HP folio 13 ultrabook touts 9 hour battery life: First impressions

After all the hype around the ultrabooks, and with HP's decision to continue with its PC business, the brand has yet again succeeded in bottling all criticism with the launch of the HP Folio 13. The HP Folio 13 is one of the better ultra books to be released and you could buy yourself one even this Christmas. So, if you are planning to get this one, read on to know if it's worth it!

HP Folio 13 ultrabook

What’s new:

The Ultrabooks are Intel's brainchild where they are spending around $300 million for the purpose. The Ultra books, according to Intel are supposed to be a class of thin and light laptops with the highest of specifications like other laptops. Generally, ultra books are seen to be having a healthy battery life and they also have solid state disks, quick boot times and quick resume from sleep times.

Features walk through:

The HP Folio 12 includes 4GB of DDR3 memory that could be increased to 8GB of DDR3 memory, a 128GB solid state disk, and a 1.6 GHz Intel Core i5 2467M processor. It also has Intel HD 3000 graphics which though are not able to be competent enough to run the latest of PC games does well otherwise on the graphics front. It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, and if you choose you could even get the Windows7 Professional upgrade.

The HP Folio 13 is just around 18 mm thick and it has the 13.3 inch Bright View display with a native resolution of 1366x768 pixels. There is also the robust USB 3.0, HDMI, Ethernet, USB 2.0 and also a memory card reader and a combined headphone/mic to cater to all your purposes! Though USB 3.0 is certainly one of the great features to be added to this ultra book perhaps what makes this ultra book really special is its back lit keyboard, as this is one feature which is yet lacking in most of the ultra books released till now.

What's good:

The HP Folio, weighs around 3.3 pounds and is only 0.7 inch thick, just like the many other ultra books which are known for their thinness. The HP Folio 13, which was announced on November 15 and went into sale a few days ago has already began to spun many deals from companies and is available for pretty cheap a price compared to those of other ultra books. It should be remembered when determining the price that ultra books are wafer thin and are thus more expensive to build than normal notebooks. The materials used for the ultra books are different and the tolerances of these materials are high. Also the heat ventilation tech, and screens are all pricier than mainstream laptops.

What's not so good:

Many people feel that the ultra books are actually a lot similar to the famous 13 inch Mac Book Air. The Mac Book Air, it might be remembered is 0.8 inches thick at its thickest point, and has a 13.3 inch screen. It has no optical drive, and gives at least five hours of battery life, and also has a solid state drive instead of a hard disk for near instant on operation. Thus, the features of the Mac Book Air too are a lot similar to the ultra books and this has come in for criticism. The cost too of the ultra books are on the higher side because the making costs are high and so it remains an area of concern.

Price and availability:

Right after its release various companies have queued up to offer the best of deals. Logicbuy used a coupon system to give away the ultra book at an unbelievable price of $703 (roughly €526) instead of HP’s original $899 MSRP.

Wrap up:

Wrapping things up, in a novice market where ultra books sales are supposed to account for only 2 percent of sales in 2012 and gradually expected to reach 43 percent by 2015, the HP Folio doesn't do a bad job of things, and is a welcome change. The battery life at a whopping 9 hours and solid state drives along with the style statements that the Ultra books manage to make can surely make you want to buy one indeed! On the down side though, ultra books are generally not designed for games, so do not expect to play the latest of games on this ultra thin machine after buying one! In a market dominated by laptops, the Ultra books are new on the block, and going by the hype the HP Folio 13 is getting, Ultra books might just be the next big thing!

Picture Gallery

HP Folio 13 ultrabook

First Business Ultrabook, Offering Industry’s Best Battery Life