Best Ultrabook for $2000?

Question

Hello Readers

I won a scholarship and so am looking for the best $2000 Ultrabook I can find but am a little lost with all that's out there. I will be using it for Uni and so writing notes and using it for the internet would be my main concerns.

The Specs I would like to have are the following:

Good Battery Life and Portability
Touch Screen and Keyboard
Looking for an i7 and like the idea of a detachable keyboard.

Regards
Nathan

Answer 1

I recommend the Acer Aspire S7-392

This laptop has 0.1GHz less processing than the MacBook Air, however it more than makes up for that in everything else. The MacBook Air has 1.7GHz of processing and the Acer Aspire has 1.6GHz, however the Acer Aspire has literally twice the RAM as it has 8GB of RAM vs the MacBook Air's 4GB. Furthermore the Acer has twice the storage capacity with 128GB vs the Mac's 64GB. Also, one thing you won't find with the Mac that the Acer has is a touch screen which is really useful. Combined with Window's 8 with it's really good support this laptop beats the MacBook Air by a long shot!



I will say I have had excellent experiences with my Acer Aspire 5734Z, so I know Acer is a great company. Also, this ultrabook I'm recommending won PC Magazine's Editors Choice Award. (And they review Macs too because Macs are Personal Computers's or PC's.) My experiences with Apple are that they try to milk me out of every last dime I own. This laptop IS a better deal than a Macbook because Apple overprices stuff and the idea that Apple invented the ultrabook is irrelevant. Blackberry invented the smart phone and there is a reason no one uses those anymore. And while Andri might be recommending the Macbook Air because she is loyal to Apple, my favorite computer company is Toshiba. However, in this case, Acer provides a superior product to either Toshiba or Apple, so I am recommending Acer's product.



As I said, my experiences with Acer have been excellent, and everyone I know who has an acer, including myself, loves their computers! On the other hand my experiences with Apple have been them trying to scrape every last penny from my wallet to the extent that they wanted to charge me $30 to walk me through opening iTunes and clicking one button to restore my iPod Touch. Meanwhile, my iPod Touch which is totally capable of running the software it runs is inexplicably slow. Also, my one year warranty on my iPod Touch expired in approximately six months with no explaination. I am extremely dissatisfied with Apple. I know a lot of people like Apple, and that is cool. But Acer has great customer satisfaction. That video also is in reference to a completely different laptop that just happens to be made by Acer. Perhaps it was a pretty bad laptop, perhaps not. Personally, as someone who is very familiar with computers, it seems highly improbable what happened in that video. The only computer I've had smoke come out of is a 1984 IBM PCXT which has some blown capacitors. It sounds like if anything her fan wasn't working, but still it seems improbable. Regardless, it wasn't the Aspire S-7 which I am recommending and which has an excellent track record. Any ultrabook, to be considered an ultrabook, needs to boot within ten seconds, so BOTH the Mac and the Acer presumably boot up that quickly.

Also, it's not likely that you will need said support from Acer as it's supposed to be a pretty reliable ultrabook.



One thing Macs do have an advantage with is that they don't tend to get viruses and this is due to the nature of how the inner filesystem works. (Linux also doesn't get viruses and is free incidentally.) So, if you do spring for the Acer which I highly encourage you to, I would recommenced you install AVG or Avast in place of Norton or McAffee which will likely be pre-installed. This is because Avast and AVG are way better products and they are free. Chances are though, unless you are going to sketchy porn sites or sketchy pirating sites, you won't get any viruses anyway. I've never gotten one on my laptop while running Windows. (or Linux, but that's a given.)



This laptop IS very portable and has excellent battery life, and again it has a touch screen. Sadly the keyboard is not detachable but I don't think that's something you'll find outside of tablets.



In conclusion, you should get the Acer Aspire S7-392. I think it'd make you very happy. :)

For information on it go here:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2423752,00.asp?tab=Specs

The official product page is here:

http://www.acer.com/aspires7/en_US/

Answer 2

Best Ultrabook Computers

Answer 3

Go with Apple Macbook Air, just as the person above said. Make sure you avail some student discounts

Answer 4

Hi Nathan,

Congratulations!



A Macbook Air is the best and you can get them for under $2000



Look at the specs:

http://www.apple.com/macbook-air/specs.html

http://www.apple.com/au/mac/compare/



Macbook airs are the best ultrabooks money can buy, since Apple was the company who created that category way back in 2008.



When it comes to ultra books apple is much cheaper than anywhere else because they have partner ships with intel that others could only dream of and are able to

Apple has the best quality!



An 11 Inch model gets you:

Up to 9 hours wireless web

Up to 8 hours iTunes movie playback

Up to 30 days standby time

Built-in 38-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery

45W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter with cable management; MagSafe 2 power port



A 13 inch model gets you:

Up to 12 hours wireless web

Up to 10 hours iTunes movie playback

Up to 30 days standby time

Built-in 54-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery

45W MagSafe 2 Power Adapter with cable management; MagSafe 2 power port



The Macintosh is the best computer to use at Uni!

There is education pricing:

http://store.apple.com/au-hed



Probably better to go to an apple store If you want more customisations. Show you're ID or proof that you are going to UNI and they will give you a Higher Education Discount.



Currently the site is being updated.



Macbook Airs have have the best battery life !



Only one thing, there is no touch screen



The multi touch track pad is large and is the best that money can buy. Apple's billions of $$$ of research as well as in dependent science research has found that people who use touch screens want to be horizontal not vertical. (hence iPads)

Your hand starts to fatigue and then your arm wants to fall off.

Vertical Touch screens are good for presentation but not for every day use at college/Uni.



Get an iPad with the extra money, they are great on campus, that could be used alongside the Mac.



For AU$1,449 RRP you get 256GB flash storage which is configurable to 512GB flash storage, make sure you do this before you purchase as this is permanent and cannot be changed later on.



Full-size backlit keyboard with 78 (US) or 79 (ISO) keys, including 12 function keys and four arrow keys (inverted ‘T’ arrangement) with ambient light sensor



Multi-Touch trackpad for precise cursor control; supports inertial scrolling, pinch, rotate, swipe, three-finger swipe, four-finger swipe, tap, double-tap and drag capabilities



This is clearly the way to go!



Don't go for an Acer! They have terrible Customer Sat.

Look at what someone said Publicly Broadcasted on the ABC's TV show called "the checkout".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rPX-txxI3o



I have had two acers, an old Intel Pentium inside 2 and a laptop not sure of the model.

That thing about Ghz and Storage.

If you check the models Peter may not realise that 4GB of ram is the minimum, you can get 8GB ram if you want.

as for GHz Peter, you can get higher than that.





Applications a run more smoothly on UNIX which is what powers Mac OS X and super computers.



Storage you can get way more than 64GB!

That's another big fat lie!!!!!

The base model of the macbook air is 128GB which you can get all the way up to 256GB.



So Peter Miller you are falsely advertising and mislabeling the Macbook air.



Another lie and misguided statement you made is about the GHz!



1.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 2.6GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache



Configurable to 1.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz) with 4MB shared L3 cache.

Seriously!!



Then you go on about your iPod etc....



The mac has always except for a short time in the early to the mid 1990's been the fastest, most powerful, robust, words are infinite to describe more Computer on Planet Earth. In fact even to an extent the cheapest, if you wanted a dell with the same configuration for the Mac Pro, It would have costed 2-3 times the amount of the mac.



I have just recently finished school, high school that is and the computers used there were Mac's and the odd lenovo here and there.

At primary school the Acer's caused so much pain, frustration and horror that the school had to replace almost brand-new computers (2003) with others made by Optima. I haven't ever had a really good experience with Acer at all.



I have been there and done that with other PC's too. I fought people who said that Mac's ruled etc. I didn't know any better then, but If you read, write and ask many different questions you'll find that the mac is the top of the line even though reviews have said it for years.



Let's not forget battery life. The 13 inch macbook air gets up 12 hours wireless web and 30 DAYS standby with no loss in battery life at all.



The Acer gets a (according to the site) "8.27 hours"

Which probably hasn't been scrutinised or tested long enough by a wide enough audience.



Yes I do love apple, but that is not why I dislike acer. It is because of many bad past experiences, cost, value, durability, consumer rights and many many other reasons.



Data Loss and File Corruption is a big issue on the PC that isn't on the Mac because of things like MAC OS Extended Journalling.

iCloud backs up all your files using encryption very easily and truly seamlessly so none of your 2000+ word essays or other hard effort ever gets lost.



There is not free, as simple, private, or as secure alternative on the Windows PC.

iCloud uses encryption and has not been accused or proven by edward snow den to be part of the PRISM program unlike microsoft and its online products such as OUTLOOK, Skype and Skydrive (no doubt). They were the very first involved in the PRISM program.



Ethically and morally I choose to stay away from microsoft. Whether that be anyone else's reason is their prerogative but putting it quite bluntly I fully endorse the Mac and Original GNU platforms which promote freedom and democratic values in a capitalist society where companies like Microsoft prey on anybody's wallet for software that others make free!



The specs are clear:

http://www.apple.com/au/macbook-air/specs.html



If you really need windows, you can run it on a macbook air with bootcamp as well as a tone of other methods. My personal favourite tool is Crossover.



Acer don't have great customer satisfaction, maybe from Peter, but what if something goes wrong? You can't guarantee that there isn't going to be an issue?

That person in the video isn't alone in their frustration with Acer or other PC manufacturers alike.



In fact Apple have sold more iPads than acer has of their entire product lines.



Consider the price.

for the same price if not cheaper, the mac book air has twice the Power, Ram, Storage etc. than Acer not to forget the Worlds most advance operating system.