Looking for a good source of notebook/ultrabook reviews, also Yoga 2 Pro?

[jefeweiss]

I have been a big fan of the Anandtech reviews of notebooks/ultrabooks over the years, especially as far as thoroughness and professionalism, and I have used their reviews to make buying decisions in the past. However, it seems like they haven't really done a significant number of notebooks/ultrabook reviews since Haswell compared to past periods.

I am in the process of looking around for a new notebook and I was wondering if there are other sites that do reviews that people might recommend. I particularly like that Anandtech does research on issues that people were having with the products, looked at wireless parts, display quality and other things that other reviews did not always address and also did some independent benchmarking. It has been hard to find sites that do real in-depth reviews instead of PR-type stuff.

As far as opinions on what I am looking at currently, I have been looking at the Yoga 2 Pro and I was curious if anyone here had experiences with it. I was willing to make some tradeoffs to have a really nice display and I don't currently have a tablet. There has been some discussion of problems with the color of the screen and the wireless part seems underwhelming.

In general, I would like to buy something easy to carry walking to work a mile a day, and I don't currently have a tablet. I would be willing to trade off weight for capability, particularly for light gaming, so I had also looked at the Gigabyte P34. I think that somewhere in between the two might lie my ideal computer. I had been hoping to see full Anandtech reviews of either (or both!) to help me narrow down my decision, but at this point I'm also looking to find a site that does good quality reviews with a focus on notebooks/ultrabooks.

 

[pw257008]

http://liliputing.com/ does good stuff, but relatively infrequent on new reviews.

 

[HOSED]

Good Question
Notebookcheck also does some extensive and informative reviews http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Schenker-S413-Clevo-W740SU-Notebook.98313.0.html (for instance)
I will receive a Win 7 / Sager version of the Schenker this week if you are interested I will post my thoughts in this thread

 

[crashtestdummy]

I have the i7/8GB/256GB model from Best Buy. Been happy with it. My only real complaint, as I mentioned in the other thread, has been the clumsy UI scaling in Windows. Hopefully, that'll get fixed by Microsoft in the future.

Both the monitor and networking problems have been fixed through updates. I wouldn't call the monitor super color-accurate, but it's good enough for my tastes (I use a desktop IPS monitor for photo editing anyways).

 

[NTMBK]

I just got the Dell Venue 11 Pro, and I'm very happy with it. I got the "mobile" keyboard dock, which in essence turns it into an 11" laptop:

And since I got the model with a Core i5-4300Y and 8GB RAM, it has the performance of an ultrabook. It does mean that as a tablet it is relatively chunky, and has a fan in it; but at 797g it's still considerably lighter than the Yoga Pro 2.

I'm definitely glad that I went with it instead of a flippable device, but it's all down to personal choice.

 

[gdansk]

There is MobileTechReview and their YouTube channel.

 

[jefeweiss]

Good Question
Notebookcheck also does some extensive and informative reviews http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Schenker-S413-Clevo-W740SU-Notebook.98313.0.html (for instance)
I will receive a Win 7 / Sager version of the Schenker this week if you are interested I will post my thoughts in this thread

I would definitely be interested in seeing your thoughts on the Schenker. I'm intrigued by the Iris Pro and wondered why it hasn't been used more, it looks like it might be an ideal compromise for light gaming. The components look really good, although there's always the question of how they fit together. I haven't really looked into buying a Clevo machine before, but the ability to customize it somewhat is nice. I see that they also have that available at AVA Direct now too.

I liked the idea of getting something that I can use as a tablet, but it might be best to get that as a separate device.

 

[jefeweiss]

I just got the Dell Venue 11 Pro, and I'm very happy with it. I got the "mobile" keyboard dock, which in essence turns it into an 11" laptop:

And since I got the model with a Core i5-4300Y and 8GB RAM, it has the performance of an ultrabook. It does mean that as a tablet it is relatively chunky, and has a fan in it; but at 797g it's still considerably lighter than the Yoga Pro 2.

I'm definitely glad that I went with it instead of a flippable device, but it's all down to personal choice.

I had also wondered if it might be best to get a detachable hybrid, instead of something that flips. The Dell Venue 11 might be ideal on the tablet size, it might be a bit small for the work that I do on it. I guess I could always dock it with monitors and a keyboard at my desk.

I recently saw the Asus Transformer Trio, and I was definitely attracted to it, but the model I have seen only has 4GB of RAM and no SSD on the notebook/dock part. That seems unfortunate for something that would otherwise be really nice for my use cases. I have been looking at 8GB RAM as kind of the low end for work use and I don't know if I can ever go back to a regular hard drive for a system drive.

 

[FwFred]

I had also wondered if it might be best to get a detachable hybrid, instead of something that flips.

I love my Yoga 2 Pro (other than the battery life). That said, if you want primarily a tablet it's not a good choice. It's too big and heavy. I bought mine because I primarily wanted an Ultrabook, but appreciate the versatility. I use mine in stand mode for watching live* football while watching my kids outside. I rarely use tablet mode.

*I loooove using HDHomerun Prime and WMC to watch NFL Redzone over my wireless AC network!!!! (I also swapped out the base 7260N to a 7260AC card)

 

[jefeweiss]

Good Question
Notebookcheck also does some extensive and informative reviews http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Schenker-S413-Clevo-W740SU-Notebook.98313.0.html (for instance)

Thanks for the tip on Notebook Check, I appreciate that their reviews have some detail not found in other reviews, including testing that they do. They also seem to do a lot of reviews, sometimes with multiple reviews coming out in a day. There seems to be at least a little less research done on the products as far as issues people are having, but I can always Google around a bit on particular ones that I might be interested in.

I did look at MobileTechReview when I was making a decision about my last phone and I thought they had a pretty evenhanded approach, although it might be light on testing. They seem to do notebook reviews kind of sparsely. I found the same thing true of Liliputing, although it looks like it might be a better source of tech news kind of stuff.

 

[HOSED]

So far I am very happy with this notebook. The keyboard is excellent (from what I read the early versions were not good at all, but mine has a updated KB). Battery life - 3.5 hours with WIFI on, Display 50% and the computer in constant use (Windows 7 updates , configuration, Graphic update from Intel, testing all ports, etc.) The display is AUO113d- It is outstanding AFA brightness and sharpness, but some there is some noticeable bleeding especially when using a plain black background. Temp never went over 48 C for the GPU or CPU and the SSD remain below 30 C.
HWINFO64 does not show fan speeds but I only heard them come on when creating a full system image while running Paragon via a USB drive outside of Win 7.
Build quality is very good, the only other flaw was when I disabled the TP via Fn F1, then could not toggle it back on. I knew it did not have a lighted KB & can live with that (It should cut down on late night gaming sessions).
Speakers are AWFUL, but I normally use low end able planet headphones or external speakers. And the web cam is average at best.