Technology: Good things come in small ultrabook packages

The buy?ing pub?lic demands more from com?puter mak?ers at the same time that they demand less.

Think note?books. Folks typ?i?cally want machines out?fit?ted with the largest screens imag?in?able. Yet heaven help the design?ers if that results in com?put?ers that are too big, heavy and?bulky.

Now, con?sider the two new (mostly) appeal?ing com?put?ers that I?ve been check?ing out: the Dell XPS 13 and the lat?est ver?sion of the Sam?sung Series 9, each among the fresh?est crop of Win?dows 7 ?ultra?books.? The XPS went on sale recently, and the Sam?sung becomes avail?able later this?month.

On the mod?els I tested, Dell has man?aged to squeeze a 13.3-inch dis?play into a chas?sis more typ?i?cal of an 11-inch note?book. Sam?sung crammed a 15-inch dis?play into a 14-inch chassis.

With so much of the atten?tion in mobile focused on tablets, it?s easy to dis?miss lap?tops. Yet they remain in the com?put?ing main?stream and are still the pre?ferred choice for mobile professionals.

Ultra?books are the slim, light ? and not espe?cially cheap ? machines that Intel has been evangelizing.

Sam?sung and Dell engi?neered com?pact com?put?ers with?out hav?ing to make too many sac?ri?fices, assum?ing you can live with?out a built-in disc drive for DVDs or Blu-ray.

Dell?s XPS was designed with pro?tec?tive, edge-to-edge Gorilla Glass. The machine is con?structed from alu?minum and a carbon-fiber com?pos?ite base, and it feels good to the touch. Dell reduced the bezel that bor?ders the screen, result?ing in a com?puter it says is 14 per?cent smaller than the Mac?Book Air (albeit a lit?tle thicker).

Samsung?s com?puter, crafted from alu?minum as well, is equally invit?ing to hold and, to my eye, bet?ter looking.

Both of my test units had Intel i5 proces?sors, sturdy solid-state 128-gigabyte dri?ves and 1.3-megapixel cam?eras and boast such appeal?ing fea?tures as full-size back?lit key?boards that are easy to?use.

The 13.3-inch Dell starts at $999 and weighs a shade less than 3 pounds. Mine was equipped with 4GB of mem?ory, plus a cou?ple of USB ports, includ?ing one that is the lat?est USB 3.0. It also has a port for a larger display.

At $1,499 for 15-inch mod?els ? Sam?sung sells a $1,399, 13.3-inch model ? Series 9 costs more com?pared with the Dell, but it has the larger and nicer dis?play and, with 8GB, dou?ble the mem?ory. It mea?sures a lit?tle more than 0.58 inches thick and weighs 3.5 pounds.

The Sam?sung has a few other extras, includ?ing an SD card reader and a mini HDMI port for con?nect?ing to an HDTV. It also has three USB ports (two of the 3.0 vari?ety) and comes with a don?gle for con?nect?ing an eth?er?net?cable.

Both com?put?ers sup?port WiDi, an Intel tech?nol?ogy for wire?lessly mir?ror?ing the con?tents of your com?puter screen on a TV, pro?vided you have an adapter con?nected to the?TV.

In my tests, the Dell booted up to Win?dows 7 Home Pre?mium in about 20 sec?onds ? pretty fast, though not quite the eight sec?onds Dell claims. The machine wakes up from sleep quickly.

The Sam?sung booted from scratch (to Win?dows 7 Pro?fes?sional) in about 12 sec?onds and also sprang to life from sleep in about a sec?ond. A pro?pri?etary Fast?Start fea?ture promises to let you keep the cover closed for up to a week with?out wor?ry?ing about charg?ing and resum?ing where you left off when you lift the?lid.

Neg?a?tives: I wasn?t wild about either touch?pad; on the Series 9, I had to load a new soft?ware dri?ver for it because I wasn?t review?ing a final unit. Bat?tery life was disappointing.

Despite these few draw?backs, the Series 9 and XPS are solid con?tenders in the ever-expanding ultra?book category.

Arti?cle source: http://www.indystar.com/article/20120401/BUSINESS06/304010005/Technology-Good-things-come-small-ultrabook-packages

sean hannity solar flare love hewitt new ipad joseph kony 2012 arian foster dennis kucinich