Getting Ultra-Light and Ultra-Fast with New “Ultrabook” Notebooks

A new breed of laptops is hitting the market these days—the Ultrabook.  Conceptually such computers are meant to be small, ultraportable computers.  While that might sound like what we had with netbooks, the difference is that ultrabooks are built to higher specifications, generally sporting i3, i5 or i7 processors (netbooks sport Atom or similar slow processors), SSD hard drives with a minimum of 64GB of storage and ultrathin designs that make the machines far lighter than most netbooks.

Such machines come normally in either an 11” or 13” form factor, with the 11” form factor working best in cramped environments (like the coach airline seat I’m sitting in while writing this article) with the 13” machines meant for less space demanding environments.

In one sense the machines aren’t new.  Apple Computer introduced the MacBook Air to much fanfare, but the original Air (if equipped with an SSD drive) was nearly a $2,000 machine and the processor was relatively slow.  A less expensive hard drive equipped version was available, but the hard drive was much slower than even the normal laptop hard drive, giving performance that more reminiscent of the netbook than the regular laptop.

Similar products from other manufacturers had similar prices and limitations.  That is, you can could have expensive and passable for speed, or less expensive and noticeably slow.

However the prices of components have fallen and capabilities have improved.  Apple has continued to market the Air, and the most recent versions sport i5 and i7 processors and only come with SSD drives.  Even so equipped the base Air now has a (just barely) sub $1,000 price, listing at $999.  Equipping it a bit more reasonably (with 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD drive) still only pushes the price to $1,199, far below the original cost.

Intel has been pushing traditional PC makers to build similar products, creating a standard minimum ultrabook design specification.  Recent months have seen products meeting that specification coming out from Acer, Asus and, most recently, Toshiba.  The pricing of these products from the traditional PC vendors has been moving down slowly, with Toshiba’s recent release (the Portege Z835) finally breaking well below the $1,000 level for an SSD equipped version ($799 if purchased from Best Buy, $899 list elsewhere).

The Windows based versions currently shipping are the following:

• Acer Aspire S3 – has the distinction of being the least expensive option, but achieves that by shipping with a mechanical hard drive in the base configuration that makes the machine much slower than the alternatives.  Also is the only machine with a plastic (as opposed to metal) case.  If equipped with an SSD drive the price no longer seems to be such a bargain.
• Lenovo IdeaPad U300s – The “Rodney Dangerfield” of the category, glossed over in many reviews that have focused more heavily on the other products, this is a relatively solid, if not inexpensive, model.  Some have reported issues with its trackpad buttons, and the display resolution is lower than comparable 13” models from ASUS and Apple.
• ASUS Zenbook UX3 – In some ways the closest to the MacBook Air, this model is the lone one out that matches the 13” Air’s high resolution display.  Unfortunately reviewers have noted significant issues with the integrated trackpad.  While software updates have somewhat improved the performance of the trackpad, it still seems to be a problem for this device—not insignificant, since having to carry around a separate mouse works against the lightweight travel device that this is supposed to be.  As well, the pricing is only slightly lower than a similarly equipped Air.
• Toshiba Protégé Z835 – The machine has a few compromises (i3 processor and a lower screen resolution than the 13” Air or Zenbook) but does generally provide the Ultrabook experience (with SSD drive) at a price point that is much lower than comparable machines.  It also has far more ports built in than any other comparable machine.  Some reviewers have complained about the keyboard on the device, but it gets relatively high marks for its trackpad.

I’ve been using the Air for the past two months, and I can say that the form factor has finally allowed me to be truly productive while flying.  The machine is so light that it can be easily pulled out in any environment where there may be some time to get some work done.  The fact that the hard drive has no moving parts also means there’s less concern with taking care when the machine is waking from sleep or going to sleep when being repacked.

When traveling with my traditional laptop, I found that I would only take it out most times if I felt I could get a good half hour of undisturbed work and I could find an available power outlet.  In the air I rarely took it out, since most often it was only comfortably usable if I had an open seat next to me and the person seated in front of me didn’t recline his/her seat.  With the MacBook Air I find I will bring the machine out even if I will have just a couple of minutes, and I normally don’t worry about finding an outlet, thus being able to be productive in virtually any environment.

The machine runs about 5 hours on a single charge, meaning it generally is useful even on cross country flights.  And the 11” extremely thin form factor means that I can write and other work requiring full use of the keyboard while in flight, even if (as is the case right now) the person in the seat in front of me in coach has reclined his/her seat.

While my experience is limited to the Air, the Windows based machines should provide a very similar experience as they all share a similar form factor and similar specifications.  I do run Windows 7 on this Air in a VMWare Fusion virtual machine and it has behaved flawlessly, picking up all the speed advantages inherent in the SSD based unit.

I find these days that I am using the MacBook Air more often than my 15” traditional laptop (a MacBook Pro).  While my 15” laptop has a much faster processor and double the RAM of the Air, the real bottleneck for most programs most accountants run (including myself) relates to the speed of the hard drive.  For that, the SSD drive of the Air far outperforms the traditional mechanical hard drive of my 15” laptop, meaning that programs like Word, Excel, Quickbooks and the like simply run faster on this 11” machine than they do on the traditional laptop.

The only applications I have that run noticeably faster on the traditional laptop are those for rendering video (where the higher speed processor and extra RAM offset the drive speed) and running multiple virtual machines (RAM being the major issue for such use).  However most CPAs don’t do either of those on a regular basis.

So who should consider an Ultrabook type machine?  Anyone who has to work out of the office often certainly should take a look at them.  While their hard drive storage is more cramped than a traditional desktop, most applications we run on the road simply don’t demand that much storage.  What the user gains is a much faster real world experience for work applications and far greater convenience.

You may want to wait for all of the PC manufacturers to bring out their ultrabooks, as the early models have had their quirks as the vendors search for the right mix.  At the moment the Toshiba seems to have the most favorable reviews, though there are complaints about the keyboard.

At the moment Apple’s product is the most mature, but you have to add a Windows license on top of the cost of the machine for most CPAs to be able to make use of it in their practice.  I have done that since I have quite a bit of experience with the Apple products and, due to my travel schedule, a real need for this type of product.

That as a background, I can without reservation say that the Air has proven to be the best technology investment I’ve made this year, and likely in the past five years.  I certainly would find it difficult going back to lugging around the 15” laptop as my “road” machine.

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