An ultrabook/ultrathin capable of playing the odd game - promised land arrives (AMD)

[Furunculus]

Get a load of this:

http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Superior_Mobility/U38N/

An AMD Trinity APU sporting four cores and 384 DX11 shaders.

Importantly, those DX11 shaders come with proper AMD drivers that are actually compatible with games, as is not always the case with intel integrated.

To add even more jazz it has a unibody aluminium chassis and a 1080p IPS touchscreen, both uncommon in AMD laptops (which tend to be cheaper models), and still only costs EUR800.

What do you think?

I am considering an ultrabook/ultrathin and am torn between this, the Samsung Series 9 and the Lenovo Ideapad Yoga. There is an asus ultrabook with a Nvidia GPU but the "optimus" GPU-swapping capability doesn't work at all under linux, which is a consideration.

[Husar]

I think it's weird that they say Full HD and then under Specifications:

13.3" 16:9 HD (1366x768) Non-Glare LCD Panel

Sounds quite nice anyway though.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Hum, the promised land is probably a lot more promising if you pick the UV32VD. CPU part a notch better, GPU roughly similar, but crucially: upgradeable RAM & disk -- no unibody. Also: no touch screen nonsense, just a matte 1080p HD screen.

On the other hand, costs another ~€200 excluding upgrade parts...

As for this new model, dunno. Seems to be banking on people buying it specifically for being able to do a bit of games/video encoding on something thin and light with looks but not really willing to fork out another €150 or so and get a rather more powerful machine in every respect (i.e. Vaio S).

[drone]

Wonder if it plays MTW...

[Xiahou]

I think it's weird that they say Full HD and then under Specifications:.

Look again.

13.3" 16:9 Full HD (1920x1080) Non-Glare LCD Panel

Also: no touch screen nonsense, just a matte 1080p HD screen.

From the little I've seen of Windows8, you'll be thankful for a touch screen.

[Husar]

Look again.

They might have never fixed that if I hadn't copy/pasted the wrong info here!

From the little I've seen of Windows8, you'll be thankful for a touch screen.

Not if you use the desktop a lot.
Then again I'm not against touchscreens anyway, my phone happens to have one and it's nice.

[Tellos Athenaios]

From the little I've seen of Windows8, you'll be thankful for a touch screen.

Not in a laptop form factor, you wouldn't.

[Furunculus]

still weighing my choice between this, the samsung series 9 (traditional), and the lenovo yoga (full on bendy phablet).

[Xiahou]

Not in a laptop form factor, you wouldn't.

Actually, the few people I know who have bought laptops with Windows8 have all specifically sought out touch screens.

If you don't get a touchscreen, something like Start8 would probably be a good option.... actually it might be a good option regardless.

[Husar]

Why? If you click down in the left corner you get the new start menu anyway, which has all your apps without sifting through a ton of folders.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Actually, the few people I know who have bought laptops with Windows8 have all specifically sought out touch screens.

Funnily, the few I know have all specifically replaced Windows 8.

Anyway, in a laptop form factor you can't get at the screen in a convenient manner -- there's a whole unit in the way. Plus laptop screens tend to have issues of "cheapest possible piece of junk", which isn't such a good thing if you have fingerprints all over it. Manufactures have tried the "convertible" design, but that's a different form factor all together and thus far the successful segment seems to be more of "a tablet with tacked on keyboard" than "a laptop which doubles as tablet". I suppose weight, battery life, as well as screen quality has something to do with that.

[Beskar]

Would should a laptop run CK2 with no issues, or will it stutter like it is high-on-crack?

I have to admit, I am interested in a laptop, just have a dreaded feeling if I go near one, my 5 year old pc would still outperform it.

[Furunculus]

Would should a laptop run CK2 with no issues, or will it stutter like it is high-on-crack?

I have to admit, I am interested in a laptop, just have a dreaded feeling if I go near one, my 5 year old pc would still outperform it.

hmmmm, well according to anandtech ivy-bridge U can happily play TW:S2 even at up to 1600x900, so i imagine this U38N could manage CK2 (possibly at native res) unless it is massively CPU heavy like Civ5 which is an absolute pig.

Here is the review and gameplay test for the U38N
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShFu...2&feature=plcp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqQj...3&feature=plcp

still like it a hell of a lot, but not sure i want something absolutely bomb-proof (like an air), that can be chucked in a packed ruck-sack without worrying about buckled panels.

[Husar]

It's really bad, mobile devices just cannot satisfy me anymore.

The problems with this one seem to be that it's louder, uses more power and performs slower than Intel devices, yet the gaming capacities are underwhelming as well.

So I tried to look for something with touchscreen, a decent screen resolution, a dedicated graphics card and a fully featured Windows 8 (no RT, tablets aren't out if they have USB and HDMI ports) to replace my notebook but apparently such a thing doesn't exist. Everything that comes close has the dreaded Intel HD 4000 or costs close to 2000€ with a touchscreen. Some Asus S400CA models cost 800 with an i7 and 700 with an i5, so I wonder why don't they make one that costs 800 or 850 and has an i5 with a dedicated graphics card???

They also feature the touchscreen, a 24GB SSD cache on their 500GB HDD and so on, so they look really nice otherwise, I just wonder why they have this fixation with the HD4000? Does Intel blackmail or subsidize them or something?

[Furunculus]

to be honest, i think i am leaning back towards a Intel HD 4000 solution, but not precisely because of the GPU itself.

i want real portability and that requires:
a) a very low power solution if noise/heat isn't to be a problem, and little can compete with ivy-bridge "U" and still be capable of productivity computing
b) an excellent build quality in a tiny chassis, and amd solutions simply aren't built to the same premium standard as the like of a asus zenbook prime, a samsung series 9, or a macbook air

those three pretty much define the choice i have boiled it down too, and i think i am leaning towards to the samsung right now.

[Husar]

http://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.c...t-107/1138582/

It seems I have found something that costs a bit more (~1000€) but offers a quiet Intel solution, touchscreen and a dedicated graphics card (GT630M) that is apparently twice as fast as the HD4000 (which is apparently also faster than the 8600M GT in my old and current laptop).
It's also relatively small at 14" and has a decent battery life given at 6h 30min max.
For doing mostly office work and some light gaming on the side while still being portable it seems like a great solution to me.
Just have to get 1000€ from somewhere now...

[Tellos Athenaios]

http://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.c...t-107/1138582/

It seems I have found something that costs a bit more (~1000€) but offers a quiet Intel solution, touchscreen and a dedicated graphics card (GT630M) that is apparently twice as fast as the HD4000 (which is apparently also faster than the 8600M GT in my old and current laptop).
It's also relatively small at 14" and has a decent battery life given at 6h 30min max.
For doing mostly office work and some light gaming on the side while still being portable it seems like a great solution to me.
Just have to get 1000€ from somewhere now...

To be quite honest, that looks like fantastically overpriced kit which frankly at 2kg for a 14inch machine is not doing a terribly good job on the portable checkbox either.
Worse:

1) It's an i5 ULV part. It means you do not get the i5 performance you are expected to, instead it is probably a bit better than an i3 on normal workloads but definitely a notch below a "normal" laptop i5 part. Nowhere near the desktop i5, mind you.
It consumes less power, but whether or not it is cool and quiet depends more on the engineering (layout, assembly) than anything else. For instance if you buy HP, that will sound like a leaf blower and scorch your pants given about a year or two if you put it through its paces (gaming) or just use it a lot -- HP apparently fired all competent engineers or they just fled outright.
2) The resolution. Your eyes deserve better. Trust me, even 1280x800 is better. 1366x768 sucks.
3) The thing still manages to weigh in at over 2kg. Lightweight, you say? For a 14inch unit that is not lightweight.

I dunno. Myself I am not overly keen on the touch screen and if you don't mind losing that you could buy (not really thoroughly researched, perhaps there are more compelling offers elsewhere) a 13 or 15 inch Vaio S model and kit it out for roughly €1000. The result should be lighter, and the parts a notch better for a similar run time when on battery.

[Husar]

I knew I'd forget to check something important(that's why I posted it ), 2kg is indeed a bit heavy.

Good point about the Vaio S, when you configure it online, you can get a 13" with a GT 640M LE, 1600*900 display, Core i5-3210M 2.5GHz for 1018€, still expensive but also faster, higher resolution and so on.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Exactly. Even better when you can get the machine through the education discount programme they have. Free shipping if you buy online, too. Just make sure to turn off/tone down all software options if there are any, also brings down the price significantly.

For me that pretty much sealed the deal when I got my 15inch Vaio S but then again I was specifically looking to trade graphics grunt for less need of a mains outlet nearby (I don't game on my laptop) so I picked up an entry level 15inch S for about €750, then bought a stick of 8GB low voltage RAM and a Samsung 830 256GB SDD and added them to the machine myself. With a Linux distro, it's a zippy little work machine now.

[Furunculus]

i went for the ivy-bridge samsung series 9 in the end, lovely piece of kit.

£850 + samsung tablet + £15 for a Win8 upgrade.

[Beskar]

Got any links to that, Furunculus?

[Furunculus]

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-NP90...4537263&sr=8-1