Ultrabook reviews – The Verge

HP Spectre XT TouchSmart review

2013-03-25T11:15:05-04:00

HP Envy Spectre XT TouchSmart hero (1024px)

Last September, HP introduced one of the most credible MacBook Air competitors we'd yet seen: the 13-inch Envy Spectre XT was thin, light, strong, and yet still comfortable to use, a rarity in a Windows ultrabook. Yet it also had a low-quality, low-resolution 1366 x 768 display that had no place in a premium $1,000 laptop, and it arrived without a touchscreen, which quickly limited its utility with Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system.

On paper, the new Envy Spectre XT TouchSmart seems like it could solve both problems at once. It's the same exact formula, but with a beautiful 15.6-inch 1080p touchscreen on top, and a larger, more spa …

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Asus Taichi review (11.6-inch)

2013-02-13T12:40:46-05:00

Asus Taichi hero 2 (1024px)

Since Windows 8's debut last October, PC manufacturers have all followed pretty much the same playbook. Build a laptop with a touchscreen? Check. A docking laptop / tablet hybrid? Check. A strange, hinged device that twists and turns from tablet to laptop modes? Check. The PC market as a whole may look very different than it did a year ago, but the currently available devices don't vary much. Except for this one Asus device that crossed my desk a couple of weeks ago, that is.

It's called the Taichi, it starts at $1,299, and it has two screens. That's pretty much everything you need to know. Rather than create a way to convert the device fro …

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Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch review

2013-01-17T10:27:15-05:00

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch hero (1024px)

When I reviewed the X1 Carbon, Lenovo's flagship ThinkPad laptop, I found few faults. It's an eye-catching computer that combines everything good about ThinkPads - great keyboard, sturdy design, solid performance - with a fit and finish I didn't expect from the company's "black box" line of laptops. Its price was a little high and its bloatware portion was heaping, but it was (and still is) one of my favorite Windows 7 ultrabooks.

Now that Windows 8 is here, in all its touch-friendly, colorful glory, Lenovo's released a new X1 Carbon with a touchscreen. The X1 Carbon Touch is otherwise virtually identical to its untouchable sibling: same pr …

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Lenovo ThinkPad Twist review

2012-12-06T10:22:43-05:00

Lenovo ThinkPad Twist hero (1024px)

In ten years, it seems like everything's changed - but maybe things aren't so different after all.

In 2002, Acer revealed a PC that was also a tablet, the TravelMate 100. The convertible device used a swiveling central hinge, allowing the screen to rotate 180 degrees and fold down on top of the keyboard so you could hold it in two hands like a tablet. The concept never caught on in a truly mainstream way, but has occupied a niche ever since the TravelMate's introduction.

Now, a full decade later, Lenovo is trying once again to take the rotating laptop mainstream by bringing the swivel back with the new ThinkPad Twist. Fortunately, though, …

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Acer Aspire M5 review: the affordable all-purpose ultrabook

2012-12-04T14:27:21-05:00

Gallery Photo: Acer M5 555 300 1020 etc

Battlefield 3 on a power-sipping ultrabook? They said it couldn't be done. In March, however, Acer and Nvidia proved them wrong. Behind closed doors at the 2012 Game Developer's Conference, the sleek black 15.6-inch Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3 ran the demanding game, thanks to a brand-new Nvidia GeForce GT 640M graphics chip with more bang per watt than anything else we'd seen. Unfortunately for the world, most every other part of that laptop was sorely lacking in quality, and the Timeline M3 was shelved.

That is, until Acer decided to turn that machine into the best bang-for-the-buck laptop on the market. The new Acer Aspire M5 starts at …

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Acer Aspire S7 and Dell XPS 12 review: battle of the transforming 1080p touchscreen ultrabooks

2012-11-20T10:45:05-05:00

xps 12 acer s7 main brighter 1020

The Dell XPS 12 and Acer Aspire S7 arenâ€™t your average laptops. Theyâ€™re premium, and unique.

One is a razor-thin, Gorilla Glass-infused attempt to transform Acerâ€™s reputation, the other Dellâ€™s carbon fiber-laced realization of an idea that was ahead of its time. Both start at $1,199 for a Core i5 processor, 4GB of memory, 128GB of solid state storage, and a brilliant 1080p touchscreen display, but each has its own special way of running Windows 8. The Acer Aspire S7â€™s screen bends backwards 180 degrees to lay completely flat on a table, sharing a 13.3-inch or 11.6-inch display, while Dellâ€™s XPS 12 has a 12.5-inch monitor that li …

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HP Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4 review

2012-11-05T11:00:05-05:00

Gallery Photo: HP Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4 pictures

To prepare for the Windows 8 onslaught, laptop manufacturers are trying all sorts of inventive touchscreen notebook designs. Some screens flip, some spin, some twist, and some can actually be detached from their keyboards so you can have a tablet for the road. However, the craziest new laptop design may be the simplest of all: simply graft a touchscreen onto an existing clamshell.

The $799.99 HP Envy TouchSmart Ultrabook 4 is one such touchscreen notebook, and it also just so happens to be the very first one in our labs. With a fairly standard set of ultrabook specs, a relatively thick, weighty chassis, and a 1366 x 768 screen, the 14-inch …

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HP Envy Spectre XT review

2012-09-26T12:30:06-04:00

Gallery Photo: Spectre XT 555, 300, 1020 etc

Three years ago, HP introduced the Envy 13. This week, weâ€™re reviewing its spiritual successor, the Envy Spectre XT. Oh, how times have changed. Then, as now, the Envy was accused of cribbing from Apple's MacBook playbook. Then, as now, it's a shiny silver machine, with an ultra-low-voltage processor, a single-button clickpad, no optical drive, few ports, and a 13-inch screen.

So, what's new? HP's latest Envy sheds weight, girth, and adds a solid state drive to compete with the MacBook Air. At $1,000, you won't find a discrete graphics chip or a high-res screen in this Intel ultrabook, but it is $400 cheaper than the Gorilla Glass-covered …

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Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon review

2012-08-13T09:32:06-04:00

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon coffeeshop (1024px)

Lenovo's made the most of the time since Intel defined the "ultrabook" last fall, releasing a number of different models designed for different users. By and large, the company's done good work, too: we called the ThinkPad U300s the best ultrabook on the market back in November, and the IdeaPad U310 delivers pretty solid value for $799.

But Lenovo saved its best for its latest, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon. The Carbon is the successor to last year's X1, and ticks all the ultrabook boxes, but it tries to go even further and outdo everyone: it's a 14-inch laptop that's barely bigger than a typical 13-inch model, and its carbon fiber body is less th …

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Toshiba Satellite U845W and U845 review

2012-08-02T09:59:04-04:00

Toshiba Satellite (1024px)

Laptops in 2012 may be thinner and lighter than ever, but the form factor's otherwise been largely untouched. You get a keyboard, a trackpad, a 16:9 widescreen display, and some ports. One of Toshiba's latest Satellite ultrabooks looks like that: the U845 is thin, light, and overwhelmingly laptop-y. But the other new Satellite is a bit different: the U845W's 14.4-inch display is "ultra-widescreen," with a 21:9 aspect ratio that is far wider and shorter than most displays its size. The U845W is focused on multimedia, designed for watching movies as much as for getting work done. Inside, the two devices are still largely the same, featuring th …

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