This review is from: HP Folio 13-1020US 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Steel Gray) (Personal Computers)
Pros: It’s very light compared to the normal 6+ lb laptops I usually use, traveling with it is a pleasure! Performance is decent considering its size and it has so many ports compared to other ultrabooks. It has an Ethernet port! That’s a big deal for me as hotel wi-fi networks are usually really bad. Almost no other ultrabook has that, same with a regular sized HDMI port. Sure you could get a different computer and carry ethernet/hdmi adapters with you but carrying around adapters defeats the purpose of having an ultrabook!
Cons: The screen’s color contrast is a bit washed out and can not be adjusted. However this is only a minor annoyance to me and the screen is plenty bright.
Overall: I bought this and the Toshiba Portege Z835 at the same time and used both side by side for a few days. The HP won hands down. There are other ultrabooks but they all are missing something; ethernet, hdmi, backlit keyboard… As of early 2012 this is the best ultrabook on the market.
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This review is from: HP Folio 13-1020US 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Steel Gray) (Personal Computers)
I am an experienced graphic designer (Photoshop / Dreamweaver / In Design) and full-time internet retailer shipping about 100 $200+ orders daily, so I guess you could say I am a power-consumer from both sides of the curtain. I am on my machine(s) at least 8-12 work related hours / day updating my web site(s), communicating with customers and vendors and researching a wide variety of products and issues related to my business. Additionally, I get about all my news online and spend more time than average in social networking media promoting my business.
I own several (currently HP) desktop machines, as a small business owner with a handful of employees I am also my own IT guy, chief cook and bottle-washer, and have been so since 1996. I compare / purchase several computers annually as I personally like everyone to have the latest and greatest, not only is it fun but I can rationalize it as giving my company the edge over my competitors, and can also depreciate it on my taxes so it costs me a lot less to upgrade than the home user. Besides, communication is the key to a successful dot-com, we answer our inquiries and other customer service communications darn near real-time. I’m on my third or fourth Android device having migrated from Blackberry a few years back. I mention all this so you know where I’m coming from …
This whole thing started when I got frustrated with my Kindle Fire’s virtual keyboard, surfing and replying to emails. I have been doing a lot of that on my Samsung Stratosphere but being an old fart my vision isn’t what it used to be and wanted a bigger screen. I mean, you can’t communicate if you don’t have a device with you, opening a 17″ laptop in a vehicle or on the tarmac is doable but cumbersome because of its size; the phone is great for a quick note in the grocery store or waiting room – but locating a URL, cutting and pasting it into your response can be challenging on any smart phone and is far from ideal – this, I reasoned, is where the tablet will rule. This goes also for the sofa, bed, and yes, the commode. I am dead serious when I told you I’m always online and confess I even have a small computer table in the john. (Great place to read the news.) But one of the road blocks to handiness is the infamous power cord, I have always required several so I can avoid hauling it, and the computer, hither and yon. Sucks to be me.
So I’ve been patiently waiting for the Android 4.0 OS (Ice Cream) before handing the Fire over to the wife (I have a standard Kindle for e-books) when I saw that HP battery-in-the-airport ad … bingo! The light bulb went on and I was on a mission.
I shopped hard before deciding on the Folio 13, studied, watched the videos, compared tech specs and did some power tab-clicking with all the customer reviews of the ultrabooks and 14″ notebooks, factory web sites and other professional review sites like CNet, PC World, liliputing and/or whatever else is to be found in a Google search. I looked at the Samsung Series 9, the Acer Aspire S3 and the Asus Zenbook on-the-hoof at Best Buy before purchasing the HP on Amazon (these were the only ones on the shelf in my area). I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon and really enjoy shopping here.
What I was to learn is that you basically have many pretty good choices, but must make your decision based on anticipated usage and what size you are willing to put up with. Then there’s the puny little solid state drives, long on performance (I upgraded my laptop to an expensive hybrid drive last year) but short on capacity. i looked on my 500 Gig VAIO and discovered I was only using about 250 (I keep most lesser-used photo and video files on a big external Seagate drive), and that’s with a good deal of incidental duplication from the last upgrade. Still, the 70 gigs or so you have left on the ultrabook after loading the OS would fall quite a bit short eventually I reasoned, as I’d like to be able do an ad or site update should the need arise and would therefore require current photography and more recent ad files, in addition to the core Adobe CS4 software I swear by, loaded on the machine. Plus I am a part-time rocket scientist (hobby-level) so needed some of that stuff on it also.
I have been threatening to make the move back to Mac since abandoning that platform for price in 2004, so I did consider the Airbook. One chat session with Adobe however nuked that idea – I’d have to abandon my PC software if I were to get new OSX licenses, or spend another $1400 on CS5 for the Mac. That’s right, Adobe wanted $1400 in fees if I wanted to run their design suite on a $999 Airbook. Adobe sucks.
This should give one some clarity – obviously I couldn’t do all that with a Galaxy Tablet even though Adobe does now have Photoshop and such for tablets now so it is a possibility, but I’d have to fork out more cash for that as well. Rocksim however is Windows only (rocket design…
Authors bio is coming up shortly. 
Best ultrabook available (early 2012),
Pros: It’s very light compared to the normal 6+ lb laptops I usually use, traveling with it is a pleasure! Performance is decent considering its size and it has so many ports compared to other ultrabooks. It has an Ethernet port! That’s a big deal for me as hotel wi-fi networks are usually really bad. Almost no other ultrabook has that, same with a regular sized HDMI port. Sure you could get a different computer and carry ethernet/hdmi adapters with you but carrying around adapters defeats the purpose of having an ultrabook!
Cons: The screen’s color contrast is a bit washed out and can not be adjusted. However this is only a minor annoyance to me and the screen is plenty bright.
Overall: I bought this and the Toshiba Portege Z835 at the same time and used both side by side for a few days. The HP won hands down. There are other ultrabooks but they all are missing something; ethernet, hdmi, backlit keyboard… As of early 2012 this is the best ultrabook on the market.
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|What A Great Professional-Level Ultrabook!,
I am an experienced graphic designer (Photoshop / Dreamweaver / In Design) and full-time internet retailer shipping about 100 $200+ orders daily, so I guess you could say I am a power-consumer from both sides of the curtain. I am on my machine(s) at least 8-12 work related hours / day updating my web site(s), communicating with customers and vendors and researching a wide variety of products and issues related to my business. Additionally, I get about all my news online and spend more time than average in social networking media promoting my business.
I own several (currently HP) desktop machines, as a small business owner with a handful of employees I am also my own IT guy, chief cook and bottle-washer, and have been so since 1996. I compare / purchase several computers annually as I personally like everyone to have the latest and greatest, not only is it fun but I can rationalize it as giving my company the edge over my competitors, and can also depreciate it on my taxes so it costs me a lot less to upgrade than the home user. Besides, communication is the key to a successful dot-com, we answer our inquiries and other customer service communications darn near real-time. I’m on my third or fourth Android device having migrated from Blackberry a few years back. I mention all this so you know where I’m coming from …
This whole thing started when I got frustrated with my Kindle Fire’s virtual keyboard, surfing and replying to emails. I have been doing a lot of that on my Samsung Stratosphere but being an old fart my vision isn’t what it used to be and wanted a bigger screen. I mean, you can’t communicate if you don’t have a device with you, opening a 17″ laptop in a vehicle or on the tarmac is doable but cumbersome because of its size; the phone is great for a quick note in the grocery store or waiting room – but locating a URL, cutting and pasting it into your response can be challenging on any smart phone and is far from ideal – this, I reasoned, is where the tablet will rule. This goes also for the sofa, bed, and yes, the commode. I am dead serious when I told you I’m always online and confess I even have a small computer table in the john. (Great place to read the news.) But one of the road blocks to handiness is the infamous power cord, I have always required several so I can avoid hauling it, and the computer, hither and yon. Sucks to be me.
So I’ve been patiently waiting for the Android 4.0 OS (Ice Cream) before handing the Fire over to the wife (I have a standard Kindle for e-books) when I saw that HP battery-in-the-airport ad … bingo! The light bulb went on and I was on a mission.
I shopped hard before deciding on the Folio 13, studied, watched the videos, compared tech specs and did some power tab-clicking with all the customer reviews of the ultrabooks and 14″ notebooks, factory web sites and other professional review sites like CNet, PC World, liliputing and/or whatever else is to be found in a Google search. I looked at the Samsung Series 9, the Acer Aspire S3 and the Asus Zenbook on-the-hoof at Best Buy before purchasing the HP on Amazon (these were the only ones on the shelf in my area). I buy a lot of stuff on Amazon and really enjoy shopping here.
What I was to learn is that you basically have many pretty good choices, but must make your decision based on anticipated usage and what size you are willing to put up with. Then there’s the puny little solid state drives, long on performance (I upgraded my laptop to an expensive hybrid drive last year) but short on capacity. i looked on my 500 Gig VAIO and discovered I was only using about 250 (I keep most lesser-used photo and video files on a big external Seagate drive), and that’s with a good deal of incidental duplication from the last upgrade. Still, the 70 gigs or so you have left on the ultrabook after loading the OS would fall quite a bit short eventually I reasoned, as I’d like to be able do an ad or site update should the need arise and would therefore require current photography and more recent ad files, in addition to the core Adobe CS4 software I swear by, loaded on the machine. Plus I am a part-time rocket scientist (hobby-level) so needed some of that stuff on it also.
I have been threatening to make the move back to Mac since abandoning that platform for price in 2004, so I did consider the Airbook. One chat session with Adobe however nuked that idea – I’d have to abandon my PC software if I were to get new OSX licenses, or spend another $1400 on CS5 for the Mac. That’s right, Adobe wanted $1400 in fees if I wanted to run their design suite on a $999 Airbook. Adobe sucks.
This should give one some clarity – obviously I couldn’t do all that with a Galaxy Tablet even though Adobe does now have Photoshop and such for tablets now so it is a possibility, but I’d have to fork out more cash for that as well. Rocksim however is Windows only (rocket design…
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