze
|
192
|
|
|
|
HP DV7-6103ea
|
181
|
|
|
|
Packard Bell EasyNote TS13
|
148
|
|
|
|
Samsung RF511
|
168
|
|
|
