PC Specialist Ultranote IV 15
A solid choice if you seek power on a tight budget, but build quality is undermined by a tepid screen
SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE £550 (£660 inc VAT) from pcspecialist.co.uk
If Batman built himself a laptop, it would look like this. While most modern offerings are finished in shiny silver aluminium or brightly coloured plastic, the Ultranote IV is an ode to monochrome. The only attempt at decoration is a couple of triangular cutouts, which only 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 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 here and there 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 has a long history of supplying laptop designs to British system builders. The likes of PC Specialist then make their mark by choosing the right mix of components for the right price.
Here, it starts with Intel’s new Kaby Lake generation of processor chips, fitting a dual-core 2.5GHz i5-7200U alongside a sensible 8GB of memory. Windows 10 Home is installed on a 128GB M.2 SATA SSD, but there’s also a 1TB hard disk to ensure you don’t run out of storage too quickly. The result is a capable all-round machine, powering to a score of 44 in our benchmarks – exactly what we’d expect for this spec.
For this price you don’t get a dedicated graphics card, but the Intel processor’s integrated HD 620 Graphics chip is capable. It can even handle some recent 3D games if you sacrifice resolution and quality settings, with older titles hitting respectable frame rates at 1080p.
The absence of a graphics card takes the pressure off the relatively small 31Wh battery, so the Ultranote
“The only attempt at decoration is a couple of triangular cutouts, which only add to the Ultranote IV’s stealth chic feel”
IV lasted an acceptable five hours and 20 minutes in our video playback test. It’s a far cry from the ten 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 comfortable to type on, being firm and rigid in all the right places. There’s even backlighting to keep you hitting the right keys in dark rooms. Unlike many, the touchpad has two proper buttons rather than incorporating them into the touch surface, which provides smooth cursor control and twofingered scrolling. Where I’m less enamoured is screen quality. Colours look flat, and the limited range makes the UItranote a poor choice for colour-critical graphics work. Where it wins is for size and clarity: the mix of a 15.6in screen diagonal and 1,920 x 1,080 resolution means you’ll never be squinting at text, while the matt finish keeps reflections at bay. For movie watching, whether from the internet or from the built-in DVD writer, 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 three conventional USB ports, as well as a single Thunderboltcompatible Type-C port. That’s one factor that might help PC Specialist win some customers from the big PC brands, but competition is certainly 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. This is a solid all-round laptop for sensible money, but look elsewhere if you’re looking for a top-notch screen.
SPECIFICATIONS Dual-core 2.5GHz Intel i5-7200 processor 8GB memory 128GB SSD 1TB hard drive DVD writer 1,920 x 1,080 IPS screen 802.11ac Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4 1MP webcam
USB 3 2 x USB 2 USB Type-C Gigabit Ethernet HDMI Windows 10 Home 377 x 259 x 24mm (WDH) 1yr RTB (first month C&R) plus 2yr RTB labour-only warranty