Stateo f the art
We check out three of the best ultraportables for work and play
MacBook, HP Spectre x360, Surface Laptop - we put three of the finest premium super portables to the test and find out which one is worthy of taking on your travels.
Of course you could just go out and buy any new laptop. But you won’t, because you’re looking for more than just an also-ran. You’re looking for a do-anything laptop that’s light enough to carry around all day (with a batt ery life to match) and you’re prepared to pay for it. So behold, three of the finest ultraportables money can buy for around £1,300. All three of our contenders have some similarities – they all have 8GB of memory, for example, while their pricing is similar and they all boast the very latest generation of Intel Core processors. But our gang are also individuals, not least in terms of the processors and operating systems used. We’ve got the best that Apple has to offer in terms of portability, the brand-new Surface Laptop from Microsoft (bizarrely, the first nontablet laptop Microsoft has designed itself) and the latest super Spectre x360 from HP.
When they were first released, the word ‘ultraportable’ meant having a ‘reduced experience’ but that’s no longer the case; there’s true power with each laptop here. Okay, so don’t expect to be able to edit a feature film on them – they’re not workstations – but they can do everything else just fine. To be fair, their ability is shown by their price point, although there is truth in the fact that UK gadget pricing has risen sharply in the last year, and when you’re talking about spending more than a grand on a laptop, the difference really stings. But enough of the boring financials, let’s see which one of our super portables is the best!
1 HP Spectre x360 13-ac011na
The only convertible in our roundup, the Spectre x360 comes with a stylus and powerful specs.
Price: £1,399 URL : store.hp.com/ukstore
2 Microsoft Surface Laptop
Microsoft’s first nonconvertible laptop brings all the best of the Surface Book into a lighter form.
Price: £1,249 URL : microsoft.com/en-gb
3 Apple MacBook
Apple relaunched the MacBook in June with speed improvements, plus the new ‘butterfly’ keyboard from the MacBook Pro.
Price: £1,249 URL : apple.com/uk