Gigabyte seemed to be very confident in
introducing the 11.6inch Ultrabook X11. Appearing shortly before the launch of
Windows 8, it straddles two OS life cycles, with a feature set which is more
loyal to Windows 7 than to a touch-centric future. However, with CPU Ivy Bridge
Core i5, 4GB RAM and a SSD 129 GB, which was titled the slimmest Ultrabook on
the world, is competitive as you’d imagined, this is a small, fast and powerful
machine, but did Gigabyte sacrifice other interesting features in order to
achieve such slim frame of X11? Let’s have a closer look on this unit, only available
outside US, to see whether it is worth the import fees.
Look and feel
Gigabyte
X11
Gigabyte is really fond of the sport car
style of X11, but this machine is good-looking and slender rather than bulky
and flashy as the Ferrari series of Acer. In fact, we suppose that this is one
of the most elegant design units that we have seen, not straying too far from
the subtle lines of Macbook Air. It is wrapped in a package which is similar to
the carbon fiber-esque sleeve. This makes it look like the owner’s manual of a Hypercar
rather than an ultra-slim laptop.
Our tested model is not a
massive-manufactured unit but the model which is made manually for reviewers.
Its weight is 983g (2.16 pound), which the company claims to be the current
slightest Ultrabook. However, based on the speed that this device is developed,
we doubt that it will not keep that title longer. Another difference is the
complete model will have a Window 8-style keyboard (With the newest logo of
Microsoft, instead of the dual-language logo you see in our photos).
The X11’s wedge-shaped body is 13mm (0.5
inch), tapering down to 6m (0.23 inch) at the front. A chrome hinge contains
two “sport car” vent grids, which look more attractive than the cooler that you
see in most of other devices. The minimal designed details and the woven carbon
fiber model make X11 look indeed like a luxury device – in fact, we think that
this device will be fine at home when lying next to the Vertu smartphone and an
mountain-goat-feather Armani suits in a luxury store; it would look fabulous.
Running down the left side are power slots,
USB 3.0 and mini DisplayPort, while on the right side are USB 2.0, a 3.5 mm
headphone jack and a micro SD slot. The latter is an abnormal choice, but other
11 inch like Zenbook Prime UX21A got rid of its memory card slot, so it is at
least nice to have removable storage to offset for the SSD 128 GB which is not
expandable.
The
power ports and Display port
The 11.6-inch, 1,366x768 backlit LED
display is surrounded by a bulky, 2 cm bezel on all four sides – makes the
screen seem to be quite smaller and cheaper than its otherwise-great design.
Above it, in the front and the middle is the 1.3 MP webcam that captures
620x480 pixel images, and of course will hide any notable blemishes, wrinkles
on your face. However, it will distort the quick Skype chats that you will
definitely have when purchase new devices.
X11 cause many headaches when you really
held it in your hands. First of all, while the carbon fiber is strong and
light, it is also lack of certain rigidity. We can bend the lid 5 degrees before
encountering its resistance and we just stopped doing that because we were
afraid of breaking the device. The bottom plate is secured by six screws, but –
at least on our manual checking unit – it does not deserve its case. This means
one side can be pushed in some millimeters with the clearly audible sound, a
build quality problem that Gigabyte said to have been fixed in the massive
manufactured products.
The well-known glossy product really attracts
fingerprints, and the case of this device makes it look like we have just
suffered from a sweating condition although we have dried our hands thoroughly.
Bringing it outside without cleaning it by a lint-free cloth, everyone will
start to offer many suspicious assumptions about your health, while it is
planned to be a luxury product, the fingerprint-attracting case, unusual build
quality and not-very-good screen.
Keyboard and trackpad
The
keyboard
The X11’s island-style keyboard seems to be
comfortable for using, but here, the first impressions are lying to you. They
keys provides a few millimeters of travel, but the sensitivity of each Chiclet
is very different that makes you have to note which key needs to use much
pressure and which does not. Our reviews had to be written by our testing
device, and the original document of this review had many mistakes.
You have to believe us when we say that our
typing skill is not that bad. Obviously, the spacebar really suffers the same
slowness in responding as some layout’s keys, and an engineer in our office
thought that there is a switch which was located too far to the left. If, like
us, you use your thumb to type the spacebar, you will see that your presses are
recognized in half of the time.
Also causing the resistance to improve
productivity is trackpad Sentelic, which is obviously not calibrated properly
for palm rejection. Lean your hand too far for about 1 millisecond, the cursor
will jump into your already-written text, which causes misspelling. That
sensitivity makes the general use turn out to be complex, frustrating that
phantom clicks and drags appear more frequently.
While the touchpad is too fast in terms of
the accidental movements, it seems to encounter many troubles which is opposite
to the intentional input: clicking and dragging files between folders need
patience and good run-up, and many other complaints towards this manufacturer
during our testing time. This is just for Windows 7; just imagine how worse it
is when operating the gesture-friendly Windows 8.
Display and sound
Gigabyte
X11 display
We complained about the bezel around the
11.6 inch, 1,366x768 display, but the screen itself is also glossy (a normal
annoyance), and the colors are a little too dark and washed out, no matter how
much you change the settings. For example, the bright red turns out to be ruddy
brown, while green and blue are mixed together. On the plus side, a 300 nit
screen of course can struggle against the sunlight, and it is strong enough to
burn a few retinas at the full bright – always a good sign, as there are many
laptops have weak backlighting.
The X11’s stereo speakers are hid in the
hinge of the unit. At the maximum volume, of course they will fill up the room,
but the rattling noise, which sounds like somebody have put a paper on the
speakers, will goes together. The sound is still harsh when you increase it
over 75% for example, so when we watch some Rifftrax movies on the machine, the
echo of Kevin Murphy sometimes hurts our ears.
