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Dell launches Ultrabook for $999

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Re: Dell launches Ultrabook for $999

#61

Post by JoshTriplett »

rhizome wrote: post #32
JoshTriplett wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most manufacturers seem to do that these days, hiding display resolution somewhere obscure, while it represents one of the most important details that I need to know. Personally, I'd like an Ultrabook with the 13" 1080p screen from the Sony Z series. (But not made by Sony, since I need something with decent quality, a decent warranty, and a decent company.)

hiding display resolution somewhere obscure, while it represents one of the most important details that I need to know. This isn't a coincidence. Sales can profit from ignorance, whether natural or engineered.

Depends on who you want to sell to. Newegg very effectively demonstrates the value of showing specific technical details and making them easy to filter or compare. Many vendor sites offer similar search mechanisms ("monitors larger than this size and this much resolution, with these inputs").

Re: Dell launches Ultrabook for $999

#62

Post by JoshTriplett »

commandar wrote: post #55
eropple wrote: post #8

So I clicked through this article, expecting something that totally misses the point (like their Adamo a few years ago). It doesn't match my immediate expectations. Which is good! The machine looks solid. I don't know if I like it more than my Air, but it looks promising. I keep clicking through. In a machine like this, two things really matter: keyboard and display. As allwein says in another comment thread, they do…

Keep an eye on Vizio. The thin and lights they announced at CES are going to pack 1600x900 screens in the 14" model, and full 1080p screens in the 15.6" model. Gorgeous industrial design, great screens, they're working with Microsoft to ship Windows 7 bloatware-free, and Vizio has a reputation for being absolutely ruthless in cutting prices while maintaining quality. They're supposed to hit market in June, and I'm ho…

Sounds promising, but I wouldn't normally consider a 14-15" screen "thin and light", and I don't see any statistics on thickness or weight to indicate otherwise.

And the biggest open issue from my perspective: will they have an incredibly good warranty? Always a major concern with a new company in a field, particularly when you don't know if they'll remain in that field for the lifetime of the product. To calibrate expectations: I currently have a ThinkPad, and on the rare occasion that something goes wrong with it, it gets fixed the next day for free. I wouldn't buy any laptop without at least a three-year no-questions-asked warranty, and the end of that warranty period indicates the time to buy a new laptop.

Re: Dell launches Ultrabook for $999

#63

Post by dubyah »

eropple wrote: post #45
dubyah wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dell should have mentioned the resolution specifically, but it's also 1366 x 768, not 1280x720(720p). http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsL321x/en/sp...

"It's not steaming crap. It's cooled!" I'm not trying to rip on you, but to me that's about all that says. (Yes, it's fairly standard among not-Apple laptops to put a 1366x768 13" panel in a laptop, but that's unacceptably crap given the competition.)

Apologies.

From your comment, "Dell is using a worse panel in their 13" 'ultrabook' than Apple does in their 11" Air", I assumed you interpreted the 720p resolution as strictly 1280x720 instead of being concerned about PPI as both the MBA 11" and the Dell have the same resolution.

Re: Dell launches Ultrabook for $999

#65

Post by eropple »

dubyah wrote: post #63
eropple wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not steaming crap. It's cooled!" I'm not trying to rip on you, but to me that's about all that says. (Yes, it's fairly standard among not-Apple laptops to put a 1366x768 13" panel in a laptop, but that's unacceptably crap given the competition.)

Apologies. From your comment, "Dell is using a worse panel in their 13" 'ultrabook' than Apple does in their 11" Air", I assumed you interpreted the 720p resolution as strictly 1280x720 instead of being concerned about PPI as both the MBA 11" and the Dell have the same resolution.

No worries. :) I did interpret it as 1280x720, but even 1366x768 in a 13" is really disappointing.

PPI is king as far as I'm concerned - I love the 1680x1050 panels in the 15" MBPs.

Re: Dell launches Ultrabook for $999

#66

Post by rhizome »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #61
rhizome wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hiding display resolution somewhere obscure, while it represents one of the most important details that I need to know. This isn't a coincidence. Sales can profit from ignorance, whether natural or engineered.

Depends on who you want to sell to. Newegg very effectively demonstrates the value of showing specific technical details and making them easy to filter or compare. Many vendor sites offer similar search mechanisms ("monitors larger than this size and this much resolution, with these inputs").

They want to sell to Dell customers.

Re: Dell launches Ultrabook for $999

#67

Post by darkstar999 »

beagle3 wrote: post #12
barista wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This problem has been solved many a ttimes before. It's not the first 13" laptop anybody has designed. So thogh I'd love to see a keyboard pic, I'd assume it's going to be inline with what's out there already. Love these new ultrabooks btw. Apple kickstarted it as always and all the platforms benefit.

For me, there are combinations of the location and size of the "Fn", "Enter", "Backspace", "Backslash" and "Right Shift" buttons that could make a keyboard a deal-breaker. E.g., my 9" eee has the shift right of the "up-arrow", and this is a poor design choice that I would hate if I used it day-in-day-out for real work. (My eee is a consumption device, so that's sort of ok)

Exactly. I overlooked a HUGE PROBLEM when I bought my HP DV6 online. They offset the whole keyboard one column to the right for the stupid function buttons.

http://i.imgur.com/pWcax.jpg (someone tell me what the encircled button does)

I had to disable every single one of those keys. You have no idea how many times I launched the damn calculator.

Re: Dell launches Ultrabook for $999

#68

Post by darkstar999 »

peteysd wrote: post #41

Is this posted because the Ultrabook is interesting, or because the scroll-to-animate functionality of the website is interesting? For me, it's the latter, since I have long forsaken Dell. Once the site loaded completely (which took a fair bit of time), I was able to use scrolling to move forward/backward through the animation of the demo. This is certainly an interesting UX, but after about 20 seconds of this I foun…

Cumbersome. Yes. Definitely an anti-pattern. I shouldn't have to work so hard to see your stupid marketing campaign. It reminded me of this comic http://i.imgur.com/MgmdP.png

Re: Dell launches Ultrabook for $999

#69

Post by protomyth »

spot wrote: post #30
protomyth wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1992 was pretty early http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_Duo

i don't think it qualifies, not thin and not even that light.

At the time, that was what the MacBook Air is now. It was amazing and much missed.

Re: Dell launches Ultrabook for $999

#70

Post by JoshTriplett »

rhizome wrote: post #66
JoshTriplett wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on who you want to sell to. Newegg very effectively demonstrates the value of showing specific technical details and making them easy to filter or compare. Many vendor sites offer similar search mechanisms ("monitors larger than this size and this much resolution, with these inputs").

They want to sell to Dell customers.

Dell has one of the search mechanisms I just mentioned: on their laptop or monitor pages, you can click a few links to filter the set of products based on features you want. For monitors, they include resolution in those features; unfortunately, for laptops they don't.
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