The best laptops of CES 2013

Dell made a move last week that we were very happy to see — it decided to add a new, 1080p option to its otherwise-excellent XPS 13 ultrabook. We’ve had the opportunity to gaze upon the new display here at CES, and we’re glad to report that not only has Dell bumped the resolution up from the unspectacular 1366 x 768 on the original model, but it’s also addressed panel quality issues. We immediately noticed that colors were far more accurate on the updated display, and whites are now closer to true white instead of the blueish hue present on the lower-res screen. There’s a reason why it all looks so much better: the panel’s color gamut has been increased from 45 percent to 72 percent, according to Engadget. The viewing angle issues we saw on our XPS 13 review unit have also been addressed. Considering the changes, we’d recommend ponying up the extra $300 for the high-res XPS 13, which we’re told will also have a better base specification.

In addition to the updated ultrabook, Dell has also introduced a new version of its business-centric, Intel Clover Trail-powered Latitude 10 Windows 8 tablet here at CES. The company has decided to strip some of the most expensive components — the active digitizer and the removable battery — while keeping the same internals to offer the tablet at a lower price. There are two new “essentials” models: a $499 one with 32GB of memory and a 64GB version that’s $579. The former will be available “in the coming months,” while the latter is available now.

LG’s H160 may seem like a typical Windows 8 tablet, but its form factor is anything but. The 11.6-inch device, on display here at CES, combines an Ultrabook-like body with a convertible slider design, making for a rather unique user experience. LG’s sliding Clover Trail tablet comes with a spring-loaded hinge that, when released, triggers a pop-up keyboard. That differentiates it from similar devices such as the Asus Eee Pad Slider or Samsung Series 7 Sliding PC, both of which require users to manually pull out their keyboards. The H160’s keyboard, by contrast, can be accessed with the push of a button.

Originally announced in October, the H160 features a 1366 x 768 display and promises up to ten hours of battery life. Pricing and availability, however, remain unclear.

Last week Samsung announced two additions to its flagship lineup, the new Series 7 Chronos and Series 7 Ultra, and we’re taking a look at both here on the floor at CES 2013. The Series 7 Chronos is a powerful “desktop replacement” that contains a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, a Radeon HD 8870 graphics card with 2GB of memory, 16GB of RAM, and up to 1TB of hard drive space. We spent some time with the 5.18-pound, 20mm thick machine, and were impressed by the laptop’s snappy performance and overall build quality. The 15.6-inch display is sharp with a minimal amount of glare, and the optional 10-point touchscreen performs wonderfully on Windows 8. The keyboard lettering is subtle, in chrome rather than traditional white, and the trackpad was a little too responsive, but this may change before the product’s final release. Samsung says the Chronos will get up to 11 hours of battery life, a claim we’ll have to test in our review of the device. There’s still no information on pricing or availability, but the snappy performance will likely come with a high price tag.

Samsung’s newest ultrabook, the Series 7 Ultra, trades a little bit of power for a smaller, thinner form factor. The Intel Core i5 processor, discrete AMD HD8570 GPU with 1GB of memory, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD may not perform quite as well as the Chronos, but the machine weighs just over three pounds and is considerably thinner than its counterpart. The 13.3-inch 1080p is crisp, with impressive viewing angles and minimal glare. The optional touch screen performs well, only running into a few issues with touch and drag gestures. The keyboard is responsive, if a little on the shallow side, and the trackpad is smooth, responsive, and handled gestures well. With optional LTE and eight hours of battery life, the Series 7 Ultra has a lot of promise as an ultrabook —and Samsung will likely set the price accordingly.

It’s thin. And light. The successor to the LaVie Z with the incredibly airy magnesium-lithium alloy frame we pined for at Computex last year, this LaVie X is just 12.8mm thick and weighs about 3.5 pounds, yet still supports a Core i7 ultra-low voltage processor and has a 15.6-inch, full HD 1080p IPS display. We could easily pick it up with one hand, and though the keyboard feels incredibly shallow, they respond quickly to action. While it’s not quite as light as the amazing LaVie Z, which barely budged the scale at 2.2 pounds, it sure is light for a 15-incher. Shame we’ll probably never see this laptop outside its home country of Japan. Take a look at our hands-on pictures below while we try to hunt down more details.

Update: In Japan, you can find it as the NEC PC-LX850JS. It runs Windows 8 on a 1.9GHz Core i7-3517U processor, with a disappointing 4GB maximum memory, 256GB of solid state storage, and a keystroke of just 1.2 millimeters. Oh, and it retails for 175,000 yen, or roughly $2,000. Ouch.

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) may not be ready to show off its XO-4 convertible laptop just yet, but chip manufacturer Marvell is demoing it at CES today all the same. The 7.5-inch tablet-laptop hybrid has an infrared touchscreen and is powered by a dual-core Marvell processor that the company says is “miles faster” than before. It’ll arrive with either 1GB or 2GB of RAM and 4GB or 8GB of storage, and runs Linux (Fedora 18) with a custom software overlay that OLPC says is “designed for kids fingers.” It’s finished in the typical white and green OLPC style, along with chunky rotating colors. Marvell told us that it wasn’t able to reveal pricing or release information, but OLPC will make an announcement “very soon.”

What’s the catch, you ask? Well, there’s Lenovo’s $1,499 starting price, an unusual glass touchpad with five buttons underneath the surface rather than readily visible, and the knowledge that you’ll need to wait until February even if you have ready cash.

We’ve only had a few minutes to spend with the 11S, but it looks and feels just like its 13-inch sibling. Its 360-degree-rotating hinge is sturdy at any position or angle, the touchscreen felt fast and responsive (a nice improvement over the Yoga 13, actually), and the small three-pound device doesn’t skimp on either trackpad or keyboard size. It’s, well... it’s an 11.6-inch model of the Yoga 13, a machine we liked a lot in our review.

It might not get the battery life possible with an ARM chip, with Lenovo estimating a take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt six hour runtime for the 11S, but it does support up to 8GB of memory and 256GB of solid state storage underneath its 11.6-inch, 300-nit, 1366 x 768 resolution touchscreen, and there’s an optional 1600 x 900 resolution display for pixel density enthusiasts, too. Lenovo says the IdeaPad Yoga 11S should arrive in June.