Ultrabook recommendations for summer 2013.
July 15, 2013 5:21 PM   Subscribe

I'm in the market for an ultrabook with the following specs:
  • 13" or larger
  • 256 GB SSD (or user-upgradable)
  • 8GB RAM (or user-upgradable)
  • available with Win7
  • touchscreen, tablet mode, and other niceties strictly optional
I'd like to spend less than $2000 all told. What are my options?
posted by Nomyte to Technology (14 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Pretty much any ultrabook, when configured to your specs, will fall under 2000 bucks. I'm in the same boat as you, and I'm thinking of waiting for the Samsung ATIV Q to come out (it's the just announced dual-mode Android and Win 8 ultrabook). If that doesn't come out soon, or gets bad reviews I might go with a MacBook Air and just boot camp it.

But most of the PC manufacturers haven't yet had their Haswell refreshes yet, so it's worth waiting, at least in my mind. The YogaPad 13 is also apparently decent, but again, no Haswell refresh yet.
posted by thewumpusisdead at 5:29 PM on July 15, 2013


Macbook Air 13" fits your description to a tee. Comes out to $1400 before tax with a 256GB drive, 8GB of RAM, and it's rocking the Haswell so enjoy your 12-hour battery life. Add another 90 bucks for Win7.
posted by mullingitover at 5:31 PM on July 15, 2013 [5 favorites]


I've owned half a dozen ThinkPad ultrabooks in the past decade and have nothing but good things to say, they are tanks, wait for Haswell if you can, but if you can't it's not that big a deal.

(The ThinkPad T440 with Haswell will be out shortly)
posted by Cosine at 5:35 PM on July 15, 2013


Response by poster: Pretty much any ultrabook, when configured to your specs, will fall under 2000 bucks.

A ton of the ultrabooks I've looked at on Newegg and Tiger Direct come with either 4GB RAM or 128 GB storage (or both) with no option to upgrade, even on gaming sites like XoticPC. I'm hoping Mefites can help me cut through the clutter.
posted by Nomyte at 5:38 PM on July 15, 2013


Wait for Haswell or get a MacBook Air and a Windows license.

If neither of those suit then Wirecutter recommends the Yoga 13 and explains how to upgrade the RAM and SSD.
posted by caek at 5:48 PM on July 15, 2013


Sounds like a Kirabook
posted by deanc at 5:53 PM on July 15, 2013


I'm very pleased with my Thinkpad X1 Carbon Touch, which can be configured to meet your specs for about $1785 (or about $50 cheaper for the non-touchscreen version).
posted by mbrubeck at 6:28 PM on July 15, 2013


Here's a cheaper Toshiba at $1280.
posted by sageleaf at 6:50 PM on July 15, 2013


The thinkpad X1 is amazing in person. It's the only one i've seen that matches the quality/fit and finish/feel of the Air. Well almost, there's still some hinky stuff like how you need two hands to open it that apple gets right... but it's closer than anything else i've tried, and it's brilliantly designed in a completely different way.

That said, they just refreshed the air. And it's cheaper, and it had a better battery in the first place.

I'd buy the air, but if you specifically didn't want an apple machine i'd consider nothing but the thinkpad.
posted by emptythought at 9:08 PM on July 15, 2013


I highly recommend the Asus UX51VZ/U500, although if there's a Haswell refresh coming along I'd suggest you wait for that.

A lot of sites seem to be wrongly stating the SSD as 128GB when the lowest model is actually dual 128GB SSDs [so 256GB].

It's a bit pricey but you can hunt around for good offers, when I got mine the cheapest offers were available at Canadian sites - ncix was a few hundred cheaper than Amazon with a bundled Nexus 7 to boot.

Cons: Proprietary SSD connector means they aren't going to be easily user-replacable.
Pros: Everything else: Build quality, performance, size, weight, screen, dedicated gfx.

Although if you don't want the dedicated card you might be better off getting a cheaper alternative, so if there's a new refresh of the UX31 models that would probably be worth looking into.
posted by xqwzts at 2:47 AM on July 16, 2013


I bought a Samsung Series 9 about 6 months ago for a little less than $2000 and I absolutely love it. It meets all of your requirements and it's a pleasure to work with.
posted by makeitso at 6:09 AM on July 16, 2013


I just bought one of the new Macbook Airs, and am dual-booting OSX and Windows 7, and it has the specs you described. It's a lovely machine, with great build quality and seemingly everlasting battery life, and came out way under your budget. I 100% recommend.
posted by General Malaise at 6:55 AM on July 16, 2013


If you have to have something now, you can get a Thinkpad Helix with 8GB RAM/256GB SSD. There's also the XPS 12, but as someone who prefers their tablet PC to be more tablet than PC, the Helix would get my vote. That said, I'm currently making do with a Surface RT while waiting for a Surface Pro with Haswell.
posted by evoque at 11:10 AM on July 16, 2013


Response by poster: After some more checking around, it started looking like most models that interested me wouldn't have their Haswell refreshes for months, and would probably involve total redesigns instead of a simple CPU refresh. Every time I'm in the market for a computer, I re-learn the lesson that it never makes sense to wait. Instead of getting cheaper, the things I want will just get replaced by newer models that I don't like as much.

So I went and bought a current-generation Asus Zenbook. It was expensive, but it has a big 15" screen without any useless touch capability, it's lightweight and sturdy, and it matches my other specs. Higher-capacity storage would have been nice, but the 512GB model costs something like $600 more than the 256GB model.
posted by Nomyte at 3:05 PM on September 8, 2013


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