Slim, Trim, and Nimble Intel Haswell

I’ve been toting around my Intel Haswell Ultrabook for a few months now and the combination of slim, trim, fast, touch, and long battery life has made it my laptop of choice. I’ve had several review Ultrabooks (Intel has been gracious enough to send some my way) and they all had their pro’s and cons, but this one has really set itself apart for me. I was even asked by a few folks if it was a black Mac Air!

It has not been all roses, however. This pre-production unit is my 3rd laptop from Intel. The first two had issues with the keyboard (keys fell off) and the fan (which ran like a helicopter). The folks at Intel were kind enough to fix these issues and since then I have been humming along and loving the device. To be fair, it’s mostly due to the light weight and long battery life. The idea is to review the Intel hardware such as the Haswell chip, so I’ll separate my experience with the Haswell chip from the pre-production prototype unit.

Battery Life

Haswell is awesome. I own about 8 laptops and tablets. My favorite 2 are the Mac Air with Haswell and this Intel Haswell Ultrabook. They simply run fast, are easy to carry around, and I get anywhere from 8 to 11 hours of battery life out of them with some pretty heavy coding use. The least battery life I have had with the Ultrabook is about 7 hours and that was with my coding, while watching a movie, while running some backgrounds services for games. Really quite impressive.

Presentations

I spend a lot of time presenting material at local, regional and global events. Having a laptop where I do not have to plug-in for an entire day of work is just pure awesomeness! In fact, I often leave my cord in the hotel room when I travel and I leave it at home when I go to work. That’s an extra pound or so that I don’t have to carry around! You might think it is not a big deal, but when all you have is a sub 3 lb laptop, even forgo the laptop bag. It works great, is fast, and projects well, which is crucial, on both VGA and HDMI.

I’m now wondering what I am going to do with all of my non Haswell computers. Anyone in the market for some non Haswell laptops?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe my readers will enjoy. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."