PC Specialist UltraNote IV
The UltraNote IV delivers high-end performance in a budget-feeling chassis
SCORE★★★☆☆ PRICE £482 (£578 inc VAT) from pcspecialist.co.uk
On first impressions, this laptop isn’t a strong contender. It’s based on a plastic 14in Clevo chassis, lending the UltraNote IV a budget feel. It’s a noisy little devil, too, even when idle. Give it something hard to do and it’s quite obtrusive.
None of this means it’s unusable. The removable battery lifts the base up at a comfortable typing angle, and the keyboard boasts large, flat-topped keys, a standard layout and a solid action. The touchpad isn’t the most sensitive, but it works reliably and doesn’t falter with multitouch gestures. The connectivity is a weird mix of the retro and the cutting-edge, with a USB-C port on one side, a VGA output on the other, but all the HDMI and USB 3 basics are covered along with a Gigabit Ethernet port.
The screen is the biggest disappointment, despite its Full HD resolution. With a maximum brightness of just 212cd/m2 ,it’s too dim for work in bright conditions, and there isn’t enough contrast to produce a punchy image. sRGB coverage is just 58.1%, which is bog-standard for a mid-range laptop panel. As for the sound, just grab some headphones. You don’t want to hear the tinny racket this little laptop pumps out.
Battery life could also be better. Five hours of looping video isn’t a terrible performance, but it puts the UltraNote IV well behind the pack.
But the UltraNote IV has one big point in its favour; not only do you get a quad-core Core i5-8250 processor, but 8GB of RAM along with a 1TB SSHD (solid-state hybrid drive). The latter isn’t as fast as a straight SSD, with read speeds topping out at around 130MB/sec where an SSD typically gets 500MB/sec or more, but it still boots within a few seconds and you have a lot more storage space to play with. The UltraNote was the fastest laptop in our benchmarks, excelling in our multitasking test.
That’s a lot of performance for the money, meaning it’s a shame for PC Specialist that the similarly-specced Acer Aspire 5 has just a bit more class.