Looking for Ultrabook with specfic specs

I'm looking for an ultra-book as a secondary household laptop - I have the dell XPS 17 which while a good laptop overall hasn’t been great for travel as its large/heavy –especially for short trips away. The ultra-book would be for general use (web, email + basic Photoshop) at home and we might use it to review photos and watch the occasional movie while traveling

Ultra-book must have's:

  • 1080 display
  • i5 or better
  • 128+ SSD
  • good battery life (haswell chip?)
  • portable lightweight (prefer less than 2.5kg)

I would like the cost to be as close to $1k as possible but willing to spend a bit extra for the right unit. Also, I would prefer it didn’t have a blueray/dvd disk drive (I can’t even remember the last time I used one :/) and I would prefer 15" but will be happy with a 13" if it meets the all the above criteria.

I actually like the macbook air from a HW perspective but do not want to go iOs.

Thanks in advance OB's

Comments

  • Fortunately for you macbook airs don't run iOS, they run OSX. I can't recommend MBA's enough, got one about a year ago and it's perfect for what I need, which is typically just word, excel, email, internet and visualising proteins in VMD.

    It's my first mac, and it didn't take long for me to see why OSX is vastly superior to Windows in terms of workflow and just general use. Just for the record I'm not a mac fanboy either, but for any future laptop purchases I simply don't think I'll even consider anything else.

  • Buy a mba.

  • not sold on OSX, i have had to use it a few times and have found it quite limiting. Would prefer a windows system.

    • Could always get an MBA and put Linux on it. I assume the point though is not that you don't want OSX, but that you do want Windows.

    • It's possible to put Windows on a MBA, but of course you have to shell out another $100 to buy the Windows operating system itself, which makes it kind of an expensive purchase.

      Fortunately there are a few options

      http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1588442#11

  • Macbook air is only 1440x900. There's more option for ultrabooks closer to 1k if you give up the full HD display.

  • +2
  • +1

    ended up going with a Mba (got this deal http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/113010#comment-1539207 ) thanks all

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