PC Specialist Ultranote IV
Simple but effective
If Batman built himself a laptop, it would probably look like this. While most nowadays are finished in shiny silver aluminium or brightly coloured rubber, the Ultranote IV is an ode to monochrome. The only attempt at decoration are a couple of triangular cutouts, which add to the stealth-chic feel. There isn’t even a logo on the lid. LED lights, hi-fi speaker logos and gaudy marketing stickers are conspicuous by their absence.
Not that we’re complaining. Rivals might be more eye-catching, but the Ultranote’s got it where it counts. Despite a few clunky bits of detailing, it’s fashionably slim and light, tipping the scales at just 2.18kg despite its 15.6in screen. Build quality feels sturdy enough to carry around without layers of padding, even if there’s a bit of flex in the matt-black plastic. It’s almost handsome, in an angular, brutalist kind of way.
The chassis is made by a Taiwanese company, Clevo, which supplies a wide range of options to small computer builders like PC Specialist, who then install their own components. Here they’ve started with Intel’s new Kaby Lake generation of processors, fitting a dual-core 2.5GHZ i5-7200u alongside a sensible 8GB of memory. Windows 10 Home is installed on a speedy 128GB SSD, but there’s also a 1TB hard drive to make sure you don’t run out of storage too quickly. The result is a very capable all-round specification, enough to keep multiple programs ticking over at once.
For this price you don’t get a dedicated graphics card, but the processor’s integrated graphics chip is reasonably capable in its own right. It’ll even handle some recent 3D games with low graphics settings, as well as older titles, so a bit of casual play is quite feasible, while photo- and video-editing programs should have enough processing power for basic work at least. The absence of a graphics card takes the pressure off the relatively small 31Wh battery, so the Ultranote IV lasted an acceptable five hours and 20 minutes in our video playback test. It’s a far cry from the 10 hours of some laptops, but you’re not compromising on performance or paying over the odds.
For general use, this is a pleasant laptop to work on. The keyboard, often a giveaway of poor build quality on cheaper machines, is firm in all the right places, and comfortable to type on, with backlighbacklighting to help you in dark rooms. Unlike mmany, the touchpad has two proper cclicky buttons rather than incorporincorporating them into the touch surface, offering smooth cursor control and two-fingered scrolling gestures.
It has to be said that the 15.6in Full HD screen isnisn’t the last word in picture quality. Ccolours look rather flat, and the limited rarange makes the Uitranote a poor choice for colour-critical graphics work. But it’s bright and clear enough for most purposes, and the matt finish keeps reflections at bay. For movie watching, whether from the internet or from the built-in DVD drive, the headphone socket is a better option than the tinny built-in speakers. Talking of sockets, you get a full set, including Gigabit Ethernet and conventional USB ports as well as Thunderbolt- compatible Type-c.
That’s one factor that might help to win PC Specialist some customers from the big PC brands, but competition is stiff. Dell’s Inspiron 15 5000, for example, starts at £579 with the same i5 processor but no SSD; for a similar price to the Ultranote, you can get a dedicated AMD graphics card thrown in.
It's a very capable all-rounder and pleasant to work on