Good 11-14 inch ultrabook? And e-book readers?

[dbzlotrfan]

I am somewhat in need of a new laptop to take notes at school with . . . I also want something like a kindle (or reasonable sized tablet(?)) for e-books

Ultrabook:

• 11-14 inches
• 2-~4 pounds
• I have a little bit of scoliosis . . . so not too heavy a system, but not too light that I hate the thing anyway.
• I may want to do some light gaming on it (anything from about 2007 or before shouldn't be much of a issue, should it?)
• Less than $550 if possible (I'm sure it isn't considering the SSD)
• Good keyboard, no Chiclet sort of keys (?) - I somewhat hate and slower on typing on flatter keys.
• I do NOT want an optical drive
• What else should I consider?

Anyone of experience with the Acer Aspire S5-391-6836? It seems like a nice ultrabook, seems to have a good processor (i5). For the price it seems like it should come with at lest some bit of hard drive space (not only a SSD) or more RAM. It's light enough, good enough processor, decent GPU, if it's still purchasable in a few weeks/months I may try to get this.

E-book reader

• Large enough storage (4+ Gigs I'd think)
• Reasonable screen size (5+ inches?)
• Reasonable battery life
• What else should I consider?
• I hope to use it for school textbooks so I don't have to lug those around, and at night before I go to sleep I can read some.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Regarding the e-reader.

I think the main thing to consider is where are you going to buy your ebooks from?

I like Amazon, the prices are good, great selection of self published books at prices from free to about three dollars usually. And if you are an Amazon Prime subscriber, there are some free books available for borrowing from the Lending Library, a few popular ones like the Harry Potter books and Hunger Games, but mostly self published books it seems.

And I've been real happy with the Kindle e-readers. I think they are around 2GB of storage. But that holds over 2000 books easily, so storage isn't an issue on e-readers. Most e-readers last weeks on a single charge as well, so I don't find battery life to be something I compare e-readers against each other much.

Maybe one big thing to consider is if you want a built in back light. I wasn't happy with the first Kindle with backlighting, it was pretty uneven and distracted me. But the new Kindle supposedly improves on that problem. Though you end up spending $50 more for the lighting and it may or may not be worth the money for some people.

 

[dbzlotrfan]

School textbooks are gigantic, I think a biology book i've looked at is about 220 - 225 MB, out of 1.25 useable gigs I could fit a little more than half a dozen of books that size. If I major in something nanotech and can get physics, chemistry and biology (& algebra?/math) books via Amazon they'd be quite large and would fill up most of that space. And then I want to also download some much smaller books.

 

[Ravynmagi]

School textbooks are gigantic, I think a biology book i've looked at is about 220 - 225 MB, out of 1.25 useable gigs I could fit a little more than half a dozen of books that size. If I major in something nanotech and can get physics, chemistry and biology (& algebra?/math) books via Amazon they'd be quite large and would fill up most of that space. And then I want to also download some much smaller books.

I'm not sure I'd use an e-reader for massive school textbooks. Buy a Nook HD+, I think an 8.9 inch screen would help a lot to make textbooks more readable than a 6 inch e-ink display. And you'll have plenty of space and micro SD. And it's currently available at the same price as a high end e-reader.

 

[dbzlotrfan]

If they are electronically large (100+ MB) they'd probably be physical gigantic and heavy as well, would you want to carry couple books that are couple pounds? Or something that's less than a pound that contains all those books? I think i'd rather take the device. I'd probably go Kindle 3rd gen (with the keyboard)? Or a tablet? What which tablet?

 

[notposting]

I think for textbooks like that, either an iPad or Kindle Fire of some kind would be where you want to go. Not the same battery life but much better with illustrations, for example. You could then troll eBay occasionally for a cheap e-ink Kindle as a backup (I picked up a Kindle Touch early this year for $50 on eBay).

As for the laptop, good luck. Lower the budget, more compromises.

 

[pcsavvy]

You may want to check with your university/college and see what hardware/software they are supporting. The University I work at is strongly encouraging students to get IPads for school through grants and policy. But some professors are forbidding the use of tablets and laptops from their classrooms due to the distraction factor.
If you are wanting an e-reader for textbooks, get either an Ipad or Kindle Fire HD 8.9 or Nook HD+. The bigger the screen the more readable the text and charts. Also it is nice to see colored coded charts in color not in black and white.
If you get a chance go to your local electronics store and try out the different e-readers/tablets, spend time with each one. See how each one feels in hand and how your eyes react to reading from the screen.

Edit: In regards to the size of a laptop for school, the smallest size though nice to tote around is not the greatest if you are having to spend a lot of time looking at webpages and a lot of text and keyboard can be cramped. A good compromise is a 13 inch laptop, not to big, but more screen space to look at web pages, text documents and more full sized keyboard. Just keep in mind that the lower budget for a laptop the more compromises you have to make in the quality, components and usability. For example, Apple's MacBook Air has the latest Intel processor, it's 13 inch MBA has 11-12 hours of life and the IGP is much better according to reviews I have read. If time is not a constraint, you may want to wait until the Windows' laptops start showing up with the same processor.

 

[gorcorps]

School textbooks are gigantic, I think a biology book i've looked at is about 220 - 225 MB, out of 1.25 useable gigs I could fit a little more than half a dozen of books that size. If I major in something nanotech and can get physics, chemistry and biology (& algebra?/math) books via Amazon they'd be quite large and would fill up most of that space. And then I want to also download some much smaller books.

Coming from a technical degree myself, e-textbooks will be an abysmal frustration at any screen size. Get the hard copies

 

[shortylickens]

I been finding that cheap ultra books arent great quality. I got a toshiba portege and am not happy with it.
They also have a high-end lineup of thin laptops but they cost around 1500.

 

[lothar]

An Ultrabook for $550 that is not a piece of junk?
Good luck with that.

 

[BrightCandle]

Ultrabook's have to meet a particular set of standards, one of which is to be relatively light. The problem is that they are pretty expensive, there is no ultrabook at $550 and below, they basically start around $900.

You can get laptops down in the $550 range but they will be heavier than an ultra book. With that price and weight budget about the only thing you can really get is a E350 based laptop, which I can't recommend as they are just too slow.

 

[you2]

There are four window haswel ultrabook - all around $1300 - one from sony (pro 3) acer (392) samsung (series 9 plus) asus (301 - not out yet - but soon). Also mac airbook. I listed models for i5/128gb (naturally you can consider i7 and/or 256gb configuration). All fo these models are between 2.6 and 3.1 lbs - the window books are getting around 6-7 hours and the mac airbook around 10/11 hours (depending on usage - use them for playing videos on cross country trips). The window boxes are 1080p (samsung and asus quite a bit more) the mac is using an older display (both lower resolution but also not as brilliant). They all have pros/cons dependent on needs.
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If you can live with 3-5 hours of battery life then last year models can be found for $500-$1000 depending on various factors.
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One thing I keep hoping for (and would meet your need) is a chrome book. Unfortunately most of the chrome books have been 11inch - the few 12-14 inch models have had other characteristics that make them unsuitable (either very expensive or silly short battery life). There is an interesting 13 inch andriod tablet and rumour a couple of additional 12-13 inch models will crop up but not sure if that would meet your needs.

 

[dagamer34]

Your budget at $550 will not buy you anything close to an Ultrabook.

 

[Necrolezbeast]

http://www.woot.com/plus/asus-1

Seems like any of these 13.3in Zenbooks would be worth looking into... I'm too lazy right now to do the research on each model, but they look decent enough and are priced right

 

[ponyo]

Your budget at $550 will not buy you anything close to an Ultrabook.

I don't know about that. I paid ~$580 for refurb Yoga 13 earlier this year direct from Lenovo Outlet.