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What I was after was a fastish notebook, which would be particulary
good on travels. I settled for the following:
Specification:
Chassis & Display: UltraNote: 14" Matte Full HD IPS LED Backlit Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) : Intel® Core™ i5 Dual Core Processor i5-7200U (2.50GHz, 3.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM) : 16GB Kingston SODIMM DDR4 2133MHz (1 x 16GB)
Graphics Card : INTEL® HD GRAPHICS 620 - 1.7GB Max DDR4 Video RAM - DirectX® 12
Hard Disk : 480GB KINGSTON UV400 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (550MB/R, 500MB/W)
External DVD/BLU-RAY Drive : 8x Slim USB 2.0 External DVD-RW
Memory Card Reader : Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
Sound Card : Realtek 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless : GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8265 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) +BT 4.0
USB Options : 1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 1 x USB 3.0 PORT + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Battery : UltraNote IV Series 44WH Lithium Ion Battery
Size:
I did not want the laptop to be too big, as I want to be able to even use it in British trains.
On the other hand, the screen was supposed to be big enough to have at two windows
open next to each other when doing number crunching in R.
Regarding the life laptop dimension: I will be squeezed in Virgin trains, however, I think
it is a good compromise. The 14'' screen is allowing an easy working environment but
not too expansive.
The laptop is very slim, given that DVD drive is external and not too heavy, so I think it will
make a very good travel companion.
Appearance:
The laptop does not look flashy, so it will not attract too much unwanted attention from
thieves, however, if my agenda was to impress family and friends, I think it will not do
that by outside appearance.
Installing Linux:
I received the laptop pre-installed with a test version of Windows used to check the components.
I quickly got rid of that and installed Ubuntu 16 from an USB stick. This went smoothly as
no Linux installation in my hands had gone before. All components (possibly minus one) were
easily detected, starting with the wifi card effortlessly connecting to my home Wifi.
After basic installation was completed I discovered that I could not read SD cards from my
camera. There are reports on Ubuntu that card reader can pose problems. I did not check the
functionality when I still had the Windows version running, but I assume this must be an
Ubuntu problem.
Functionality:
Screen resolution is very good. I had to increase the standard text sizes as it was too small
for me to read.
Start-up times are fast and the laptop pretty responsive. I've not done any benchmarking though,
but it seems to be very well suited to do a moderate to good amount of number crunching -
of course not mistaking it for a high-performance cluster.
The keyboard is working well, touch typing is easy.
Battery life seems to be 5h.
External components:
Connecting the external DVD-drive to the laptop did not pose any problems. I was also able to
install the necessary software to watch movies/films.
The 2TB WD passport drive was a little trickier as I could not mount it initially. However,
after dividing it into two partitions using gparted this was also resolved.
General Conclusions:
So, all in all, I'm pretty happy with the new laptop. It's perfect size and weight for me.
I can work comfortably. it is very fast in booting up and seems to have enough computing power
for my needs.
On the negative side, it would possibly be desirable to have more USB ports, somehow they are
always in short supply.
good on travels. I settled for the following:
Specification:
Chassis & Display: UltraNote: 14" Matte Full HD IPS LED Backlit Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU) : Intel® Core™ i5 Dual Core Processor i5-7200U (2.50GHz, 3.1GHz Turbo)
Memory (RAM) : 16GB Kingston SODIMM DDR4 2133MHz (1 x 16GB)
Graphics Card : INTEL® HD GRAPHICS 620 - 1.7GB Max DDR4 Video RAM - DirectX® 12
Hard Disk : 480GB KINGSTON UV400 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (550MB/R, 500MB/W)
External DVD/BLU-RAY Drive : 8x Slim USB 2.0 External DVD-RW
Memory Card Reader : Integrated 6 in 1 Card Reader (SD /Mini SD/ SDHC / SDXC / MMC / RSMMC)
Sound Card : Realtek 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless : GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® AC-8265 M.2 (867Mbps, 802.11AC) +BT 4.0
USB Options : 1 x USB 3.1 PORT (Type C) + 1 x USB 3.0 PORT + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Battery : UltraNote IV Series 44WH Lithium Ion Battery
Size:
I did not want the laptop to be too big, as I want to be able to even use it in British trains.
On the other hand, the screen was supposed to be big enough to have at two windows
open next to each other when doing number crunching in R.
Regarding the life laptop dimension: I will be squeezed in Virgin trains, however, I think
it is a good compromise. The 14'' screen is allowing an easy working environment but
not too expansive.
The laptop is very slim, given that DVD drive is external and not too heavy, so I think it will
make a very good travel companion.
Appearance:
The laptop does not look flashy, so it will not attract too much unwanted attention from
thieves, however, if my agenda was to impress family and friends, I think it will not do
that by outside appearance.
Installing Linux:
I received the laptop pre-installed with a test version of Windows used to check the components.
I quickly got rid of that and installed Ubuntu 16 from an USB stick. This went smoothly as
no Linux installation in my hands had gone before. All components (possibly minus one) were
easily detected, starting with the wifi card effortlessly connecting to my home Wifi.
After basic installation was completed I discovered that I could not read SD cards from my
camera. There are reports on Ubuntu that card reader can pose problems. I did not check the
functionality when I still had the Windows version running, but I assume this must be an
Ubuntu problem.
Functionality:
Screen resolution is very good. I had to increase the standard text sizes as it was too small
for me to read.
Start-up times are fast and the laptop pretty responsive. I've not done any benchmarking though,
but it seems to be very well suited to do a moderate to good amount of number crunching -
of course not mistaking it for a high-performance cluster.
The keyboard is working well, touch typing is easy.
Battery life seems to be 5h.
External components:
Connecting the external DVD-drive to the laptop did not pose any problems. I was also able to
install the necessary software to watch movies/films.
The 2TB WD passport drive was a little trickier as I could not mount it initially. However,
after dividing it into two partitions using gparted this was also resolved.
General Conclusions:
So, all in all, I'm pretty happy with the new laptop. It's perfect size and weight for me.
I can work comfortably. it is very fast in booting up and seems to have enough computing power
for my needs.
On the negative side, it would possibly be desirable to have more USB ports, somehow they are
always in short supply.