Just how ULTRA are some of those Ultrabooks?

Posted by By Jon Peddie, Robert Dow, and Harrison Grovy on September 26th 2012 | Discuss
Categories: Hardware Review
Tags: ces computers ultra ultrabooks laptops

We apply an arbitrary Ultra Factor

At IDF we saw some delightful Ultra­books. There are many now—over two dozen to choose from and more on their way. However, there are some differences in them and a value proposition.

From our my pixel-oriented POV, we looked at what you’d get in performance, screen, resolution, price, and weight and created the Ultra factor where:

  • UF = Ultra Factor
  • R = resolution—pixels
  • S = screen size—inches
  • P = processor I class (3,5,7)
  • $ = price—dollars
  • W = weight—pounds
  • K = coefficient—0.001

We then surveyed 19 Ultrabooks and generated the table on the previous page.

On the basis of this evaluation, the Asus Zenbook is the clear winner. And—this makes no compensation for GPU. Now, in the next story, you will see that the dGPU in the Zenbook contributes nothing to the performance of the machine and is easily beaten by an A9 Trinity. But since the Trinity laptop we have isn’t an Ultrabook, and we don’t have samples of all the others, we can’t run benchmarks on them—but for the machines we have, the results are shown below.

Here’s the Ultrabook lineup in order of ultra-ness—all the specs, including JPR’s UF (Ultra Factor) in the righthand column.
Ultrabook Screen size Pixels Lines CPU Weight
(in pounds)		 Price UF
Asus Zenbook Prime 13.3 1920 1080 i7 3.1 $780 80
Acer Aspire S5 13.3 1366 768 i7 2.6 $825 46
Vizio C14-A2 14 1600 900 i7 3.4 $1,199 35
Asus Zenbook UX31E-DH52 13.3 1600 900 i5 2.9 $1,005 33
HP ENVY Spectre XT Ultrabook 13t-2000 13.3 1366 768 i7 3.0 $999 33
Dell Inspiron 14z 14 1366 768 i5 4.1 $600 30
Sony VAIO T Series Ultrabook 13.3 1366 768 i7 3.5 $969 28
Toshiba Portégé Z830 Series 13.3 1366 768 i7 2.5 $1,429 28
Dell XPS 14 14 1600 900 i7 4.7 $1,100 27
Lenovo IdeaPad U310 13.3 1366 768 i5 3.7 $700 27
Sony VAIO T Series Ultrabook 13.3 1366 768 i5 3.5 $739 27
Toshiba Satellite U845W-S410 14.4 1792 768 i5 3.7 $999 27
Average 13.7 1462 810.0 5.9 3.4 $1,062 27
Toshiba Portege Z930-BT9300 Ultrabook 13.3 1366 768 i5 2.5 $1,150 25
Dell XPS 13  13.3 1366 768 i7 3 $1,429 23
HP Envy Ultrabook 4-1030us 14 1366 768 i5 3.9 $830 23
Samsung Series 9 NP900 15 1600 900 i7 3.6 $1,800 23
Toshiba Satellite U845-S406 14 1366 768 i5 3.7 $850 23
Acer Aspire TimelineUltra M5 15.6 1366 768 i5 4.5 $829 22
Fujitsu Lifebook UH572 13.3 1366 768 i5 3.5 $999 20
Sony SVT13114GXX 13.3 1366 768 i5 3.4 $1,999 10

What do we think?

A 13-inch screen is a joke, slightly larger than a tablet. And 1366 x 768—jeez—let’s go back to 1987 and enjoy XGA all over again. Is this ­really the best the industry can do? If a 13-inch screen with 786 lines (and may we point out that the Apple iPad has 2048 x 1536 resolution) is all the PC industry can deliver, then it deserves to get eaten alive by tablets because not only has it failed the consumer—it has insulted the consumer.—J.P

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