Recommend a Win 8 tablet/laptop hybrid for business/web design?

[ship69]

Hows about the new SONY VAIO PRO 13?

+VEs
"the lightest touchscreen ultrabook" ever made (1.06kg)
13" screen, Full HD (1080p), 1.8GHz Intel Haswell
Up to 8GB of RAM, 256GB of SSD (super-fast),
Carbon fibre body, only 18mm thick, USB 3.0 x2, HDMI (full sized), SD card,
Up to 8 Hour battery life, Backlight keyboard

-VEs
No ethernet!
Glossy screen
Sharp front corners
Runs warm (says Laptop Mag)


Or hows about the TOSHIBA KIRABOOK with:
a 13inch 2560 x 1440 display
8GB of RAM, 256GB SSD, only 2.97 lbs (1.35Kg)


The trouble with both of them is that you cant fold/flip the screens back and use either of them like a tablet.
Personally I dont want more than 1080p on a 13in screen, but at least the manufacturers are starting to build high res laptops... FINALLY!

J

P.S. The Dell basically has my spec, but rumours of flaky touch pad & build quality are putting me off.

 

[ship69]

Or hows about this?
Samsung's ATIV Q: An amazing resolution of 3200x1800 (7.6million pixels - 275ppi,)
Intel Core i5 Haswell, HD4400 graphics, up-to 256GB of solid state drive (SSD), and just 1.3 Kg
And dual-boot, between Windows 8 and full Android Jelly Bean.

Also battery life at that resolution is suspect but is claimed to be 12 hours - no doubt a huge exaggeration but any more than 5 hours would be okay for me.

On the down side only 4GB of RAM.

But as discussed previously I strongly suspect that going above 1080p resolution on a device smaller than 14 or 15 inches is a terrible idea for most existing windows browsers and applications.

All I need is a decent fully portable, fully powered tablet/latptop hybrid with a large enough Full HD screen to do some real work on. But manufacturers have build all manner of things for Windows 8. But still nothing that hits the spot.

i.e. A tablet/laptop that is Full HD (1080p i.e. 1920×1080 pixels), that is at least 14 ideally 15", is reasonably powered (Haswell, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD) and weighs less than 1.5Kg. Obviously it needs a decent keyboard, and a built in stylus would be nice. And when in laptop mode a decent size of trackpad is a must.

It's so frustrating. All the components clearly exist but no manufacturer has pulled them all together.

Is it just me or are manufacturers seriously missing a trick here?

J

 

[ship69]

OK so the Lenovo ThinkPad Helix is getting v close to my "minimum full-caffeine/for business" spec.
Full HD, up to 256GB SSD, Up to 8GB of RAM (DD3). Nice build quality. Nice keyboard.
My main complaint is that at 11.6 inches its screen is too darned small.
It would be nice of course to have a Haswell processor but you can't have everything...!
So I'm planning to wait for a 13 or 14" of equivalent spec to appear. e.g. possibly the rumoured Lenovo ThinkPad "T440s" could be interesting - although I dont know if it will have a 180deg folding screen, nor whether the weight will be over my 1.5Kg target.

 

[ship69]

I just read that Windows 8.1 will "improve the Windows DPI scaling to make super high-resolution screens ... more usable".
First Look: Samsung ATIV Q and its Unreal 3200 x 1800 Screen

Hallelujah!

Have any of you tried or know much about this?

Btw, the 13.3 inch Samsung ATIV Q looks pretty promising with an 'unreal' 3200 x 1800 resolution, and just 1.29Kg, although from what I can see the launch version will only have 4GB of RAM and only 128GB of SSD, so no really full-caffeine but getting there...

 

[ship69]

I have now decided that a touch screen is important, particularly if ever planning to run Windows 8.
After reading a few reviews, I am now seriously thinking about buying either:
A) Samsung Series 7 Ultra Touch 740U3E or
B) Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus

The main trouble is that here in the UK Samsung are only selling the 128GB SSD versions of both of these laptops [idiots - what are they THINKING?] and so I'll need to find out if and how I can upgrate to 256GB. I may need to upgrade the RAM too - but hopefully that will be easier...

 

[dweebken]

Touch screen is a really really nice to have on Windows 8. I highly recommend it (having used both versions touch/non-touch). I've got a Lenovo Twist with 256 GMB SSD. The only negative about the Twist is the limited resolution, but it's rarely an issue as I attach it to a 22" monitor when I need more. But Lenovo has newer machines with greater resolution too, like the Helix. I'd love one of those, but only if I could get 256 GB minimum SSD. Also on the Twist I added a 2nd SSD in the mSATA bay (because I didn't have a cellular module in it), so I have a great system. Not sure if the helix or other Ultrabooks can do that.

 

[ship69]

In the end I bought the Samsung Series 7 Ultra Touch (740U3E).

The only downside is that for some reason the idiots at Samsung had only put 128GB into that UK based model (why do the DO that?!!) so I had to spend quite a lot of money buying a 512GB one (from the US in the end).

So far I am fairly happy with it. Nice and fast. Touch screen is useful occasionally but it doesnt fold back on itself (not 360deg) so you definitely need a desk to work with it which is irritating. It's also still much MUCH heavier and more sturdy than it needs to be.

I do LOVE a high res screen but 1080p is right at the limit for a 13" screen, as the text is stupidly small and increasing the text DPI has weird effects all over the place. (We are hoping Win8.1 will fix this but dont hold your breath). Another problem is that some icons are way too big and some text stays small, but what can you do. Either way with a good pair of ready readers (spectacles) it's fine for medium amounts of time e.g. when travelling.

I do find that Full HD is definitely not tall enough (i.e. too wide). I know that it will play Full HD video pixels on a nice clear one to one basis, but actually a bit more height would be very nice, and when playing videos they could just leave the extra pixels black. e.g. My main PC's screen is 1920 x 1200 (rather than 1080) and this feels much, much more spacious.

I also find doing right clicks is rather tricky to get right without a dedicated right click button like my lenovo had. And I do still miss the red nipple thing in the keyboard.

All in all though the Samsung is a beautiful piece of kit with good ergonomics, including a very good multi-touch track pad (which is crucial). So rather expensive, but no real regrets yet.

 

[robinb9]

how about the new dell ones, go to their website, I am total it is just like the surface pro but it will be more affordable