Please help me select an ultrabook ASAP

[adityamoghe]

So, I'm looking at three options in i5 7200u /256GB SSD /8GB Ram:

- Razer Blade Stealth
- Dell XPS 13
- LG Gram (2017) 13.3/15.6

LG Gram:
I'm sooooo sooo inclined towards LG Gram because of the weight and the looks but really unsure as I've never used an LG laptop before. Just don't have that trust towards the brand if you know what I mean. It's like I need a couple of good remarks from people with first hand experience (and not the reviewers) and then I'll be totally convinced.

Dell XPS 13:
I like this one too. It's a great machine no doubt. But there have been so many bad reviews on Amazon. Most of them around hardware defects 1-3 weeks after use. This scares me.

Razer Blade Stealth:
Again, it's an incredible machine. Had there been no other options in the market, I would've jumped on this one.

I'm really confused at this time. Please provide reasonable comments and help me out.
I need help ASAP because I am in India and I have a friend who is coming from US next week. So I need to decide within a day tops.

Thanks in advance!

P.S. While I'm at it, I'd love to know if these devices are good for moderate productivity tasks, primarily web development. My list of programs that usually run together are Adobe Illustrator + Photoshop, WAMP server, Adobe Brackets, Chrome and Firefox (multiple tabs) and Slack.

 

[piccoro]

What's the hurry? Ok I can't give you a perfect answer but i'll give you my personal opinion. In less than a minute:

DELL XPS 13 would be my choice.

The Razer blade stealth has too much power for you what you intend to do. Since you are doing some web development and photo/image editing, you don't need to go that far in terms of graphics cards or CPU. Just stack up as much as RAM as you can.

Photoshop and Web Servers take up a lot of RAM then Clock speed (quad core if you plan on multitasking with these two), the dedicated card doesn't matter for photoshop.

Yes it is true the reviews are scary despite being touted as the best window laptop all over the web but i can assume only the ones who got a complaint went in there for the most part. I wouldn't buy the XPS 13 if there wasn't a way I could get another model (in a far away country).

The LG Gram from what i've read is all nice and cool, great display and performance but they report it as being too delicate for someone constantly on the move.

Have you considered a little more heavy laptops like the MacBook Pro or the ASUS shown here.

If portability is an issue then try to settle with the DELL XPS 13 or 15, if you get a bad model you can always get another one back (I can't as I'm currently away from the country for a while).

Other good ultrabooks out of the top of my head are :Zenbook, Surface Pro 4, Lenovo Carbon. The air is not good for photoshop (or serious photoshop). Razer blade pro is good but too expensive for just web development and photoshop. You could get a refurbished MacBook pro that will last you for a long time or even get the new one.

 

[ananimus]

You were in a hurry and it's been a couple of months. But I picked up the silver LG Gram 13 (touchscreen and fingerprint scanner). I also considered the ones you mentioned. Few things going for it:

1) Price point. Get a touch screen and finger print scanner to boot at a price that still beats the competition if you find any sale. Easy to find the specs you mentioned for $800-$900 now and then.
2) Holy cow. So light. So, SO light. I move from meeting to meeting, so this is really nice.
3) So battery! For typical use (browsing, document editing, remote desktop) it really does last 10 hours. I actually haven't charged mine since yesterday morning and it still has a few hours left.
4) Performance. I also sometimes do compute intensive work. Note that it will kick in to high gear which does make the battery cry (drains at least twice as fast at full-bore). But for me, I'm usually plugged in at the office or at home when doing that kind of stuff. It's just nice to know it's capable when I have to go on the road.
5) Despite being light, it does feel sturdy. Especially when closed. Yes, you can flex the screen, but the package feels resilient for the silver model.
6) Best kept secret? The SSD is replaceable. There is also a second RAM slot.

If you're brave enough (warning: voiding warranty!) you can pop the eight sticky feet off the bottom to expose screws, carefully remove the bottom plate, and there they are. It's an M.2 SATA-III SSD and 2133 MHz, DDR4 SODIMM slot. 8 GB chip is recommended (it can't address more than 16 GB), and this additionally bumps the memory from single to dual channel.

Having found an open box LG Gram (like new), I saved enough to upgrade mine to a 1 TB SSD and 16 GB total RAM and still came in at $1150 all told. So far, the extra RAM upgrade hasn't really proven necessary. But we do what we must because we can sometimes!

Only complaints?

1) Screen is just glossy enough that ambient light is sometimes annoying. Double whammy is, since it's a touch screen, them fingerprints shine through. That said, the screen is absolutely gorgeous despite being 1080p (which I prefer for the readability and battery life).
2) Same "nose cam" webcam angle as the Dell XPS 13. Whoever first decided this was a good place for a webcam should be slapped. Ah well, I usually vid chat with my smartphone anyway.

But at the end of the day? Just wow. This thing is fan-fricking-tastic.

 

[anon(5415472)]

If you're in a hurry, The Samsung Notebook 7 Spin 2 in 1 is on sale right now. For a fraction of the price of the stated ultrabooks above, you get core i7, 12GB of Ram, 15.6" full hd touchscreen, and a full complement of ports. You could probably slap an external graphics card box later on if you want to use this for gaming. The important thing is this is only 699 today for a corei7 thin and light 2 in 1!

https://forums.windowscentral.com/e...%2F5712022.p%3FskuId%3D5712022&token=DoZZbIGD

However, the newer 8th gen intel processors would be dropping sooner than expected. I actually think they're already here. Lower clock speeds but has 4 cores - thats 8 threads with hyperthreading. So that's something to consider too.