With a wafer-thin profile, the Asus ZenBook is the new ultrabook to beat. Measuring just 3mm at its thinnest point, this MacBook-Air inspired laptop is crafted in an all aluminium body that feels solid despite its anorexic frame.
Powered by an Intel Core i5-2557M processor and a 128GB solid-state drive, you can be assured that the ZenBook will perform as well as it looks.
Get your special order now: ASUS Zenbook UX31E Thin and Light Ultrabook
This HP Folio ultrabook is designed with the demanding executive in mind. A 1.5kg laptop just 19mm at its skinniest, it packs enough juice for up to nine hours of work.
A backlit keyboard allows you to type in a dark boardroom. A 128GB solid state drive ensures a fast start, quick response time and increased reliability. A 13.3-inch high-definition screen, a built-in webcam and Dolby Advanced Audio complete the package.
Less than an inch thick, this HP Pavilion dm1 ultra-portable weighs 1.46kg and is available in two base configurations: an AMD E-series or a second-generation Intel Core processor. The 11.6-inch laptop comes with a high-definition display and HP Beats Audio technology which promises high-quality sound.
HP says the laptop battery is good for 11.5 hours.
More: HP Pavilion dm1
The netbook has been overshadowed by the new touchscreen tablet fever but when it comes to price, tablets still cannot beat the good old netbook. This 10.1-inch Asus Eee PC 1015PX netbook offers everything you need to surf the Web and watch YouTube videos.
More: Asus Eee PC 1015PX
This Dell Alienware m14X is probably the heaviest 14-inch laptop I have laid my hands on but its almost 3kg frame packs raw power and an excellent heat management system that is clearly designed for gamers.
I would recommend going for an i7-2630QM processor over the i5-2410. The 1.5GB Nvidia GeForce 555M is an awesome card for gaming and the Klipsch sound bar lets you feel the rumble as you annihilate your enemies. Good value for gamers but do not expect to lug it around all the time.
This HP Pavilion DV6 6105TX is the best machine I have seen so far.
It has top-of-the-line specs in its class: a quad-core Intel Core i7-2630QM processor, a amazingly fast AMD Radeon 6770 graphics card, 4GB RAM and a BluRray combo drive – a rarity for a machine at this price.
It also has HP’s trademark Beats Audio, which promises to turn your laptop into a boom box with a punchy bass and loud audio. My only gripe is the glossy screen which, unfortunately, has become the norm for consumer laptops.
Click now for more HP Pavilion DV6 Windows 8 Home Premium laptop.
Star power sells. At least that is what Asus hopes for this Asus N43SL Jay Chou Special Edition laptop co-designed with Taiwanese heart-throb Jay Chou.
Featuring design elements associated with the work of the singer-songwriter, the Asus N43SL Jay Chou Special Edition is distinct from earlier N-series laptops.
The notebook lid, for one, is adorned with a Gothic-inspired motif of piano keys and a nunchaku, a Japanese weapon that is also the title of a Jay Chou song.
Open the laptop and you will spot other Jay Chou touches. The star’s autograph is emblazoned on the right of the touchpad while a row of music notes span the bottom edge.
The letter ‘J’ on the keyboard is also printed in an old English font that stands out from the rest of the keys.
In a departure from the all-black N43, Asus and Jay Chou have opted for new colour schemes.
Toshiba Qosmio F750 3-D
We reviewed the Toshiba Qosmio F750 recently but it has been updated. It is now the world’s first glasses-free 3-D laptop.
Externally, this Toshiba Qosmio F750 3-D looks the same. It has a red shiny shell with a wavelet pattern texture. The keyboard has a nice tactile response with a cool carbon fibre-like pattern on the palm rest. You can rest your wrists on it for hours without feeling any discomfort. Surprisingly, it is relatively smudge-free.
Two Harmon Kardon stereo speakers deliver great audio with crystal-clear clarity and a good punch of bass for your in-game explosions and gunfights. You can even play the songs in your MP3 player through the speakers via the microphone jack when the laptop is shut down.
Another big difference is the full high-definition resolution, 1,920 x 1,080 pixels glasses-free 3-D display. Its 2-D cousin has only 1,366 x 768 pixels on the same 15.6-inch screen. The 3-D effect is achieved by Toshiba’s 3-D Window eye-tracking technology, which delivers separate images to your left and right eyes via its webcam. Thus, only one person can enjoy the 3-D effects at any one time. The eye-tracking of the webcam works well, even under dim lighting.
Just 2.3cm-thick, this skinny Dell Inspiron 13z 13-inch widescreen laptop can be as light as 1.7kg. It is powered by the second-generation Intel core i3 processor and is available with up to 8GB of memory and a 320GB or 500GB hard drive. There is an option for a 128GB solid state drive as well.
This laptop comes with Dell Stage, a user interface which allows you to access your favorite multimedia content with just one click. It can be synched with other Dell Stage-enabled devices within a home Wi-Fi network.
This is a well-built machine with most of the premium goodies you would expect from the much-loved Envy series.
It has taken months for Hewlett-Packard (HP) to release an HP Envy 14 Beats Edition laptop using Intel’s latest Sandybridge CPUs, but when it finally reached the shops here recently, it did not disappoint.
At the heart of the model sold in Singapore is a souped-up quad-core Intel Core i7, with an ample 750GB of hard disk space, 8GB of RAM and AMD Radeon HD6630M graphics.
There is also HP Envy Beats Audio feature, which is far superior to many laptop soundcards and speakers.
It is a shame that HP has not brought in more Envy models, say, one with a solid state drive (SSD), to complement this well-made machine. However, I can imagine that many will be slotting in their own SSDs as a DIY upgrade anyway.