HP Folio 13 Ultrabook Review

There are only so many people willing to spend $1,300+ on a finger-thick machine, and many of them are already loyal Apple customers. The reality is, the average consumer wants to believe they're buying a premium product, but they don't necessarily want to pay premium prices. It's a tough nut to crack and most PC makers have failed when it comes to ultrathin notebooks, whether by charging too much or cutting too many corners.

LG's $1,500 X-Note Z330 is incredibly thin (0.58in/14.7mm) and light (2.67lb/1.21kg), but its internals are identical to ultrabooks that are 50% cheaper or more. Conversely, Acer's Aspire S3 stormed out of the gates last October with an accessible sub-$1,000 price, but it was criticized for having a cheap plastic chassis, poor audio quality and viewing angles, a stiff keyboard, a short battery life and tons of bloatware to boot.

Striking a balance between both extremes, HP's Folio 13 kicks off at an attractive $900 while packing the same core componentry you'll find in even the priciest of ultrabooks. The system has been available for a couple of months so our review isn't particularly timely, but after purchasing a unit a few weeks ago we thought it deserved attention considering how many system makers have gotten the formula wrong, despite Intel's guidance.

HP Folio 13-1020us  13.3" 1366x768 LED-backlit display Intel Core i5-2467M (1.6 - 2.3GHz) Intel HD Graphics 3000 4GB of DDR3 RAM 128GB SSD (SATA 3Gb/s) 1 USB 2.0 (right) + 1 USB 3.0 (left) 1 HDMI v1.4 port (left) SD Card reader (left) Gigabit Ethernet (left) Audio-out / mic combo jack (right) 802.11b/g/n / Bluetooth 4.0 HD webcam + mic Backlit chiclet keyboard 6-cell 59WHr battery (9 hours) 12.54" (L) x 8.67" (W) x 0.7" (H) / 3.3lbs

External Overview

Visually, the Folio 13 is reminiscent of HP's Envy and Elitebook lines, which also to say it's reminiscent of Apple's MacBook Pros. HP has done an admirable job employing a minimalist professional look on its premium notebooks. The Folio 13 has brushed aluminum on its top cover and around its keyboard/touchpad, while the bottom has a soft, rubbery coating. Both surfaces do an impeccable job minimizing fingerprints.

While I'm on the subject, the 1366x768 TN panel leaves a lot to be desired in the way of viewing angles and contrast, especially compared to the 13.3-inch MacBook Air's 1440x900 panel. I find myself frequently adjusting the display to minimize the washed appearance and glare. To be fair, you could say the same about an unfortunate number of $1,000+ notebooks, and the Folio 13's $900 MSRP helps soften the blow.

The single-piece touchpad sits flush with the aluminum deck. It looks great and it works well enough, though it isn't perfect. The surface requires frequent cleaning because it loses its slick feel after little use, while the mouse click buttons are stiff and imprecise (clicking toward the bottom corners doesn't register sometimes). On the bright side, multitouch gestures such as two-fingered scrolling and pinch zoom are handy.

As with its other externals, the Folio's Dolby Advanced Audio sound bar blends into the design well. It's placed between the display hinges, so you'll never have to worry about accidentally covering a speaker. Quality-wise, the audio is flat, but it's also very loud and clear, which is probably desirable for a business-oriented ultrabook.

As with all ultrabooks, connectivity is fairly limited but the Folio affords an SD card reader which is notably absent from many of its competitors. The card slot is on the left alongside a USB 3.0 port, an HDMI 1.4 port, and a gigabit Ethernet jack, while the right is sparsely populated with a single USB 2.0 port as well as an audio-out/microphone combo jack. Naturally, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi is present, as is Bluetooth 4.0.

Internals & Performance

The Folio's Core i5-2467M and 128GB SSD ensure you have a consistently snappy experience while casually sipping power. The dual-core Sandy Bridge chip carries 3MB of L3 cache, handles four threads via HyperThreading and has a 17W TDP. It also packs an on-die HD Graphics 3000 GPU, which is perfectly suitable for a machine that won't be used for anything more intensive than playing browser games or 720p videos.

HP was stingy on details about the SSD, but Windows reports the drive as Samsung's MZMPA128HMFU, better known as the PM800, a year-old mSATA module found in various systems by Samsung, HP, Dell and others. It's powered by the Samsung S3C29MAX01 SATA 3Gb/s controller (same as in 2010's Samsung 470 Series SSDs) and offers respectable performance with peak reads and writes quoted at 250MB/s and 210MB/s.

The single SO-DIMM slot is maxed out with 4GB of DDR3 RAM which is plenty for tasks an ultrabook is likely to face. That aptly summarizes the system's overall performance: it's very fast for anything within realistic expectations (i.e. not maxing out Skyrim). When browsing, playing casual games or using apps like MS Word, Fireworks or Postbox, I can't spot a notable difference between the Folio and my desktop.

Benchmarks Results

Synthetic Tests	Folio 13	ThinkPad X1	Envy 14 (2011)
3DMark 06
3DMark Score	3472 3DMarks	3750 3DMarks	7486 3DMarks
PCMark Vantage
PCMark Suite	8594 PCMarks	7607 PCMarks	5734 PCMarks

Application Tests	Folio 13	ThinkPad X1	Envy 14 (2011)
iTunes Encoding Test	01 min 44 sec	01 min 15 sec	--
File Transfer Test
Small files	1 min 2 sec	1 min 23 sec	1 min 21 sec
Large file	45 sec	1 min 2 sec	52 sec

The iTunes encoding tests consist of converting 14 MP3s (119MB) to 128Kbps ACC files and measuring the operation's duration in seconds. For the file transfer test, we measure how long it takes to copy two sets of files from one location to another on the same hard drive. On the small files test we transfer 557 MP3s, totaling 2.56GB. For the large file, these same MP3s were zipped into a single file measuring 2.52GB.

Gaming Performance	Folio 13	ThinkPad X1	Envy 14 (2011)
Far Cry 2
1024x768, Medium Quality	26.3 fps	26.5 fps	41.8 fps
1366x768, High Quality	24.9 fps	17.9 fps	35.1 fps
StarCraft 2
1024x768, Medium Quality	14.4 fps	15.2 fps	67.5 fps
1366x768, High Quality	11.4 fps	10.4 fps	45.2 fps

HP Folio 13 Specs

• 13.3" 1366x768 LED-backlit display
• Intel Core i5-2467M (1.6GHz - 2.3GHz)
• 4GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Intel HD 3000 Graphics
• 128GB SSD (Samsung PM800, SATA 3Gb/s)
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Specs

• 13.4" TFT 1366 x 768 display (with Corning Gorilla glass)
• Intel Core i5-2520M (2.5GHz - 3.2GHz)
• 4GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Intel HD 3000 Graphics
• Hitachi 320GB 7200RPM hard drive
• Microsoft Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)

HP Envy 14 (2011) Specs

• 14.5" HD BrightView Infinity LED 1366 x 768 display
• Intel Core i5-2430M (2.4GHz - 3GHz)
• 6GB DDR3 SDRAM
• AMD Radeon HD 6630M
• Western Digital 750GB hard drive
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Closing Thoughts

At 3.3lbs (1.49kg), HP's offering isn't the lightest around, nor is it the thinnest at 0.7in. In fact, it's toward the upper limits of both attributes with most ultrabooks weighing 2.4-2.9lbs and measuring 0.51-0.67in thick. However, I wouldn't appreciate the system more if it were smaller, nor would I likely notice a 0.5lb/1mm difference. It's also tough to bash on the Folio's size disadvantage considering its solid build quality.

I ran two battery tests: one while looping a 720p rip of Inception, the other using Powermark's default "Balanced" profile, which provides mixed workloads including Web browsing, word processing, gaming and playing videos.

The battery tests came in well under HP's advertised 9-hour autonomy at just over 4 and 6 hours. However, the display, processor and integrated graphics core ran at their maximum settings and both tests are probably more taxing than you'd put the machine through if you used it for light tasks with Windows' Power Saver profile. In such a scenario, I imagine it's possible to squeeze up to 8 or even the claimed 9 hours.

As for the user experience, HP has committed the typical crime of shipping its machine with bloatware. Along with a dozen of HP's own clunky applications, you'll find a 60-day trial of Norton Internet Security 2012, Bing Bar 7 for Internet Explorer 9, Snapfish Picture Mover and more. This is especially annoying on an ultrabook, because the recovery partition occupies 18GB of the SSD, leaving Windows with 96.9GB after formatting.

Assuming the display and bloatware don't scare you off (and they probably shouldn't, honestly), the Folio 13 ought to be toward the top of your list if you're shopping for an ultrabook. The system's nearly fingerprint-proof finish, professional aesthetics, comfy backlit keyboard, lengthy battery life and snappy performance make it an easy sell at $900. Here's hoping the coming wave of Ivy Bridge ultrabooks are equally solid.

Credit : http://www.techspot.com/