After Apple MacBook Air release many companies turn to producing ultrabooks as an alternative to PCs and laptops and in order not to lag behind at the market. At the moment there’re quite a lot of them and a user has to think a bit before making a final choice. In this article I’d like to provide you with pluses and minuses of ultrabooks so that you’ll whether it’s worth spending money on it.
Image courtesy of engadget.com
Advantages:
Travelling
First of all, when we speak about ultrabooks and their use we may think that they are useful when travelling. They’re much more convenient to carry than laptops as they are light, practical and do not occupy much space in a bag.
SSD drive
Ultrabooks don’t have HDD drives which are replaced with SSD drives. These drives are faster and allow quicker access to the information and programs installed. Apart from that, system boot and awakening from hibernation mode take only a few seconds. It’s also worth noticing that SSD drives are not afraid of little bumps and thus they are safer to travel with.
Design
Actually, now ultrabooks are one of the most stylish devices at the market. Their body is often made of metals alloy and thus they weigh little and are well protected. Combined with thinness, these features of ultrabooks attract more and more buyers.
Productivity
Ultrabooks’ productivity is better than that of the netbooks. Though they are less powerful than standard laptops though in a couple of years a great step forward in this direction was made.
Screen
A couple of years ago the only way not to buy a heavy laptop was to but a netbook with a small screen. With ultrabooks this problem is solved. Ultrabooks are usually provided with 11’ or 13’ screens which is enough for comfortable work with most applications.
Trackpad
Trackpad provide a faster working experience in comparison with touchpads. This is achieved with the help of gesture control. For example, with the help of a gesture a user may go back to the previous web page, scroll the page or change the page’s scale. After that you won’t want to go back to a regular mouse.
Disadvantages
Absence of optical drive
In order to save some space and make an ultrabook lighter, the developers didn’t provide it with a DVD drive. I think it may be a serious disadvantage for those who like to watch movies and play games. The possible way out is to buy an external drive.
High price
This is one of the most vivid disadvantages of ultrabooks. If we compare an ultrabook and a laptop with the same specifications then you’ll see that you have to pay twice as much for an ultrabook because of its portability. Apart from that, while travelling the risk of an ultrabook theft is higher because of its higher price.
USB connectors
As I have already mentioned, the developers try to create ultrabooks as light as possible and thus they provide very few USB connectors. Some ultrabooks don’t even have USB ports.
Productivity
If we compare the productivity of laptops and ultrabooks, then the latter will lose. With ultrabooks you have to pay for portability and light weight but not for productivity. Apart from that, you won’t be able to play games that require good and powerful video cards.
Data storage
As it was mentioned above, ultrabooks use SSD drives for data storage. They are faster in use but have less storage capacity in comparison with traditional HDD drives. Most common SSD drive has 128 GB of free space. But I think that this number will increase very soon.
Keyboard
On the one hand, ultrabook keyboard is more comfortable in use than netbook keyboard. But it is smaller in size and it may be difficult to get used to type on them.
So these are the main advantages and disadvantages of ultrabooks. Whether to buy them or not depends on you.
About Author: Eugene Rudenko is a tech writer at http://www.intellectsoft.co.uk/. His main interests and topics for writing are Apple and Android apps and services.
I dont quite like the sealed battery. They are more expensive to replace and it requires some disassembly work. And because of their sealed nature, one cannot carry spare for extra hours of computing off the power grid.