HP Folio 13 "to buy or not to buy"

With the vast announcements in the notebook space HP has been busy this year to create innovations, especially with their ultrabooks.  They had build and announced their Ivy Bridge line of ultrabooks and Sleekbooks a couple of months back. And now HP introduced an Ultrabook that would give some new impression through their HP Folio 13. Let us see how heap it would be against like Dell, Samsung and Tohsiba Ultrabooks.

Build and Design

Folio 13 is not just any laptop but a premium Ultrabook, it has the feel of sublime that you can tell HP has gone to its great lengths to feel that this notebook is an ultra premium. In fact with this nice feel it really makes you want to use the notebook more. The distribution weight is very well done, though it isn’t the slimmest Utlrabook at 18 mm in depth nor the lightest at 1.5 kg.

The cover is made up with a brushed aluminum finish, while its underneath has its rubberized coating for enhanced grip.  Since the notebook has a bit of heft, HP added all the standard connectivity preferences (just lacks a disc drive) but the rest like Gigabit LAN, HDMI, a USB 3.0 and 2.0 port, card reader and headphone jack. Intake vents were placed underneath, while the exhaust sits behind the hinge.  As we go further, the hinge mechanism has its feel of a well-built and durable that doesn’t seem like it’ll loose anytime. And the lid giving you a very flexible viewing it also tilts backs all the way to 170 degrees, no matter sitting position you at.

The 13.3 inch screen has an extremely thin bezel that gives a wider appearance. The speaker grill is placed above the keyboard and it’s never blocked. With it’s Dolby Advanced Audio for better audio fidelity.  HP has been known for their amazing keyboard and no surprise there. HP trackpad is not that said though. The tracking is smooth and responsive but the buttons are so hard and there is no proper click feel to it, it needs to apply a lot of pressure that makes it a terrible experience. But concerning overall design and build it is scored highly for Folio 13.

Features

When we talk about hardware Folio 13 is powered with an intel i5-2467M ULV CPU, 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD. One thing that bothers me that why does they install a standard hard drive and small SSD, since clearly there is a plenty of room inside the chassis. With no dedicated graphic card, of course so you’ll have to make do with the onboard one, which is fine for watching HD movies. It also has a Windows 7 Professional 64-bit OS, along with it.

With the usual software fluff that HP bundles have along with their notebooks, HP Folio 13 is a CoolSense Technology. These adjust automatically with the fan in the notebook, depending on the system temperature. Including HP TrueVision, HD webcam, QuickLaunch, Intel WiDi support, Support Assistant and Connection Manager.

Posted in: laptop