So which 13 inch sub 3.5 lb notebook ?

[you2]

Ok. Time has passed and I think all the haswell ultra are out. Which one takes the cake in terms of best bang for the buck? What I've heard so far is that sony pro 3 is fragile and has weak wifi (not the driver issue just poor range); a lot of folks don't seem to love the acer s7 (not sure why); samsung has over the top resolution and is $300 more than the sony pro 3; asus - i'm not sure too many models not sure which one have turned out great; but the one for $1700 is too much. Right now i'm leaning towards a macbook pro over the holiday for around $1100; but it is a little heavier than the other i've mentioned - but it also seems to have longer battery life (would really like 9+ hours for long flights).
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Upon purchase I'll run the native os but in about 6 months I'll switch to linux; 4gb is ok as is 128gb ssd; but I would really prefer:
a) reliable
b) light
c) 9+hours battery
d) replaceable battery/ssd (macbook pro sucks here; i've been told the samsung is actually very easy to tweak as well as the asus)

 

[ImDonly1]

Don't know specifics but I assumed all or most ultrabooks had non-replaceable/proprietary hard drives.

As for best bang for the buck, the lenovo yoga 2 is probably the most reasonably priced for what you get. It is $1,200 for an i7, 8gb ram, and 256gb ssd at best buy. Maybe cheaper on lenovo.com with coupon. It has issues with it's display making yellow seem green. Not sure if this was fixed or can be fixed with a driver update.

No one likes the acer because it is made by acer (considered a budget brand). Also I think I read somewhere that it gets really loud (at least the non-haswell version did, not sure if fixed or was really a problem).

I was looking forward to the new asus, but at $1,700, no thanks.

The samsung and sony ones are nice, don't really know much about them. Can't you opt for a different wifi module in the sony laptop that doesn't have any problems?

You can also look into the surface pro 2 or the dell xps 13. Dell always has coupon codes.

 

[s44]

Asus UX302LA

Slightly heavier than other Windows ultrabooks, but swappable RAM and a regular-sized HD slot... and $1000 at BB though you have to add your own SSD.

 

[you2]

You think the Asus UX302LA is a better option thant he Macbook Pro @1100 (black friday) ? What is the battery life on the Asus ?
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Did a search for reviews for UX302LA but cant' find anything very complete.
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There is a detail thread @
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/734016-asus-ux302-14.html
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The UX302LA is fully user upgradeable (ram not solder in the mb)
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Some users are suggesting 7 hours of battery life but not clear - however it looks like folks are just receiving them so I think i'll watch that thread for another week or two.

 

[GTRagnarok]

^ I made a bunch of posts in that UX302 thread, including some pics of the upgrade process. Aesthetically, it's a really nice laptop but I ended up returning it. I was getting 6 hours of battery life in real world light usage at 50% brightness. While I'm okay with that, I expected more from a Haswell Ultrabook.

I got the 13" rMBP instead. I think it's the better deal overall. The UX302 is $1000, but you would want to get an SSD for it and probably upgrade the RAM too. So you're looking at $250 to upgrade to a 250GB/256GB SSD and 10GB of RAM (2GB soldered + 8GB). For $250 more, the $1500 MBP comes with a 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM. You get a much nicer screen, faster CPU and graphics, and better battery life on top of it all (72 Whr vs 50 Whr battery). Well worth it, IMO. There's more flexibility in buying one as well. Apple has a $100 student discount, and you can get it from some resellers (make sure they're authorized) tax-free, depending on where you live.

The big advantage of the UX302 is, of course, the upgradability. If it's extremely important to you, than there aren't many alternatives. Personally if I got a 250GB SSD to go with it, I would probably be using it for the life of the laptop.

 

[you2]

Well the UX302LA is also touch screen but long term I will run linux so that won't matter too much (for me). It sounds like maybe the mac book pro is the way to go; kind of was leaning towards the sony pro 3 since it was only 2.5lb but i hear it has very sucky wifi and some other issues.