It’s once again time to take a look at the laptop market, and as with every quarterly update, there are always some…
It’s once again time to take a look at the laptop market, and as with every quarterly update, there are always some changes to discuss. First, Intel released it’s quad-core mobile Kaby Lake chips at CES 2017, meaning most larger laptops have made the switch now to the latest and greatest 7th generation Core processors, and NVIDIA also released their GP107 mobile GPUs at CES, meaning we finally have a nice upgrade from the GTX 960M and GTX 965M class devices, with the GTX 1050 and GTX 1050 Ti rounding out the middle of their lineup. Only the lowest end GPUs such as the GT 940M don’t yet have a Pascal update.
In addition, we’ve had a chance to test several more machines, and there’s been the constant evolution of devices, so it is good to check on the state of the market.
Most of the excitement in the PC market comes at the high end, but not everyone has the budget for a several thousand dollar Ultrabook. The best low cost laptops are the ones that hit the right balance on features for the money, and while that sounds obvious, often times there can be some serious usability issues with devices that sell for less than $300. The competition here is between the Chromebook and the low-cost Windows PC, and we’ve not seen enough Chromebooks lately to really make any judgements there, we do have a new entry here on the Windows side.
We’ve just completed our review of this new entry from Chuwi, which is a company based in Shenzhen, China. They have been in business since 2004, and they offer several tablets, laptops, PCs, and accessories. The Chuwi LapBook 14.1 offers great value for the money. It’s a 14-inch notebook, offering thin display bezels, and a 1920×1080 IPS display, which is a rare thing at its price point. It’s powered by the latest Intel Apollo Lake platform, with a quad-core Celeron based on the latest Atom Goldmont cores. It has 4 GB of memory, and 64 GB of eMMC, which is much nicer than the 32 GB models usually offered around this price range. If you’re looking for a laptop and don’t have a lot to spend, this is a great place to start.
Chuwi is offering AnandTech readers a $24 discount on Amazon as well (good until 03/23/2017 at 10PM PDT). Apply this code at checkout: L9OQJYE4
The latest generation of the Lenovo ThinkPad 11e Yoga offers some nice upgrades over its non-flexible cousin, the 11e. Besides the obvious addition of the word Yoga to the model, it means it offers the 360° hinge that has made the Yoga lineup so successful across all of Lenovo’s products. The ThinkPad 11e is built for education, which means it’s designed not to break easily, so this should be a strong and durable model. One of the other nice upgrades over the non-Yoga version of this laptop is that the convertible one comes with an IPS display, but in the same 11-inch 1366×768 configuration as the non-Yoga. That’s going to dramatically improve the display usability, and the Yoga version isn’t really that much more money. You can find this with up to a Core i3-6100U if you need more performance than Atom, but most models for sale are going to be based on the Braswell platform, so don’t expect amazing performance. They do offer SSD as the only storage option, with 128/192/256 GB models. That’s a big jump over eMMC in terms of performance, and the extra space is always nice. It’s not the nicest looking laptop around, but it’s a good buy for the price.
Utrabooks have moved the laptop forward, with sleek and thin designs that still feature good performance with the Core i-U series processors, and even thinner and lighter models are available with the Core m-Y series models. The definition has expanded somewhat over the years, but a good Ultrabook will have at least a 1920×1080 IPS display, SSD storage, and over eight hours of battery life, with many of them over ten now. If I was to recommend an everyday notebook, it would be an Ultrabook. The traditional laptop form factor is less compromised for notebook tasks than most of the 2-in-1 designs, and there are some great choices now.
HP launched a new entrant in the Ultrabook category with the “world’s thinnest laptop” which they are calling the Spectre. It’s not quite the lightest, but the 2.45 lbs is a very low weight, and the design is stunning. Kaby Lake U series Core processors are available with 8 GB of memory, and HP has gone with PCI-E storage in 256 or 512 GB offerings. The display is a 1920×1080 IPS model at 13.3-inches. The very thin design has precluded the use of USB-A though, but the Spectre does have three USB-C ports, with two of them capable of Thunderbolt 3. The Spectre is just 10.4 mm thick, yet despite this they have still included a keyboard with a solid 1.3 mm of travel. The Spectre starts at $1169.99, which is a lot, but it’s a stunner.
The reigning Ultrabook on the best-of lists is generally the Dell XPS 13. The Infinity Display makes it stand apart, with very thin bezels packing a large display into a small chassis.
