Showing posts with label Laptops. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Laptops. Show all posts
Saturday, 13 August 2016
Dell XPS 13 Review
Monday, 25 July 2016
Acer Aspire S 13 Review
Thin, light and long-lasting, the Acer Aspire S 13 has pretty much everything you want in an ultraportable laptop, and all for an affordable $749. This 13-inch notebook packs a speedy Core i5 processor, a fairly roomy 256GB SSD and a colorful full-HD display into a handsome chassis that's only 0.57 inches thick. (A separate Core i7 model is also available.) The S 13 also offers robust Dolby sound and a comfy keyboard, although the touchpad can be pretty finicky at times. Overall, this Acer is one of the best values in its weight class.
Design
Acer deserves credit for not going down the MacBook-clone path like so many others have done. Instead of being yet another silver slab, the Aspire S 13 stands out with its obsidian-black color and textured nano-imprint cover, which gives the notebook a slick, pinstripe aesthetic. (You can also get this system in white, which is even more striking.)
The area around the keyboard and wrist rest is made of aluminum, while the bottom has rubber paint with a nice soft-touch feel. I also dig the diamond-cut edges around the deck and touchpad. The only eyesore on this machine is the thick plastic bezel around the 13-inch display.
Measuring 12.9 x 9 x 0.57 inches and weighing 2.9 pounds, the Aspire S 13 is plenty light enough for frequent travelers and students. It's a bit lighter than the 13-inch MacBook Air (12.8 x 8.9 x 0.11-0.68 inches, 3 pounds), but has a similar footprint to that device. The 2.8-pound HP Envy 13t is about the same size as the Acer, while the Asus UX303UA weighs a heavier 3.4 pounds. The XPS 13 is the lightest and most compact of the bunch, at 2.6 pounds and 12 x 7.9 x 0.3-0.6 inches, thanks to its nearly bezel-less design.
Ports
Despite its thin profile, the Aspire S 13 has all the ports you need for today and tomorrow. The left side houses a USB 3.0 port, SD Card slot and headphone/mic jack, while the right side has the power port, HDMI port, another USB 3.0 port and a USB Type-C port.
Display
The Aspire S 13 I reviewed came with a nontouch 1080p display, but you can order it with a touch-screen panel. I'd stick with nontouch, as you'll get more battery life. Plus, this panel is plenty colorful and bright.
While watching the trailer for Suicide Squad on the S 13's display, I could make out every slicked-back lock in the Joker's green do, and I appreciated the shimmer from his black jacket. The viewing angles could be a bit wider, though, as I noticed colors shifting at about 35 degrees off-center.
The Acer's screen performed well on various lab tests, including a color gamut of 106.8 percent. That blows the doors off of the MacBook Air (66 percent) and beats the nontouch XPS 13 (92 percent) and HP Envy 13t (103 percent), but the Asus Zenbook UX303UA was even better, at 116 percent. The S 13's screen is also fairly accurate, as it turned in a Delta-E rating of 0.98 (0 is perfect).
I had no trouble working outdoors with the S 13; even on a bright, sunny day I could make out the screen, thanks to its 327 nits of brightness. That outshines most of the competition, with the exception of the MacBook Air (334 nits).
If you're going to be staring at the display for long periods of time, you can toggle the Acer Bluelight Shield setting, which is designed to lower blue-light emissions to reduce eyestrain and prevent fatigue. (You'll find this setting in the Acer Quick Access app.)
Turning this feature on gives the screen a yellowish, more book-like hue, which I found weird at first but comfortable after a while.
Audio
The stereo speakers on the Aspire S 13 are so powerful I had to turn the volume down so as not to scare the heck out of family members -- and that was just for email alerts in Outlook.
MORE: Thz Best Laptops for Every Need
I experienced room-filling audio when I played the Mighty Mighty Bosstones' "The Impression That I Get" with a shockingly wide sound stage; I could easily hear Dicky Barrett's gravelly vocals over the peppy horns. The audio started to distort at closer to 100 percent volume, but at 90 percent or less there was still plenty of punch.
The Dolby Audio app allows you to choose from multiple sound profiles, including Music, Movie, Game and Voice, but I stuck with Dynamic most of the time, as it's supposed to change the profile on the fly. There's also an equalizer if you want to really dig deep.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The S 13's keyboard offers a comfy typing experience, but I would change a couple of things. Despite offering just 0.87 mm of travel (we prefer 1mm or more), the keys had a nice, pillowy feel as I typed, letting me reach 75 words per minute with just 2 errors. That's a bit faster than my 70 wpm average.
The layout offers two different stages of backlighting, one for dimly lit rooms and another that goes to full brightness. My problem with the layout is that the function keys are reversed for various shortcuts. For example, you need to press Fn and then the F8 button to mute the sound, as opposed to just F8 itself. Also, the function keys are tiny.
It may be called a Precision Touchpad, but I found the large, 4.1 x 2.5-inch touchpad less than precise. While two-finger scrolling was fairly smooth and I easily executed Windows 10 gestures (such as swiping three fingers up to see all apps), the cursor stuttered a bit as I navigated the desktop. This made selecting text a challenge. In addition, the cursor sometimes moved when I accidentally brushed the pad, and sometimes I would inadvertently select text. Better palm rejection would help.
Performance
With its 6th-Generation Core i5-6200U processor, 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD, the Aspire S 13 proved swift in my testing. It ably juggled 16 tabs in Chrome while I played an episode of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix in another window. Only when I added a 17th tab did I start to see a bit of slowdown.
MORE: Best Ultrabooks (Thin-and-Light windows Laptops)
On the Geekbench 3 test, which measures overall performance, the Aspire S 13 scored 6,331, which is comparable to the showings of its closest competitors. The Core i7 model of the S 13 notched 6,925 on the same test.
The Asus UX303UA, which has the same processor as the Acer, notched a slightly lower 6,290, while the Dell XPS 13 nontouch (6,391) and HP Envy (6,306) -- also with the same CPU -- were neck and neck with the S 13. The MacBook Air was far behind, at 5,783, but it also has an older, 5th-Generation processor.
The S 13's SSD is faster than the average ultraportable's, but behind the best we've tested. It took the system 30 seconds to copy about 5GB worth of mixed-media files, giving it a transfer rate of 167.7 megabytes per second. That trumps the Asus UX303UA (159 MBps) and lowly HP 13t (77.1 MBps), but the Dell XPS 13 (231.3 MBps) and MacBook Air (358.4 MBps) are considerably faster.
You should have no problem crunching numbers with this notebook, as the Aspire S 13 took a brisk 4 minutes and 29 seconds to match 20,000 names and addresses in OpenOffice. That's the same amount of time as the Asus, slightly faster than the Dell XPS 13 (4:33) and only a second behind the HP Envy 13t. The MacBook Air was a much faster 4:03. The Core i7 version of the S 13 took the same amount of time as the Mac.
Battery Life
The Acer Aspire S 13 has the battery life to last a cross-country flight, and then some. On the Laptop Mag Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi (at 100 nits of screen brightness), the system lasted a strong 9 hours and 8 minutes. The Core i7 version of the S 13 we tested lasted an evern longer 9:48.
That run time smokes the HP Envy 13t (5:48) and also beats the Asus UX303UA (8:27) and the ultraportable category average (8:10). However, the more expensive Dell XPS 13 and 13-inch MacBook Air lasted much longer, at 11:54 and 14 hours, respectively.
Software
Acer includes a few useful utilities, along with more bloatware than we'd like. The compact Acer Quick Access app lets you toggle the Bluelight Shield function for when you want to reduce eye strain, use power-off USB charging (which lets you juice gadgets even when the system is powered down) and enable network sharing. Acer Care Center combines access to support, recovery management, updates and tune-ups in one app. The strangely redundant Acer Power Button app lets you turn off the display or tell the notebook to sleep, hibernate or shut down.
Acer bundles some third-party software that we'd rather download ourselves, and some we can live without altogether. The former camp includes Netflix and Skype, and the latter includes Amazon Kindle and WildTangent Games. There are also trials of Microsoft Office and McAfee Internet Security Suite.
Configuration Options
We reviewed the Acer Aspire S13 S5-371-52JR, which retails for $749 and features a Core i5-6200U processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and a 13.3-inch and 1920 x 1080 display. Stepping up to the $799 white model (the S5-371T-58CC) gets you the white color and an IPS display with wider viewing angles. Acer also offers models with a Core i7 CPU and 512GB SSD for $999, or you could just get the larger SSD paired with a Core i5 chip for $899.
Bottom Line
If you're looking for a great student laptop or a machine for frequent travel, or if you just want a lightweight laptop that can go the distance, the Acer Aspire S 13 is one of the best bargains around. For $749, you get a speedy Core i5 processor, a 256GB SSD, a colorful full-HD display and more than 9 hours of battery life, all wrapped up in a svelte package that doesn't ape Apple. The stereo speakers also impressed, delivering surprisingly robust audio. I just wish the touchpad weren't so sensitive, as it sometimes just got in the way.
The Dell XPS 13 is the better bet if you want longer battery life in a more compact design, but it costs a pricey $999 with a Core i5 processor and smaller 128GB SSD (and $1,149 with 256GB). The Asus UX303UA is another strong contender, offering comparable performance to the Aspire S 13 in an all-metal design for $799, but it offers lackluster audio and doesn't last quite as long on a charge as the Acer does. Overall, the Aspire S 13 is one heck of a value and one of our favorite ultraportable laptops.
Friday, 22 July 2016
MacBook 12-inch rose gold Review
When Apple revived the MacBook range last year, it did so in style. The first new model since 2011, the 12-inch MacBook was the thinnest, lightest Mac to date, and signified Apple’s intentions to keep building laptops alongside its growing army of iPads and iPhones.
It featured a redesigned keyboard, glass Force Touch-enabled trackpad and Retina display, and was a dramatic departure from the previous white plastic incarnation.
In the year since that model went on sale, Apple has released what it calls its “ultimate PC replacement” (note the careful use of PC ), the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, and prior to that the 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Both were designed to combine the ease of web browsing on a tablet with the practicalities of a full-size physical keyboard, turning the laptop into the device you reach for to do some ‘serious work’.
So where does this leave the new and improved version of the 12-inch MacBook? While the updated 2016 model has faster processors and longer battery life, is it enough to convince consumers they need yet another laptop in their lives?
Design
Visually, the 2016 12-inch MacBook looks exactly the same as last year’s. It’s a beautiful laptop which has borrowed heavily from the design of the MacBook Air, with tapered edges, an aluminium body and 12-inch Retina display, and is light enough to pick up and close one-handed.
While a big part of tablets’ appeal has always been their portability, Apple has slimmed the MacBook down to just 13.1mm at its thickest point and 3.5mm at its thinnest. It’s so incredibly thin because it has no fan, instead distributing heat sideways, and weighs just two pounds.
If you’re already familiar with the 2015 MacBook, you’ll already know there are no USB, Gigabit Ethernet or Display ports to be found on this laptop - only one USB-C port on the upper-left edge and a headphone jack on the far right.
This was a controversial decision last year and remains one today: in order to connect anything or even charge your phone, you’ll need to buy a separately-sold adaptor. USB-C is becoming more widely taken up, with the HTC 10, LG G5 and Huawei P9 Android handsets all ditching their micro USB ports in favour of the change. It remains to be seen whether the iPhone eventually follows suit, but for now the MacBook remains a bold compromise.
Retina Display
The 12-inch Retina display sports 3 million pixels and 2304 x 1440 resolution, offering depth of colour and shade and crisp text. The pixels have been redesigned to allow more light to pass through, resulting in more vivid brightness and tone interpretation - particularly when watching videos. The display performed beautifully in low-light conditions, but was more difficult to make out in bright direct sunlight.
Keyboard
Apple redesigned the MacBook keyboard by shaving the key margins, making them 17 per cent larger than the ones used on previous keyboards. The individually-backlit keys are supported with a new Apple-designed butterfly mechanism, designed to stabilise each key for greater control while typing. Keys supported by the traditional scissor mechanism tend to need to be struck in the centre to register a keystroke, whereas the butterfly mechanism’s wider structure makes the keys more responsive, according to Apple.
As I found last year, typing on the new keyboard does take some getting used to. The keys initially feel closer together, despite being larger, and because the key assembly is 40 per cent thinner, there is less of a ‘response’ when typing. I found I quickly adjusted to the new assembly, but it was a strange first hour or so using it.
Force Touch Trackpad
The Force Touch trackpad contains four force sensors to detect how much force you’re using when tapping away on the new, larger trackpad. A technology first utilised in the Apple Watch, it’s a way of using a single surface for multiple functions. Using Force Touch on the Watch’s lock screen triggers the face-change menu, for example.
Pressing down hard on the glass trackpad over a word on a website - known as a Force click - automatically summons a menu to search for the definition of the word, or pulls up a map when you click on an address. Underneath the glass surface, a taptic engine generates haptic feedback intended to produce a uniform click wherever you’re pressing on the pad.
Like the keyboard overhaul it’s a clever advancement, but also one that takes a while to get used to, and won’t be to everyone’s tastes.
What’s changed from last year?
Rose Gold
The biggest aesthetic change is the new rose gold finish, joining gold, silver and space grey, and joining the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watches already available in the shade. Last year it was easy to be sceptical about how many people were going to proudly tout a gold laptop, but the enthusiastic adoption of rose gold across all the major product lines suggests there’s a real appetite out there for slightly unusually coloured laptops.
Chief executive Tim Cook has said before how Apple tailors the colour of its products to the demands of customers in China, and while there’s no way to know how well last year’s gold MacBook sold in comparison to its more conservative stablemates, you can guarantee the novelty of a pink laptop will appeal to many.
It’s the same dusty pink as the iPhone 6s, while the track pad appears a slightly darker copper thanks to its layer of glass. Like the recently-released iPhone SE, the metal Apple logo has been colour-matched to the body, reflecting a dark pink. The aluminium is delicate, and will quickly show any signs of wear and tear, so be warned.
Faster, more powerful processor
Last year’s MacBook was powered by Intel’s Core M ‘Broadwell’ processor, which was designed to keep tablets and hybrid laptops cool enough to operate without a fan. The model I reviewed then housed a Core M-5Y51 chip which ran at 1.2GHz, while this year’s unit has a 1.2GHz dual-core Intel Core M5.
This doesn’t actually translate into an enormous difference during normal use, but the beefier chip helps to extend the battery life (more of which later), alongside faster flash storage. Flash storage is a method of storing your data using electricity, resulting in less power being used as the machine isn’t attempting to write to mechanical drives, which in turn slows it down. Therefore launching apps and switching between them, opening documents and closing programs has all been designed to execute more quickly.
I found it handled more power-intensive applications like Photoshop and switching between demanding apps like Spotify, both Chrome and Safari with multiple tabs open and email without any performance issues or noticeable lag, and it maintained a gentle warmth rather than the overheating other machines are prone to under pressure.
Longer battery life
Although the USB-C charger is basically a slightly larger phone charger and won’t exactly weigh you down when you take it out for the day, there’s a real appeal to knowing your laptop battery is sufficient to last a day’s work.
Apple has bumped up the 2016 MacBook from a roughly nine-hour battery life when browsing the web, or up to 10 hours worth of film-watching on a single charge, to 10 hours web browsing and 11 hours of film playback due to increased battery capacity.
I starting the working day at 9:00 with a fully-charged battery and the display on full brightness, and nine and a half hours later by 18:30 it had dwindled to about 26 per cent. During this time I’d opened numerous tabs, surfed the web and written this review, so in terms of a light-to-moderate workload, the battery held up pretty well. It also recharges pretty quickly, at a rate of around 10 per cent every 10 minutes.
OS X 10.11 El Capitan
The new MacBook ships with OS X 10.12, EL Capitan, the most recent Mac software. It has a handy focus on multi-tasking and streamlining processes. Read on for some of its key features, while a more comprehensive walk-through is available here.
Mission Control
Mission Control has been streamlined to make it easier to spot which window you're after when you've got multiple apps open and competing for your attention. The main difference is that El Capitan's Mission Control looks generally cleaner than before, with Apple claiming the windows are now spread in an even layer instead of being more randomly dispersed.
Whereas Yosemite displayed the app's icon overlaid on the open window itself along with a descriptive label of Calendar, iTunes, Contacts etc, El Capitan displays labels only once you hover the mouse over them. This is triggered either by stroking upwards on the keypad using three fingers, or by pressing the F3 Mission Control key.
It's also a smart way to quickly create multiple desktops, by dragging and dropping open apps to the top of the screen in the Spaces Bar. You can populate each individual desktop with the apps you need and scroll between them swiping left or right with three fingers, or keep just one app open full screen, as in Yosemite.
Wednesday, 20 July 2016
Dell XPS 13 Review
The best laptop is now even better. Dell has given the XPS 13 ($799 to start, $1,399 with touch) a brighter screen, longer battery life, a new USB-C port with Thunderbolt 3 and your choice of Intel's latest 6th-generation Core Series CPUs. Dell also kept all the features we liked on the previous model, including the sexy aluminum and carbon-fiber body, optional quad-HD infinity display, and comfy backlit keyboard. While the location of the webcam still feels out of place, this latest XPS 13 continues to reign supreme.
Design
Like the previous version, from early 2015, the current XPS 13 features a carbon-fiber deck sandwiched between a brushed-metal lid and bottom, which creates an appealing and modern two-toned look.
I really like Dell's attention to detail, which is best seen in the bottom-mounted aluminum flap, whose sole purpose is to cover up the ugly service stickers and labels required by the Federal Communications Commission.
When you open the lid, you're treated to Dell's infinity display (pictured above), which features an almost nonexistent bezel that seems to just disappear into the background. It's intimate and engaging, and when you watch movies, it's feels like the video player is just hovering in midair.
The Infinity display isn't just for looks either, as the smaller lid means the XPS 13 also has a small footprint. Measuring 12 x 7.9 x 0.33-0.6-inches and weighing 2.7 pounds (2.9 pounds for the touch-screen version) this notebook is even smaller than some of the tiniest 13-inch systems, incl (12.75 x 8.86 x 0.59 inches, 2.8 pounds).
Specs
| CPU | 2.3-GHz Intel Core i5-6200U |
|---|---|
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Hard Drive Size | 128GB |
Keyboard and Touchpad
The XPS 13 features a backlit keyboard with two levels of lighting.
Dell makes up for the keyboard's somewhat shallow 1.2 mm of travel by adding a good spring at the bottom of the stroke, so even though there's not a lot of room to work with, it's not painful when you bottom out while typing.
On my first attempt at 10fastfingers.com's typing test, I recorded 85 words per minute, which is 5 more words per minute than my typical pace.
MORE: Best Laptops
The 4.1 x 2.3-inch touchpad features a seductively smooth, matte-black surface that my fingers simply couldn't get enough of. Mouse movement and multifinger gestures, such as pinch-to-zoom and two-finger scrolling, responded quickly and accurately.
Even better is the feeling of the touchpad's mouse click, which offers a really satisfying snap every time you press down.
Audio
Even though size is at a premium, the XPS 13 still puts out a lot of sound. When I listened to DJ Mehdi's "I Am Somebody," I was surprised by the Dell's better-than-average bass and overall volume (which was more than enough to fill our testing lab), although I would have liked more crispness from the percussion.
Heat
The touch version of the XPS 13 ran hotter than the nontouch model. After streaming HD video for 15 minutes, a section near the vent on the bottom of the touch XPS 13 registered a disturbing 112 degrees Fahrenheit, far above our typical 95-degree threshold.
Other areas, such as the touchpad and space between the G and H keys, were much less worrisome, at 87.5 and 98.5 degrees, respectively.
The nontouch version of the XPS 13 stayed cooler. The hottest spot on the notebook after our video test was the bottom right corner, at 97 degrees.
Ports and Webcam
New on this year's XPS 13 is a reversible USB Type-C port with support for Thunderbolt 3. Though it doesn't charge the laptop, this Type-C connection transfers data at up to 40 Gbps, or outputs video to multiple 4K displays over a single cord.
The XPS 13 also includes two traditional USB 3.1 ports, an SD card reader and a combo headphone/mic jack.
Due to the laptop's slim bezel, the XPS 13's webcam is located beneath the display.
The 1280 x 720 camera features dual mics for better audio during video calls, although it's a little awkward to always be looking down at the bottom-left corner. This can often cause shadows to fall on your face. Despite the good detail and sharp focus I saw in a selfie I took in our office, the picture ended up looking a little dark.
Graphics
The Intel HD Graphics 520 in the XPS 13 can handle mainstream games. On World of Warcraft, the Dell averaged a playable 40 frames per second with the effects on Good, and the resolution at its native 1080p. At these same settings, the Yoga 900, which has the same GPU, averaged a slightly better 49 fps. When we increased the eye candy to max, the Dell and the Lenovo performed about the same, at 21 and 18 fps, respectively.
On 3DMark's Fire Strike graphics test, the XPS 13 posted a score of 783, which was a bit worse than the scores of the Yoga 900 (840) and the Surface Book (854 without discrete graphics).
Battery Life
The nontouch version of the Dell XPS 13 lasted an awesome 11 hours and 54 minutes on the Laptop Battery Test (Web surfing via Wi-Fi with the screen at 100 nits). The Dell's endurance is much better than that of the Yoga 900 (7:57) and the ultraportable average of 8:10. The MacBook Air continues to dominate, with an excellent time of 14 hours, but it also has a lower-resolution display.
The touch-screen version of the XPS 13 provides a small but insignificant increase in battery life over its immediate predecessor. On the Laptop Mag Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi at 100 nits), the quad-HD XPS 13 lasted 8 hours and 8 minutes. That's a 44-minute increase from the early 2015 model, which featured a similar configuration.
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